Ksarul

Rich, the odd thing is, it IS reading the whole line, otherwise it wouldn't come up with the correct result of all of the addition that is going on in that line. The only way for it to come up with 106 for the answer is if it reads all 106 instances of A=A+1 There is something fishy going on with the crunch buffer here. . .as it isn't responding the way you would expect it to.

Gazoo is the only one other than Tursi with the skills to build an UberGROM image at the moment. Tursi's been working on a loader that makes the process a lot easier, but life has been getting in the way on completing that project--something that often happens to all of us.

And here's a copy of the UberGROM manual, which still needs to be updated with all of the interesting tidbits in the 512K cartridge threads. 512K ROM-GROM Cartridge Board Manual V0.8.doc

As soon as I build some more of them, Gary. I've got enough boards to last me a while--and all of the parts needed to populate a few hundred of the boards as pictured. My personal goal is to make sure that a wide range of TI hardware remains in stock and available to the community for as long as I can reasonably keep it going (from an economical standpoint).

Correct, it is a tantalum capacitor. Here's a tutorial on the type being used: http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/How-to-read-a-tantalum-capacitor.php Some of them really do have positive leads. . . Note that any 104-type capacitor of 50V or less will do in the .1uF slot for the other capacitor. . .

Thank you for a very nice development tool!

No problems there. The real problem with the 27C160 is that it is 42-pins, and it works in 8-bit or 16-bit mode. All but one of the chips I've gotten so far (30) work in 16-bit mode but won't downshift to 8-bit operation, so they fail miserably. . .the one good chip indicates I pretty much got the hardware right. Most of the chip sources are in China--and they seem to have nothing but factory seconds that didn't pass all of their operating mode tests. . .

Once I send another batch of the Red 512K boards to Arcadeshopper, they will be available for $20 each assembled, with the 74LS378 installed but without an EPROM. I should receive those boards sometime within the next week--and have a batch of 20-40 of them assembled by the end of this month.

I sell the bare Red 512K boards through the Arcadeshopper site (and will eventually add assembled boards). He is out at the moment, as almost the entire 160 boards from my first two orders are now in user hands (I have the last four assembled boards on-hand). I have 200 more on order, so they should be readily available soon. Small numbers of the Black 128K boards are on-hand as well (and these are the boards most folks have been using to make cartridges with new programming in them, as they are fully compatible with the 16K and 64K Guidry boards). There are also lots of UberGROM boards available (512K of ROM and the ability to put up to 128K of GROM code into the cartridge as well), also on the Arcadeshopper site. Soon there will be a 2048K ROM board available as well, but that one requires that you be able to program 27C800 and 27C160 chips for the sizes above 512K--which most of the consumer-grade programmers won't touch. I try to make sure that all four types are always readily available to the community, ordering enough to keep up with demand (although sometimes a large order at the tail end of a production run leaves me without much overlap).

Acadiel and I are probably the only two people who've done a lot on making new cartridge cases. I will have a set of his newest case design from Shapeways on Monday or Tuesday (they are in the mail to me now). If they come out OK, I can do a set of casting molds from them (when the weather is good, as that requires somewhat warm temperatures). I already have one set of molds for the regular TI cases. Casting them runs about $3-$4 a pop for the materials, which is actually a little more expensive than buying common carts and repurposing the shells. . .and each set takes 30-45 minutes to harden properly, so it is also a bit of a low-volume activity unless you have multiple pressure pots and molds.

I'm not sure that the owner of the one and only copy of that one can legally make a copy of the ROM file, based on the terms of his purchase. . .and no, I'm not the one who has it.

That is a beautiful trick, Rasmus! :)

Ohm, as a note on initial interest: when I put up the trial balloon for the Extender Boards, I only had commitments for seven or eight boards--but in the end, nearly 20 people bought one or more of them. That was for a real niche product. Any other board would probably sell 30 or more examples in the end--though I doubt any PEB board would sell more than 50 copies in the current market.

I haven't had time to experiment with it yet--I'm busy building a relatively large order of Red 512K boards at the moment. Once this batch goes out, I'm out of them (but only for a week or so, as I have more on order).

I have a TI keyboard with one of those ribbon extender cables on it--also in a wooden housing, that I got as part of a collection of TI things a number of years ago. . .

I'm not sure if Cyberdyne is using Forth processors in their hardware yet. . .but they are definitely into robotics. http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/

Nice! I'll have to burn one into a real cart for my boys to test on real iron. . .they've liked all of your games so far (and helped demo them at the Faire with Berry Harmsen).

Nice--the various Klingon-hunting games were always high on my favorites list. . .

You are correct. Lee. . .and it is a four-trace change on the 128K boards.

See my previous comment--this may be one that you can do!

Actually, thinking on this some--you would just have to put some BBS software on the PC side to allow the UDS-10 to have an endpoint to connect to. . .you might not have to write any new software at all--you'd just have to have instructions on how to set it up. That is something that you could do Ohm, as you are good at sussing out the ins and outs of existing packages to get them to work the way you want them to. Then you just have to identify the software to use at both ends and write a step-by-step manual for it.

That just requires more software skills than I have, Ohm. . .and those who do have sufficient skills to do that are already tied up on other projects of their own right now. Just because there isn't an immediate response does not mean an idea has crashed and burned--it is more appropriate to say that its time is yet to come. . .

I was always looking for a TI-99/8 to upgrade my TI-99/4A. I was also trying to find a FORTI card for my /4A (it used four TI sound chips to make some truly awe-inspiring sound). I never did find either one back then, but within the last 10 years I've found and bought both of them. . .much to the chagrin of my wife, who does not like computers all that much.

The Gamebase being on the Gameshelf is a recent development--part of the last update, IIRC.

The loader Gazoo uses makes the cartridge work like a ROM Disk. It grabs the appropriate files, tosses them into the 32K memory space, and starts them.