hloberg

update after using it for about a week. I still really like this device. it was cheap and cleaned up the picture quite a bit. and after fiddling with the color setting on my TV I got the colors to actually look better than just straight composite. the only thing I don't like is that it's more wires to deal with but I guess you can't have everything. the best improvement is with the text. much clearer text, especially with the 40 column text. and another plus with this device I can use it clear up the screen on other composite computers and game systems.

that's were i got it from. you created quite a stir in the (twitter) force.

I wonder if that would actually work?

added Wing War in 3rd party games

https://imgur.com/a/8uzr5yu re-made as a controller for Kerbal Space Program. Not sure if I want to declare this guy the Devil or say 'cool'.

added my review of the $12 upconverter to HDMI, the one I posted here on Atariage, in the projects section.

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> 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. 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.

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.

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 ).

Added Jedi Matt 42 & Arcade Shopper to Youtube videos under other sites. Check them out. In fact, check out all the great creators of youtube videos covering the TI99. Lots of instructual vidoes, demos and games plays. worth your while.

added 'the brewing company' and changed 'code|hack|create' to 'DoNotQ'

finally got a face to some names (or Atariage handles) and learned some stuff. great meeting. HLO

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.)

added Wagner's Tech Talk - There is a lot of really good videos on this site detailing such things as TIPI, FinalGrom, Stuart's Internet Brower and much, much more. Included with the videos are list of parts, resources and just about anything you need for the project. Very informative site.

i'll work it in, thanks, good information.

going to try to add Plato section this weekend but whoa, there is a lot of stuff here. may take 2 weekends to do it justice.

coming right along. looks good.

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.

like this:

Added @pixelpedant youtube channel to other sites/youtube and @Shift838 store to stores section. And added PROJECTS section where I'll include some of my projects for the TI-99 - 1st projects is experimenting with XB256 and creating 6 color fonts

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

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.

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. 👍👍👍

@mizapf did ya'll do something with the hexbus? it now seems a little faster. earlier my i3 on the 99/8 would max to autoskip 10 and start skipping sound. but with this latest version it only goes to max 7 and rarely skips. much better.

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.