kl99

Ok Bob. I got you wrong I thought with Pc99Disk you mean the TI formatted Disk with the Name Pc99 that was part of the Pc99 Emulator package. You can find the program here: http://cadd99.com/pc99disk.zip Have fun, Klaus

I have it, but it's under copyright restrictions. I suggest you to contact Mike Wright. Further if I remember correct there is some protection that prevents the disk files index from being read the default way (DMII). BR Klaus

@Ciro: please reserve me one of the european ones. Klaus

Your files are from Retroclouds Edition which is a remake of the original. This IS the never released Parker Brothers Protoype version from 1983. It was never released in cartridge format because of the Home Computer crash. No dump was known to be available til your post yesterday afaik. One prototype card was known to be in somebody hands. Many thanks for sharing this piece of programming art! Maybe it was shared with Texas Instruments during development and it ended up on a Grom Simulator Disk like that. Whoever to thank you, THANK YOU!

Me as well dream often that I am in the past in the 80s and am able to shop with the current bank account. Although with being born in 1980 I don't have a single memory on seeing TI-99 stuff in a shop. I remember only seeing the C64 (or C128) on its final days of sale. Our fathers ordered the Navarone expander and some TI cartridges for us from some sent-away-only-shop in Germany who had an ad in some german TI magazine. That was the only time we ever got some new stuff bought by our father for the TI. The other times have been, when others moved on to another computer and gave us their TI stuff, that gave us the first PEB, a lot of new cartridges, tons of magazines and manuals and Disk Drives. I totally missed the spot where the TI and its accessories were sold in real shops. But the other members from the Usergroup tell me sometimes about that time. See some photos of me and my brother with our TI: http://www.ti99.eu/?page_id=1684&lang=en

Cadd Electronics (Mike Wright Company) was the company who produced and sold the Gramulator. ftp://ftp.whtech.com/datasheets%20and%20manuals/Hardware/CaDD/gramulator%20manual.pdf Edit: "CaDD was started by Mark van Coppenolle, who also designed and built The Gramulator. Some years back Mark wanted to be out of the TI business, and sold all rights to The Gramulator and remaining parts to Tex-Comp." That info is directly from Mike Wright. Never the less I highly recommend you to contact Mike Wright on this. Klaus

Mike Wright is very active still and afaik he is planning to attend CTIUG 2016. Don't hesitate to try asking. Oh my, Craig Miller passed away. Sorry to hear that. He was a knowledgeable man.

For me collecting TI-99 stuff has multiple reasons. - Preservation efforts for European TI stuff, TI internal Documentation - Hardware, mostly to be able to use it with my system - to not be in the situation to not have it around when its needed - Backup units for favourite Hardware - Nostalgia (I wanted to get the same setup as in the 80s, probably I actually wanted the same feeling as in the 80s) - started to collect Cartridges when the modern multi-ones were not around yet, now I don't want to stop it. Sometimes I get stuff for free, sometimes I find a low price opportunity, sometimes I decide to byte in the apple (gram kracker, mbx, 99/8 were all pricy). With the 99/8 i knew before I would want to explore that computer. In order to do it not only in emulation (thx to ciro and mzapf), I needed the real thing. So I bought the one that was sold in December 2015. The software can be coming from anywhere and is easily replacable. With the basic 99/8 investment I got into the mode of wanting to do as much with it as possible to not be in the situation of not having the proper accessory hardware. So I bought the Hex-Bus hardware, I think two pieces of each to have a backup unit Of course it can still happen that the special modded Cpu dies or the Keyboard starts failing or some custom chip dies, but 2008$ is a little much for an incomplete set of replacement parts. The 99/8 documentation and software became much more interesting now as an owner. As there is hardly any official software, so what was released, should be tried to shared across the community. As far as I know the Gram Kracker is the only Gram Device showing up from time to time on ebay. So if you want a Gram Device for your computer and don't have one yet, you will probably fight with others in the same situation. For me the Gram Kracker fascination came from being able to change parts of the operating system Grom0-2. I paid around 400$ for mine. For my Mbx around 300$. It seems we can create almost any formerly released original Cartridge now, but I am sure this won't change the value of the original ones. It happened with other consoles who got their flash/universal module way back and the prices for the original ones are going higher than ever, look at the Nintendo NES 8-bit cartridges who can be replaced by one PowerPak Flash-cart. I would like to welcome the a***0 guy. With combining the two 99/8 he got an almost fully working unit and with buying off the 99/8 docs he showed interest in the machine.

that didn't work out well. it did go to the same guy who bought the last two 99/8 computers. i just bought these 99/8 documents for buy it now: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TI-99-8-p-system-manuals-editor-filer-compiler-utilities-TI-99-4A-TI99-8-/131855066952?

Is anyone from here having the current bid on this 99/8 p-system document? http://www.ebay.com/itm/TI-99-8-p-system-reference-manual-rough-draft-10-5-83-TI-99-4A-TI99-8-/222152906435?hash=item33b95856c3:g:vYwAAOSwnNBXYB2l If yes, will there be preservation of the doc?

It went to the same ebay user that bought the working 99/8 in early june witht the buy it now option for ~3800 usd.

For those interested: this is the current auto-generated(!) output file. shaxml.xml The meta data you see \sha1\meta\names is extracted from within the rpk files. That meta data will be audited later once all files were auto-mapped to each other. Same is true once there is only one entry left for each cartridge. Then it only takes a fresh dump on a real TI from the original module to see if the dump is fine. If there are dumps with actual different content for the same cartridges, it will take a fresh dump from the original module as well to audit the correct one as such. Sometimes the content really seems different. It's work in progress. For now I let the tool analyze everything from these location: 1. ftp.whtech.com\Cartridges\MAME\*.* 2. Cyc\pc99\*.* The Pc99 directory contains quite a few images that can not be mapped to any image within the MAME Folder. Search for <name id="" in the xml file to get to the area where a file could not be mapped to a rpk file. But in that Pc99 Directory are not only cartridge images but dsr, speech and system roms, so those non-cartridges would have to wait anyway for phase 2. I am not checking yet Gram Files within Disk Images, as I started this as an external tool. As soon as this feature gets integrated into Web99, it will be easy to identify a ti-file within a Disk as Gram File and identify the cartridge of it based on the hashes. - this shall help to reduce the number of unknown ti-files on your disks/disk images - this shall help to create a reference library for all modules with the option to export the library in any desired format (gram kracker, eprom, rpk, zip, bin) with any desired naming type (be it phm3xxx or be it a 8-char module title, a 10-char module title, ...). - this shall help you to actually use your gram devices on your real ti, because you will have whole library of modules, sorted and in your desired format - this shall help you to use your favorite emulator with the whole library of modules, sorted and in the required format already - the final hash list can be used by any ti-tool for the pc to identify a gram file within a disk-image to be a certain cartridge, this is not just for Web99

Example of different formats for the same cartridge: - bin files spread across directories - files within zip Library across directories - zip files within zip Library across directories - files within rpk Library across directories - grm files spread across directories - dsk files (V9T9/PC99) containing PROGRAM Files which are GRAM/RAM files - single TI Files of type PROGRAM which are GRAM/RAM files across directories Then there are differences like: - 6 byte header included or not - Grom header included or not - all Rom banks in one file or each Rom bank has its own file - all Grom banks in one file or each Grom bank in its own file with size of 6k or 8k - Grom bank extended to 8k with data or not Might sound complicated but it will be all handled by the tool.

Many thanks for the replies. And for your time to write the answer. cfg.exe (Configuration Tool for Pc99) interpretes the Bank byte as such: >20 means MiniMemR0 >29 means Rom 2 (TI-Calc) >2A means Rom 3 (TI-Calc) For phm3055.grm (Editor Assembler) the value for the Bank >05 (Grom4) doesn't seem to match the Grom Bank defined in the AA header (Grom3). At least all within the PHM Folder are handled now by the tool. Will test all other .grm files (third party) tonight. The basic idea is to get the files into comparable pieces and compare their sha-1 hashes. The sha-1 hash is already contained within the rpk files, used by Mess. Rpk files even contain Meta Data which can be checked once to be valid. Then you can ensure that a file having a certain hash is PHM3055, was released in year 1982, publisher was Texas Instruments. You can map a certain cartridge label to it, a certain manual or manual cover to it and stuff like that. Bad dumps can be marked as such. The tricky part is to get the files into comparable pieces, meaning identify a header to be a header and not part of the dump. But I am far already with that.

Hi Guys! I try to get a possibility to convert any Gram Kracker Dump File and reuse it for other Gram Devices or resuse it as cartridge within any emulator or resuse it for burning eproms. Basically I want any format to be convertable to any other format. For this I started developing a new tool. Now I got stuck with a few of the .grm Files that seem to be cartridge image files created with the Gramulator and meant to be running with Pc99 Emulator. Their 6 byte header doesn't seem to fit the specifications I read about so far. I don't mean the Grom Header starting with "AA ..." that is the first byte from the Grom Memory content, I mean the 6 byte pre header that is added up front by most Gram Devices in order to properly know where to place the various files in its ram chips. Example: phm3058.grm, Mini Memory "FF 20 20 00 60 00 AA 00 ..." The problematic byte is the second (Byte 1) which defines the Bank (Destination Indicator). According to GramKracker Specs legal values are: >01->08 for Grom0-Grom7 >09 or >0A for Rom0 or Rom1 >00 or >FF for Memory Expansion Gramulator Specs extended the former list of legal values to support MBX Carts with: >0B for MBX Ram Bank 0 >0C for MBX Ram Bank 1 >0D for MBX Ram Bank 2 >0E for MBX Ram Bank 3 So what does the value >20 for the Bank Byte mean? I also know about a tool from Cadd called "Universal Gram File Converter". Anybody has the manual or the program? Klaus

I also got curious based on the similarities in Basic and Operating System. And the board is full of TI chips, from top to bottom. Because of that I got the US version and the Japanese version, would be interested in the UK version as well.

TM990/100(MB?) for a very cheap price. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Texas-Instruments-2490192000-Assembly-Board-/131752182436

the photos from that peb look funny, handling the peb like a tower.

The 99/8 sold for buy now for 3699 usd. Anyone knows who bought it?

Very cool. Thx for all the work. I was playing around with cartridge/system dumps myself the last two days to read out the token table and the subprogram table of all of them. Do you know why Pc99 names the invidivual Grom files like phm30261-phm30265 when their order in memory is actually reserved? phm30265 goes G6000-G77FF, phm 30264 goes G8000-G97FF,...

I just sent a mail to the Austrian Users to organize a collected order. Will give you another mail once everybody made up his mind. BR Klaus

I want one with the TI logo. What is the price and what do I need to do? Paypal? greetings, Klaus (Vienna, Austria)

The Software Development System Programmer's Guide 1979-11-06 (Reduced).pdf contains a guide how to make a Basic program run from GROM space. This is such a helpful document to achieve the goals i referred to in this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/246757-decoding-basic-source-code-from-cartridge-binaries/ Web99 can already do the opposite with decoding such a created program. Thanks again Ksarul!

nice to hear you move closer towards accurate emulation BR Klaus

"Lobeshymnen aus Wien!", Thank you very much for your effort in preserving these. Already reading in...