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Do we still have contenders for this contest? The Chicago TI Faire is about 3 months away, so if you haven't started yet, now is the time

I am as far removed from the engineering world as you can possibly get, i.e. circumcision is probably as technical as I get by trade Nonetheless, I have found that Google can make you an instant expert on almost anything. I found this great page http://www.epanorama.net/links/oscillator.html which will tell you everything you need to know about oscillator circuits.

Indeed. I remember literally tearing my hair out trying to figure why my program was bombing until someone here pointed out that I was using the non-patched version of asm99...There is something to be said here about using real hardware because at least you know that when your program bombs, it's likely your code and not the assembler at fault. You just need more patience and maybe a handy book to read while the assembler toils away

Wow! What a treat! Great work

Done

Thanks Matt. Actually, I would like to purchase a new board from you along with a few extra pins if you have any available and keep the old one as a backup. You can send me a PayPal invoice or let me know of any other alternative payment option you prefer.

Thanks guys. I have an extra console back in MN, and since my wife will be in town this week, I'll ask her to bring it with her. I agree with you Mark, which is why I have been so reluctant to repeatedly open my console to update the FA18, and clearly my fears were justified... My main regret is that I will have to forgo the 32K16 kit modification on that one unless I muster the will to do it again as it was a royal pain to install. The fast crystal modification is much easier, although I doubt I'll do it either because it causes issues with the sprites. Sooo, it's back to the old 32K PEB card, or more likely use my SAMS card instead. And that's not all! I managed to break a couple of pins on the FA18 after pulling it out one too many times Luckily, that was an easy fix. I just soldered wires to the broken pins pads and connected them to the appropriate pins on the 9918 socket. Perhaps emulators are not such a bad thing after all

I did not know that about these rectangles. I did check them and they seem fine. The power supply is outputting +5V, -5V and +12V - does that sound right?. Now I did notice that the 9918 socket was not getting any power, no did it seem to be connected to ground using a continuity check. Also, the -5V and ground appeared to be shorted together where the PS connector wires connect to the motherboard, again as noted on a continuity check. This is not the case on the power pins of the PS itself. I did a visual check of the motherboard and nothing looked burned out or grossly shorted. Something really weird is going on here...

Well nuts I managed to flash the final firmaware on my FA18 without any issues, but when I tested it with the console still open and the top metallic shield in place over the motherboard, I got some weird behavior where basically the computer comes up normally for just a few seconds and then I get a loud continuous tone over the speakers and the system locks up. I removed the shield completely with no change. I then broke every cardinal rule of electronics and plugged in my PEB just to see if that changed the behavior (why I would think that is not explainable with common sense discourse...), and now I get nothing at all, even though the power supply is on. Disconnecting the PEB did not change that either. I also noted that the PS was getting very hot within just a few seconds of turning it on, which may or may not be normal behavior. It sounds like something on the motherboard was shorted by the shield... This is a real bummer because this was my tricked out console with internal 32K and a fast crystal I would really like to try to resurrect it if possible, so if any one here has any pointers for me I would be very grateful. Walid

If I recall correctly, the Mechatronics mouse came with a very rudimentary graphical DOS program, unfortunately too limited to be of much use...

Nice It would be so neat to have a full graphical DOS for the TI...

Very nice! And so smooth! Is this going to be your entry in the Turbo Forth contest?

I downloaded the original string of articles on Core Wars as published in Scientific American, and it seems to me that a version could be done in XB or even TI BASIC. How fast it will run is a different animal though. A few years ago I programmed Robot War in XB which also used pseudocode to program the robots, and it's just a matter of modifying the interpreter to accommodate the 9 Redcode instructions and their arguments as well as the addressing scheme. The original game used a "core memory" with 8000 addresses, each potentially containing a single integer. Assuming 1 byte per integer, that 7.81K needed for the memory array, which should leave plenty of space for the rest of the code (maybe, if coded very efficiently and depending on the display options). From what I have seen on You Tube, most representations of the playing field were simply strings of boxes filling up the screen, one for each memory location, and a color scheme to represent the different numeric values in each. One would then watch the screen light up with a variety of colors as the war programs battled it out. While this is a nifty representation, it does present a problem on the TI: clearly, we can't use bitmap here because of the eight byte horizontal color limitation on the TI, and multicolor mode can only give us 3200 screen locations. Obviously XB or TI BASIC only have 768 screen locations. Sooo, either a different screen representation has to be devised, or the memory array has to be reduced in size. I am more in favor of the former so as to stay as faithful to the original game as possible. Any suggestions here? How did Clint represent the playing field with his c99 program? EDIT: Upon reading subsequent articles on Core War, it appears that a new instruction, namely SPL, was officially added to the original 9 Redcode instructions, bringing them up to a total of 10. SPL allows the splitting on the execution stream of a particular program into 2 separate processes, which can be repeated indefinitely. This obviously complicates the design of Code War significantly because now we have to keep track of a large number of separate processes. SPL was not implemented by Clint Pulley in his c99 version. The main limiting factor to the use of SPL is the fact that each SPL slows down the execution of the resulting separate streams by half since the interpreter executes only one instruction at a time, alternating between the 2 (or more) battle programs.

Yes, this may be the issue, but Paolo's method will require having to manually load more than one file which is inconvenient. Can one manually load the EA utilities into low memory from within the program?

I am having a similar issue and cannot find an answer anywhere. Have you been enlightened? I will eventually figure it out; but, I would rather short-circuit that painful process! ...lee I'm afraid not

Looks like a cartridge project, but I'm not sure how to run it...

I voted for Kaboom as it is quite nicely done and very smooth running, as well as addictive and very easy to pick up and play. A close second was Sector, but this one is more cumbersome to play given that one needs colored pencils and graph paper. Still my kind of game though. Rush hour is great as well, but I felt that it gets a little repetitive after a while even at the higher levels because essentially the game strategy remains the same throughout.

Any "new" technical book on any classic computer ought to be viewed with caution because everything that is to know about the topic has in very high likelihood already been published decades ago. I can't image what new information about the TI anybody can come up with that is not already available out there. Just check Ernie Pergrem's site... That said, there might be a place for some sort of compilation book for hard to find facts that are spread out across multiple media (books, websites etc...), although the market will be very small. I did not know one could market material published on Wikepedia though....

This is a perfect game for Turbo Forth IMHO. Much easier than assembly and very fast.

I hear you my friend he he My last update stamp on Ultimate Planet is from 5/8/11... But I will eventually finish it because I have too much work invested in it. Re-familiarizing myself with the massive code will be a pain though. Now what is Nyog'Sothep???

Did this project ever get finished?

Lee, this would be nice to have for archival purposes, although personally it's very unlikely I will ever use it. Who knows though, someone may some day decide to port TI FORTH to another environment

Long live the King Very well deserved.

Another recommendation I have is the book "Computing in the Middle Ages" which gives a really great perspective of the earliest computing efforts when, as the author states, the johnny come lately's like Gates and Jobs were still in diapers.

I checked out that book on Amazon and it's selling around $100 new!!! Whoa... How much do you want for your copy The current revision is only $18. http://www.amazon.co...ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 The book I was looking at was titled On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore by Brian Bagnall. It's listing as starting at $100 new. Used copies are obviously cheaper. Willsy, was that the book you were referring to?