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New to the group? TI-99/4A FAQ, Hardware and software resources READ FIRST!


arcadeshopper

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I have taken some comments over time about the forums, posts, and missing information on guidelines. I have put together a good bit of information on how the forums run, why we have two forums, and how to quickly get to the one which interests you most (notice the new sub-host for development!)

 

Greg kindly added it to the first post of the thread. I am hoping this addresses some of the concerns which have been posed to me as well as some of the feedback I have received. If anyone has any additional concerns please drop me a message.

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  • 4 months later...
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This is a work in progress.. will be happy to add anything missing - Greg

 

[..]

    • Keyboard issues
      • The keyboard is connected directly to the TI motherboard with a pin connector. This can become loose/dirty and may need cleaning/reseating. There is no logic within the keyboard is is merely shorting the keyboard lines when you hit the keys.
      • Alpha Lock issue: With the alpha lock key on you are unable to use the up direction with the joysticks. Release alpha lock to play games OR do this fix: http://mainbyte.com/ti99/console/alpha_lock.html
      • What keyboard do I have? There were at least 5 manufacturers of keyboards for the 99/4a. http://mainbyte.com/ti99/keyboard/keyboard.html has good pictures/info/schematic.
        • Mitsumi: These keyboards do not have any solder points except for the alpha-lock key connection and the ribbon cable. $_1.JPG
          • These keyboards have a membrane under the keys that tends to go bad with age and can sometimes be revived by separating the layers (CAREFULLY)
        • Alps and others: These keyboards have solder points on the back of the PCBoard keyboard_back.jpg
          • these keyboards sometimes have dirt/corrosion in the switches that can be cleaned with contact cleaner or alcohol.

 

Thought in case nobody had looked recently I should note the Mitsumi keyboard picture link is presently broken so that it may be addressed in a future update.

 

This is really a very cool post Greg, since I've not said so before. When I got into the TI, I wish this had been there. Now it is. :)

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  • 2 months later...
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No listing of my card the WHSCSI card (Western Horizon SCSI card) why?

 

Handles 7 SCSI drives and with a HP SCSI port splitter box could handle 6 more SCSI drives for a total of 13 SCSI drives.

 

Probably because I don't have any of that info.. will add it, is there a page with tech info?

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Well I have quite a few disks sent to me for the SCSI cards.

 

This ZIP has even the source code for reading and writing to SCSI CD.

Sadly my SCSI CD drives are wrong make and model so did not work well, it would read a little but also garbled.

So I think the SCSI CD Drive has to be optimized for that driver.

 

Anyway this ZIP file has the latest files on SCSI and even works on the HFDC card if you have one.

SCSI.zip

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I probably have every diskette issued for the WHT SCSI card, as I have 3 (2 x "F" and one "G" which is most similar to the SNUG ASCSI). I also had one of the original WHT SCSI cards, but during the development it went belly up and Don O'Neil replaced it with an "E" which was later upgraded to an "F".

 

Bill

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  • 2 months later...

TI had a thing for 4K EPROMs, as they were about the most common high-capacity chips out there when they started design work on the 99/4. That attachment continued pretty much all through the design life of the system, although they were using 8K chips pretty regularly in their prototypes towards the end. . .

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  • 6 months later...

Just a suggestion....but I would recommend editing the text so that you have proper naming conventions.

 

For example:

 

Quote

ROM cartridge boards are available from 8k to 2mb

 

Everyone more than likely knows that "8k" means 8 kiloBYTES.  But 2mb could be confused for bits.  As in 256 KiB.

 

So things like:

 

Quote

ROM cartridge boards are available from 8 KiB to 2 MiB

would look really professional, IMHO.

 

I'm not a grammar nerd by means...but (there's always a "but"), this FAQ is good enough for print and it would be nice to see some polishing touches.  I can re-type and clean up if anyone is interested. 

 

Anyway...thanks for doing this!  I come here all the time looking for new "official" happenings with the TI community.

 

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30 minutes ago, cbmeeks said:

ust a suggestion....but I would recommend editing the text so that you have proper naming conventions.

 

 Agreed.

 

30 minutes ago, cbmeeks said:

Everyone more than likely knows that "8k" means 8 kiloBYTES.  But 2mb could be confused for bits.  As in 256 KiB.

 

Correct, except that “m” means “milli”, not “mega”—a considerable difference. “M” really is required if “mega” is intended.

 

Also—as you sort of implied, “Ki” is proper to rescue the convention that the “kilo” in “kilobytes” means 210 (1024) rather than the now conventional (standard) 103 (1000). And, to be clear, “KiB” reads “kibibytes”, the “bi” standing for “binary” to clarify the binary basis of the binary “thousand” (1024) we all know and love. :)

 

...lee

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5 minutes ago, Lee Stewart said:

Correct, except that “m” means “milli”, not “mega”—a considerable difference. “M” really is required if “mega” is intended....lee

 

DUR!  Yeah, I knew that...just a typo.  Maybe I'm not the man for the job!   LOL

 

And yes, I've started using the "correct" convention of KiB, MiB, etc.  (notice the "i").

 

I know the pain of thinking you bought a 512 MiB drive only to find out you had MUCH less after formatted.  ?

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  • 9 months later...

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