bholcomb007

Just checking in on the status of the memory upgrade project Greg...any word from Richard? Thanks, Ben

Thanks James! I have been wanting to do that as well...just always get too busy! Ben

Sounds great! I will be checking in, as usual, each day to see how things are going. Very much appreciated, Ben

Ksarul, Are you going to post the new IDE design here on the forums? I was looking to done of his designs but if you are making one that is old school through hole I would be quite interested in building one! Currently I am waiting on Greg and Richard to start getting the internal 32K board kits back up for the taking! That would be another great board (theIDE) I would be excited to get started on! Are you going to sell the pre-fab boards or will we have to get them made ourselves? Ben

Yeah that is pretty cool, that is what got me thinking about something in that realm with newer technology. Ben

I am a bit late to the topic, but I was wondering if someone with the knowledge (this is a pretty big one) of say a Yamaha Y8950 chip (sound chip) that can use a ROM beside it to store sound samples, to be made into an expansion board? Seems like it would be possible. I believe the hard part would be the writing of the software to communicate with it. I can do software (I just got my TI 99/4A after 30 years of not having it anymore...WOOT) and plan on learning the FPGA and attempting some assembly games, but as for the low level interface to that chip it seems like a bear! But it would be sweet to have an FM sound chip that has on board samples in ROM (it uses a 256K ROM) to have some amazing sounds. It can do 9 channels of sound with built in drum sounds for rhythms! Just a thought! Ben

Any word yet on the status of this Greg? Quite excited and ready to install this upgrade on my 99/4A! Ben

Cool...thanks for the info. I was thinking an SD drive would not work on HD disks...it was an oversight when I bought them. I have a friend that is going to look for a SD or DD disk so I can try it out and see if it works. Thanks for all the answers! I love this forum! Just got another TI after 30 years because it was the first computer I had and it got me into programming. I am trying to get this one set up so I can start programming on it again and do the things I could not back then. Very exciting times! Also the kids are loving it and that makes it even better to me. Super thanks all, Ben

I also tried the comprehensive test but, of course, it cannot initialize the disk so I get all sorts of address read errors after the tests initialize attempt.

It seems to attempt the access and fails within a few seconds.

Ok, I just got everything going and got the Disk Manager 2 cart and I attempted to test the old TI Disk Drive in the PEB...and...the manager gave me an I/O Error 16. Wondering what was up, I noticed I had DSHD disks...I know you can format DSDD disks in the DSSD drive, but I am not sure about the DSHD disks? Is that possible and my drive is failing or is it the fact I am not using a DSDD or DSSD disks in the drive? Would like to know if I just need to get some DSDD/DSSD disks to try out and see if it, in fact, is the drive and not a disk issue. P.S. - the disks are brand new...just noticed now that I got the HD disks...my bad. Thanks, Ben

Thanks Richard, that makes me feel quite hopeful for obtaining the mod for my machine. Look forward to hearing back about it. I also have another friend that just got bitten by the TI bug (he is an atari fan from old) and he will be wanting one as well. Again, thanks for the reply and I look forward to the upgrade. Ben

Sweet! Thanks for the replies. I would hope we can recreate this wonderful modification. I look forward to hearing something about it! Ben

Hello all! I was interested in adding the 32K16 hardware project to my TI 99/4A and attempted to contact Richard Bell, but alas his email is old and no longer valid. The project is located here: http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/32K16/32k16.html If anyone could aid in finding the parts list and schematics at the least so I could make my own board that would be super, and if anyone knows where to get the kit now, even better! Thanks in advance, Ben