pmk222

I want to thank you all for the input, it's very appreciated. I also want to apologize for not getting back sooner, work has been rather crazy. With that, I would like to say that I've read through the responses and I'm not entirely sure which path to take. I'm going to do research on each one and see what I can come up with. If things get less crazy at work soon, I'll write a little more of a detailed response. Thank you all for taking the time to respond to this and giving me some ideas to ponder.

Hello all! I know this has likely been asked or discussed in many places and many times, however I must not be hitting the correct keywords as I'm not finding exactly what in looking for so apologies in advance. I recently decided to push my limits with my programming ability and create a scavenger hunt for someone. Starting with the TI99/4A I want to use text to speech for more impact. Unfortunately, some of the words I want to use aren't available without something like the TE2 cartridge. Has there been any work on creating something similar to the TE2 text to speech functionality to be used with extended basic? I don't have a finalgrom or anything like that, nor do I have a computer to make up 5.25 floppies with. I do have 3 floppy drives, RS232, TE2, E/A, and the minimemory cartridge. Assuming any of that would actually be useful. I also have the text to speech disk but it does take a long time to load. Any advice or information on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Is it possible to get them to work with the adapter that came with the drives? My system is very original with little to no modifications and I'd like to keep it that way. If I understand it properly, both external drives should be connected with the adapter but addressed with the same shunt setting? How should I go about lubricating the rails?

Thank you all for the replies. I made a little progress in getting these drives to work. The setup I currently have is this: the shugart internal PEB floppy with resistor pack, HL and DS0 jumped, by itself in the PEB with the stock cable An MSI drive without resistor pack, HS and OS2 jumped, in the first enclosure, connected to the back of the TI controller card. The second MSI drive with the resistor pack, HS and OS3 jumped, in the second enclosure, connected to the cable of the first floppy drive using the adapter card that came with the drives. Using this setup, I was able to get the internal drive and the first external drives to work just fine. They will both format, save, and load programs from the other drive. For some reason I can't get the third drive to work. When I get back home (currently at work) I'm going to try to swap the two external drives to see if the cable is bad. I knew the internal drive was good so I swapped it with each of the external drives to test them, after a bit of work they both tested good and capable of saving and loading to disks that the other one could read. Any suggestions, aside from the cable being bad? For anyone interested, the issues I had with the two external floppies I will explain: The first one I tried made a clicking noise when it was trying to read or write to the disk but would give an error. I noticed the head was moving back and forth quickly but not very far. So, I moved the head manually to both extremes and it was very tight at both ends. After doing this a few times, it got loose and when I tried to read and write to the disk it worked perfectly. The second drive I tested clicked (the head solenoid) and would give an error before clicking again (again, the head solenoid but turning off this time). The disk didn't turn at all so I turned the spindle with little resistance, the belt moved, but the motor was stiff. After turning it by hand a few times it was still tight but much better. So, I tried to load a program from a disk but it failed. However, the motor wasn't spinning very well. Without doing anything else, I tried to load again and it worked perfectly. I then tested all three drives again without any problems.

I'm sure that this question has been asked many times but I'm having a hard time finding a concise answer. How should the shunt be set for multiple drives? I recently acquired a lot with a floppy controller side car and two external drives. One of the drives was labeled "drive 2" but when I took them apart for cleaning and inspection, the shunts were set the same and the same as the one for the internal drive of my PEB. Side note: drive 2 was also missing the resistor pack for termination. I'll include a picture for proof of what the shunt settings were, I would like to replace these jumpers with a dip switch for each just in case someone wants to revert what I'm doing now. In the picture, the two on the left are my new drives (MPI 51 drives) and the right is my PEB drive (shugart 400L). I would like to know what pins should and shouldn't be connected for each of my 3 drives. I read something about removing the HL jumper but not under certain conditions and so and and so forth. I got really confused. So as simply put as possible would be wonderful. Thanks for the time and effort to read through/answer my question. Much appreciated, have a good day.

I was actually talking about the recreated version on whtech. I realize I didn't really specify, I apologize. Thank you for taking the time to measure for me. With the mylars and the case measurements as well as knowing the distance between the pins, I may be able to work on a case once work gets less busy. If I do make a case, I'll post pictures.

After reading through all this and skimming through all the files, I'm thinking about potentially making one or two of these to play around with. Out of curiosity, is there any information on the case? I know it's metal, but that's about it. With some dimensions, my boss and I may be able to come up with a few cases for these. The other thing I noticed, the schematic document seemed to be blurry and in some cases impossible to read. Just wondering if it's still being worked on or if there is a higher quality scan, or something like that? I, unfortunately, have only been able to view the files from my phone so I'm not sure if it's just a problem with downloading from android. Thanks for your time

I had measured the 12v out, it was right on. I wasn't sure if that would be issue but I tested it anyway. In hindsight, I guess the 12v line probably powers the modulator so it would be an issue of it was more or less than the 12v it's supposed to be.

I'm curious as to what your thoughts were to fix that. I was thinking a second board connected to the first with headers to shift it to the other side of the case and two buttons (one for each side of the fire button, connected in parallel so it doesn't matter which is pressed)

Also, I think the buttons for the joystick itself will be pretty easy to figure out but with the fire button pressing the button from the reverse side, it may be a bit of a challenge.

Those are the same kind of switches I was thinking. I'm afraid of space restrictions. It'd be nice to have a drop in replacement where anyone could make or buy the parts/finished board and put it in with no modification. At least, that's the goal in my head.

I definitely agree about the stiff cord. I put a little lithium grease where the plastic rubs and moves against each other. The sticks are now more loose than my atari joysticks. I'm going to experiment with making a replacement board for these. I'll likely be using tactile switches for the the feedback they'll give. Hopefully, I can come up with something that can use the original board with the diodes on it.

Oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense. I had read something about the reason for it needing to be up somewhere else but I guess I just didn't quite comprehend the reasoning.

So, the alpha lock key needs to be in the correct position because the game itself is expecting an upper or lower case from the controller input. Am I understanding that correctly?

I've done a little searching around here and on Google. The only information I've come across is how people hate the original joysticks, how to fix the traces using silver conductive ink, and how there are adapter cables to go to atari style joysticks. I recently got a set of original joysticks and I genuinely like the way they feel in the hand. I wish they had the fire button on the corner like I've seen on one or two pair but nonetheless they feel good to me. Unfortunately, my set doesn't appear to work (I did make sure the alpha lock key wasn't the issue). I was wondering if anyone ever designed or made a drop in replacement for the original circuit in the joysticks? Something with tactile buttons instead of those weird touch contacts. Or, if there is some kind of rebuild kit for these available? My foam is starting to crumble... Also, why is it that no one seems to like these? Does it have to do with the way they actually function or the way they feel in the hand (or both)? P.s. what does the alpha lock key actually do for the computer?