sjt

Thanks for the converter.dsk I will check it soon! I saw mention of it in an old post, but was not able to find it in the archive

Looking for the disks sent to TI user groups after they pulled the plug. It came with a letter. I found the letter in the archive, just haven't been able to find the software. Anyone out there have it?

Over the years there have been different versions of dumped Cartridge files out there. There are Bin files, Gram Kracker type files, Cartridge software converted to run out of win994a TICART files. Is there a utility out there to convert from one type to another? For example, a ROM dump in Bin format can not be loaded by a Pgram card. But a Pgram card can dump a rom based cartridge and reload it. You can't take a Gram Kracker rom cartridge file and copy it to >6000 in a supercart and expect it to work. Obviously some files can not be crossed to another format, like a grom cartridge gram kracker file to an 8k bin rom file

Looking for a arcade Marble Madness board for a system 1 Non working is ok

I still haven't found out much about Mikel Labs. I did find that the owners name is Tom Mikel. But I can't find any further info on him or the company he started. I now have a rs232 stand alone unit he made.

http://www.99er.net/99erbbs/showthread.php?tid=88

Sarcasm, Tursi I've been out of this for a while, (a few years) sorry I'm not familiar with AVR cartridge cards created to simulate groms. I'm only familiar with eprom, supercarts and multicarts along with Gazoo created adaptations to run on them Obviously you Do know better than I, since my assumption is you wrote the software that allows this grom emulation board to function.... Please explain further for those of us not around while this development was made. Would a single Ubergrom cartridge work with others in a widget? or not.

Anyone familiar with the products produced by Mikel Labs for the 99/4a. There was a RS232 stand alone and maybe a expansion system?

Tursi would be the authority on a UberGrom card and how it might react in a cartridge expander. Maybe he can explain why it wouldn't work.

As Ksarul says ...just use 47K or resistors in series or parallel to get close.....

Enjoy!, have fun. To help you, here are the details on how Navarone made the widget. They used a 3 position double contact switch. They switched the following lines: One side of the switch, connected Rom Low to each of the different sockets 1-3 The other side of the switch, connected -5v to sockets 1-3 at the same time. All pin 19 (Vdd +5) were connected to each socket through a 50K resistor. All remaining pins are daisy chained to each socket. The reset button connects GND to Vdd -5 The board I'm attaching a photo of was made sometime around 1984 or later in Hong Kong. Parts list. 3- Leader EG-2540-36 Sockets 3- 50K resistors 1- Plastic button with carbonized insert (reset button) 1- Plastic slide sw with 2 seperate contacts Misc: top and bottom covers, pcb, screws That's all there is to it.

You want to use a temperature controlled soldering station. There are many out there. Some digital some not. The tips are important too. Some irons like weller wtcp irons, the temperature is controlled by the tip you install. Tips are sold in different end styles and sizes depending on what you are working on. Normally 700 deg is a good general one for soldering. Conical shape is common. Obviously a tip to work on a smd device would be different as compared to a tip to work on a tube radio. Using anything less than the above is best left for wood burning projects. And yes enough heat for the solder to flow smoothly to both metals, and that's all. With experimenter boards it's easy to lift pads. The biggest mistake people make is trying to "paint" solder. The iron tip is at the connection point, then the solder is applied. One more thing, the best way to remove parts and preserve boards is to use a vacuum desoldering station. A solder "sucker" will work for a lot of things but try removing parts from a board with plated through holes, double sided . Old parts and old boards may benefit from flux as well Hope this helps Steve

If I'm understanding what you are doing.....you want to make a push button widget? The push button part of your project is a bit of an over kill. With support circuitry it would be possible to use a single push sw to select different cartridges. Why not just make a board with daisy chained connectors and use a conventional slide switch along with a reset button. You then switch cartridges and do a reset.... this works, Naverone sold a lot of them. I think there is enough room for 4 cartridges. Not with advanced switching (4 position slide sw?)

Have been away from the TI for a while but read the thread here about ti speech. It was something I always wanted to try my hand at and finally did, time consuming but fun. Attached is a 8k cartridge file. The cartridge speech data was created with Qbox. It will run on win994a once it's turned into a cartridge file. It can be burned to a eprom or loaded into a supercart. Steve spchdemo.bin

As you've found, no it does not alter the produced data. Unfortunately it doesn't work, I have only used it to get an idea of how i might alter the original sound file to produce a more pleasing result by pre-processing the audio file . I take the produced data and drop it into either an assy program or convert it to a merge format for xbasic to test what it will sound like on the actual hardware. But it is time consuming. Win99 will produce speech, most of the time...there is some sort of timing issue, but can produce a good representation. On the hardware it will be slightly different in volume and speed (faster)

Hi Tursi, Yes, that is what I was playing with. I got a firecracker interface and wireless receiver for under $15 It should work on the TI. The serial data is needed to address the wireless receiver. So you do have to send serial data. My understanding is the serial data acts like a key when sent in specific sequence altering the DTR AND RTS lines and is recognized by the wireless receiver. The data is very specific that needs to be sent to create the proper key. There is a header and a footer which don't change and then a 16bit sequence that changes based on the device to address, and if on or off or dim etc. I have a PC basic program which works perfectly. Steve

The 40bit string I was referring to would be used to control a X10 rs232 wireless interface. I did see some mention of this in some old messages. I couldn't find any messages indicating that there was success in communicating with it using the TI I thought about using the method Lee suggests, I tried using the win99 emulator but I don't think I can access the rs232 com 1 port that way. (on the pc) Has anyone had success with communication with what is commonly called the x10 wireless firecracker using the TI. It uses a 16bit header+ 16bit of control data + an 8bit footer It's pretty easy to communicate with it using qbasic on the pc. ( that's where the com port info came from) The Header is 11010101 10101010 The data for (house code A1) is 01100000 000000000 The Footer is 10101101 These strings combined together (40 bits) form the complete command to activate the wireless receiver on the channel indicated. The above would turn on any X10 device on house code A1 or those connected to the wireless x10 receiver directly. I'll have to try it on the real (TI) hardware. I think i have a RS232 tester somewhere I can put in line (leds showing communication) If Xbasic doesn't work, using "call load" how would you directly access the rs232 port on the TI? Wouldn't you have to turn on the DSR for that card? Somewhere someone mentioned something about using the joystick port? Steve

Xbasic programmers out there. Is there an easy way using xbasic to send a binary string to the com 1 port, string len 40 bits. Can it be sent using open rs232 and print port commands? Data such as "1010101....." etc I need to send a 40bit bin string and there is no POKE in xbasic correct?, to directly access the com port at h3fC (com1) Steve

All eprom programming software should have a blank check.Select that first Some eproms that seem faulty can be saved sometimes but filling the chip with FF if the software has that option as well. Then erase it and try again.

Are RPK files simply ZIPs of Mess versions of cartridges? Is it possible to un- conjugate the groms into single files to load into the pgram card. I assume the loader will not understand the format they are currently in.

I have a question about HRD. I have a small one 256K , when i shut the pbox down it corrupts the first partition. It always (now) drops the first letter of the ramdisk name on that first partition. The files appear intact , turning it on and off. But the name always looses the first letter. The ramdisk passes all the tests when powered. I'm using it with 8.14f , the configuration test 5 shows the problem (it's the only one). When writing to it and then shutting it down and running the read test it errors. It comes up with a binary address - I think translated to 88 or 89 is this the rack# I know the "racks" are in 2k chunks but how do I match that info to which of the multiple of stacked chips are on the board. I'd like to avoid pulling and swapping chips and testing one stack at a time. Is there a DOC on using that test?

If the y2k disk you posted works for you...I've give it a spin. Maybe the dsr is NG that i'm using. If I load XB for example in page1 - which will take gram3,4,5,6 and both ram spaces. Then if I load in page 2 EA which as you know is grom3 when I re-boot all that is there is EA XB is now gone. If I load groms that do not over lapmultiple selections are available. such as a rom based cartridge and groms that do not overlap. Later I'll try the software you sent. Steve

Hi I recently got one of these cards. I need some clarification. It is a Pgram + , I ran the tests and it passed. I saved xb and loaded it and it worked...so far so good. However, it appears that only the page1 has rom space available. If I initialize the pages , only page 1 shows rom 1 and 2 checked. However it completes tests on the other pages fine with no error (just doesn't put a star on the roms) . If I load a grom only cartridge into the banks past 1 they work. But it the cartridge has Roms it issues an error asking if I want to overwrite that space. Is this normal?

Yes, that's the card. It can also be a ramdisk, plus it has a dallas clock on it as well

Anyone familiar with this card? It would be great if I could find a schematic on this to restore one I was just given. I found a little bit of information on it. It's a card I had never heard of. Besides being socketed to accept what appears to be 512k, it is battery backed. It also has 2 ports on the card. Possibly a Buss port and a cartridge port? Someone suggested that there may have been external options for this card?