Dripfree

I've been doing electronic projects for years, I have never used an anti static wrist band and have never had any problems. Last summer me and the GF got a cat. This winter I was working on a project with a keyboard circuit. The cat is kinda needy he always wants to be pet. I fried 2 keyboard circuits when he would sneak up from behind and began rubbing on me!! Lesson learned. If I'm working with exposed circuits the wrist band goes on and the cat goes in the basement. As a side note I think AtariAge has a lot of cat lovers. I have often found it humorous how many people have had they're cat as avatars. I even thought it would be fun to start a show us your cat thread.

I've found that Atariage posts often shows up very high on google searches. I've noticed pics of mine show up on the top of the list when I'm trying to find images of projects similar to my own. A few years ago when I was searching for more info on some of my projects I kept finding my answers on Atariage threads that would show up on the top of my search. I finally said hey maybe I should become a member.

I'm glad this got so much chatter I've learned a ton. I'm definitely going to put in the work to get this guy up and running and I've put together a game plan to do so. 1) I figure the first thing I got to do is figure out if anything in this thing works. So I'm going to start checking ebay to get my hands on a extended basic and disk management cart. Then I can try to perform some basic format and save functions. I would actually prefer to keep it as original as possible. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will work perfectly..... But probably not. 2) Even if the drive works I'll need a way to get files from the internet to my PEB. I would install a 3.5 drive externally on my PEB. I'm pretty sure I got most of the parts I need to set up an old pc that I could set up to write TI files to a 3.5 disk. From there I should be pretty well set. 3) If the the drive doesn't work I have a spare half height 5.25 floppy drive I will install alongside a 3.5 drive in the PEB. I would once again use an old pc to create 3.5 disks. 4) Once I get the stuff I need to start playing with this thing hopefully I can also trouble shoot any problems the PEB may have. I feel like it looks pretty clean inside and out, but are there any common problems with anything other than the disk drive I should look out for? Anyway thanks for all the help. I have already done something that was somewhat similar to this with regards to getting disk files onto my Atari 800xl. The TI community has proven to be just as helpful as the Atari community I can't wait, this is really going to open up my little TI.

Wow I love that! That thing must have made quite a statement sitting next to a standard TS1000. Awesome work. I find it funny to because I did some thing very similar. A couple months ago I hard-wire hacked and 80's teletype keyboard into a modern usb keyboard. I too just cut traces and added jumpers. 30 years later my method was no different than yours.

Yea my plan is to do pretty much what you did. The good thing is that the TI can actually handle a 3.25" floppy. I'm planning on also installing a 3.25 " floppy in my pc and hopefully make some usable disks that way. The 5.5" floppy drive I got I actually bought to install in my pc in hopes of making atari disks. I found that my motherboard's bios doesn't support a 5.5 in drive. It handles 3.5" just fine though.

I thought that missile command was the only game that could use it in analog mode. Am I wrong on that? Maybe there are disk games that offer analog support?

I was there looking closely for A8 games also. I actually bought about 15 last year nothing rare but some solid titles. I saw exactly what you saw there and it wasn't much. I actually did buy bug hunt this year for $1 just because. I did see the A8 trackball in a tote of joysticks for $15. I would have bought that if I hadn't bought one there last year. Even though missile command is the only game that really uses it.

I have begun to wonder if the 99/4a was ever marketed towards those with low vision. You see I frequent a thrift store which is a charity for the blind. Naturally those who have received from the charity often donate later on. So they often have many items for those with low vision, such as books on tape or book magnifiers. So far I have found 2 TI 99's there and MANY carts (a lot of the learning games but also many game games). I have actually never found any TI items at any other thrift stores. This got me thinking the TI seemed to have more color contrast then most other computers of the time and obviously the voice module. This had to be why I kept finding these items at that store. I did a few searches to see if it was ever marketed this way. All I found to support my theory was this very interesting article written by a by a blind TI programmer. Thought some of you might be interested. http://www.mpnhome.net/blind/blindcomputing.htm

Thanks for the list. Well to answer your questions there isn't much I can do with the drive at all right now. Mostly because I have no disks whatsoever for it. What I actually tried was to save to a brand new old stock DS DD disk. I have actually done a little searching since then and realize that never really had a chance of working. Looks like I got to get my hands on a disk management cart or at least extended basic. I was just mainly concerned I didn't hear that hum that I'm used to hearing. When I tried to save the floppy led lit up I heard a click then quiet a few seconds later light goes off then another click. I kinda expected to hear some buzzing in there. Anyway thanks for the help. I am pretty excited about getting this thing up and running I'm determined to one way or another.

So I came across a PEB yesterday. It was sold as is untested for $50 I figured thats less then shipping alone would be if I was even able to get a deal on ebay. At first I passed on it, but later I went back and talked him down to $40. I figured theres a decent chance I could fix this thing if it is broken. It cleaned up pretty nice a few dings and scratches. So I hooked it all up and tried to save a basic HELLO WORLD program to a blank disk. No luck I got I/O error 66. I still think the results are somewhat promising. All the lights on the PEB seemed to light up at the right times including the floppy drive led. The drive never makes the sounds I have come to expect from a floppy drive. So my initial thought is that its the floppy drive thats the issue. No problem I wanted to do the 3.5" mod anyway. I have a half height 5.25" and I'd like to have that and a 3.5". I haven't really started looking into to much yet but I'm curious if my assumption of the drive being the likely culprit is way off. Any other tips or ideas of what I can do with this PEB would be appreciated. I know this is going to give me a lot more options for my little TI and I'm very excited.

I also watched this video a little while back. I am very interested in this because it relates to a pi project I have been working on (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/223209-my-brand-new-vintage-computer/). You see I am currently running VICE under raspbian. I have gotten my pi to boot directly into VICE and I'm playing games at or near full speed. I do hope to see success on this project. It would be a much more elegant then the way I am currently emulating the c64. I'm not sure if the end result will really be any better though. His website says he needs help and I had considered contacting him cuz I'd love to be a part of this. I doubt there is much I could do though my coding skills are minimal at best.

My parents had a tiny trailer up north. It was sometime in the 90's. I bought an Apple IIgs at a flea market up there. It was pretty much complete. It came with the cpu, a physically huge hard drive (I couldn't tell you what the actual capacity was), monitor, 3.5" floppy drive, keyboard, mouse, tons of discs, even a surge protector that must have been made by apple too cuz it stacked on the cpu and the led's and the plastic matched perfectly. There just wasn't any room in the trailer to hook it up unless I took up the whole dinner table. But that dinner table also folded into my bed. I knew I couldn't wait to get home to play with it. There was a little pavilion in the middle of the park that actually had power. It was called the "Campers Cove". I took over a picnic table in there and set up the whole thing for about half a week. I even risked leaving it out there over night. Couple years my parents got a new pc, and I gave that apple away. It actually didn't bother me that I gave it away until about 3 years ago. It's not my biggest regret but its up there.

ugh I'm on here like every night, and I somehow totaly missed that thread. I guess I should have done a search before posting.

Just curious if anyone else is going to the Midwest Gaming Classic this weekend. This will be my 5th year I pretty much look foreword to it all year. I'm not sure how many people on here are actually from the Midwest but if you are you should try making your way to Brookfield this weekend. It gets bigger and better every year. I'm sure It's gona be a blast again.

I did a capacitor replacement on mine. Its actually a pretty easy job you should maybe watch a couple youtube videos and give it a try. I am wondering if this is actually your problem though. My capacitor issue made my screen very dim but it was still showing the game. From the stories I read this seemed to be what happens with bad caps all the time. I think you may have a different issue. I could be wrong though.....

This is one of those stories that brings a tear to my eye and a smile to my face. Sorry for your loss.

$12.50 at Value Village. My first Odyssey.

Very nice read! I have actually been planning on giving this mod a try for a while now. I have 2 original game boys I picked up at thrift stores for a couple bucks. I had to do the same repair as you regarding the missing lines on both. I also have the same lighted magnifier with working light! I actually did just use it on a recent run through Metroid 2. That lighted magnifier makes it just barely playable in the dark and worthless for any other light. I may pull the trigger on this mod pretty soon.

Funny story about that. I tried everything to get Ms. Pacman working before I parts her out. I cleaned it, reflowed the solder on the rom chip, I even disassembled my Ti and cleaned all its contacts. Finally I declared her dead and used the case for my splitter. Shortly after I found out the atari games didn't work on the later Ti I was using. I also have an older model it would have worked on but I failed to try that one. Oops.

I got an atari stick that looks stock but I installed clicky tactile switches in it just for a better feel. I do credit it to getting better at certain games. I use that stick on all my atari systems, and my TI 99/4a with my custom made Ms. Pacman joystick splitter.

I love how it looks on there. The bright colors and pixelated textures look like Andy Warhal to me.

Just finished this little guy for Pi day. Thought I'd post it. I Have actually been working on this project for a couple months now but I had set Pi day as my target finish date. I just barely got It done. I thought I would like to show it off, offer this as a tutorial, or just offer it up for some inspiration. This I my brand new all purpose vintage computer emulation device with a real classic look! BEFORE AFTER I am very interested in vintage computing and my goal is to make this a multi computer emulation machine with kind of a classic feel. I had stumbled upon an old Ultratec teletype machine for $1.50 at a thrift store. I thought it would make a sweet little Raspberry Pi case, but there were a lot of little issues that I had too work around. Most of these issues revolved around the keyboard. It lacks important keys, and there is no way to hook it up to the Pi. I came up with a very time consuming work around. I first took a dremel and literally hacked off the back half of the teletypes main board. The wires you see at this point were just test leads. I then had to take a dremel bit and cut all of the circuit traces connecting the keyboard keys on both sides of the board. On the outside of the teletype I used the area that housed the teletype screen to create a button panel out of tactile switches. There are 20 switches. Now on the Pi I plan to map each one of these keys with alternate shift functions. This will give me 40 more keys to play with. This solved the problem with the missing keys. I bought a cheap usb keyboard and removed the circuit board. I removed the two plastic sheets with the keyboards key matrix printed on them. I used fine point sharpies to map the key map connections of the usb keyboard. I made lots of charts and lists of the connections. Using this I rewired the teletype key board and my key panel into the usb key board circuit. This required massive amounts of soldering and wire connections. I also included a wire harness between my own key panel so that I can disconnect if need be. Every key is wired to the key that it corresponds with on the usb keyboard. This solved the problem of connecting it to the I will however still have to make a few adjustments using xmodmap. I bought a powered usb hub and removed most of the usb ports. I carefully cut holes for usb ports on the back of the teletype. I glued them into place with some JB weld and used wires to connect them back to the hub. I also connected the power for the usb hub to the barrel connector that was there for the teletype's power. I also used original power switch of the teletype to turn my usb hub on and off. I also have my Raspberry Pi powered with the hub so the switch turns everything on and off. I bought a 6" hdmi extension cable and mounted it where the phone connections used to be on the teletype. The teletype I used had a battery compartment on the bottom. I removed the battery holder. I cut a slit in one of the walls of this compartment just big enough to slide a sd card through. I mounted my Pi and my usb hub on a piece of acrylic screwed into the bottom of the teletype. I oriented my Pi so that the sd card would go through the hole I cut. Now I have easy access to my sd card though the battery door. Finally I found some I Home speakers that when trimmed fit perfectly into the cups for the teletypes modem. So don't be fooled by the image with the rotary phone. Thats just for show. Those cups are now speakers for my PI. I am now mostly done with hardware mode and ready to go into software mode. I have the Pi set up with PiMAME, and I am emulating c64 that way. I want to make individual sd cards that will boot directly into certain emulators. That way changing systems will be as easy as swapping out sd cards. I also have plans to use it as a file server to my atari computer using AspeQt. Best of all my Pi wont look out of place next to my old machines. I hope some of you found this useful. This was a huge learning experience for me and hopefully this will inspire someone else. I am planing some more modifications and features. I will post updates if there is interest.

My 7800 gets most of it's use playing 2600 games because the only game I had for a long time was 7800 asteroids. I recently spent a whopping 99 cents on Pole Position II. It shows the atari logo and then black. I fully cleaned it and nothing. I carefully removed the labels opened it up, all the traces and solder joints look good. There is a resister installed on one pin of the rom and resistance matches the stripes. I hate tossing carts in the trash but I'm out of Ideas. Anyone got any more Ideas for me before I just accept I lost a buck and chuck it in the trash.

Never seen one of these before, I know nothing about them but I really like the looks! I think that the Genie II gets my vote.

So in a hundred years my cd collection will be garbage but my great grandson can listen to my vinyl?