[Cartridge Shells]

Ooooooooh! Aussie hardware!

[FIAD's or DOAD's / .dsk images or .zip's - Your favorite here!]

I actually showed it in one of the videos taken at the Chicago Faire last year. It doesn't have a final label on it (it is a standard TI ptototype label). I also let the librarian read it out so that we'd have an available copy of the raw ROM/GROM dumps out in the community. And the UberGROM is perfect for this style of repro runs. It can be easily used to repro any cart TI did. One of my original reasons for doing the design was so that I could put some of the ultra-rare protos onto real iron cartridges (TI Calc, the Disney games, Lasso, Crossfire, Plant Genetics, etc.).

[GCC for the TI]

Thank you for the update!

[TI-99/4a Cartridge Failure Help - Won't Boot Up]

The diodes are probably a variety of the 1N914. You can get them at Radio Shack--but they won't be the glass type (which is OK).

[Simple & Useful Project - For your P-Box]

I have one of those RyteData boards. . .they are an interesting bit of hardware. Rave also produced a new PEB of their own--I think there are something like 100 or so of them out there. I have one of those as well.

[TI-99/4a Cartridge Failure Help - Won't Boot Up]

I'd make sure none of the diodes is shorted--and that the big cap in the middle is still good. The two smaller chips are GROM chips specific to the cart (part of the program is in them), and the big chip is the ROM. If there is a problem with either of the two small chips, you cannot get a replacement for them. You could burn a new chip of the ROM though. I'd put the most likely failure as one of the diodes or the capacitor though, as either of them will give the symptom you describe.

[USB - DE9 joystick adapters (TI compatibility?)]

I've got a different USB/Joystick adapter, but they are definitely nice things to have. . .

[TI 99 32k RAM card errors]

You might want to look on Mainbyte's pages, specifically here:

 

http://mainbyte.com/ti99/schematic/schematics.html

 

He has schematics for most of the regular TI cards, including the 32K card. . .

[Modding the RF Modulator]

For those of you mumbling about tubes--you have obviously not been introduced to Proton. Sven Dyroff had a TI-99/4A that was seriously damaged by a lightning strike. He was determined to resurrect it, using transistors and other discrete logic components to rebuild his beloved TI. He eventually had this nearly 3' by 2' board upon which all of Protons circuit cards (nice wire wrap thingies) were assembled and attached. He surrounded it with a cage made of some really stiff square-holed chicken wire (very small holes). Proton lived, and was an honored guest at several of the European TI Treffs. Here are some nice pictures of part of Proton, as seen from his keyboard. . .along with the GROM/GRAM/Bus Converter logic.

[Strips, Reference Cards, Manuals, Labels and more! (HQ)]

I think I have most of these manuals--along with most of the rest of the DataBioTics manuals. . .though not all are good enough to OCR. DBT sometimes shipped really poor copies of the manuals on regular paper when they ran out of the card stock ones. My original copy of Black Hole came with a paper cover page that was blank on the inside. . .I've gotten a better one in the intervening years (I bought the first one from Tenex back in the late 1980s).

[Cartridge Shells]

Or some good seashell noodles with tuna and a spicy mustard sauce. . .but I will try to get a few cartridge cases made before Chicago.

[Classic99 Updates]

Thank you, Tursi! This capability will come in very handy.

[Cartridge Shells]

And you've done so, Lee--that was a nice lunch!

[Burning EPROMS]

It really depends on what those LEDs put out--they might be enough, they might need a longer time to erase, or they might not work at all. Most UV boxes have pretty powerful lights inside of them.

[Burning EPROMS]

Sunlight usually takes a week or two. . .and I'm not sure you'll get good results with four LEDs either--it depends on their output level and the frequency they radiate at.

[Burning EPROMS]

It is always a very good idea to erase the chip before you try to program it, as you never know which bits on it happen to be set incorrectly (and there will always be some). You will need an UV light to do that--the more powerful it is, the less time you need. The little cheap Chinese ones take about 30 minutes, while the industrial strength one I have takes about 10 minutes. . .but there is a significant difference in price between them.

[Cartridge Shells]

I don't have a few of the third-party side-car devices and PEB boards (maybe a dozen or so diferent objects) and four of the TI-produced PEB boards and three TI Sidecars (one of which was only sold in Venezuela). I'm still looking for those, along with the dozen or so cartridges that I'm still missing. I'm missing originals of a lot of disks and tapes though (although I do have a serious collection of those too).

[Cartridge Shells]

There are already reasonable numbers of them out there--the original runs of the Supermodul put something in the vicinity of 170 of them into the community. I have one of each of the two variants.

[Cartridge Shells]

A new version of the Wiesbaden Supermodul--basically a GRAM Kracker in a cartridge case. . .and I have permission to resurrect the design from Sven Dyroff, the original developer.

[CF7+ or NanoPEB - which is better?]

256M is definitely enough, but note that you lose half of it, so you really only have 128M of available space (the TI uses 256 bit sectors, but the PC requires 512 bit sectors, so you lose half of the space to maintain dual compatibility).

[Cartridge Shells]

I really have to get the time to cast some cases though--it is getting to the point where there is a lot of demand for them. . .

[Cartridge Shells]

I've been mulling over doing a ROMOX-style case, as it allows me to use a larger cartridge board, which would be useful for one of the projects I've been pondering. . .

[need someone to make me a super cart :)]

They should be available for a while--I made 30 boards, and I've only used six of them so far. . .

[need someone to make me a super cart :)]

I put my switches in the middle of the label area, rotated sideways to keep from impacting the components on the board, but I like your solution as well--it makes it really hard to hit the wrong switch--and it lets you put a label on the cart! :) It does require a Widget or an extender cable for the cartridge port like that though--which is not a downside either, in my opinion.

 

Nice work--and I'm glad you like it!

 

I'll be bringing some of the bare boards for these with me to Chicago this year.

[TI cart labels]

Thanks, this is a very useful template!