How about a Debugger tutorial?

[How about a Debugger tutorial?]

Is there a way to see the VDP ram and registers in M.E.S.S. in addition to the CPU?
I read something about that in the release notes.

I also highly vote for debugging tutorials. Will come up with something if nobody wants to start off.

[Internet "Cloud Drive" for the TI]

I am working on some solution for proposed scenario. Not exactly a cloud drive but a sort of gateway to anything, be it internet or some network or some storage or searchable index.

Currently reading a lot on how to accomplish that the best way. It might be best to implement a DSR for this virtual "device" on a cartridge in its grom section.

Compare it with this:

With its DSR for the "SPEECH" device the Terminal Emulator II cartridge allowed us todo much more with the Speech Synthesizer.

I wanna do the same with an alternate DSR for the RS232 Card stored on my gpl/grom cartridge.

[RAM Errors using TI Diagnostics on Extended Basic V2.7]

I have the EB27 cartridge as well and run the tests with a real PEB with standard 32K TI expansion.

I was not able to get such results nor find out what kind of test results we actually see here.

 

Which test have you executed?

) MAIN MENU: 3 RAM TEST
- 1 FOR CHECKER BOARD TEST

- 2 TO TEST WITH ADDRESS

- 3 TO INPUT TEST PATTERN

 

) MAIN MENU: 9 MAINTENANCE
- 5 VDP RAM

[Halt & Catch Fire. TI to feature in new series!]

Hm, if they do just one episode that plays on some 80's CES or similar thing, and they show some TI exhibition stand, then they would not need the stuff for 6 months, right?

[TI Related -- Ebay / Heads Up Notice]

I like this broschure, must be one of the first for 990/9900 series:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151560434629

[Remember These?]

To my sadness I was too young when TI stuff was still in stores, I was born in 1980.

In addition the whole TI Home Computer topic was not that big in Austria.

My father bought the TI 99/4a unit in 1983, wise decision if you ask me

 

The first thing I remember in terms of seeing electronics in stores was the Nintendo M82 unit to demo the NES games and some game & watch tricotronics inside the glas table.

[Extended Basic v2.7 Suite Cartridge]

Any possibilities to use TRACE with a Printer with XB v2.7?
Super Extended Basic has the File #123 for this case:

OPEN #123:"PIO"

or
OPEN #123:"RS232"

[xdt99: New TI 99 cross-development tools available]

thx for these tools, very appreciated. I like your blinking avatar.

[Extended Basic v2.7 Suite Cartridge]

Try pressing and holding SHIFT and ENTER when your system boots. You should get the traditional TI titlle screen. Press any key and the XB2.7 cartridge should appear as a menu option.

 

A late Thank you very much for this Tip. It works flawlessly like that. BOOT / MENU are skipped and the XB-2.7 cartridge menu appears and everything starts with that! Yippeh!

 

I will also give the non-autostart Image a try once I got a programmer.

[CorComp RS232 card killed my PEB! Help!]

Sorry to head that it didn't work.

 

Here is a guide from Tursi to use a standard ATX power supply:

http://www.harmlesslion.com/text/atx_peb.htm

Maybe you have luck and get a spare PEB power supplies from here:

http://www.cuerie.com/ads/ti-blow-out-ii.pdf

http://www.ehrich.com/ti2.html

[How to mount 2 Half Height Drives in a PEB WITHOUT DRILLING]

The stuff I ordered came this week, so ordering at HelloCables lead to getting mails and a package from IEC.

I just used your guide and the material to install 2 disk drives without any drilling. Thx again.

[Are TI Atarisoft games really "all that" (and a bag of chips)?]

I guess the rush to get a game out to meet business deadlines has lead and still leads to a lot of compromises if you program for commercial reasons.

In addition all cartridges extensions in terms of additional rom/grom/ram/battery to allow additional features meant increasing production costs.

 

If you don't program for profit, you can invest endless time on trying out unusual paths to tighten up code, squeeze out more of the same hardware, figure out all you can on undocumented hardware features. When running a business you can not do that.

 

As being a programmer in my job myself, my efforts are sometimes cut from business to meet deadlines. And then you have to implement a not-so-perfect/not-so-generic/not-so-thoughtthrough/dirty/ugly solution instead of the desired ideal one which costs more ressources to implement. Even if you show that it's the better long term solution and safes time/costs in maintainance/future adaptions, the initial business deadlines to launch a new feature are often the killing arguments to all this efforts.

 

So I agree in that the hardware can do more than what was released, but then this is true for all home computers/consoles because showed compromises are part of commercial programming.

 

My favourites from Atari are Donkey Kong and Shamus.

[CorComp RS232 card killed my PEB! Help!]

sorry to hear about your issue. I thought on bidding on this card myself.

There is also interesting notes on PEB/fuse/transformer here:

http://www.nouspikel.com/ti99/pesurg.htm

[16" Fire Hose Extension]

mine should arrive any day. will use it for daily work as well.

[Replacing the noisy fan in the PEB]

standard 8cm fan, 12V.

I chose this model because it was on stock in the conrad shop I went:

http://www.blacknoise.com/site/de/produkte/noiseblocker-it-luefter/nb-blacksilentfan-series/80x80x25mm.php#tab5

[Quick tutorial on cartridge PCBs needed]

Ksarul, can you share the good Sources for the 27C160 chips?

Is your programmer an all in one solution meaning can it program all the chips necessary to produce all kinds of TI cartridges? Can you share the model?

Thx, kl99

[Jacques Groslouis]

nice

[Replacing the noisy fan in the PEB]

This is how I have isolated the wires that did go to the original 110V fan, the blue isolation tape was done 3 times just to be sure.

 

 

Here is the fan. I didn't reuse the nuts from the original fan because my smallest wrench was size 6 and that was slightly too wide. Will try to get better tools next time.

Maybe its an interesting note that the "screws" that hold the nuts are fixed on the PEB, you can not replace them by other stuff (plastic ones or whatever comes with your fan).

 

 

 

My fan came with a 3 pin Molex connector. Instead of soldering it directly to the internal power supply, I chose to use one of the many adapters that were lying around in my appartment from PC tooling.

The adapter is shown above. It is 2 pin only, but relax the 3rd pin is only sending optional feedback data like RPM to the mainboard. The 3rd pin is never used to control the speed of the fan.

You can see nicely how I wired the fan power connector to the big molex connector that goes to the disk drive(s).

 

 

The project is almost done, the PEB is closed already and the new fan was running fine on first tests, although I can barely hear it.

This new fan runs below 10db.

 

Thx to everyone who supported me, kl99

[Just connected my PEB for the first time........]

Guys, thank you guys for your help.

I verified with an old thread on yahoo groups which is an interesting read and gave me the step by step howto:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TI99-4A/conversations/topics/26792

 

I have successfully modified the American PEB to an European PEB set to 240V.

 

This photo explains which output from the Transformer gives which kind of voltage.

 

 

The red cable (110V), brown cable (220V) and black cable are terminated/isolated.

 

You simply have to connect to the Push Button the one voltage you use as Power Source in your Country (240V in my case).

As you can see, orange is connected, while the other cables are not connected, the others get terminated.

[Originally the American PEB came with connected red wire, while the orange wire got terminated.]

This is how the PEB with the Push Button looks modified:

 

 

As can be seen, the orange wire (240V) is the one that gets connected to the push button:

 

You only need to connect that cable with the wanted voltage to the push button and terminate the others.

This replacement can be done by disconnecting/reconnecting, no soldering needed.

 

 

This terminator seems unique to Push-Button PEBs.

 

 

I hope this helps others in the future.

 

[Replacing the noisy fan in the PEB]

Here you can see how the Push-Button PEB isolates the wires of the unused voltages:

 

Front View:

 

Top View:

 

Below Fan View (don't know if helpful):

 

[Replacing the noisy fan in the PEB]

Hi,

I am currently trying to perform the FAN replacement within the PEB.

It is the push button PEB.

 

So far I have managed to disassemble everything and removed the original 110v fan.

http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/peb/peb_box_project.html

 

 

 

But what to do with the wires that went into that fan?

How to best isolate those 110V wires?

 

 

And instead of soldering the power connector of the new 12V fan to the internal power supply I would prefer to connect it to the 12V MOLEX connector that goes to the disk drives. I have an adapter like this:

 

Thanks for any replies.

I hope to finish this before going to sleep...

[VGA Vintage Scanline Generator]

woohoooo, exciting!!!

[Purpose of PEB 12V 2 Amp Power Upgrade?]

wonderful thx, my disk drives are mitsubishi. i will simply try it without modification. thx again.

[Purpose of PEB 12V 2 Amp Power Upgrade?]

Hi!

 

I am wondering on the purpose of the PEB 12V 2 Amp Power Upgrade which is described on the mainbyte website:

http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/peb_pow/peb_pow.html

 

Is this mod always required if you want to use 2 half-height disk drives within the PEB?

 

I am planning to use 2 half height disk drives and will apply the 12V FAN mod as well.

 

Sorry, if its clear to everyone else...

[F18A - 80 Column & Enhanced Graphics Supported Programs]

it could be that this version was personally handed via floppy from the Author Harald G. to the former owner of the floppy disks. from reading letters they had lot of correspondence.

I also had issues with the XB 2.7 suite module.

kl99