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hloberg

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Posts posted by hloberg

  3. Posted

    20200724_163708.thumb.jpg.de99267949d1e4ba1c88e9fa7a70a919.jpg

    I have heard a lot of mixed opinions on these cheap composite to HDMI upconverters. So when I saw one on eBay for $12 shipped I thought I might give it a shot. Turns out I was pleasantly surprised. It's not a f18a by any means but it does do a good job of clearing up the picture on flat screen monitors.

    here's a picture of the TI title screen with just composite>

     

    20200724_163234.thumb.jpg.274b62fb7fbb5104688e5207f8cec1cb.jpg

    It's not a great picture but you can see how the letters are slightly distorted, also the colors are bleeding over each other in the color bar. here is a picture with the HDMI upcoverter.

    20200724_163127.thumb.jpg.45dc6a320f2e2f9ed90950cf37b118ab.jpg

    the letters are much more truer to size and there is less bleeding between the colors. what doesn't come through on the two pictures is the artifacing of the letters is much less pronounced on the HDMI screen than on the composite screen.

    the colors on both the screens are about the same with the HDMI being a bit truer in the blue and greens with the composite a bit truer with the reds. 

    Now there was some concern about if there is a delay and I can say i have felt no delay while playing Parsec or any of the other games. if there is a delay it's in the milliseconds and my response time just ain't that good. :)

    As you can see in the top picture it is a bit of a mess of  wires. 2 or 3 composite in, HDMI out and a +5 power source. I'm going to hide it all behind the desk so it doesn't matter but it's still something to take into consideration.

    Now, should you buy it? for ~$12, I say yes. It does increase the picture quality a bit and if you have a TV without composite, well, it's a must then. I wouldn't call it a necessary but it does help for just $12. The only point I say no is if you plan to purchase an f18a in the future. The picture on the f18a is near perfect quality this is just a close approximation.

    • Like 6

  4. Posted

    1 hour ago, TheBF said:

    Wonderful. Thank you Microsoft.

     

    Thanks for the quick reply.

    go to settings-update & security-for developers: set to developers mode. this is enable unsigned and untrusted apps to run.

    forgot to note: there were a few old Win10 out there that you will have to run a app from the store to allow the developer mode. these were 'store only' versions but I think it was phased out. if you run across one it'll tell you that you need to run the app to upgrade the version.

    • Thanks 1

  5. Posted

    On 7/20/2020 at 3:55 PM, mizapf said:

    I just looked up the exchange rate of 1983: 1 GBP ~ 4 DM. I remember that the first console we got was around DM 1100,- in mid 1982.

    that be about $260 dollars in that time. they were going for $150-$175 in 1983 in the US? they eventually dropped to $100 with a free speech. my parents got me my 1st TI99 about that time for ~ $100 from the TI store in Dallas (it was refurbished). It had a free speech & Joysticks thrown in (they could've keep those damn painsticks :)  ). 

  9. Posted

    Added PLATO courseware. Includes the cartridge, manual, disk list, all the courseware disk as an individual download and all-n-one zip download. This is a fairly well made learning package that holds up well even in these days.

    (sidenote, I do teaching with computer aided courseware and looking over this PLATO package it compares nicely with what's out there today.)

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    On 7/13/2020 at 3:33 PM, wierd_w said:

    I printed the bottom of the rev A enclosure last night, and received the speech synth in the mail today.

     

    Initial test fitting shows I need to give another hole location at the top left corner of the speech card (with it oriented top up, and in line with the TI, with user seated at keyboard) and that I need to give relief for the legs of the thru-hole soldered components on the card.  I installed a stand-off "The hard way" like I did with my initial experiment at that location.  I will use calipers to measure the location of that hole on the side of the speech board, and implement the location in the models with an M3 standoff hole.

     

    The M3 style stand-off locations I implemented could stand to be .5mm larger; It required a considerable amount of beating to seat the stand-offs into the holes.  (I modeled hexagonal holes and everything.) I modeled these holes based on dimensional drawings of an M3 stand-off, but apparently my printer likes to make holes a teensy but undersized.

     

    The thru-screw locations (that will hold the clamshell together) need to likewise be widened about 1mm in total diameter, as the head of a normal computer screw cannot be admitted. (While I guessed blindly on the diameter of the screw head, the thru-hole size is perfect. I used a normal M3 diameter size.)

     

    Test fitting with the speech card screwed down (with the RF shield removed; Initial design is not compatible with the RF shield. Since I am probably gonna roll a Rev B, and I now have the RF shield to measure in my own little hands, I will try to make it compatible with the RF shield) shows that it inserts into the TI just fine.  There is a small air-gap at the bottom, as anticipated (Rubber feet yo.) It lines up just fine with the back of the unit, meaning my measurements with the calipers so many days ago worked out fine.

     

    An interesting consequence of targeting the speech synth like this, is that the enclosure could potentially be modified to fit the "Pi-Zero+Tipi in a speech shell" type project. 

     

    I am thinking that once I have this thing the way I like it, I will order some appropriately colored PLA, and print it. (The nylon is good and tough, and good for prototyping, but it wont be as pretty in the end product, and it has a nasty tendency to warp. PLA is super easy to print, and will look real nice.)

     

    Pictures of the current iteration of the prototype coming soon.

     

    Here we go.  The top part of the RF shield totally works. I believe I can make a deep recess in the bottom that can accept the bottom half of the RF shield as well. Then the RF shield can be retained. (The M3 standoffs would replace the heavy nuts and retention bolts used in the initial design, would hold the board down in the clamshell, and should work just peachy I think.)

     

    Pictures of the bottom half of the rev A design without the speech, and with the speech fitted, and with it inserted into the TI to test fitting location.

     

    20200713_154251.thumb.jpg.a4626c0f2faec31292700cacf8133348.jpg20200713_154133.thumb.jpg.efd61953d112638842f09d53d9853fb8.jpg20200713_154057.thumb.jpg.3014a5f416feb61c06cbbea2606fecd5.jpg

    coming right along. looks good.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    6 hours ago, Mehridian Sanders said:

    I think I have a spare keyboard and MoBo around .... might just mock one of these up. It does look rather snazzy actually.

     

    although it does remind me of a color scheme of some .... * lightning crashes ... organ notes in minor key * Other ... computer.

    I kinda butchered my last sentence but later QI had a purple on/off switch which I thought about painting, if I ever find that color. the color was a pale violet which, so far, I haven't found short going to specialty paint site and that runs into too much money for such as small paint job. 

  17. Posted

    since there is so many files in the E/A directory I created a list you can click on to see what is in the directory.

     

    here is the file:

     

    Contents of EA Docs

     

    In folders:

    BASIC in Assembler

    • BASIC interpreter

    • BASIC assembler guide

     

    GPL

    • Calling GPL from assembler

    • GPL interface specs

    • GPL programming

    • GPL tutorial

    • TI GPL user guide

    • TI GPL programmers guide

     

    OS/Hardware

    • file management specs

    • I/O bus specs

    • stack structures

    • TI home computer tech data

    • TI-99/4 and TI99/4a compare specs

    • TMS 9900 microprocessor

     

    Source Code

    • Pitfall

    • Munchman

    • Parsec

    • TI Invaders

     

    Tutorials

    • Advanced high speed game programming

    • John Dow assembler primer

    • Assembler primer

    • Beginning assembler for the TI-99/4a

    • Tech yourself assembler

     

    VDP

    • TMS9918 VDP manual

    • TI VDP programmers guide

     

    Lose documents in directory

     

    Assembler tips & tricks

    E/A manual corrections

    E/A ctrl keys

    E/A manual

    Instruction set summary

    inter most secrets of the TI-99

    TI Intern (map)

    Useful assembler routines

     

     

     

  18. Posted

    went out in the shop and discovered I had a spray can of beige satin paint, unused. So I thought, what the heck. I painted the speech beige. it looks OK. I still want to see what @wierd_w comes up with though. I sure it'll look much more uniform.

    Note: if I was to stay with this i would print a decal with 'TI speech synthesizer' and the TI logo to the front where the old one was.

    20200709_150709.thumb.jpg.c5b685a5a1c46bae208019fffa0befe8.jpg20200709_150658.thumb.jpg.847e1d56c0e81a4cfb97290694434a11.jpg

    • Like 5

  19. Posted

    34 minutes ago, mizapf said:

    Nope, I did not touch anything. I sometimes had an effect that MAME performed differently between builds (of the same source code); maybe the compiler creates better code from time to time. (This is not as unlikely as it sounds, since the compilers do heavy optimization, and sometimes building from clean yields better results.)

     

    Maybe you had a CPU hog among your processes.

    nope no change on the i3 that I'm aware of.  could be the build. I've seen that too with different performance from build to build. Well, whatever you did, keep doing it and good job. 👍👍👍 

  21. Posted

    On 7/6/2020 at 11:07 AM, dgrissom said:

    I am enjoying using Mame on Raspberry PI 4.

    I run my system using scripts.  It's pretty slick.

    Is there a comprehensive document that shows command line information?

    I've been using the supplied scripts as templates, however, I want to know more.

    in the above download of mine from ti99resources for MAME TI/99 /MESS221/DOCS is a list of docs which includes a MAME document and other useful .txt files. in the MAME doc is a list of the command line also SLOTS, MEDIA and USAGE text. 

  25. Posted

    13 minutes ago, eebuckeye said:

    Yes.. I believe it is almost finished and may/may not be called Parsec due to discussions with TI.  I think from the same person who made Piggy Bank.  They are also almost finished with a port of Space Bandits and there was a video on the Intv Facebook group.

    good for them. be nice to see there take on it. I'm sure there will be a lot less restrictions then I had with the 2600. 

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