kl99

Hi mzapf, how is the research going on? I was impressed by your efforts with Jens-Eike on the TI Treff in Birkenau 2 weeks ago. So please share a bit on your progress so far. Are you really sure you have all the DOCS existing? BR Klaus

Hi Erik, i am enjoying your blog updates and that you seem to have time for the challenge now

Very nice! Looking forward to read about your progress! I made a lot of promotion for your TMS99105 board on the TI-Meeting in Birkenau. The demoing of your board worked just fine. The info for this new project just a few days too late to be included in the various talks. Most were not aware of your sidecar-project for the TI-99. From a gut feeling this is the one that most TI Users look forward to. With this third project in the making the confusion will be even bigger, haha I guess all projects will benefit from the others, if you fall into timing issues in one project, the fix can be incoporated into the other projects as well to make the stuff more precise to the actual hardware behavior. Have you thought about code sharing across the projects yet?

hm. the beige ones did came at least at one point in packages by two: http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=2266&lang=en

Wow, what are the language options when you run the cartridge?

I tried twice to capture the YUV/RGB output from the European PAL 99/4A video. I have a Pixelmagic PDI Deluxe Video capture card which should do component video capture, but so far no luck of a stable colored picture. I guess it requires some sync signal in addition. The software support for it is crap and from the very old windows days.

Afaik the compatibility is only established, if the VCR can be controlled via a port. So the commands for STOP/PLAY/PAUSE/FORWARD/REWIND can be triggered from external. Every company had its own standard for such a port, therefore you required to match their standard by getting the right cable/box. Since such a port increases production costs, only a few models are equipped with it. I imagine the TI Video Controller as an early version of such stand alone devices: http://www.oldvcr.tv/collection/images/98-NV-A500.jpg However since it's programmable, it's more powerful from that side. On the other side I guess a stand alone device has the advantage of nicer way to input. My PEB Video Controller Card doesn't have any serial numbers. It's propably from the Prototype Labs from TI. http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=1223&lang=en http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=2447&lang=en

I finally had time to do some more checks of not yet organized stuff. I discovered some Documents that fit here I would say: Grom Technical Document (unknown Source) Grom Technical Document.zip TI-Gram Card Schematics TI-Gram Card.zip Rom-Module Guide (TI internal document, released to TI-GG Usergroup) Rom-Module Guide TI-Internal - Part1of2.zip Rom-Module Guide TI-Internal - Part2of2.zip Feel free to postprocess them and add them to your collections/websites/lists/projects...

Hi Ksarul, I don't have the schmematics but the actual card. Can it be used to help out removing uncertainty? http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=1223&lang=en

Keep in mind: We are talking here an unreleased computer (TI-99/8) depending on using unreleased hardware (Armadillo Bus interface for the 99/8 to the PEB or the Hex-Bus Disk Drive Controller) running unreleased software (P-System for the 99/8). You can hardly except Out-of-the-Box Functionality like for End-User Products, and I am talking about actually using the real TI-99/8 here. If you ask for proper emulation of all that, it requires a lot of undocumented things to be properly analyzed and later emulated and interacting with each other without any issues. If it would be easy, it would probably have been done by others before. MAME is the only emulator that runs the TI-99/8. There is no single emulator that emulates the Hex-Bus. The real PEB as such is not compatible with the 99/8, therefore the emulated PEB fails when it comes to Disk Access. The Memory Map is completely different compared to the 99/4(A), therefore the DSR fails.

I might have bought a P-Code bootdisk for the 99/8. I am not sure though. I only tried to backup some of those 99/8/pascal development disks, but all of them were appearing as not readable. Either formatted for the myarc disk controller only or some other way.

Many thanks for allowing me to test this. I hope to get it to work and I am able to demo it in Birkenau in April, unless you show up there yourself Michael Becker (SNUG) mentioned incompatiblities between TMS99105 and the TMS9900 Cpu here: http://snug.blogdrive.eu/snug/sgcpu/sgcpu_e.pdf And the preferal of the TI-99/5 rom/groms if they would have opted for the TMS9995 as CPU for the SGCPU card instead. Is the TMS9995 more close to the TMS99105 than to the TMS9900? We are lucky to have the TI-99/5 rom/groms dumped a few months ago. Could this be the better operating system for this unit? BR Klaus

This is another revolution! This looks like the multi-cartridge we have all waited for! Congrats to this milestone. It will be a pleasure to share the news tonight on the TI-99 Austrian group meeting. Can you share a bit the history til this prototype stage? Was there a lot of private communication going on, or did you work on this all on your own? How is the compatibility with QI (v2.2) consoles? Feature wise: - keep the hole in the final pcb design to allow easy 3d shell production - possibility to use all 8 groms from the board, when the 3 groms from the mainboard are removed (jumper?) here are some more Cartridges that might use write-enable: - Austrian Gram Modul (from the 80s) - Super Space I & II - XB III+ (includes 32K of banked ram) - GramKracker - Super Cart (E/A grom with 8K ram) - Hamburg Modul (from the 80s)

If you need the source code of the communication for Web99, contact me. It might not be ready for a public release, but I can sure share it in case someone is interested. Another plan was to replace the whole Pc side (Web99) by some mobile device or some app running on a smartphone. There are Serial to MicroUsb Adapters to get a cable connection, and then there are Serial2Bluetooth things were one could play around even with wireless communication. If I would only have more spare time...

As far as I know Web99 was the first tool to make use of the OLD RS232 option with running Windows on the one side and a real TI on the other side. VDM99 from Nouspikel was the first tool to use OLD PIO. Sadly there is a limit from the TI RS232 card to only have 9600 baudrate max through TI Basic. My plan for Web99 was to place a custom DSR into a cartridge like Terminal Emulator II does it for the Speech Synthesizer.

U-matic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-matic

there is an TI video tape (u-matic) on ebay now. I am bidding on it to digitize (preserve) and release it to the community. http://www.ebay.com/itm/EARLY-TEXAS-INSTRUMENTS-HISTORY-3-4-U-Matic-Fuji-VideoCassette-Tape-TI-/282305090203?hash=item41bab1d29b:g:kfkAAOSwo4pYYo1Z

Teasering you on an upcoming document about European TI-99 Products and demystifying the european product number codes. european-product-numbers.pdf

wow! "look at the size of that thing!"

Your answers make me very happy already. Again, in 2001 i already dreamed about virtualizing the PEB: https://de.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/texasinstruments/conversations/messages/51 And now finally it's happening. Could the DSR for the "virtual" devices be done in a way that it is actual 9900 assembler code? Or is it solely controlled via FPGA? I wonder how flexible it would be if the DSR rom/ram is stored and read in from SD Card during power up. Do you plan to have people store the Cartridges or Disks or both on the SD card?

Hi speccery Please help us understand and confirm these 'hardware newbie' assumptions: The PCB design you already made is TMS99105 CPU based. It does not require nor use a TI-99/4A console. No connection to real hardware like PEB is done. It connects to a FPGA Development Board which allows VGA/Sound/Keyboard output/input. With that FPGA Development Board it acts as a "high-speed TI-99 clone machine". The PCB design you now want to specify is without a TMS CPU, because the TI-99/4A console is being used as main unit here. This will be a sidecar peripheral and eliminate the need of some real hardware add-ons like Ram Expansion, SAMS, Disk Controller. The FPGA in this board interacts with the TMS9900 on the console, with all waitstate dependencies of the original mainboard, because the TI-99 console as such is not changed. You are able to even simulate the existance of any Cartridge (any Rom/Grom content) with the Cartridge Port being empty. The Console Rom/Grom is still being used and can not be changed/overridden or taken out. The board is not compatible with TI-99/4A QI consoles because those lack some Grom lines on the side bus. The board will work with the 99/4 and the 99/4A, but not with the 50pin bus of the 99/8. The F18A can be used as VDP on the console. The computer uses the TI-99 console keyboard as input, joysticks connected to the TI-99 console as input. The computer uses the TI-99 console video output as there is no Video Out/Sound out on the board. There is no plan to have a serial/parallel port. There is no plan to have an Hex-Bus port. The Speech Synthesizer has to be connected to the Sidecar before this device (you will have one of those soon). You may achieve to pass trough the edge connector to connect compatible side cars or the PEB afterwards. The PCB does not require a FPGA development board because the FPGA is on the PCB. It requires an external power supply.

I now checked. Already have that technical doc, missing one of the others. Thanks,

I finally discovered the green manual for the Impact printer, it comes with the printer. It's the one you can see here as well: http://www.schmeling-ol.de/ti99/manuals/ti99/ti99_book_printer1.jpg http://www.schmeling-ol.de/ti99/manuals/ti99/ti99_book_printer2.jpg

Be careful when handling the device. The back should not have direct contact with the metal surface of the console or speech unit because you can have a shortcut. The power connector can break off quite easily, so never put any pressure on the cable. Ensure to not connect/disconnect the serial port while the thing is powered. Other than that it is a wonderful device, that allows us to have a "full" TI setup on our monthly meetings without having to move a PEB around each time.

Hm. I could try to write a parser to store the content and attachments of all threads. I wanted to do that anyway with yahoogroups/comp.sys.ti/atariage to be able to integrate all that data into Web99 to be able to search for full text or files smoothly. It's all on the list, but the number of vacation days is quite low currently as next year is my honeymoon. First thing on my list is still scanning the missing European manuals for Mike Wright's The Cyc. I promised those til christmas.