Ksarul

Note--Support for Server 2003 ends this summer, so you aren't gaining much there. I ended up going with Windows 7 when Microsoft dropped their support for Windows 2000 (I preferred 2000 over XP, so I never made that jump). I'll probably stay with it until it gets end-of-lifed and then move to ReactOS (assuming it gets out of Alpha state by then, but it is getting much more functional in the most recent iterations, so I figure it might just be ready in time).

Pretty much every cartridge known is dumped and available at: ftp.whtech.com/emulators/cartridges/ The Zip folder has them as individual cartridges, and one of the RPK folders has them as a single download. Unpacking an RPK gives you access to the BIN files for the cartridge.

Congratulations on graduating! I finished my Master's three years ago, so I'm not that far ahead of you. . .although my little sister also has grandchildren turning 18 this year. . .so I tend to start important things a bit late (and my boys (9 and 6) just spent the weekend exploring my TI games box--they're real fans of Burger Time).

The 99/8 motherboard went for $710 in the end. I have a feeling the winner will be definitely disappointed when the figure out what would be needed to turn it into a complete machine. All of the GROMs and ROMs are missing too. I wonder though, we might be able to replicate the GROM boards with a variant of the UberGROM. . .and there is enough data out there to replicate the special chips, so it just might be possible to bring one of those spare mobos to life. . .

True--but each of the physical carts that supports inverted image sizes up to 512K on the ROM side actually breaks the chip into four 128K zones that are selected by a pair of front switches on the cartridge, since we only had four latches available on the 379 (and the GAL to extend that to six latches didn't work right--or I had a mistake in the board layout for it that we never did find). I was speaking more from the standpoint of what people would actually be burning into physical hardware.

It actually needs to buffer the signals--as it makes communications between the PEB and the console a bit more reliable, Ed.

Tursi, I have a Classic99 feature request: can you put a configuration switch in there to switch between inverted and non-inverted cartridge images? That way we can test any possible images in emulation before burning them to real hardware. Note that any image greater than 128K per menu section will always be non-inverted.

Thanks, Gazoo! I really need to set up an EPROM burner. . .especially since I have one that I can connect to my PC. That way I'll actually be able to do some testing of the ROM images too.

I haven't used that, but I do have molds I made using smooth-on as the source for the materials. http://www.smooth-on.com/ That's what I use to make my cartridge cases. It is designed primarily for plastic casting, whereas the site you identified is focused on food molds, from what I saw in my initial look at it to see what you were thinking about here. You'd probably gain a lot of useful experience making the food molds, as they don't require the ancillary hardware needed for the smooth-on stuff (a pressure pot that is rated for up to 60psi and a compressor). Welcome back!

Lee, you could potentially keep things the same--if you put an E/A grom in your cartridge using an ÜberGROM board. . .bonus there is that the cart then can become a dual-use item if you leave the option to boot it into the E/A. Gazoo's GPL loader could also be modified to help here, as it then guarantees the boot bank of the cartridge by setting it during the GPL power-up routines. I may be off-base here, but I hope the idea is of use.

I assembled and tested almost a dozen of these this weekend. They are rock stable now (using 1uF caps in place of the two 22pF caps), especially now that I'm also putting the 1nF cap where it belongs. . .not doing so with that one results in an interesting squeal when the cart is inserted into the TI. LOLOL

He's always been pretty responsive when a problem crops up. The fact that he does respond like this is a good part of the reason that several hundred of these are now in user hands (based on a careful count of his eBay feedback for CF7 and NanoPEB sales that I did last September)!

I wouldn't say that, Kevan, it is more that the various projects folks are working on are only slowly coming to fruition. The 512K cart project is finished hardware-wise, but cartridge images for it are still a work-in-progress unless you roll your own. The loader for the ÜberGROM is still being worked on, the 128K TI memory board redux is on its way to me in the mail right now--and I'll have to build and test a couple of them to make sure the layout is good, the protoboard won't get to fabrication until late in May (I budget my fabrication projects), I'm still working on the IDE layout, the 99/8 flat cable Armadillo Interface will probably be fabricated in June, and a couple of other boards I'm working on will probably see the light of day this fall. But for your thread: 1. An assembled 128K cartridge board (capable of working as 4 16-bank zones of 128K each with the addition of two switches, not included) costs $16, shipped to a US address. This is a direct extension of the 64K Guidry board, using inverted banks. EPROM not included. 2. An assembled 512K non-inverted cartridge board costs $16, shipped to a US address. EPROM not included. 3. An assembled ÜberGROM board costs $24, shipped to a US address. The price does not include an Atmel ATMega1284P, but it does include two blank 512K PLCC Flash chips. I have a few assembled and tested copies of each of these three boards on-hand (I built and tested a couple of dozen boards in a mix of the three types this weekend). PayPal eats about a dollar of the posted board cost. Other payment methods may be up to a dollar less, assuming they don't have similar fees.

You could always get one of the F18A video chip replacement boards--that would give you VGA out on your TI, along with a slew of other enhancements. . .the device: http://codehackcreate.com/archives/30 and his store: http://codehackcreate.com/store#!/~/product/category=0&id=14022176

My 128K TI memory boards are on the way to me via DHL as of today. I only made a few of them to do a test build, but I'll probably have 5-10 bare boards left after I finish my testing. . .assuming they work properly and I didn't make any mistakes on the layout.

Do you have the capability to burn ROMs, Lee? If you do, I can get you a module to use for development. . .I still have a couple of the 64K cart board that I haven't used up, a few of the 128Kx4 boards, and a bunch of the 512K boards.

The primary 64K GROM base in a TI has 3 GROMs in the console (GROMs 0, 1, and 2). The cartridge port has the other five (GROMs 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7). This would be the maximum addressable space if TI had only included the hooks for a single GROM base. It includes a lot more--the cartridge port on the /4A has support for devices in up to 16 GROM bases. The first three GROMs are always lost to the console, so we really only have GROMs 3 through 7 available in each of these GROM bases. That gives us up to 40K in each GROM base available to the cartridge port, and up to 16 of those bases are present, giving a maximum available GROM space in the cartridge port of 640K. Since our cartridge only has about 128K of GROM space available, you could put one cartridge in the slot for GROM 3 in each of the 16 GROM bases, or you could put a smaller number of cartridges in fewer GROM bases because they use more GROMs. Extended BASIC uses all five of the GROM slots in its GROM base, for example. One note, 640K is not the maximum possible GROM space on the machine in any event, as the operating system will recognize up to 255 GROM bases--each with up to 8 GROMs. A good example of something using a non-cartridge-based GROM base would be the p-Code card. It has a full set of 8 GROMs in the PEB, and does not interfere with the cartridge port. If you are using a TI-99/8, the cartridge port will only recognize four GROM bases, so any cartridges using our board would have to limit themselves to the first four GROM bases for the cartridge to work properly with it. The limits overall on GROM for the 99/8 are the same though--you just can't use as much of it through the cartridge port as you can with a 99/4A.

PM sent on the PayPal. The hardware is actually more pre-production than prototype, as it is the third iteration of the board. All three worked, the changes were more to add additional functionality to the basic design as the original iteration gave us some neat ideas on the GROM side that were relatively easy to implement. Tursi has a demonstration of the GROM code in action, but it isn't set up so that it can be used with GROM images outside the ones in the demo yet--that is the function of his in process loader software.

I think he's trying to mod it so that on program exit it goes back to the menu so that you don't need a full system reset, Acadiel. I like that idea, as it increases the functionality of the cart. I'll have to mull over his SPST idea that pulls the chip into a predefined state too. We'd have to set it up so it does a write to >6000 when the switch is pushed into a momentary on state to do it. I'll have to look at available board real estate and see what can be done.

We'd still have to load his code into it to set up the GROM mode--and I'm not sure what a force-load would do to that part of things. Tursi would be able to give us an answer here.

The 512K file you had was a test file to verify that each of the banks was present and responding. I used to PLCC copy you sent me as the test file for the UberGROM board I prepared for you. Gazoo's 512K file will work with either of the boards (using a PLCC for the UberGROM or an EPROM for the 512K ROM board). It just won't access the GROM on the UberGROM board (although his 632K file will--but that one requires part of the data to be in the GROM side, and we still need the loader Tursi is developing for that). I'll dig out the ZIFs then. One other important note--when using 28-pin chips, the four socket pins closest to the 74LS378 are empty--and the notch is toward the 378. . .and make sure the jumpers are set properly for the size chip you're using, just like the 64K boards. Instructions are on the board.

The UberGROM works as pure ROM only, pure GROM only, or a mix of the two. It is highly flexible (as the manual in the 512K cartridge status thread shows). I do take PayPal. I know Tursi is working on a loader for the UberGROM to load programs into GROM space with it, but I'm not sure if it requires the basic GROM simulator code to be present beforehand (it is still a WIP with no hard-fast schedule as he's working this project in his limited spare time). Gazoo has done a module image to put into it, but we haven't tested the image for full functionality yet, as we haven't put it into the hardware--all tests were done using Tursi's Classic99 emulator. The real difference between the UberGROM (on the ROM side) is that it uses 32-pin PLCCs instead of DIP EPROMs. The 512K ROM-only board will work with anything from 8Kx8 to 512Kx8, all jumper selectable. The UberGROM expects a 512Kx8 chip, but as the addressing for the 256Kx8 and the 128Kx8 match otherwise, it will work with them too.

Acadiel, if you can burn two copies of the chip and send them to me, I'll get one of them to Gazoo (assuming everything works and it doesn't need additional tweaking). Let me know what you need for the EPROMs. I'll just need a good mailing address for you, Gazoo. With all the help you've given on developing good ROM images for the cartridge, you deserve one. I'll make sure you get one of the UberGROM carts too, once the code you set up for that one is tested on real hardware. I've got a finished copy of each board type already assembled for you. Anybody else needing one of the current revision of the 512K ROM-only board, they are $15 each (shipped to a US address, anywhere else is $12 plus what it costs to send to your country). This does not include an EPROM, but you should be able to get those from Hummingbird EPROMs once he has his system set up to make them. His dev board is on the way to him now. Speaking of which, Bob, should I make you one of the 512K ROM boards with a ZIF socket? I think I have some 32-pin ZIFs in a box around here somewhere. . .it won't fit into a cartridge case, but it will work great to test chips without having to work too hard at it.

Boards from the current run are $20 assembled. That includes a pair of blank Flash chips (I got a really good deal on them a few years ago), but not the ATMega. Shipping in the US is about $3, so the total cost would be $23, shipped. I built and tested six of them today, so I have a few spares right now. I also have a couple of the ROM-only boards that use DIP EPROMs. I can let you have one of those for $12 assembled (that would be $15, shipped), as I was able to find a less-expensive board house to do the bare boards for them. Note, the board won't have an EPROM yet. Obviously, shipping to locations outside the Continental US would be more.

You can cheat a bit and store it as an array that only uses the first four or five letters of each word you want to use--and then scan the array for your words. That could make for some interesting behavior though if someone uses another wors that uses the stame starting letter sequence at the right wrong point in time. . .