ralphb

That would be great, Tim! Above code is the assembler doing the displacement calculation. To jump 6 bytes forward, this is 3 words, minus 1 word, which is the standard PC increment, yielding a displacement of 2. The 9900 interprets that as PC <= PC + 2 + (2 * displacement). Is there's an error in my reasoning?

Tim, I added the filename to the error message. Please get the latest version directly here. Regarding the JMPs, this is what my code does: disp = (addr - effectiveLC()) / 2 - 1 if disp < -128 or disp > 127: raise AsmError("Out of range: " + op + " +/- " + hex(disp)) I thought this corresponds to what the E/A manual states (which may be wrong, of course). What is the displacement shown in your error message? Do you have some example code? I'll have a look at is when I have some time, maybe the effectiveLC is off.

Thanks, Bernhard, that's working -- meaning I can get past the title screen to a prompt where I can enter only invalid expressions. Guess I need to read the manual.

Haha, no, thanks for your creativity! I'm sorry if I'm just too weird and insist on a retro look for my picture. I'll test the VGA converter, and if that doesn't work, I'll look for an NTSC monitor (but importing from US will be precarious).

Nice, but ... When you say HDMI, you're referring to an LCD/TFT-Monitor, right? Just to repeat , my requirements are: NTSC, composite, CRT! Otherwise, I've seen LCDs that had composite input and supported NTSC.

Very well, but the other requirement is that the monitor supports composite. That's for the Pyuuta and the Geneve. But I also prefer the "dirty but not too dirty" look for leisurely using the TI 99 as well. The F18A is only for development.

Yeah, I understand, my TV supports NTSC as well. But I'm looking for a monitor that can do this. The TV is too large to put on my desk.

Good point, but I only expect that the signal becomes somewhat jerky. I guess VGA is better, as it can keep the 60 Hz -- resizing, and thus reducing image quality, need to do both. I was actually thinking of transplanting an NTSC unit to a PAL monitor, preferably from the same model, or alternatively transplanting a 220V power unit to an NTSC monitor. I have yet to talk to my analog electronics guru what he thinks about this. I know some people use US consoles in Europe -- are you all using F18As?

Thanks, pretty cool solution for the TI. But a TMS9929A? Might be somewhat hard to come by. And it wouldn't help my little Pyuuta ...

Thanks, Omega, I find this on ebay.de as well. I guess I'll give it a try, although I would prefer a monitor with native NTSC capabilities ... less conversion, better picture.

I'd like to use my US TI 99 and other NTSC gear here in Germany, where PAL is standard. My big CRT TV can run both PAL and NTSC, but my small Commodore CRT monitor cannot. So I'm looking for the best way to run NTSC on a CRT monitor with a composite signal. (The F18A is great, but I'm looking for something else here.) 1. NTSC-compatible PAL CRT monitor with composite If there are any, I haven't found them. 2. composite NTSC-PAL converter This was my second thought, but the only converter available simply doesn't work. (Tested with two models on TI 99 and Pyuuta.) Do you know any working converters? 3. NTSC-VGA converter VGA CRT monitors are readily available. Does somebody have experience with converting to VGA? How is the resulting picture on a CRT? Finally, what are you using to view foreign sources?

Sounds good. I'll let everyone know when I have my linker exposed.

Hi Tim, It's not entirely clear if you refer to assembly or GPL, but based of the REF/DEF, I assume you mean assembly. 1. That depends on your OS. Error messages are output to stderr, so with bash you'd redirect with xas99.py ... 2> errors.txt. 2. No, unfortunately, right now the file name is missing from the error messages. It's in the listing -L, but that is empty in case of an error. Either way, it should be an easy fix. 3. Currently, you cannot link external object files, as linking is done automatically after assembly. This is also something I want to improve on. For now, your best bet is to copy the sources of the object files you want to use. 4. They are generated inside the object file, but no, I haven't implemented the symbol list -S yet. Also on my todo list. But it's great that you report any shortcomings for you. If they're sensible, like yours, I'll incorporate them into xdt99 as soon as I can.

I see what you want to do. For EQUs, this should be possible. Right now I actually parse the "R", so a more general register, where only the value 0-15 counts, should be more accurate. I'll tackle it once the FG99 is out of the door. In fact, now that I worked with xas99 and xga99 extensively, I can think of some improvements to the assemblers themselves.

That would be great, as I don't find the ZIP on WHT.

So, what is the solution here? Pressing SPACE (or any other key) in my version using MESS doesn't do anything. Bad image? phm3213.rpk

Thank you very much, I'm truly honored! On top of all the excitement about the FlashROM 99, this is a real motivation boost for further work. And I would also like to thank again all those AtariAgers who contribute to our TI 99 knowledge community, which really helped me realizing the FlashROM 99!

About €10. There's another one with a better photo, but it's around €17. I didn't check the US, as it's probably not worth it for such a small item. I'm going to cut off the twist to be on the safe side, and then I have my pin-pin-edge.

I hear you! But the built-in Lotharek (as DSK1) together the real drive is the best solution for me. I had used a small boxed Lotharek before, except that I didn't use it, because the cable was too short to handle it while using the TI, and couldn't get it to work as DSK3.

This cable on ebay should do: Quite pricey I'd say ... I doubt they know what they got there.

Oops, wait a minute ... The internal connection uses a pin connector, so I need pin============pin===edge, without a twist. My old "boxed" Lotharek was connected as external drive, which used an edge connector on the disk controller. But still, if there a twist between both pins, would the edge work? The TEC is a half-height 5.25" drive.

Today I wanted to mount my new Lotharek 3,5"-style drive in my PEB, together with one of my TEC slim drives. But I realized that the standard floppy cable is three edge connectors, whereas the Lotharek needs a pin connector. How did you solve this? Is there anybody who can build a floppy cable that has an edge connector for the controller, and then farther off one pin connector and then one edge connector close by? I was searching ebay for this cable, but they only have the twisted variety. Contrary to popular belief, the Lotharek works fine with a twisted cable , but the regular drive won't. I could use a cut cable for an edge to pin adapter and connect it to the regular cable with the help of a cable extender board, but this seems somewhat flaky to me.

I thought about it, but I'll probably have to postpone this until later. Also you need to make sure this is compatible, but two text files is a bad idea. Kudos to sometimes99er for suggesting this originally: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260917-the-finalgrom-99/?p=3694157 I had totally forgotten about his mock up, but I independently picked the 99/8 font as well. Edit: corrected name

Just a small update, while the FinalGROM 99 is in production. First of all, I'm afraid I need to move the availability date from early June to late June. You may remember that I'm using a 1 MB x 8 SRAM chip by Cypress on the latest cart. After my first prototype, I was looking for a replacement for the old 512 KB SRAM to tackle the instability problems. Luckily, I found an inexpensive 1 MB SRAM at my favorite domestic supplier, which I adopted successfully for later prototypes. But when I submitted my small trial run for assembled boards, the quote for the Cypress SRAM by the board manufacturer was just outrageous. At that time, I decided to provide my own inexpensive ICs from my domestic supplier to them for the big run. Beginning of May everything was ready to go, but when I called my domestic supplier to order 200+ ICs, they said they had only 3 ICs left, and wouldn't get any more. So I looked internationally for alternatives again, and found a cheap drop-in replacement by Cypress using 3V instead of 5V. I ordered some samples, just to make sure that they work flawlessly in my (modified) board. I then ordered the ICs and turned them around to China, which was slightly stupid in hindsight, as their quote for the new ICs probably would have been lower as well. All these antics took some time, so I will receive my carts a bit later. But in addition to replacing the SRAM, I also made two improvements to the latest board. Those are untested, but again, what could possibly go wrong? I also implemented the help viewer that shows matching help text files ending in .TXT when the user presses AID and <letter> in the menu. Help texts must be DIS/VAR 38 files (in other words, lines must not exceed 38 characters) and can contain up to about 150 lines. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Actually, I do think it may be the write protection mechanism after all, and two of my drives are affected. I guess I'll try to replace LED and/or sensor ...