mr_gw454 Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 Hello everyone, I've been working with my T-99/4a, nanoPEB and FlashGROM99 and having an issue where I can't seem to get Fred's excellent DSK2PC program to run (actually, I am trying to use NPDSK2PC as I have a nano). I have the nanoPEB connected to my TI (via the Speech Synthesizer) and using external power. I have a 256MB CF flash card and the the CFMGR vol1 DSK image in the 1st disk position. I power up the TI, select Extended Color Basic and the CFGMR software auto loads from the nanoPEB CF card. I have Fred's CFHDX DSK image in the 2nd disk position on the CF card. I use the "File Utilities" from CFMGR to load and run CFHDXS1 on the CF card. No issues there. I have Fred's HDX server running on my PC (using the standard COM1: port with 38400 baud rate, etc..). I can browse files on the host PC when I chose HDX1: as the SRC. This tells my my serial connection is working from my host PC to the TI with the nanoPEB. 2 issues I'm struggling with: I can't get Fred's NPDSK2PC to run from CF or over the serial connection. I've tried downloading his program multiple times. I've used his TI99Dir utility to create a DSK image and copy the NPDSK2PC programs to it and then the DSK image to the CF card. I've also placed the NPDSK2PC program in the folder required by the HDX server where I can see it in CFHDXS1, but no amount of moving the cursor to it and typing X will execute it. No errors, just nothing. I've even tried to the the CFMGR program to load and run NPDSK2PC. It will actually start to load (blank screen) and then nothing. No errors, just frozen. I'm not really sure what else to check at this point... Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 Hello everyone, I've been working with my T-99/4a, nanoPEB and FlashGROM99 and having an issue where I can't seem to get Fred's excellent DSK2PC program to run (actually, I am trying to use NPDSK2PC as I have a nano). I have the nanoPEB connected to my TI (via the Speech Synthesizer) and using external power. I have a 256MB CF flash card and the the CFMGR vol1 DSK image in the 1st disk position. I power up the TI, select Extended Color Basic and the CFGMR software auto loads from the nanoPEB CF card. I have Fred's CFHDX DSK image in the 2nd disk position on the CF card. I use the "File Utilities" from CFMGR to load and run CFHDXS1 on the CF card. No issues there. I have Fred's HDX server running on my PC (using the standard COM1: port with 38400 baud rate, etc..). I can browse files on the host PC when I chose HDX1: as the SRC. This tells my my serial connection is working from my host PC to the TI with the nanoPEB. 2 issues I'm struggling with: I can't get Fred's NPDSK2PC to run from CF or over the serial connection. I've tried downloading his program multiple times. I've used his TI99Dir utility to create a DSK image and copy the NPDSK2PC programs to it and then the DSK image to the CF card. I've also placed the NPDSK2PC program in the folder required by the HDX server where I can see it in CFHDXS1, but no amount of moving the cursor to it and typing X will execute it. No errors, just nothing. I've even tried to the the CFMGR program to load and run NPDSK2PC. It will actually start to load (blank screen) and then nothing. No errors, just frozen. I'm not really sure what else to check at this point... Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!! Have you sent a message to Fred? Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_gw454 Posted February 25, 2018 Author Share Posted February 25, 2018 I did contact Fred and he's always willing to help. I think we are both baffled as to why this won't work for me, so I figured I would ask in this forum. Fred did ask if the nanoPEB I have has a TMS9902 UART. We're there different ones used for the nanoPEB? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lee Stewart Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 I did contact Fred and he's always willing to help. I think we are both baffled as to why this won't work for me, so I figured I would ask in this forum. Fred did ask if the nanoPEB I have has a TMS9902 UART. We're there different ones used for the nanoPEB? There were. Jaime went to a 16550 UART (V2) for a while, which was memory mapped, but changed it back to the TMS9902 (V1), which is CRU mapped. ...lee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 yes on the boot screen it will say nanopeb v1 or v2 v1 is the good one v2 has a 16550 which is incompatible with most TI software it only works with DSR calls from basic and TE2 Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_gw454 Posted February 26, 2018 Author Share Posted February 26, 2018 It looks like I have a V1 based on my screen shot. I know Fred is still trying to help so I'll wait for him to contact me again. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted February 26, 2018 Share Posted February 26, 2018 It looks like I have a V1 based on my screen shot. I know Fred is still trying to help so I'll wait for him to contact me again. Thanks! Yep. Keep us in the loop Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_gw454 Posted February 26, 2018 Author Share Posted February 26, 2018 In the meantime, is there anyone else with a nanoPEB that could try to load Fred's NPDSK2PC program? It can either be directly from the CF or using the HDX server. The goal is for it to load/run and be able to transfer DSK images from the HDX server to the CF card on the nanoPEB. If it works, perhaps a write up of the steps used so I can try to recreate them? A couple of screen shots would be great. Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted February 26, 2018 Share Posted February 26, 2018 I have one but I don't have my nano set up right now due to TIPI testing but I will take some time this week and set it up and see what happens I'm pretty sure that I tested it before I took down the nanopeb and it worked but I will test again. Greg Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FDOS Posted February 26, 2018 Share Posted February 26, 2018 My question is why do you want to use that software when you have TI99HDX working on both sides TI & PC? You can transfer files either way using it. Large scale transfers I use TI99DIR, but for updates and limited number of files, as I have a complete sub directory structure on my TI support PC, so HDX1.UTILS. or HDX1.TIB+. etc. exist in my TIFILES folder, and are always available! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted February 26, 2018 Share Posted February 26, 2018 My question is why do you want to use that software when you have TI99HDX working on both sides TI & PC? You can transfer files either way using it. Large scale transfers I use TI99DIR, but for updates and limited number of files, as I have a complete sub directory structure on my TI support PC, so HDX1.UTILS. or HDX1.TIB+. etc. exist in my TIFILES folder, and are always available! well sometimes you just want to copy a dsk image to a disk on the 4/a without having to use a card reader.. and yes you could unpack with tidir and move it..but this is less "unhooking" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FDOS Posted February 26, 2018 Share Posted February 26, 2018 (edited) well sometimes you just want to copy a dsk image to a disk on the 4/a without having to use a card reader.. and yes you could unpack with tidir and move it..but this is less "unhooking" I suppose it's just my current mode of operation that I'm not thinking outside this self imposed box. I automatically unzip items to a NEW FOLDER in my TI FILES folder. Once transferred to all my TI systems this folder is renamed and a NEW FOLDER created for next time. I'm most often working in TI BASIC Plus, so easy to set DSK2. to new volume, and launch CFHDXS1. Edited February 26, 2018 by FDOS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_gw454 Posted February 28, 2018 Author Share Posted February 28, 2018 Latest update... It looks like the only version of CFHDXS1 that works for me is the one that came included with the nanoPEB (v1.2 14-9-2010). I load/run it by using the CFMGR program that is included with the nanoPEB. I can access my HDX server on my host PC (via the serial connection) with no issues. Unfortunately, this version doesn't allow you to select a file and use "X" to execute so I can't load and run programs from the HDX server. The latest version of CFHDXS1 does not work at all. I copy the DSK image Fred provides to the CF card and use the same method above to load it, but it just stops at a BLANK screen. I have the same issue when trying to load and run Fred's NPDSK2PC program. So, for whatever reason, I'm only able to use the old version of CFHDXS1 and have no idea why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FDOS Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 I am able to use the latest CFHDXS1 and NPDSK2PC. Both work as they should. My problem is that I always format all volumes to 1600 sectors, so transferring a whole disk volume takes a long time especially when there is only a dozen or fewer files on the disk. That is why I mostly just use CFHDXS1 to transfer files either way. However many new or updates do arrive as small ,DSK images, and if I just wanted to check them out I could use NPDSK2PC, but to share them with all my systems, I would unzip them to a TIFILES folder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_gw454 Posted February 28, 2018 Author Share Posted February 28, 2018 FDOS - thanks for testing and responding back. Another friend of mine with a nanoPEB was able to get it working, too. I spoke with Fred in a video chat and took some time to send him pics of the nanoPEB mainboard, etc.. Everything looked as it should for a V1. He mentioned I should try using an Editor Assembler cart to load and run his programs rather than the CFMGR application that comes with the CF card in the nanoPEB. It worked! No issues at all of hanging at a blank screen. Fred said the earlier version of his program had a smaller memory foot print so the CFMGR was able to load it from Extended Basic. He mentioned he created an Extended Basic program (back in 2010) but never released it. This program is loosely based on some method of years ago called "Aanhang Geheugen" or "Linked Memory" in English. With this method it was possible to create a basic program and load some assembler part and save it as one program. What he used is the part of loading an assembler program and move it to low memory. The program is called XBLOADER. This program does the same as the X-ecute function of Dm2k, Cf2k, CfHdxS1 etc. It recognizes that it is about to overwrite itself while loading a program and saves loading of that part for the last. Since I had a an Editor Assembler cartridge available, I tried that and it loaded NPDSK2PC without the need for his XBLOADER. I can see I have much to learn in the TI world. I hope this information is useful for anyone else that experiences the same issues I had. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 FDOS - thanks for testing and responding back. Another friend of mine with a nanoPEB was able to get it working, too. I spoke with Fred in a video chat and took some time to send him pics of the nanoPEB mainboard, etc.. Everything looked as it should for a V1. He mentioned I should try using an Editor Assembler cart to load and run his programs rather than the CFMGR application that comes with the CF card in the nanoPEB. It worked! No issues at all of hanging at a blank screen. Fred said the earlier version of his program had a smaller memory foot print so the CFMGR was able to load it from Extended Basic. He mentioned he created an Extended Basic program (back in 2010) but never released it. This program is loosely based on some method of years ago called "Aanhang Geheugen" or "Linked Memory" in English. With this method it was possible to create a basic program and load some assembler part and save it as one program. What he used is the part of loading an assembler program and move it to low memory. The program is called XBLOADER. This program does the same as the X-ecute function of Dm2k, Cf2k, CfHdxS1 etc. It recognizes that it is about to overwrite itself while loading a program and saves loading of that part for the last. Since I had a an Editor Assembler cartridge available, I tried that and it loaded NPDSK2PC without the need for his XBLOADER. I can see I have much to learn in the TI world. I hope this information is useful for anyone else that experiences the same issues I had. Thanks! oh man how frustrating, I had the same thing just happen to me in TIPI beta testing where I couldn't get a game to load that Matt could and it turns out I was running it from DM2K which is fail while from EA is fine. shrug There's binary cart images of those two programs on here I am pretty sure if you have a finalgrom/finalrom as well Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FDOS Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 FDOS - thanks for testing and responding back. Another friend of mine with a nanoPEB was able to get it working, too. I spoke with Fred in a video chat and took some time to send him pics of the nanoPEB mainboard, etc.. Everything looked as it should for a V1. He mentioned I should try using an Editor Assembler cart to load and run his programs rather than the CFMGR application that comes with the CF card in the nanoPEB. It worked! No issues at all of hanging at a blank screen. Fred said the earlier version of his program had a smaller memory foot print so the CFMGR was able to load it from Extended Basic. He mentioned he created an Extended Basic program (back in 2010) but never released it. This program is loosely based on some method of years ago called "Aanhang Geheugen" or "Linked Memory" in English. With this method it was possible to create a basic program and load some assembler part and save it as one program. What he used is the part of loading an assembler program and move it to low memory. The program is called XBLOADER. This program does the same as the X-ecute function of Dm2k, Cf2k, CfHdxS1 etc. It recognizes that it is about to overwrite itself while loading a program and saves loading of that part for the last. Since I had a an Editor Assembler cartridge available, I tried that and it loaded NPDSK2PC without the need for his XBLOADER. I can see I have much to learn in the TI world. I hope this information is useful for anyone else that experiences the same issues I had. Thanks! Glad you found the problem, so others can benefit by the simple solution, and not pull out too much hair;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 So the moral of the story is not to use DM2K with a nanoPEB or TIPI to launch programs. Got it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 So the moral of the story is not to use DM2K with a nanoPEB or TIPI to launch programs. Got it. no the moral of the story is when something SHOULD work but doesn't and you have another loader option, try that one 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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