Ed in SoDak

Machead should be good for 32k since he's picked up a nanopeb. I bought Super Extended Basic (SXB) from Triton back when it still had a heartbest. It was close to 80 bucks, still, it's the best cart I ever bought. My favorite upgrade from TI-XB are the edit functions it provides, no more slow scrolling to edit the end of a line. It has many other expanded commands as well. I have most all the flavors of XB saved in V9T9's emulator format of three bin files for the ROMs and Grom. All found free on the 'net. I imagine they could be converted to run on FG99 or variants. -Ed

Oops, I meant the current version of V9T9, which does use Java. -Ed

I see there's numerous UR games being sold on ebay. Imagine that! That fancy one from Russia looks really cool, but I see it's likely cast plaster and painted. For $425 with shipping, I'll pass, but the maker was very thorough with his replication, so it is probably worth it to someone. Sandy & I played our first game today after work. She won of course, while I still had three tokens to remove, even though she was kind and didn't jump me several times she had the chance. The old die we used was all we had and it didn't roll well and hindered the game. We just went with the flow. It was enjoyable for both of us and worth playing again. So now I'll proceed with our own handmade board. On my TI graphics rewrite, I cobbled up a grid in a draw program that allows editing of every object and precise placement. Looks like it'll be a lot harder than I first imagined to do a decent clone of the original board. Just not enough pixels for the fine details, so I'll have to greatly simplify the symbols. Symbols are in a 3x3 character grid, allowing 24 pixels on a side. For the six symbols, this will take 54 characters with a few more for the borders and such, so it should be doable if I can get the look down. Here's how the Rosette symbol looks overlaid by my character grid. Easy to see that with only two colors to work with, character-based graphics will look very crude without altering them to fit the relatively large TI pixels. Oh, and I did finally get DOXbox to run on Sandy's Intel Mac. It runs the DOS version of V9T9 just fine. I was unable to get Wine to run Classic99 or install Java to use JS99er. Java installed ok, but kept reporting security issues when I tried to run stuff, I must be missing something. With a full Windows Install on the Mac, I can use Bootcamp to set it up, but I probably won't go that far. V9T9 while old at least runs on it, good enough for now. -Ed

I owned one and liked it till I busted the head extracting a cartridge. It was also external. The link Insane posted has an illustration that may help. Just bridge the second pair of pins, starting from the pair nearest the center of the board, on the rear of the component side. -Ed

Linky to that auction? I just learned of this game through this thread, sounds like you have a long history with it. Actually, making/faking the board is my plan. I was going to paste the printout on top, then apply a finish over it and the wood. We've done that before and it gives an antiquey look. Might hollow out a little cubby beneath to hold the pieces. It should be easy to cut pyramid dice in oak, but I need to know where the dots go. Sandy's quite the painter so taking that route gets her involved, always a good way to picque her interest. I'd love to make one out of inlays like the original. Thanks for the assist offer with the AI. Knowing in advance my abilities (or lack thereof) you can expect a knock on your digital door. Usually if I study the code and try some alterations, I can manage to get it to work. It's a slow process but I'll take a serious stab at it first. -Ed

Any woman: "Mister Omega, are you implying my intelligence is artificial? WELL!" Besides, we already have such a device. -Ed

Letmeseenow, I gots some 200 floppies, maybe half are DSSD, the rest SSSD. I know there's many backups, unfilled disks and redundancy in that estimated 2.7 meg collection. Tossing out the dead space and fluff, let's say 2 megs of programs and files, being really generous. On my Mac, my emulator Carts folder is 5.6 meg and has about all of the legacy carts with a few of the current TI New-Renaissance cart-based jewels. I can't estimate all the .DSK files since they might be a single <16K program stored by itself on a 90- or 180-k disk image, but let's again be generous, discard the unknown empty spaces and say another 2 megs there, assuming no copies of same already exist on my floppies, which is highly unlikely. Still under 10 megs. I'd actually use but a fraction of that ponderous collection of thousands of programs, but it might be fun to have it all there at my fingertips to try/retry and keep or discard. Now, if 99 Amelican pennies was my all-in cost to put that on my iron... hell yeah! Cheap Chit. Even including the cost of the hardware upgrade to use that 16meg SD card, it's a bargain. -Frugal Ed

Mission accomplished, here I sit waiting for Sandy to ask the TI for help. She says it's cheating! So I sez to her, well, how come it's OK when I offer a suggestion myself? But that's different, she declares. I still say a couple bucks a day to Zuckerberg that he don't need adds up. Maybe I'll run it in stealth mode. What she don't know won't hurt me! JK, honey!

Wow, what an accomplishment! This forum rocks! I'd call your program Rosetta99 for what it looks to unlock. :thumbsup: -Ed

On one of Tmop's disks, I found a Char Def program by MMG Software that is similar to one that I remember (unfortunately not the really good one I have in my floppy library), but screen text and menues were converted to Italian, so I converted it back to English so I can begin to create new graphics. I want to display the board horizontally to use the extra space. 8 board squares works out nicely for the 28-character screen width, giving me 3x3 character spaces per square or a 48x48 pixel tile size for each square on the board, with room for a two-character-wide outside border. My goal would be to replicate the original board's detailed graphics within the two-color limitations of TI character color definitions and as large as possible to have more pixels and colors. I found another pic of the board in the museum with a bit stronger color. I corrected the perspective and printed it out to fit a standard sheet. It looks almost 3D , printed and set up using vintage buttons for playing pieces and a single die to serve as temporary surrogate for the four pyramid dice. Rolling a 6 is not counted and rerolled, while 5 denotes the Zero: Lose a Turn. Odds of a zero might be higher with one die instead of four, but a test game against myself seemed to play about the same as the TI computerized version. One side gets the upper hand and dominant positions, but all it takes is a late-game upset (or two) in the roll of the die to determine the winner. Maybe the game has lasted for 4000 years because it took that long for some poor soul to finally win! -Ed

It's fascinating to follow the blow-by-blow synopsis of your ET-PB project coming together. What you're doing and your level of understanding of the processes is so far above my head, but you put it in layman's terms quite well. -Ed

Heh, I'm looking for a chardef program now, but browsing and getting distracted almost as much. I know I have good graphics programs on the iron, but it's been put away and parked for a couple years. It has the PEB and usual compliment with speech. MacV9T9 has a pretty faithful speech emulation. That's how I knew the roll when I first tried it, but I don't really need to hear the sound effects after a few games. Your AI is tough to beat but I have managed to win a few. Just to get some revenge for my many losses, I added code to change my zero rolls into a 5, but not the computer's , and it was still a battle! When I added an Accept At so I could enter my own choice for the ROLL variable, then I got the upper hand and sqaushed him like a bug! Fun (and cheating) aside, my little hacks help me get a handle on the code. I still think the dice are weighted in favor of the TI, though I know that's not really the case. Maybe my hypothetical rewrite (it's been quite a few years since I've done much XB coding) will include a difficulty level, so dummies like me have a fighting chance once in awhile! -Ed

D-oh! The dice were there all the time, just too small on my emulator screen size to see the tiny white corners. So I left my numeric ROLL display in place. I thought they were just arrows pointing to the board, how dumb can I be? My Mac is a PPC Mirror Door Mac. For me, despite some quirks, the ancient MacV9t9 is faster on this old PPC Mac than anything else I've tried. It runs under Classic or native os9. My wife's MBpro has wine. I'll have to look at it again. I tried double clicking the Classic99 app and a popup said it wouldn't run a Windows program. Yet I know something "PC" I tried a month or so ago auto-loaded Wine and ran that program. It has run the updated osX version of V9T9, but since I updated her system to 10.11, I apparently need to also update Java to run it. I'd love to enlarge the board to improve details, but that would require a major rewrite of the nifty engine Vorticon created. I may try anyway, it would sure rehone my XB programming skills. -Ed

Interesting! I haven't noticed compatibility issues with MacV9T9 before and I've used it for years. To run Classic99 on my older Mac, I also have to use a PC emulator, such as VPC5, which runs Classic99 so slowly I haven't tried it much. The DOS version of V9T9, run under DOXbox on my Mac, is the same. No Dice. LOL, pardon the pun! -Ed

Thanks for this! I thoroughly enjoyed playing a few rounds. It's pretty snappy when run in MacV9T9 with some acceleration. The computer plays a cutthroat game, it's tough to beat it! One thing I noticed is no onsceen display of the dice roll. The graphics for them seem to be there at least in part, but so far I haven't been able to get them to display. For now, I added a simple display of the ROLL variable for each player. I love the board in the British Museum! I'm thinking I'll print it out on card stock and glue it to a wood base. Sandy has plenty of buttons to use as tokens. I'm glad the original project didn't end up abandoned. -Ed

BITD I bought JoyPaint99 from Great Lakes Software which used the joystick and employed a GUI interface that copied the basic features of MacPaint. It was a decent, useable program, given the lower resolution of the TI and the slothlike pointer. Those used to the Mac's lightning-fast mouse would be bemused and a bit frustrated at how long it took the pointer to traverse the screen to get to a menu option and return to where it would be used in a drawing. A mouse would certainly help, as my hands would get tired of constantly pushing the stick to get the pointer to where I wanted it to be, and that took both hands or a secure joystick desk mount. I don't recall if JoyPaint supported Mac-like keyboard shortcuts, which would help avoid pointer-runs to the menu. On an accelerated TI, it would be worth checking out. -Ed

It's been so long, I'd forgotten about the soldered pins beneath. Thanks for correcting my oversight, jjh76! I use a desoldering iron that has an attached squeeze bulb for suction. Desoldering braid works if it's fresh or sand/scrape it a bit to show clean copper for the best wicking action. Some people like the separate soldapult style sucker along with their iron. Whichever method you use, adding a bit fresh solder often helps get the joint melted for easier removal. Probably best to use 60/40 lead solder (since that's what's on the old keyboards to begin with) and not the "lead-free" stuff. -Ed

The gray parts are locking tabs, press both in and the switch releases. How you release both tabs and lift up is the challenge! Maybe get one tab started and then the other. At least you only have one key to do. Well, two, with the replacement. Experiment on the junker keyboard first. It might be doable without opening up the console. -Ed

On your GE recorder, is the pause switch pushed over to rec/play? Some recorders use a mechanical pause where the tape travel is stopped but the motor still runs. The GE and TI data recorders pause is electrical, basically working more like a power switch than an actual pause. -Ed

Success! The wife and I declared it a Snow Day and I spent the better part of it finding my errors and cleaning up the code a bit. Looks like it will help the wife find the tough words in her puzzles, which was the whole reason for this thread. Anagram2 will now allow three up to seven characters. You may begin the sort on any of the seven. The display pauses to let you view it and either continue, change the start position or enter a new word. Plain and simple, it doesn't let you fill in known letters or do subsets. In use, it's fairly easy to spot a likely word in the groups. MacV9T9 lets it run at a decent clip by upping the speed ratio and clock frequency. Thanks to everyone who chipped in! Zip file with TIFILE and V9T9 formats and the text listing. Enjoy! -Ed 100 CALL CLEAR :: PRINT TAB(5);"TIGERCUB ANAGRAMMER": : :" by Jim Peterson": : : :" Modified for 7 characters by Ed G 2/21/2018" 110 PRINT : :" Gives all possible combin- ations of any 3- to 7-letterword, without duplication":;:;:;:ˇ:ˇ 130 PRINT : : :: INPUT "Type 3-7 Letters: ":A$ :: W=LEN(A$):: IF (W<3)+(W>7)THEN 130 :: PRINT : :: V$="" 140 PRINT :: FOR J=1 TO W :: B$(J)=SEG$(A$,J,1):: NEXT J :: FOR J=2 TO W :: IF B$(J)>=B$(J-1)THEN 180 150 T$=B$(J):: FOR L=J-1 TO 1 STEP -1 :: B$(L+1)=B$(L) 160 IF B$(L-1)>=T$ THEN 170 :: B$(L)=T$ :: GOTO 180 170 NEXT L 180 NEXT J 190 PRINT "Start Position 1-";W:" or type 0 for New Word " :: INPUT "?":Z :: IF Z=0 THEN 130 :: IF Z>W THEN 190 200 FOR A=Z TO W :: FOR B=1 TO W :: IF B=A THEN 410210 FOR C=1 TO W :: IF (C=A)+(C=B)THEN 400 220 IF W=3 THEN 300 230 FOR D=1 TO W :: IF (D=A)+(D=B)+(D=C)THEN 390 240 IF W=4 THEN 310 250 FOR E=1 TO W :: IF (E=A)+(E=B)+(E=C)+(E=D)THEN 380 260 IF W=5 THEN 320 270 FOR F=1 TO W :: IF (F=A)+(F=B)+(F=C)+(F=D)+(F=E)THEN 370 280 IF W=6 THEN 330 290 FOR G=1 TO W :: IF (G=A)+(G=B)+(G=C)+(G=D)+(G=E)+(G=F)THEN 360 ELSE 340 300 W$=B$(A)&B$(B)&B$(C):: IF W$<=V$ THEN 400 ELSE 350 310 W$=B$(A)&B$(B)&B$(C)&B$(D):: IF W$<=V$ THEN 390 ELSE 350 320 W$=B$(A)&B$(B)&B$(C)&B$(D)&B$(E):: IF W$<=V$ THEN 380 ELSE 350 330 W$=B$(A)&B$(B)&B$(C)&B$(D)&B$(E)&B$(F):: IF W$<=V$ THEN 360 ELSE 350 340 W$=B$(A)&B$(B)&B$(C)&B$(D)&B$(E)&B$(F)&B$(G):: IF W$<=V$ THEN 350 350 PRINT W$&" ";:: H=H+1 :: V$=W$ :: GOSUB 450 :: ON W-2 GOTO 400,390,380,370,360 360 NEXT G 370 NEXT F 380 NEXT E 390 NEXT D 400 NEXT C 410 NEXT B 420 NEXT A 430 PRINT : :" ";H;"TOTAL COMBINATIONS.": : :: H=0 :: V$="" 440 INPUT "Z=Repeat N=New Word ? ":GO$ :: IF GO$="N" OR GO$="n" THEN 130 ELSE 190 450 PN=PN+1 :: ZN=ZN+1 :: IF ZN=3 THEN PRINT " ": : 460 IF ZN=3 THEN ZN=0 :: IF PN=15 THEN INPUT "Enter or eXit ":Z$ :: PRINT : :: IF PN=15 THEN PN=0 :: IF Z$="x" OR Z$="X" THEN GOTO 190 :: 470 RETURN anagram2.zip

Years ago, I wrote a simple two-player tank game. I used CALL COINC, but at any decent sprite speed, XB failed to detect if a cannon shot scored or the two tanks collided, let alone hit any static obstacles. So I just made it into an out of control free for all. Too bad, 'cause I had great graphics and sound for when a tank blew up! -Ed

With so much new product development so close, it's truly a shame they didn't at least release it all for Christmas '83. It coulda been a game-changer for a few more years anyway. In the end it paved the way for PC/Mac to eventually dominate as all the other players fell aside. The price war was stupid and ate them all up in the end. These days, you can have companies like Twitter, with no actual tangible product, post losses for years and still somehow survive. OTOH, TI getting out sure helped make picking up a system a lot cheaper just a couple years later. Still, I bought a lot of third party product in the following decade that TI totally missed out on, and my run with TI as my primary computer might've continued had there been factory upgrades instead of the coulda woulda shoulda that the Geneve became. That was when I jumped ship and went Mac to self-publish my books. The TI became mostly nostalgia for me after that. -Ed

No Disassemble!!!!

>>always thought the LEDs in drives were IR but I guess not since you can use a flashlight and regular LEDs in your Tandon.<< Quite possibly these LEDs have an IR component in their output or the spectrum of the sensor extended into visible light. You could test for any IR component if you had an IR filter for your digital camera and aim it at the illuminated LED in dim room light. Like how a VCR out of its enclosure that I was messing with, misbehaved when operated in strong room lighting but was OK in dim light. Which seemed to blame the sensors as broad-spectrum. -Ed

Nice kludge that got you going! I'm a month late to the party, but have a comment. The original LED may have been an IR device. We can't see it, but the sensor could. It probably had indeed failed, as you deduced by troubleshooting a replacement LED. But being IR, you couldn't tell one way or the other by looking at it. Same sort of LED as found in most any IR-type TV remotes. Digital cameras or most any video cam, such as a cellphone cam will pick up IR light and make it visible on their screens. Make a vid of the LEDs in your TV remote in use and you'll see the light pulsing as it sends various codes to the TV/Dish/whatever. I was working inside an operating VCR once and it would not behave, but it was OK back in the cabinet. Found out that ambient light was fooling with the sensors. I dimmed down the room light and was then able to work on whatever it was; head alignment or fix tape loading. Long, long time ago. -Ed