kl99

It looks like I did some mistake when using the CALL PEEK command. The 99/2 Manual says to use values up to 65535. But I guess they must be signed negative instead, if greater than 32767. So peeking >E000 would be? Decimal: 57344 CALL PEEK(57344-65536,A) ? Will try again tomorrow (Europe Time).

@mizapf: the snapshot looks a lot like you are not taking the "blank" end-of-line character into consideration. this is the sign for the video controller to release the bus til the end of that row.

>0000 - >1FFF System Rom (Eprom 1) >2000 - >3FFF System Rom (Eprom 2) >4000 - >5FFF System Rom (Eprom 3) >6000 - >7FFF contains 'FF' (as expected) >8000 - >86FF contains 'FF' ... >9000 - >90FF contains 'FF' ... >A000 - >A0FF contains 'FF' ... >B000 - >B0FF contains 'FF' ... >C000 - >C0FF contains 'FF' ... >D000 - >D0FF contains 'FF' ... >E000 - >EFFF contains 'FF' (should be RAM) ...

at this title screen there is a keyboard check as far as i know. maybe that is causing for trouble? ciro gets the screen with internal error because of this. playing in my 99/2 right now, maybe i can find out more what is in the memory.

This is such a feature rich product. I use Pc99 all the time whenever I transfer disks from TI to the Pc or the other way. It only requires a standard RS232 interface. No modifications to the RS232 are required in contrast to what others wrote! I use USB on Pc side. I admit, I aquired Pc99 Light because I wanted to get the Cyc. And the deal was totally worth it. The Cyc contains more than 70.000 pdf pages (searchable text, not a scan or bad OCR), in 1641 pdf files. It includes plenty of internal TI documents you won't find on whtech or other pages. It includes 3339 disk images. The Cyc main document is an Index, in 2015 this was 1860 pages large! This is the root of every search you are doing, you want to know about who Jeff White is and what he did? Go to the Index. You will get a short bio and all public references. You want to know about the Cortex? Go to the Index. It will link you to all public references. And you have those references in full text on your Cyc. The GEnie File List (another pdf) alone is 4046 pages large. You get all PHM, PHD, PHT manuals with all cartridge binaries and disk images. You get the Control Data Console Files, the v2.2, the 99/4, the 99/4a and the OPA SOB console. You get so many technical documentation, not just from TI but from Myarc, Mechatronic, MillerGraphics, Corcomp... You get the Cartridge Collectors Guide (302 pages) from Bill Gaskill, you get a 122 pages edition with photos of his TImeline. You get 43 complete books in full text (excluding technical data books here) and a 476 pages book list. You get all magazines with their disks (if there were), updated with fixes and cross referenced. You get 214 pdfs from Usergroups (mostly Newsletters), some of those files include the whole newsletter archive of a usergroup. You have a licensed edition of all Disks/Modules/Roms with the suite. Will include some feedback on the Pc99w once I have it. Regarding Pc99 Dos Feature Set: You can download the manual for Pc99 Dos (former Pc99 Stage6), it includes a Feature list for sure: http://cadd99.com/pc99.pdf

I wanted to write to you anyhow regarding this! It seems this is one of the late versions of the prototypes. The 99/2 from Fabrice is containing less Rom (not yet dumped afaik). Somewhere during the development phase the 99/2 team decided to upgrade the space for the Rom. The last eprom (hidden by bank switching) is not yet dumped. I was a bit busy with keeping my promises to the man who donated the 99/2 to me, to scan the European manuals he is missing in the Cyc. So far I did go through my collection (after Copenhagen/Chicago 2016) and updated my catalog on the site: http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=1369&lang=en Further one of our birds keeps requiring us to go to the doctor with her a lot. So any help that shortens my time to figure out how to enable the hidden bank would be welcome. Here is some motherboard/internal photos: http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=3353&lang=en I am planning to take the 99/2 to Birkenau in April. Jens-Eike will be providing a display.

This hobby is so much fun. Long lives this community, long lives the TI-99.

Did you ever find the XB-Sourcecode again that was lost in a harddisk crash?

Hi HackMac, thanks for the tip. I fear your software is a Mac only release, right?

here are my disassembly specs/hints that you can paste when opening the disassembler in TiImageTool data(1C00,1FFF),data(1A34,1BFF),text(046A,0481),text(0483,0494),text(0497,04AC),text(04B0,04CB),text(04D1,04E9),text(04EB,04EF),text(04F2,050A),text(00D6,00EF),text(03A8,03B9),data(0AE6,0AE6),text(0AE7,0AF6),data(1826,1827),text(1828,1837),text(03BA,03C9),text(0DAA,0DB3),text(0DB8,0DBE) use FileOffset: 0000 StartAddress: 0000 Length:1fff I don't know how to chain ROM0 to ROM1 and ROM2 to see a combined view. Maybe Michael Zapf can help us here?

Character Definitions start at >1C00 and go up to >1FFF. It includes small caps letters as the 99/4a. The very last character "1C3E6B7F633E1436" is some leavebehind message of the engineers it seems. You can see that the characters before Ascii 32 (space) are used for Block Art Drawings.

You can use the disassembler function (right click) of TiImageTool to disassemble any Assembler in those to the 9900 Source Code. A Hex Editor shows raw Text (Ascii Values) to identify Data parts. There might be some Basic Offset of >60 for more 'hidden' Text like in the 99/4a roms. This was done to not leave empty memory spots in VDP memory. Is there any tool, that "draws" a Binary to the screen? like what CALL CHAR is doing with a hex-input. we could detect pattern definitions with this.

http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=3353&lang=en

Okay. Fixed Files are in this post. Can't update the former post for some reason. Files: ROM0 = 8KByte, 0000-1FFF ROM1 = 8KByte, 2000-3FFF ROM2 = 8KByte, 4000-5FFF Disk Image with the 3 Files in correct TI format, Program, 33 Sectors: 99-2-DUMPS.dsk Binary Files for the Pc: ti-99-2-rom-dumps-files.zip It seems there is one Eprom not dumped yet. I need to enable some bank switching for that. Have fun. P.S: You can use the disassembler function (right click) of TiImageTool to disassemble any Assembler in those to the 9900 Source Code.

Files Description: A.....0 to 2047 0000-07FF A1....2048 to 4095 0800-0FFF A2....4096 to 6143 1000-17FF A3....6144 to 8191 6144-1FFF B0....8192 to 10239 2000-27FF B1....10240 to 12287 2800-2FFF C0....12288 to 16383 3000-3FFF D0....16384 to 20479 4000-4FFF D1....20480 to 24575 5000-5FFF I figured out that the Rom Size was upgraded to 32K somewhere during the development phase, so therefore I dumped some more than only the lower 12K. However I don't know yet what is stored there. Could be Ram as well. We will see.... Filetype is DIS/FIX 32 because of the record length of 32 every 32th byte is an additional "32". i can fix that.... ti-99-2-rom-dumps-files.zip 99-2-DUMPS.dsk

Hm. I might have only dumped a part of the System Rom. During development they decided to upgrade to 32KByte ROM. Anyway, will release what I have tonight.

Hi, I got a TI-99/2 machine donated by Mike Wright. This is the Website Information I have setup so far Rom Dumping: http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=3376&lang=en General Overview (see below for 99/2 subpages) http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=3091&lang=en The Rom Dumping Page links to 3 youtube videos from yesterday/today. As soon as I get home again, I can transfer the disk over to my laptop to release the Rom. I would be happy on any 99/2 related talk

fantastic. TMS99105 Cpu in action. I am amazed about your skills Erik! Btw: The 99/2 TI Basic is running without Grom Chips, without a GPL Interpreter. I got a TI-99/2 new and currently working on a Rom Dump. Porting the TI Basic over to the TI-99/4a would be a fantastic speed gain, even for our TMS9900s.

Amazing job Erik! Your progress speed makes the impression you work on it day and night. Did you use an US console or an Europe console for your benchmark? Did I get it correct, that the TMS99105 Cpu is the only real device left? All other "original" parts got replaced by FPGA and FPGA-Development-Board parts? Regarding the other(!) project: I find it spectacular that you got the communication of your device with a real TI-99 console via the expansion port working. In Kopenhagen we have wondered which modifications were done to the console internally in order for it to work? Again congratulations on this milestone! Klaus

already awake and eager to start the event i love my TI-99 computer

Berry Harmsen and me already arrived in Evanston. So far we have an excellent time with Hal Shanafield and his wife. On Friday is the get together for dinner and drinks around 6:00 PM at Nevin's Pub across Sherman Street from the Holiday Inn (was Best Western). Thank you Hal to have this opportunity to meet and have fun with the TI every year. It is one thing to share thoughts, ideas and passion over the net, but it is a whole another level if you are able to meet those people in person. At the Faire I will be doing a demo of stuff I was working on the past year. The Faire will be broadcasted here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chicagotiusersgroups-show0 See you there, Klaus

this is such impressive stuff. be assured that many people would benefit from the fruits of such a project. I hope you enjoy your retro challenge. all the best!

I will be there.

Hi Sinphaltimus! There really have been multiple devices giving you the ability to load data into Ram chips on some board which then acts to the TI like a Rom cartridge or a Grom cartridge, or even a Rom System Bios or Grom System Bios. The pity is that those devices are no longer produced and a whole group of people that has not been in the scene sind the 80s is left out without devices like the HSGPL PEB Card, the Gram-Kracker or Gramulator, SuperModul,... Some even used batteries, so you could turn the device off and still have the same data into your Device for the next TI session. We are using Ram chips on boards that can be used to simulate a Disk Controller and Drives to allow you to save/load programs without any wait states. Those cards are called Ramdisk and go inside the PEB. Again the same situation, no productions since the early 90s. The FlashRom99 in fact uses a Ram chip that gets loaded with the selected program from the screen in the moment you select the program. So on the next reboot the cartridge memory contains that exact program, nothing else. Until you hit the reset button on the FlashRom99, then the menu is loaded into the Ram chip to show up. The Cartridge Memory is meant to run a cartridge program. You can not per se use that memory area as storage drive like "SAVE CRD1", even if you have a Ram chip connected. That would require a complete virtual device created and made transparent towards the TI Operating System. You can store a program (machine code) in the cartridge memory, or data. But reusing that data requires some sort of loader that knows that it shall search for that data at the cartridge memory and not in the Expansion memory. The goal of FlashRom99 was never to have a SD-Card as Storage Device for the TI, but to be able to simulate (load/run) any cartridge that exists. For me it does an awesome job on this goal already by simulating all Rom cartridge that fit within the 32K limit. There are only a few homebrew cartridges that use 64k. The next level shall be getting Grom cartridges running, which requires a new approach and a new board and a new menu software. If you want to use a Flash Card as Storage Device for the TI, go with the CF7+ or the NanoPeb, or if you want it in the PEB, go ahead with solutions that replace a single Disk Drive by a FlashCard. Somehow you are right, the name is misleading a bit. More correct would be Flash-EEPROM-99. Since it tries to simulate a Rom Device the name fits is less misleading than FlashRam99, but FlashCartridge99 would be fitting the product goals best. BR Klaus

Well, it runs on Windows Server 2012 here in the office. What do you get in Windows 7 instead of the program starting? Normally you get an error message or some kind of hint what is wrong. The required dll files are within the program release. Please ensure that you not only click on the exe within the opened zip but really unzip the whole program before opening the exe file within the extracted folder. Could it be that you have to run the program "as Administrator"? Since it tries to access the root of Drive C:\ by Default, or to be more precise C:\PC99 which is within the protected area of Windows by default. I suggest to run it with full permissions (as Admin). And the .ini file is there to define the location of Pc99 and the DiskImage Paths. "[PC99 Diskpath] DSKpath=c:\pc99\dsk\ [PC99 Execute] PC99exe=c:\pc99\pc99.exe" BR Klaus