Ksarul

Excellent! Many thanks for doing that piece of the testing, Jon (and to you Bob for egging us on)! Mark (Willsy), now that I know that the EPROM side works, I can probably send you one to experiment with. You won't be able to use the GROM side until Tursi gets a chance to work his magic though. Fire your current contact data at me--do you have the necessary assembly bits/tools handy, or should I send one pre-assembled like I did for Bob? The real question now is how much interest is there in more of these?

The TI-designed 128K Super RAM card included RAM in the >4000 space as well, so you could get up to 48K without banking anything out. Anything that needed a DSR would bank out that 8K, but it was still an available option space. I have one of these.

Merci beaucoup! Thanks a lot, Guillaume!

Mark, it is possible to do clear, translucent, or other random colors (using material types I have not purchased yet), but for the moment, I can do basic black. . .as to the board availability--I made about 50 of them with this run. If they work right, I'll have some I can part with as I've only used 10 or so as test articles, but for the moment they are only in the hands of a small test group. You'll be one of the first to know when that changes. . . Hey Jon, using the 4K idea, you could probably put pointers and a command loop in the fixed 4K of each bank and build a 256K BASIC Interpreter using the 4K variable banks. . .of course, a similar idea would make for one mondo game. . .

Yesterday was really warm here, so I decided to do a test that required warm weather. I used my molds and cast a new cartridge case. It came out pretty nice, as you can see from the photos below. I can only do really low-volume casting right now (one pressure tank and one set of molds), but I may eventually get another tank so that I can use two sets of molds simultaneously. Many thanks to Gregg Eshelman for helping me to get this set up in the first place.

There are still a few of us around who had the p-System and used it. I also have the disks for the p-System to work on the 99/8. That one used version IV.11 as opposed to IV.0. Ben is another one who used it--I see him post on the UCSD Pascal group on Yahoo now and again. Anders, If you look on WHT, you'll find a bunch of the USUS newsletters that I scanned in and put up. I have more, I just haven't had time to scan the rest of them yet.

I already figured you'd need some more of the sockets, Jon, so they are included in the test package. It will be in the mail tomorrow. . .along with a few more of the 49F040s

I've had some time to work on the 512K ROM cartridge again, and got a new set of boards in that doesn't require inverted signals--which also allowed me to switch to a 74LS378 as a latch, so the whole 512K should now be easily bank switched in 8K increments without external switches. I did this as an alternative to the GAL board using Matthew's expanded 74LS379 code, mainly for those who don't have access to a GAL programmer. Both board versions are software compatible with each other, though the GAL version can be used in either inverted or non-inverted mode. Tursi has been working on the GROM side code. That code is a work-in-progress dependent upon his available time, so it may be much later in the year before we see it (he has been very busy lately, and I'm just really glad he likes this idea enough to keep it in his project list). Note that earlier versions of the code on his site don't work with this board, due to some pin change requests on his part. We've got most of the detailed board documentation done (Jon/Tursi/Jim), though it may still change a lot as testing progresses. Here is a picture of the most recent prototype:

Thanks for doing the scan, but were you able to put it up anywhere for download?

My attendance this year was torpedoed by the actions of She-who-must-be-Obeyed, not by lack of funds or desire. She was truly irked when I told her her machinations would NOT prevent my attendance next year!

As one of the strange people that has an extensive collection of books on the TI in many languages (English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish), I am definitely interested in this book, as it is one I have not seen before. I have a couple of others from SHIFT EDITION, but this one is definitely new to me. As to scanning the books from other languages, Retroclouds--that is on my voluminous list of things to do. . .some of them cover subjects that didn't make it into the English side very often as well. I have one very good book on TurboPASC99 and a number of good books on Assembly (all of these are in German).

My basement is a scary place. . .I have one room with about 20,000 books in it (mostly on floor-to-ceiling bookshelves), but very little room left otherwise, and a computer room with books, desks, systems, work projects, and a whole lot more. It is not what most would call a pretty place--but it is mine and it has lots of nice, weird TI stuff in it (the part you're really interested in). On a side note, I now have sufficient spare parts to try and restore the Mechatronic Quick Disk drive I got from Kyle a while back (I got hold of a (tested good) spare drive mechanism with a new belt, so it is just a matter of switching out the parts and the cover plates, since the spare came from a Roland S-10). I plan to look at the Hex-Bus interface Mechatronic put in it to see if it is worth making a new design to allow folks to build their own. It would be mostly of use for CC-40 and TI-74 users, but it would work fine on a TI-99/4A with a Hex-Bus interface as well.

Here is a tidbit about the TI that most people will be completely unaware of. The Logo language is a great teaching language for children--a fact that was well publicized when the TI was still in production. Where it becomes interesting is that TI didn't just make one version of it--they made many. Logo I was a module/disk combination. Most everyone has seen the one using English words for the Logo commands. I know of at least two other versions of Logo I though--a version was released in Spanish (I have the manual but not the cartridge) and in German (I have the cartridge and a photocopy of the draft manual). Logo II ws even more diverse. I have it in English, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch. I also have GRAM files of it in German. I've also seen it in French. That makes for a plethora of Logo modules to find if you are really looking for TI gems!

Very nice idea--and I do love visiting the "TI-99 Forever!" site. I've read pretty much everything there to re-familiarize myself with French while in pursuit of interesting hobby tidbits. Ernie's site is awesome too. I may have to eventually contribute some books to him for his continued labor--as I have an extensive library of TI books in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish.

I plan to try and be there as well--assuming my other half doesn't throw a monkey wrench into it at the last minute. . .a very real possibility, knowing her.

Looks like the link to Fascination is broken. I like the rest of them though! many thanks.

Actually, the 8K binary cartridge is probably a very good option, as we now have cartridge boards available to put them on (and some of those will take up to 512K in 8K bank-switched mode).

@RXB, the most likely reason or that is simply: availability. There are probably a dozen or so AMS programs--availability of the hardware was a bottleneck that didn't open until recently with the resumption of production. There are still very few of them in circulation, unfortunately. Supercarts gave RAM in the >6000 space, so they were mostly used as a development platform for code that would be burned into ROM for other cartridges. The Foundation card just came into wider use at exactly the wrong time for lots of development on it, especially with the later flood of Horizon, CorComp, Myarc, Rave, DataBioTics, and MorningStar cards (I probably missed a few here). GRAM files had the advantage that there was a lot of hardware out there that could use the files with little or no modification, even when it came from different sources. The advantage of a cartridge board is that it requires NO additional hardware to use. Write the program, burn it into the chips, and you're ready for distribution. This board has the added advantage of being able to use those GRAM files as GROM--again eliminating the need for additional hardware. It also lets us put those files which normally only existed as GRAM files into GROM for our personal edification. I wonder if Lasso would work here. . .

There were four side port cartridges: Miner 2049er, Espial, Killer Caterpillar (Jon has one of these, I believe), and Arcturus (Jon has this one as well). Only a couple Killer Caterpillar carts ever existed, as they were prototypes. Arcturus made it into limited production, but sales tanked when a pirated copy of it on disk made it into circulation, so not a lot of them were made. Exceltek made both of these latter cartridges. One other item could be considered a side port cartridge: the GROM Buster from Navarone. It was made to allow GROM-less cartridges to run on the V2.2 consoles and has no other function. It is uncommon, but I have a pair of them, and it comes up on eBay once in a while.

Jon, Matthew should have his test boards any day now, so he'll be able to do some validation locally too. I sent him everything he needed to test the ROM side on Thursday. Jon, did you put all three of the minimum required jumpers on the board? The ones you need are listed in the documentation I sent you a while back for review. (I figured you did, but I just had to have a little fun after the wild chase I went on the last time you forgot one.) LOL Thanks for getting at the tests so quickly too!

Nice find! Thanks!

There was the Texas Light Shooter in the US. There was also the Light Pen PEB card by Sven Dyroff in Germany. I have the schematics for it.

I like the eyes. Maybe include them in the upper logo and have them roll around a bit. . .but definitely keep them. I like the top logo a lot too--it just has a really nice feel to it.

Excellent! This is a great progress report!

Matthew, I have a number of Tomy Tutor machines--including a Pyuuta and a Pyuuta Jr. If you like, I can let you borrow one of the regular ones for testing.