Ksarul

One might say that. I have one of almost all of the hardware items that were ever produced for the TI. The same goes for modules, books, and magazines. I also have a lot of original disk/cassette software--but that collection is much more hit-and-miss than the rest of my TI stuff. I also have TurboForth, so I may have to try it out using some of the more obscure TI hardware I have (from TI and third parties) just to flesh out the list of compatible hardware some more.

I actually see a potential use for the wrap function within an individual GROM, Rich. You could set up a repeating sound list or screen background stored in DATA statements within a single GROM. It would automatically cycle back to the beginning each time it reached the end--but the GPL Interpreter would have to be massaged to also go back to the starting address for it to be of any use. Obviously, there are other ways to do it--but it does provide a possibly useful alternative to loading the entire list into memory.

Kevan, the answer to the price on the Mechatronic 80-column card (it was definitely a console side plug in) is that they usually hit $200 to $250 or so when they show up for sale. One important note--there is a flying cable that goes from the 9918 socket in the console to the 80-column card. You have to remove the 9918A for this. I have one. I also have what is probably the only remaining bare board for one around.

I can answer that one, Roli: there were two waves of Atarisoft releases for the TI. The first wave were all in the larger boxes, the second were almost all in the smaller ones. I remember buying most of them right as they came out. . .and shortly thereafter I went to Germany for about 10 years, so I was almost completely clueless on US TI developments--but very well linked in to what was going on in Europe.

BTW, for those who truly hate the loss of the classic Windows shell in Windows 8, you might want to look at an interesting alternative shell being built for ReactOS, but which the author has running successfully on Windows 8. . .ReactOS itself is still Alpha software on the cusp of going to an early Beta, but it is an interesting Windows alternative nonetheless.

Another thought on this subject that Tursi touched on a while back: real GROMs have to wrap. All GROMs have an internal address counter that advances continuously as the GROM bus is polled by the system. Only the one being selected actually places information on the data bus--but all of them advance in lockstep. The fact that the counters advance in lockstep is what forces us to wrap instead of to advance, as to advance, the chip has to be at the first address, and the only way to get there is to wrap. This actually has some interesting implications--and it actually makes both camps 100% correct in their assumptions, as the behavior of the chips can be interpreted either way. Each GROM advances to the end of its counter and wraps, but the GROM selected by the external system doesn't wrap, it advances. The external system thus forces the appearance of a linear advance of the address, but each individual GROM is actually in a circular loop, advancing forward and looping to the beginning in lockstep with the other seven GROMs in a single GROM base. This behavior fits both sets of observations--and as Tursi noted, it matches his observations when testing individual GROM chips. I'm all for civilized discussion--and this one, though it does get heated at times, is making me think, so I find it a stimulating discussion. I do think we need to make the thread title a little bit more peaceful though!

I definitely like the real hardware--and I am most pleased with my F18As.

Rich, you completely missed the point of my post--the first GRAM devices were made by TI, and not by Millers Graphics. The limitations of the chip's die size were likely more important to the designers of GROM than filling the entire available 8K space. They had to fit both the memory and the addressing logic on the chip, in a time where the biggest available chips had only 8K. A 2K reduction to add the auto-incrementing feature--and keep all of the remaining 6K off of the system bus was a major bonus. The fact that someone else was able to replicate the hardware used in their GRAM simulators several years later and decided that they didn't want to "waste" the extra address space wasn't anything new--TI could have done the same in their GRAM devices--but it would have been counterproductive, as the resulting code wouldn't fit into a GROM. Trying to second guess or deprecate the skills of a set of engineers because someone else did it differently later is not a way to carry on a civilized discussion. Each set of enginners had a set of goals--and those goals were targeted to different solutions. No more--no less. Do I like my GRAM Kracker, GRAMulator, GRAM Karte, HSGPL, Wiesbaden Supermodul, and PGRAM+? Definitely. Do I also like my GSIM? Also, definitely. They are all excellent GRAM devices.

That would be correct from the standpoint of the hardware/software released by TI. It doesn't look at what shows up in all of the various ROM/GROM areas: up to 48K of GROm in the console/cartridge port area (and the O/S actually supports much more there, as the cartridge port actually supports 16 GROM bases, which would increase the total at the cartridge port from 30K to 480K). It is also possible to put GROM in the PEB, as was done with the p-Code card (48K of GROM). TI also built hardware that added more RAM than one would expect to the system. The TI 128K RAM card (this one was a TI prototype--I have one) put 32K where one would expect it to be, 8K in the cartridge RAM space, and an additional 8K in the DSR space--allowing for programs that used up to 48K of CPU RAM directly. The rest of the RAM was bank-switched in, so a program could have conceivably used all 128K of space on a regular TI. The speech synthesizer actually added another memory bus to the TI--you could have something like 588K of speech memory (the speech synthesizer adds 56K of that, IIRC), though most of it would have only been used by the never-released modules that would have added vocabulary (the connector for these carts survived under the door of some early speech synthesizers).

One last note: it was a very simple conceptual jump from the EGROM cartridge to the GRAM Kracker, as all of the circuitry to recreate the auto-incrementing features of GROM were there--and the EGROM cartridges were available to businesses designing TI software for quite some time while TI was still selling their systems actively and looking for additional programs to market.

I have to disagree there, Rich. TI designed and built two different GRAM devices long before MG did. I have one of the Pizza-Box GRAM devices, more properly known as a GSIM, and I've seen and used the original PEB GRAM card designed by the TI Labs at Almelo Holland. There are about 15-20 GSIMs out there and there are exactly four of the Almelo cards left in existence. There were also several devices that TI designed to simulate GROMs for testing--I have three different devices, the earliest of which was assembled and tested in 1979. Lastly, TI prototype cartridges are very often on an EGROM cartridge board. It too simulates GROM--and is available in two variants: one for GROM cartridge files only and one for both ROM and GROM cartridge files. I have several prototypes using each variant of these boards, and I have two blank circuit cards for them (TI sold these to developers so that they could test their cartridge code in a GROM-type environment).

The board is definitely an HRD--although the RAM chips used aren't normal. That's the first time I've seen one using skinny DIP RAM. The box looks like an aluminum kit box, and the cable looks like an IEC PEB extender cable. Interesting use of regular components to avoid buying a PEB.

I've been reading this, Gazoo. I just haven't had anything to add to your analysis. I still have to look to see if the documents I got from Mike Bunyard a few years ago included the functional spec for GROM chips.

I got the Superspace. I was actually missing one in my cartridge set. I already have two of the Superspace IIs, but I was always unsuccessful with getting a Superspace. I was surprised that I won it, as I just put the bid in close to the end of the auction on the off chance that no one else was after one (as there were no bids up to that point in time). I still need about 10 cartridges/variants of DataBioTics cartridges to have a complete set of them. For those looking for Supercarts, there are a couple of other variants out there too: Pilgrim's Pride 6000+ module and the many supercarts built using the plans to modify a standard TI cartridge board to include RAM and an Editor/Assembler GROM. The one Ernie is selling right now looks like one of the latter (and they generally work great). I have one supercart and one of the Pilgrim's Pride modules as well. The manual and software support disks for the Pilgrim's Pride module are actually harder to find than the module is (as originals).

There were dozens of additional games written by third parties for the Adventure module--and also for Tunnels of Doom. Some were good, some were passable, and some were downright bad. Note also that there were quite a few Infocom titles that were ported to the TI much later--by Barry Boone. These were only available commercially in very limited numbers. Asgard released them, but their license with Infocom required that they buy an existing package for another machine and use a TI-formatted disk in the release. This came late in the life of Infocom, and they didn't have a lot of the titles left to sell to Asgard (the rarest of the titles was Leather Goddesses of Phobos, as Chriss Bobbitt only received four copies of that one--he kept one, I bought one, a third went to Jim Horn of Disk Only Software, and I'm not sure where the fourth one went). I helped Chris in the reformatting/packaging of the Infocom titles he received (Asgard was set up in his basement, which had lots of interesting TI stuff in it)--and so far as I know, his first shipment from Infocom was also his last, as he got all of those titles they had left in the warehouse in the first lot. The only really good adventure parser for the TI was the Infocom one--with the one from Scott Adams being the next best, in my opinion. Everything else was a lot more limited, at least from the standpoint of text adventures. Old Dark Caves and Legends were definitely good as RPG-style adventures.

It is a very good clone, so I suspect there isn't too much difference at all. I was just curious how well the announced software would have been ported--with no slight to the later clone, which is quite good.

I still have most of the vinyl I bought between the seventies and the nineties. Old April Wine is some good listening!

The memory loss issue with this card has been a constant complaint ever since it was released. The folks I knew in Germany that had it generally recommended that folks buy the Myarc card instead--and these were people that generally avoided Myarc products like the plague! This was before the release of the Myarc HFDC or the Geneve--quite a few folks over there bought those. I never saw anyone over there with a Myarc MPES-50 or a Myarc RS-232, and only a couple with the Myarc FDC. There were also a few Personality Cards, but all three of those that I saw came over with Mack McCormick and Dee Turner when they were stationed there. I still have one of Mack's Personality Cards. There were a LOT of CorComp FDCs over there though, along with the German Atronic FDC (most software recognized it as a CorComp card). The most likey sidecar system was an Atronic CPS-99 (DSDD FDC, 32K, RS-232, and 2 Floppies in a nice side case). BTW, the "C" in the name of Copy-C was for CorComp. An earlier version was called Copy-A (for Atronic). Copy-C did work on both cards though, IIRC. Later a lot of folks got the BwG controller cards, so DSDD cards were very available over there, at least for a while.

I believe that Jump Man Jr. was actually announced for the TI, but it never made it out into the wild, if programming on it was even started. I say that because the announcement was shortly before TI pulled the plug--and almost none of the software announced at that point in time ever saw the light of day. Even some of the programs that were demonstrated at the Summer 1983 CES, like Choplifter!, never surfaced again.

Actually, at least one of the objects you seek was sold as part of a large lot of TI stuff within the last 90 days or so--it was shown covering the keyboard--and it would be even less of a help than you might imagine, as it was pretty much shrink-formed to the bare console shape. I also saw another one sold back in early September (again with a complete system) that was a tray-type box with a row of cartridge slots on the left and an acrylic top that covered the whole box much like the top of a turntable. That may be closer to what you need. They both come up for sale once or twice a year--you just have to be patient. The shrink-type is much more common than the tray type, though.

I may have a spare Minimem Manual around here somewhere. I'll look this weekend. A lot of the assembly books touch on the MiniMemory. Here's one that is specific to it (if you can find a copy and if you understand German): TMS 9900 Assembler Handbuch für das Mini Memory Rainer Bernert 1983 German

I'm reading them, Lee, and I'm sure Willsy will chime in soon as well. I was able to follow both of your last posts, so I would say they are clear enough. . .

That actually sounds like a good solution, Lee. The Forth user should be able to avoid the problem so long as they actually read the manual! And as you noted, most Forth users use much shorter names by default, so the problem should only rarely manifest in any event.

I've been picking away at it between other projects, but there isn't enough progress on it yet to say when I'll be ready to test the layout. I spent most of today carving a set of jigs out of wood and FR4 so that I could do another set of cartridge case molds--this time using the ROMOX case as my template. It allows me to insert a somewhat larger board--which makes it a whole lot easier to replicate the Wiesbaden Supermodul II GRAM cartridge. This case also has a nice set of snap closures that I've been able to fully maintain using the set of jigs I made today. I've been in contact with the original designer of the Supermodul II (Sven Dyroff), who has given permission to use his materials under the Creative Commons 3.0 Licensing rules. I've also been troubleshooting the issues with the 512K Über-GROM board. It has been a busy holiday for me--and much fun. The Littlest Dude watched me working with Express PCB and wanted to start working on layouts of his own--he actually made the mental connection between the components and the holes/traces on the display, so I may eventually have help with this work. He's only six, so he can't do it yet, but at least he's showing the right degree of interest.

Definitely a cartridge intended for kiosk use--that is what the metal tab is for. There used to be a galvanized wire cable crimped to it that went to the kiosk cabinet to help keep the module from disappearing at inappropriate times. The cartridge is not too easy to find (uncommon, but not rare), and worth $10-$40 depending on who is looking for it at the time one is sold. The Digital Press Guide for the TI is seriously off-base when it comes to cartridge values. Some of them are OK, but most of them are either wrong or not present at all (I have one of the most extensive collections of TI carts out there, and have been keeping tabs on sales for about 20 years). The manual for this one is much harder to find than the cartridge is--it actually does categorize as rare. I have both the cartridge and the manual in my collection.