kl99

nice. thanks Fabrice

Not much to add from my side, just a tip, don't put too many things on the top of the PEB, the surface gets scratched easily and fast.

We did the dump of TI Logo II German last week and the CPU Memory at >7FF0 is like: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FB 5B besides the last two byes the dump is identical to logodec.bin from the logo2d.zip file.

There is TI99 Print, a Printer Server by Fred Kaal, released in his Projects Section. http://www.ti99-geek.nl/

Thanks for the help. And sorry for choosing the rpk File. The Copyrights we can also try to get right. Yes, TI Logo English is PHM 3040. TI Logo II English is PHM 3109. TI Logo II French shows PHM 3109/FR on its official cartridge label. For German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish we need to verify, but they all go as PHM3109 as their general reference, in ads or catalogs. There is an European Product Code as well, but only if the release was by TI and not by other companies. French, Italian and Spanish (Argentinia) saw a Release (something to buy) for sure. For German and Dutch I am not sure. Only saw a book about german TI Logo and Preproduction Cartridges for both. Also I am still not sure if there was even a TI Logo I in any other language, but I am here in Italy without my laptop to verify such a claim. Is there any in the whtech dumps? The only save bet is there is a lot of confusion about naming TI Logo II as TI Logo in foreign countries, even from TI itsself.

To answer our own question, we just checked the content of the last Grom Bank and it comes with lots of Strings for Cassette Reading in various languages. We identified already a wrong behavior from the rpk dump. On the original TI LOGO II German cartridge does the following if you: "LIES" ENTER [Lies = Read] "1" (you select PROCEDUREN) "1" (you select KASSETTE) Now it shows: On the rpk Dump of TI Logo II German if you do the same steps you end up with different texts In this case it seems it did fallback nicely to the Texts from the Console Roms/Groms but, this already reveals that the grom needs to be placed at the correct bank, and we have at least one faulty rpk Dump in the collection of Cartridge Dumps. This will be fun to fix! This motivates me to go back to the tool I started for cartridge dump analysis. Greetings from Klaus and Ciro

Hi, I am currently with Ciro in his place, we did dump his original cartridge TI Logo II - Deutsch. We did use the GramKracker device and also verified our finding by reading the grom memory when the module was in and all GramKracker functionality was off. The cartridge uses - 8K Rom - Grom 6000 (bank 3) - Grom 8000 (bank 4) - Grom A000 (bank 5) - Grom E000 (bank 7) The oddity is the Bank 6 is unused but nevertheless its memory space is reserved, as we see the last grom starts at E000 It is matching the "information" from the PC99 dump from Mike Wright, but it appears the rpk dump on whtech is using the content of bank 7 at bank6 if you examine the .bin file. Both dumps allow you to start the cartridge, but I can imagine that once the content of the last grom is required only one will work. So the question is, can the Grom Bank be modified without breaking functionality? Br Klaus

Hi! The group leaders decided to go to Vienna (Austria) for 2020. The event will be organized by my wife and me. It will take place from October 2nd to 4th (Friday to Sunday). There was a local event in Germany in 2019, but it was late announced. I hope they will do a similar event for 2020. Their new location for the local events is Ludwigsburg-Hoheneck, close to Stuttgart. The dutch group will meet on 14th March 2020 in Den Haag, Netherlands. The british group will meet for their AGM on 17th and 18th April 2020 in Loughborough, England.

What exactly are you missing from the current TI-99 that can be overcome by adapting, rewriting or even replacing the Operating System? I am asking this to redefine the specs, not to disencourage. The operating system is programmed very open to extend it with drivers for new devices. The hardware is easily added to the serial port or sidecar or into the PEB. The operating system is not so good in extending the interpreter with new tokens or anything but CALL routines without going very deep into the analysis of the operating system. The hardware is at the moment running some dependencies, among them the DSR coming via CRU into the Cpu Memory Space 2000-3FFF. It is not that the operating system is the blocking unit when it is about adding drivers for modern devices. It is that somebody has to write the driver in 9900 assembler and has to understand the whole logic and specs of whatever he is interfacing with. Basically every DSR can be added even to an otherwise unexpanded TI running nothing but TI-Basic. You interact with the Device via its specified name like CS1, DSK1, WD1, RS232, HEXBUS,... If you want something else than any Basic Environment to find and start your programs then the Problem is that you give full control to the started program. So if it crashes, your TI crashes. If it turns off the interrupts, it does that and eliminates your chance to hook in when it exits. Most 99ers run a Ramdisk with a Boot program have a sort of different platform to find and start your programs.

wow, impressive! congrats on the success! Is there any chance you can make some video of the fpga in action?

The detailed pics are nice. You can see that the GROM0 socket has no chips but wires and resistors instead. The GROM1 socket contains the GROM0 chip. The GROM1 chip is missing. The two (of 3 necessary) GROM chips are from late 1979 and early 1980, so they were put in probably after an update was released. I doubt it can run with a GROM0 (SYSTEM) and GROM2 (TI-BASIC PART2, Equation Calculator) like that. My assumption is that the shell (case) is older than the mainboard, and the youngest parts are the GROM and ROM chips (to update to the latest software). The shell also has a cut out part on the back for an additional port (like the Dimension 4 had for the Video).

The DSR Source Code for the SAVE OPCODE ROUTINE starts from page 35: http://ftp.whtech.com/datasheets and manuals/99-8 Computer/TI 99-8 Hexbus DSR Source.pdf It seems it checks for Verify flag, sets the SAVE attributes and then passes the program size to check if other side is okay with the size. The code then goes BL @MXMIT which ends us up on page 53, which is about the MASTER MODE COMMUNICATION ROUTINE. This is probably the transmission you saw.

HEXBUS.10 refers to the printer/plotter device. (compare device number list on page 20 of http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Hex-Bus Specifications.pdf) Depending on the device certain commands are not allowed because they don't make any sense. A printer will never support a SAVE command. A printer probably only supports OPEN, CLOSE and WRITE. IN 99/2 Basic these translate to OPEN, CLOSE and PRINT. Maybe that is the misunderstanding!? As suggested in my previous post, I would try connecting your FPGA with a real CC-40 and read the communications.

The CC-40, the 99/2 and the 99/8, and even the 99/4 with its PHP1300 Hex-Bus Interface all share the Hex-Bus Protocol. Michael Becker from SNUG, who investigated Hex-Bus a lot, revealed some bug (or bugs) in relation to the SLAVE mode. mizapf implemented the Hex-Bus so far into the 99/8 and 99/2 in MAME. Afaik the Hex-Bus Disk Drive Emulation in MAME was not connected yet to the CC-40 MAME Emulated Device. The CC-40 Device is not maintained by mizapf, and that device might miss the Hex-Bus Port emulation but I don't know this. Bernhard and me did dump the DSR rom of my PHP1300 Hex-Bus Interface for the 99/4(A) a few years back, if that binary helps you. rom.BIN Also a real CC-40 might be the easiest device to test connect to your FPGA based 99/2. And when working on Web99 I discovered one weakness of the Hex-Bus RS232 Interface compared to the DSR in the 99/4 RS232 PEB-Card and the 99/4 Sidecar RS232 Interface is that they discontinued the support to load and save a program via the RS232 device. So on the 99/4(A) you can say OLD RS232 and receive a program from a connected 99/4(A). But you can't do that command on a 99/8 using Hex-Bus RS232. Same situation with SAVE RS232 to save a program to a connected 99/4(A). (Side note, the Windows Tool Web99 is exploiting this functionality to load any basic program into the memory of the 99/4A via the RS232 port. No Disk Drive, nor memory expansion, nor terminal emulator or any software on the 99/4A required.) Here are some documents, you might have missed one of them: The original commented source code for the 99/8 Hexbus DSR: http://ftp.whtech.com/datasheets and manuals/99-8 Computer/TI 99-8 Hexbus DSR Source.pdf Also there is the preliminary User Manual for the Hex-Bus Disk Drive: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Hexbus Drive-Controller (Model 5102) Manual.pdf The Cyc features the preliminary User Manual for the PHP 1300 99/4(A) Hex-Bus Interface: \vendors\ti\php\php1300\php1300.pdf TI-99/4A Home Computer Hexbus Interface Peripheral Software Functional Spec Version 1.0: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/994a Hexbus Interface/TI-99_4A Home Computer HexBus Interface Peripheral Software Functional Spec V1.0 10-24-1983.pdf Hex-Bus™ Floppy Disk System Product Specification: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Hebus floppy product specification.pdf Hex-Bus™ RS232/PO Software Functional Specification: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Hex-Bus Specifications.pdf (page 231 - 258) Cyc features Doc-Bus™ Intelligent Peripheral Bus Structure, Timing, and Protocol Specification 4.0: \vendors\ti\internal\docbus\docbus.pdf Hexbus™ Intelligent Peripheral Bus Structure, Timing, and Protocol Specification Version 3.7: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Hex-Bus Specifications.pdf (page 7 - 60) Intelligent Peripheral Bus Structure, Timing, and Protocol Specification Version 2.8: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Intelligent Peripheral Bus Structure, Timing, and Protocol Specification V2.8 07-03-1982.pdf Intelligent Peripheral Bus Controller Specification: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Hex-Bus Specifications.pdf (page 75 - 102 & 103 - 131) Software Specification for the Hex-Bus™ Floppy Disk System: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Software Specification for the HexBus Floppy Disk System V1.0 08-02-1983.pdf Edit: One more, the TI-74 Technical Manual features the DOCBUS which is compatible to the Hex-Bus: http://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/ti-74/TI74 technical data manual.pdf

We are at the Airport gate on our way home, I guess this means the Faire 2019 has officially and unofficially ended.

Here is some Disks that might be relevant to Turbo Pascal. There are for sure some among it that are only about the P-Code System. Pascal.zip

Turbo Pasc 99 was originally German or? I think I remember sawing a german manual somewhere in my room.

When do the first people come to the room on Friday?

from my usergroup collegue Tom from his page: http://www.8bit-homecomputermuseum.at/computer/texas_instruments_ti_99_4a.html

do you mean the Keyboard Strip?

Hi, the 99/2 only has a memory expansion bus which can be used at the same time as cartridge port. However we have no single example cartridges nor a prototyped memory expansion. 99/2 comes without Speech, Sound and without a Joystick Port. Such devices could be introduced via the Hex-Bus, but were not even specced by TI back then. Even without seeing your project running this is a really great news ! Thanks a lot for taking the effort! And your project is already the 2nd usecase for the 99/2 Rom Dump. The 99/2 comes with a Cassette Interface. And the Hex-Bus Device list is not to be under-estimated: ) Hex-Bus Slave Mode (some other TI-99 controls the 99/2 via the Hex-Bus) ) Hex-Bus Printer 80 ) Hex-Bus Printer/Plotter ) Hex-Bus RS-232 Interface ) Hex-Bus Modem ) Hex-Bus Disk Drive Controller/Drive ) Hex-Bus Wafertape Drive ) Hex-Bus Video Interface ) Hex-Bus Quick Disk Drive (Mechatronics)

arrived in Chicago with the Help of Hal. Can not wait for the TI-99 time coming this week.

P.M. send to OLD CS1.

And this one, the TI-99/4A Classic Manual for Europeans: http://www.ti99.eu/?attachment_id=867