retroclouds

Imagine having one database with "The River" OLUG, Yahoo group messages and AtariAge. That would be a treasure chest of information there. On a sidenote, just today I discovered a Magnavox Odyssey 2 forum that will be closed sometime early 2023 with all the messages probably getting lost forever. Sure hope that never will happen to AtariAge.

Also very interested in the Pico board. I’m a total hardware noob, but ok with software side of things. This would make a great platform to tinker with.

That’s some nice progress there, I like the use of $HOME and the ls command. Have the same feeling with my progress on Stevie. It has been slow due to changes at work and writing Stevie in assembly sure doesn’t help. But am also to release a new version in the next days (better menu system, goto line functionality, "uncrunch" TI Basic program + small changes) Thinking about it, I might steal the idea with the environment variables for a future version. Hope you don’t mind 😃 Also thought about integrating a forth interpreter and do some of the “high-level” stuff there. But that would really be a long-term goal. If I may make a suggestion, and it’s not directly an editor thing. But perhaps you could add the capability to load a FG99 cartridge from inside the editor. That way you can jump there from the editor. (that something I’m working on in stevie as well, but not for this release). With SAMS in place I can even return from a cartridge to Stevie and resume work in the editor without loading anything in memory, because it’s all just there. You just have to make sure that you switch SAMS pages upon program exit and switch them back in when you resume work)

Just a marker to myself, so I don’t forget about this great document: http://www.thebattles.net/sage/img/Internal Architecture.pdf

Ten X 99 Cobol Accelerator Revision B https://www.ebay.de/itm/185029384166?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=pWNEbGnaR3y&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=EJfVC6FkS6K&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY TI-990/10a CPU Board 2 MB ram https://www.ebay.de/itm/185029354495?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=pWNEbGnaR3y&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=EJfVC6FkS6K&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY Spectralogic Disk Controller https://www.ebay.de/itm/185030999061?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=pWNEbGnaR3y&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=EJfVC6FkS6K&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY The seller appears to have more 990 stuff available for sale, also multiple copies of some of the above cards. I’d be interested myself, but unfortunately I just lack the space.

I came across this document that describes the bootstrapping of UCSD Pascal on a new platform. http://pascal.hansotten.com/uploads/ucsd/softech/Adaptable pSystem 4.pdf And as a reference to myself, the place to look for lots of cool information on UCSD Pascal by Hans Otten: http://pascal.hansotten.com/ If I understand correctly UCSD Pascal IV on the TI-99/4a must have originated from the "Adaptable System" Wonder if Texas Instruments employees implemented the p-code interpreter themselves or if it was a task delegated to university students. Guess that some fiddling was involved to get it to work with 32K of RAM. And if it has been done once, it can be done twice. With the Finalgrom around I don't see a reason why a new bootstrapping, a new p-code interpreter couldn't be implemented. Sure, not for the faint of heart. But there is a lot of documentation and reference material out there. **EDIT** Interesting to add is that the 9900 is referenced in the bootstrapping document, e.g. for byte order configuration. On the PDP-11, LSI-11, 8080, 9900, 6502, 6809, and Z-80 systems HAS WORD ORIENTED MACHINE is always FALSE. HAS BYTE FLIPPED MACHINE is FALSE for all IV.0 systems except the 9900.

How I wished this would be available for purchase

Just came accross this 99/8 video

If any of you have this machine in working order, I’d love to see a short video of it in action. You know the saying “seeing is believing”. Seriously though, I’d love to try my hands on one of these. Imagine interfacing the machine with the TI-99/4a

I Apologize if this has been asked before. Do any of the Pascal experts have details on the differences between UCSD Pascal on the TI-99/4a compared to the unreleased TI-99/8. I am interested in differences between language features, capabilities but also the technical setup. It seems that on the 99/8 UCSD Pascal is better integrated as on the TI-99/4a. Don’t really like how the p-code card takes control when starting the TI-99/4a. I know of the p-code card switch, but that’s kinda cumbersome. Is it correct it can also be temporary disabled by writing “NO” to a certain memory location. Reason for asking is, if it’s perhaps easier to integrate the 99/8 UCSD Pascal in the TI-99/4a.

I’m truly sorry to hear about your mothers illnes. $170US + shippings for an F18a sounds very expensive, but prices are crazy nowadays. As a matter of fact I stopped buying TI stuff as I have most already (I’m building a BBC micro collection where prices are still quite low) Either way, the F18a is a magnificient update. Hope all works out fine for you and that you get to enjoy your own F18a.

While you’re at it; get a F18a if you don’t have one already. I think now is the time.

I think combined with the F18a as GPU VDP that would make a really great machine

For me that is Geneve, tomy tutor, cortex and 990 systems. For non TI computers it’s MSX1 & MSX2, BBC Micro, DEC Microvax, SUN Sparcstation. Most of these systems I have (well except for 990, Microvax, Sparcstation)

@Albert any chance we can get a Myarc Geneve 9640 subforum? It would allow us to bundle the existing threads and have a dedicated place for discussing all things Geneve. 😀

Yes, I think the Geneve deserves its own 9640 area and 9640 dev area. We’d have the benefit that threads can be moved there and topic history doesn’t get lost.

Perhaps it’s time for a multicolor-mode game development contest? 😀

No problem with that. Just surprised by the amount of finalgroms sold. Thinking about getting another one myself 🙂

It seems this guy has sold 186 finalgroms by now. https://www.ebay.de/itm/174686442616?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=IS7JnZLhSAG&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=EJfVC6FkS6K&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

So what does the COBOL accelerator card do? How would it accelerate COBOL programs in anyway?

Thanks for the November issue! I remember the discussions we had about the Triton Turbo XT in our local TI Club in Belgium (was a teenager back then) It was the time when some of us were starting to tip over to the PC world (and I was one of these, but did not get the Triton).

That is most impressive. I’ve seen quite a couple of things I considered to be impossible in Extended Basic. And all this in 10 lines of code. Some of the 10 line games and concepts you should really turn into full fletched, polished games! 😀

Were they also sold without disk controller? I also bought one on ebay a while ago and it’s also lacking a disk controller. Is it a complicated board? I for sure would be interested in a repro, but I guess the effort is quite large and the amount of micro expansion systems available very limited. Having said that, if anyone has a matching board willing to part with I’d be interested 😀

Yes, also think that it is the video ram. It would explain why the basic programs don’t work, because that is where TI-Basic stores the tokenized version of the program.

Thanks for sharing. Reading and learning more about these editors is fun!