Ksarul

On the 32K side, you might be better off buying the sidecar SAMS board instead of a regular 32K board when you decide to buy a TIPI. If you want to run @adamantyr's Realms of Antiquity, you'll need that extra memory, and there are a reasonable number of utilities, languages, and games that work better with it as well.

No goof at all here. You have just piqued the interest of our resident curmudgeon. He gets worried when he thinks he's too nice, even though he happens to be a really nice person in general.

I just went chewing through the German manual for the Quick Disk, and the answer to your question is there. The Quick Disk has a 16K buffer--and programs or data files cannot exceed this size and be saved in a single pass. There was apparently an updated version that allowed up to 24K in a single pass, but the standard size expected files no larger than 16K. The data is on page 43 of the English version of the Quickdisk Manual. (I included both manual versions that I found.) Quickdiskreferenceguide.pdf Quickdisk manual.pdf

On Wafer Tape, they had a viable fix that was in testing right before the plug got pulled on them, so I'm not sure I would count it as a failure. IR Remotes ran into some FCC interference issues, IIRC, which would make them a failure for sure. Without the one full set of them in the wild united with a Dimension 4 though, we'll never know for sure how well they did (or didn't) work in the real world. On GROM Library Boards, as cartridges, a definite TI failure, but as a peripheral, they had several stand-alone devices that connected to the cartridge port that readily used the function, along with one PEB board that also had a cable connection back to the cartridge port. The only failure there was that the entire family of devices was TI-Internal use, not intended for retail customers.

There is a major difference between ripping off someone's work and building a new design that is software compatible with the existing "standard" design. What you are doing here is definitely the latter. If the design is compatible, it will gain much more community traction, and that is generally a good thing. We've only had one or two blatant rip-offs of complete designs without permission from the designers or current rights holders. Much better than what I've seen happen in some other communities. We're a good group here

The FinalGROM and the UberGROM both use identical switching methods--and truthfully, both still sell in reasonable quantities. It is mostly a use-case thing. When you want a single cartridge image to be there all the time, an UberGROM is perfect. When you want to actively select between a number of cartridge images without changing the physical cartridge out, the Final GROM gives you exactly what you need. That said, look at the methods the FinalGROM uses to split the ROM memory space into ROM and RAM and try to stay with it, as then the user base for software written to be able to use your cartridge will be much larger. There will be a group that want the working cartridge just as you designed it, and others who just use a FinalGROM to emulate it. You'll also have that small minority that uses the FinalGROM to develop software that uses your scheme and then burns the final code into cartridges. It's all good.

Here's the tech data on the board you've got, along with a file showing the top sides of an EGROM Box cartridge and the EGROM Box it plugs into. The Paddle Board schematics were something I received many years ago as a set of hand-drawn sheets that were nearly illegible because they'd been photocopied too many times. I sussed them out carefully and made these (I also put them up on WHT back then), long before I switched to Visio for making schematics. And the name TI used for that cartridge was the Paddle Board. . .which plugged into the GROM Simulator (GSIM), popularly known as the Pizza Box. GROM Box Paddle Board Schematics.pdf EGROM_Box_Cart(Top).pdf EGROM_Box(Top).pdf

It was also on Gazoo's 512K Games Cartridge Compilation #3. Gamecart3CreepersFixed.bin

General note, there are at least two different versions of the cartridge dongles for the Pizza Box (more properly known as the GSIM) or the EGROM Box. I still have my GSIM and two different variants of the EGROM box.

Yes. BITD, the Mitsumi was the keyboard preferred by a lot of people, because it had the nicest feel and didn't get double-tripping keys when they got dirty (like the various other types did). That opinion changed when the membranes started to age and people realized that the quirk-prone mechanical switch keyboards were still going strong and the Mitsumis were failing left and right. The shift happened early in the 2000s, as by that point, the Mitsumis were starting to reach the point of being useless. This new modification returns them to their full glory without the membrane downside--and that is a good thing.

And that's a bad thing? Barbeque sauce for all. . . It goes really well with fries and cornbread too. . .

I just did a comparison of the Multicom and the ICS boards. They are "nearly" identical. Based on the naming conventions and the label on the Multicom board, The ICS version (Intellitec Computer Systems) came first and the Multicom version came after. Now I have another 32K board to hunt down, LOLOL. I have one of the ICS variants, but not the Multicom. ISTR that Multicom also morphed into Boxcar peripherals at some point. . .just checked--it was Ultracomp that morphed into Boxcar Peripherals.

Now I'll have to break out my case of spare Mitsumi keyboards to harvest the key caps for some modern goodness. . .

Here's a PEB with a very uncommon ICS 32K memory card in it. I only know of 10-15 of these within the community, so it could be a definite score for someone looking to expand their hardware collection.

Placement of the later style DataBioTics labels was a bit hit-and-miss. I have seen a lot of them with the large-style labels on the top (like the right-hand cartridge) and a smaller number with the label across the front of the cartridge (like the left-hand label). Both placements are period-correct, so I would just use the method that looks best to you when making replacements. Note also that a lot of DBT cartridges had earlier end-label variants, which were of much higher production quality.