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About this blog

Collection of my retro computer projects and interest. Nothing deep or profound, just stuff.

Entries in this blog

creating a USB2SIO cable and installing Respeqt

Creating a SIO2PC cable for the Atari 8-bits with RespeQt is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get virtual drives for the Atari and also one of the best. He's a little how to on creating the cable and getting RespeQt up and running. Not to long ago I built an S-Drive for the Atari (see this blog). Also a fairly cheap and good virtual drive solution. It's portable and easy to use. But it does have one drawback, for me anyway. I do a lot of my development on my PC using Altirra and cros

hloberg

hloberg

Mille Bornes for Atari Microsoft BASIC

Mille Bornes for Atari Microsoft BASIC 9/5/20 In my quest to put Mille Bornes everywhere here is an Atari Microsoft BASIC version. This game has a rather odd history; it started out as an Atari BASIC game that I got a long time ago from, I have no idea? The 1st translation I made was to the TI-99/4a in TI Extended BASIC several years back. That was a rather difficult translation and almost took a full rewrite. Recently I translated to the CoCo2 BASIC from the TI-99/4a. That was a rathe

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hloberg

TI99 MyArcXBII & P-Card in MESS/MAME emulation package-update

Update: moved packages to emulation section from software. I have put a together MAME/MESS emulation package that emulates the MyArc Extended BASIC II & TI P-Card for the Ti99. MyarcXBII: MyArc  was a company that made peripherals for the TI-99 line. There most famous peripheral (if you want to call it that) was the Geneve. The Geneve was a complete TMS 9995 computer that fit in the TI-99 PEB as a card. Another peripheral that was lesser known, but just as revolutionary, was t

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hloberg

more on sharp 80 column Atari 8-bit text

At the end of the last post I briefly mentioned you could create a Luma only cable and s-video for the Atari 8-bits. This works on any 8-bit  where the Chroma & Luma are split out in the 5-pin DIN connector for the video & audio. There are some 8-bits that Atari elected NOT to separate out the Luma & Chroma unfortunately; 800XL made before August 1984, 1200XL and most 600XLs. All these computers had a single pin for just the composite connection only. There are ways to modify these c

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hloberg

low cost sharp 80 column text for the Atari 8-bit

As it currently stands there are two ways to get that sweet 80 column text on the Atari 8-bit computers. First way is to get a hold of a XEP80 (currently rarer than hen's teeth). The XEP80 was an odd beast created by Atari that attached to the joystick port of the Atari and then attached to a monochrome monitor. This little device gave true, and very clear, monochrome 80 column text when ran with the appropriate software. Downside was you had to have two monitors to make it work properly; o

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hloberg

TI99 Resources, sister website with lots of TI-99 resources

https://ti99resources.wordpress.com/ is a resource for TI-99 line of computers that I created a little while back. There is over 8gb of software and documentation for the TI-99 computers.   It took me several months to get it to this point and I'm always adding more to the website. Here is the list and links from the Documents page: Applications TI Writer MS Multiplan TIBase TI-Artist TI Productivity Cartrid

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hloberg

UPDATE! TI-99 Extended BASIC Mille Borne V3.40

After a long time of procrastination I have finally got around to updating the Mille Borne for the TI-99 in Extended BASIC. I have added some sound effects, some voice CALL SAY("UHOH"), sped up parts of the program and cleaned up some minor bugs that had been long standing. This is 'probably' the last version but I have learned never to say never. The game is XB autoboot and is in .DSK v9t9 format. Enjoy. MILLEBORNE-V340.dsk

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hloberg

How I installed a UAV board in my NTSC 600XL

On the NTSC Atari 600XL the only video output is RF and the picture quality is really not very good, at all, not in the least, bad. So I thought maybe, if I want to use this 600XL for anything more than a prop, I might want to replace the video with something better. After looking around I chose the UAV by https://thebrewingacademy.com/ due to it’s simplistically and it’s cheap at only $30. Plus it has one of the best pictures I have ever seen for a composite output.   Installation:

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hloberg

KXBII updated manual & update UNO for TI-99

Couple of updates here: 1.) Having never had the original manual for KXBII (Kull XBII) I had to make up the manual as I tested it out. One problem that has been plaguing me is that occasionally the disk that I had KXBII (or a program wrote in KXBII) would randomly corrupt. Well after much more testing I found that you need to do a CALL INIT before you save a file after using KXBII. It's notes in the new v3 manual attached. See my https://ti99resources.wordpress.com/ for the complete KXBII p

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hloberg

building an Atari S-Drive Max for my 600XL+

This is just a quick blog of my experience of building an S-Drive Max and not a step by step, like I usually do, because there are just so many other good resources for building the device. First, this project is a fairly easy, that is if you read several of the 'how to' websites and watch a couple of videos before working on it. (I listed some resources below). You see, most of the websites are fairly good, it's just that they tend to leave out bits a pieces in their descriptions so a step

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hloberg

Printing using a NanoPEB, VT100 & an CFHDX or crossover cable

NOTE: Before reading this blog you might want to read the previous blog on the CFHDX.   Here is another interesting use for the NanoPEB and the CFHDX cable or cross-over cable, the ability to print from the NanoPEB without needing to find a, nearly impossible to find, serial printer. HOW TO: As with the CFHDX attach the NanoPEB to your PC using the CFHDX cable (see previous blog) or a cross-over cable. Now set the comport on the PC to: 300 7 bit odd parity

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hloberg

CFHDX for NanoPEB on a TI99/4a

My CFHDX setup.         CFHDX, WHAT IS IT?   If you don’t know what a CFHDX is it’s software that runs on a NanoPEB and a Windows PC that enables the transfer of files between the PC and the TI99. The software was created by the great F.G.Kaal and is on his website http://www.ti99-geek.nl/ . To do this bit of alchemy you will need a cross-over cable (or an HDX cable - more on that later) between the NanoPEB serial port and the PC serial port to trans

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hloberg

XB-70 - what if

This doesn't have anything to do with retro computers but with retro airplanes. The XB-70 was a hyper-sonic proposed in the 60s. It had a projected cruising speed of MACH 3, which is impressive even by today's standards. I remember as a kid I of having a model of this X plane. It was 60s cool if there ever was one. I got the below document from I'm not sure where. It's a 'what if' and some of the plans they had for the plane. Here's the NASA fact sheet on the plane. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/

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hloberg

Some XB utilities for TI99 CF7/NanoPEB

Xmount is a loader program that, among other things, allows you to read volumes in a CF7/NanoPEB (by Guillaume Tello’s website: https://gtello.pagesperso-orange.fr/ti99_e.htm ) If you don't know what a CF7/NanoPEB is the website all about it: https://nanopeb.com/ Use the accompanying program with your CF7/NanoPEB. On with the show.   So, using XMOUNT program and some other stuff yesterday I wrote in XB a little series of utilities for the CF7/NanoPEB. it's a menu program wit

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hloberg

Adding 64k to my 600XL

As anyone who has an Atari 600XL knows it only came with 16k. Good enough to run game cartridges but nothing else. Atari's solution was this little device that attached to the BUS adapter on the back. the Atari 1064. These are rather impossible to get a hold of these days (in fact I had a hard time just finding a picture) so the current procedure to up the memory is adding the memory internally. There are several ways of doing this, lotharek.pl/ has a nifty little chip that just

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hloberg

I made a new power supply for my Atari 600XL

Lately I have been finding new power supplies for XL and XEs on eBay that looked a lot like a 5 volt power supply with just a new 7 pin head. As anyone who has ever had an Atari XL knows the power supplies for the XL weren't all that reliable and even though the power supply I have for my 600XL was working I thought I would build another on using current technology like the ones I have been seeing on eBay and make the old one a spare. SO that is what I did and this is how I did it. Legal: I

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hloberg

Getting a Volume list from CF7/NanoPEB in XB

I've always wanted to get a list of volumes in my nanoPEB/CF7 from XB without having to mount the cfgmgr disk. I think I may have found a way using the utility XMOUNT. With XMOUNT you can mount CF7 volumes from in a XB program (see attached file) by loading a little assembler utility. So to get a list I wrote a program to mount each volume in drive 1 then print out the name, go onto to the next and so on. It's not real fast but its not all that slow either. takes about 5 sec to make a listing of

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hloberg

Atari 2600 Megamania label

the activision labels for the Atari 2600 really deteriorate over time. So for those games I usually make a new label. Here is a Megamania label I created. It's a cleaned up scanned label so it would keep the original look.

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hloberg

Super Hiway Chicken Plus

here is another game I re-created that I had submitted to the TI99IUG many years ago - super hiway chicken plus. I wasn't able to find the game specifically in the old IUG on WHTECH but that's not surprising. the IUG usually changed the name and removed the original author from the listing. plus, there does seem to be some files missing from the IUG composite. It's a Chicken or Freeway variant that was a much improved modification of another IUG chicken game and yes the name is a bit over the to

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hloberg

Uno for the Atari 8-bit in Atari Microsoft BASIC

Uno for the Atari 8-bit in Atari Microsoft BASIC  I wrote for the Atari 8-bit in Atari Microsoft BASIC. But I did later translate the program to the TI-99 (see Games/Mygame section). Not a lot of people knew Microsoft wrote a BASIC for the Atari 8-bit line. Fact is Atari Microsoft BASIC was going to be 'the' BASIC for the Atait 8-bit line. The only thing that stopped from being the de-facto BASIC for the Atari was that Atari had a requirement that the BASIC had to fit in a 8k cartridge

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hloberg

the TV Game

the TV game 9/4/20 This is another one that is only loosely connected to the TI99. A couple weeks ago I had a backup drive crash with a lot of my retro-computer stuff on it. Fortunately I have found most of the stuff elsewhere but while looking through my old Atari software I found one of the oddest role playing games ever, 'the TV game'. Way back in the 80s me and some friends of mine came up with a role playing game where you took on the mantle of a network TV primetime pro

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hloberg

12$ upscaler for TI-99/4a and any other composite computer

$12 composite to HDMI upconverter review 7-24-2020 I have heard a lot of mixed opinions on these cheap composite to HDMI upconverters. So when I saw one on eBay for $12 shipped I thought I might give it a shot. Turns out I was pleasantly surprised. It's not a f18a by any means but it does do a good job of clearing up the picture on flat screen monitors. here's a picture of the TI title screen with just composite> It's not a great picture but you can see how the

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hloberg

Atari 8-bit Editor Assembler on Disk

little while back I decided I wanted to do a little bit of Assembler on my Atari 800xl. Well, I went on eBay and found the E/A carts were rare as Hen's teeth and when they were on sale the wanted a fortune for them. That's when I remembered that I had saw a version of the E/A on disk, somewhere, once upon a time, long ago... you get the idea. So I posted on Atariage/Atari 8bit and asked if anyone remembered such. I got a response and then a discussion and then finally a disk that works. There su

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hloberg

six color fonts using XB256 in TI99 XB

just messed around with a new feature @senior_falcon  put in XB256, the ability to display multicolored fonts easily and quickly.  and I got it to SIX full alpha font set colors. the TI99 now has an easy way to display up to 6 different alpha fonts on the same screen! way it works is you can type the the characters you want from the color character set directly with the offset CALL LOAD(9596,xxx). this enables you to just type the letters you want to display in this fashion: CALL LOAD(

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hloberg

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