ironnerd

SO CLOSE... Went to Goodwill the other day and saw two WICO sticks. One of the employees took them out for my inspection and they looked GREAT. Unfortunately, there was no price on either, so I could not purchase them. The employee told me she would get them priced and returned to the case by the next morning. So I showed up when the store opened the next day, and no WICO's... I did manage to find a nice TV for my PiZero, that also has composite so I can use it with my Ti-99/4A. Added bonus, it has an integral DVD player for my Godzilla/Gamera/Ultraman viewing pleasure.

Tombstone City When I was a kid, I often found myself whistling it...

NOT SO DEAD! I've been away a bit because I had no progress to report. So my TI-99/4A is working. The Mitsumi keyboard is working quite nicely. Here is what I found: I figured it had a bad trace, so I pulled the keyboard and disassembled it. The entire Mylar was stuck to the circuit board. So basically, nearly all the keys were being pressed at once. I slid a piece of card-stock between the Mylar and the circuit board. I put it back together and half the keys worked. In fact all the keys on the left worked. So I took it apart again and shone a light on the Mylar form the back. I found two contact pads on the Mylar had a gap (where the Mylar makes electrical contact with the circuit board). I touched them up with some silver paste (not my favorite part of the job - got a little messy and I had to do some re-cleaning). I also noticed that most of key contacts were black with surface oxidation. I cleaned them up with a soft pencil eraser. Now everything works! Booyah! It was actually a really easy fix, and it's not a terrible keyboard (I would rather have the mechanical switches, but I'll take it). So... Now what do I do?

OK... Late to this thread... Where the heck can I find the TI-994A.ctg file for Retropie? <update> Found it It's in here: [LINK] in the "Roms" folder. </update>

Mitsumi keyboard

Quick! What is a good place to get the conductive silver paint for repairing broken traces.

Now you guys tell me...

"...will often fix one..." Meh, what the heck... it was a $30 computer. I'm not out much more than my time if I can't get it working. Don't think I'll do the same repair as this guy though... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vWf284tloI

'Tis a Mitsumi.

Thank-you, Twoodland. I guess I have a nice weekend project.

Pics!!!! Start-up After pressing any key After pressing "1" for TI BASIC. Note, after tapping every key repeatedly, I found very few of them actually worked. There is some forced perspective going on in these pics. The TV is actually a lot larger than it looks... it's just a few feet farther away than the 99.

I bought a Beige TI-99/4A from E-bay for <$30 (incl shipping). I built the Composite cable adapter, and it didn't work. I figured the machine was just dead. Then I looked at another diagram and realized I was looking at the wrong end of the DIN plug and had the pins transposed. A quick bit of de/re-soldering and I had a picture (woo hoo!). Even better it is a 1981 OS (y'know... in case I find an Atari cartridge at Goodwill). Now most of the keys don't work. The connection is (like everything in this machine) very clean. I kept hitting the "1" key until it started to work. The same "method" worked on a few other keys. Seems like this is caused by funk on the key contacts. Anybody know a less-complicated fix? (pictures to follow - once I upload them from my phone).

didugnate: yer Grampa was COOL! Opry99er: Ah-HAH! I'll try that next time (just snapped a couple more pics on the Ti-Phone -- oh if only things had gone differently) Arcadeshopper: Your's is much more impressive (you work in a way cooler place than I do). finally --- Ω ---: DOS cart. It's the adult thing to do. By the way, where were you looking to buy the mostly game cart from (I'm just asking for a friend, of course)?

OK. I survived the thing in the basement, and got the old machine up and running (mostly). It looks pretty good, but several of the keys do not work. Like the "1" key... which means I can't do much with it yet. I have no idea why the picture is sideways....

It IS there... I didn't see it when I looked at the list. Sorry 'bout that.