Ed in SoDak
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Posts posted by Ed in SoDak
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What are folks doing for this these days? Looks like we need an Apple encoder chip 331-0931-B which is a KR3600-070. It's for a friend's Apple II+ which recently went belly up and it was tracked to this chip. It seems to be a common issue, what do you guys do when you need a replacement?
Happy to buy if somebody has one laying around.
Thanks!!
-Ed
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It's a tough reality. They gots lots of Golden Parachutes to fill. Gas crisis long gone, but you'll still see a fuel surcharge, like our garbage service levies.
Add volume for good padding, then you get hit. Skip it and you get damage claims. In my day job working at home I charge $30 an hour. I'll spend a good hour or more doing a good pack job, but hard to justify a $30-$60 pad on the shipping to cover it. For what ya get on many items, I'd make more just working and not offloading, er, sharing my excess collection.
That doesn't justify ludicrous shipping costs, but our own typical postal bill has at least tripled over the past decade. We work at home and ship the product, no embellishment of fees, and it's way up.
-Ed
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I mostly ran other platforms, first was Timex, then TI99, finally to Mac. The majority of commercial offerings were open, easy to copy. My dad and I shared TI99 purchased programs, but I didn't know anyone else to share things with if I wanted to. Mostly I wanted backups for myself. A few TI disks were protected very well, but most had simple stuff that the unlock was common knowledge. The GRAM Kracker opened up all those proprietary TI game carts for copying, that was a game changer. But nobody ever stood up to wave their banner with cracktros, you just got the original game made copyable.
Same on the Mac, that I ever saw. I have only one Mac game with cracked brag screen. Most everthing I bought was open, those with copy or other restrictions I never was able to crack. The vast majority of my Mac games are freeware/sharware/demos. This time, it was just my brother and I sharing stuff we came across. Typically, if I really wanted it, I bought it and got the whole package. Even paid a few shareware fees, but admittedly far too rarely.
I probably scored more "free" and unlocked programs by picking up cheap or give-away old computers that included the software the owner kept with it or stored on the hard drive.
-Ed
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I have a well set-up IIc that was given to me. Mouse, extra drives, printer, Apple color monitor, power supply, full set of cables, lots of software and all the manuals. Everything except an ancient modem, which I probably couldn't use much if it was there and besides, I have the "correct" modem from some other score.
Luckily, it was all well-taken care of and everything works! It's an old-school geek platform you probably will need to crack a manual or two and read up some to make full use of all it can do. But the info available lets you delve way deep into the inner workings, if that's your bag.
Mine looked great on the Apple composite monitor and also on a 17" LED cheapy flatscreen. If you have a "regular" old TV with composite, that will work or feed the cables into the composite input of a VCR and use the antenna RF output to feed an even older TV, but picture quality will diminish.
Other than the factory power brick being a fancy switching supply with protection circuits and safeguards, the power requirements are pretty simple. All you really need is +15 Volts DC at 1.2 Amps to pins 5&6 of the connector, with ground going to pins 2&3. Everything else the IIc needs powerwise is derived by the internal regulator circuit. I could probably hack wires to a rechargeable drill battery and run it off that! No doubt the "correct" supply is best and safest, but the basic requirements are simple with only a single voltage needed for power.
Here's some snips of the supply info from the Apple IIc reference manual I found online.
-Ed
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I might be stating the obvious but... A standard TI joystick is wired differently from an Atari stick, but both use the same connector. An adaptor is required to use an Atari joystick on a TI.
If it is the console, used/working consoles still seem to be plentiful. Considering two-way shipping plus any reasonable charge to open one up and diagnose/repair it, it would seem to be much more economical to simply find a working console. If it still misbehaves, suspect the sticks. The majority of TI-supplied sticks are now dead in the water, used or unused. Best to use an Atari-compatible and an adaptor.
-Ed
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I have one of these old Mac towers atop my PEB. Bill could put his foot on top instead of an elbow to be a 35 lb. equal weight. Been that way for well over a decade. Top doesn't look bent at all from the front, but the Mac does straddle the PEB and overhangs front and back. I know the top's finish is scratched and worn from rough use. There's also an old CD burner atop the Mac and in the space beside it rest four TI floppy drives and their power supply. I picked up a used PEB and its lid was actually bent down. Used as a stepstool?
I didn't care, I was only interested in if it worked reliably. Which both PEBs have since the 80's.-Ed
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This modded cartridge I used extensively before XB 2.7 suite came out.
It has :
- Triton Super Extended Basic
- Editor Assembler
- TI Writer
- Disk Manger 3.0
One of the main things I really liked about this version of XB was the 'TRACE' command....
I used that sometimes as well. I'd add a temporary line as a hook to begin the trace closer to the area I was working on. Or add a way to adjust the variables before entering that segment and maybe pop them up onscreen. I also displayed TRACE to the screen instead of file or printer, but onscreen was hard to follow and blew the display, but helped track some wayward GOTO or to find where keypresses sent you. With triple-nested loops, using both screen-specific and global defaults, plus user-defined options or input, how you ended up at the error point from where you began is sometimes a mystery. Especially on the 50th revision/expansion of my spaghetti code!
My best TI homebrew hardware project, other than cobbling old PC stuff onto it or kludged power supplies and cables, was to add a "fourth" drive to the stock TI by wiring a DPDT switch on the power lines to choose between Drive 3a or 3b. That sort of mod could be carried on for as many drives as you wished to extend a data cable plus switchable power to any of the 3 original drive designations. Just make sure you remember or indicate with power LEDS which drive you're currently connected to, otherwise mischief and mayhem will surely result!
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Them was the days, great recollections! Owning a TI when it was new and "hot" had to be near-magic. By the time I got in, it was old hat though still new to me and the TI was as far beyond the Timex TS-1000 back then as that first PC was to your TI console-only/cassette setup.
So far as it went for me, TI suited all my needs until I moved into desktop publishing. I bought many TI packages, even the obtuse and super-nerdy Forth-based Printer's Apprentice, which gave me publishable results after photographic reduction to enhance the final dpi, but dot-matrix printing could only so much and it was hugely slow and tedious.
By then, I was able to score a used Mac and could print to inkjet and laser and even do grayscale photos, so I never looked back after that. The TI was still my programming "fix" since there was nothing similar for the Mac that I owned or knew how to use. Macs were more about just running the amazing software, not much of rolling your own amazements or being able to easily list, draw from or modify other's works like you easily can with TI Basic or XB.
Years later, that's still the way it is! I can program the TI or the Timex, but that's about it!
-Ed
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I take it that PEBs are unobtainium in the UK? Last time I surfed ebay seemed there were several available in the US. Has this changed since then or is overseas shipping the deal-killer?
Even if "only" 250,000 PEBs were sold, considering how many consoles still exist and are being sold/traded/used and how tank-like their construction and relative high initial cost, my perverted logic dictates there must be some several thousand or tens of thousands of PEBs squirreled away somewhere, if not still in actual use. I'd venture they're merely scarce, not rare, but only from my US perspective.
I happen to own two of 'em and I'm sure I'm not alone in that among the group here. But I could certainly guess shipping would cost plenty, heavy as these things are and with attendant damage risks, clumsy Customs inspectors, plus import duties, VAT, yada yada.
You seem willing to invest in some pretty cool old tech, so I'm wondering why there's no PEB joy for you.
My dad was a HAM and quite active in his day (silent key). I recall him demoing for me an RTTY and some 6-foot-tall radio telephone setup of some kind to verify working status before selling said items. I still have his Collins URR-388 and have memories of same from age 6 in 1960 or so.
-Ed
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<<(Aside, I wish ArcadeShopper's order tracking link actually linked to something so I can find out where it is.)>>
I don't know your location, but we shipped some goods from stateside to Singapore and the UK recently. One requested tracking, it was not available via USPS. This led to my inquiring and I was told tracking only worked while the package was in the US, not once it left our shores. The reverse may also be true, from overseas to the US. Tracking drowns once over the ocean, I suspect.
-Ed
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Dad and I got a lot of our software via his membership in the Mesa TI group. He photocopied to me the newsletters and the cassettes and later on floppies he got from their library. Second-hand magazines brought us many hand-typed programs we shared via mailed cassettes. Later, dual subs to Micropendium, which I carried nearly to the end of that fine publication. Tex-Writer was one typed-in program from 99er magazine we used to send "letters" to each other that took many minutes to load by the sloth-like data-read. Disks were a dream item till he snagged the two fully-expanded boxes. I still remember my first WOW trying the speech module making it say "dynosore" (had to spell stuff phonetically and I worked at fossil museum) and Double WOW, how fast those 90k disk drives were! We were on a roll!
We both bought our share of commercial software, but we weren't above a little pirate copying and sharing of them between us two. Some we bought two copies of, like TI-Base and others both to support the authors/distributors but also to have update support. The majority of the TI packages were all purchased used and they were plentiful and cheap after the fall of TI from the market.
Now it's nostalgia but while it was fresh and new it was amazing times for both of us and I'm sure all us TI'ers sharing and learning all the latest tricks. I wrote and edited for newpapers using Funnelweb or TI-Writer and got my Mac-using brother's eyes to pop a bit when I demonstrated how fast a long text could scroll.
Still got ALL this stuff parked next to me with extras and spares in the shed, but sadly now mostly collecting dust while I play TI on a Mac emulator. Can't seem to part with it, but should move the doubles on to some of the New Bloods still having fun enjoying the re-discovery of the 99.
-Ed
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I was in Sears with my future wife in '82 thereabouts and droolling over any computer. Earning something like $2.50 an hour made even the $100 Timex/Sinclair a luxury buy that wasn't in the cards. I recall playing with a 99/4 in Sears and the spendy PE box was also there. The 99/4's chicklet keys did not impress and the Timex was more like a cheap calculator. The 4a was more enticing and I looked at Radio Shack's offerings too, but it was all out of reach.
I didn't get into any of it till it was much cheaper on the used market. The Timex was my first, I paid $50. TI and Timex both had bowed out some years prior. My dad got into them also at the time, he was down in Mesa, AZ and could browse the giant flea markets down there. He bought an Osborne CP/M, didn't care for it and sent it to me. I lent it to a friend who used it to learn DOS and she started an accounting business she still runs. Just some backstory.
After that he found the TI ssystems dirt cheap and got us both a console and some cassettes and we were off together exploring and learning. The TI became both of our obsessions and he upgraded us both to full PE boxes with cards and many carts and manuals so we had near-identical setups. I paid him back for mine as I could, it was around $250 for the works. Similar setups were selling for around $750 and more in Micropendium back then.
Later I absorbed a couple other systems as by then I was not going to be without a working TI. By that time I had integrated it into my photography business and used it to time the various darkroom processes I did. It was my worktool, entertainment, mental exercise and diversion. Got on the internet in '94 with it, cutting edge stuff! and damn good memories. Dad and I really bonded by sharing the whole discovery experience.
Back to the point, any full system around my area was rare. My second PE box came from a flyboy from Ellsworth AFB who hailed from Texas and was stationed at Ellsworth, paid $350 for all his TI stuff so after that I had two systems up and running at the same time and "multitasked."
Not many of us TIers were that involved.-Ed
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Here's my thread on the TI Sings program: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224217-trio-software-ti-sings
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Of course you realize your futile attempts to thwart The One will result in failure as it always has throughout time.
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Getting errors with other options besides XB may exonerate the DSR or maybe not! Capacitors are a variable thing as well. The well-deserved bad press came about when some chyna maker stole the formula but did not clone it correctly, then sold millions of caps to many companies who got seriously stung by the bad caps. But that happened long after TI left the market.
Regardless, age does take its toll and even mica caps are now seen to be failing. Many TI cards are going on over 30 years old by now and older. Local climate may play a part. A visual examination can often spot the swelling of the case, or you can see electrolyte leakage or circuit trace corrosion, but just about as often, there is no real visible evidence.
Either replace one at a time and retest, starting in the affected area or try an ESR meter to try to pinpoint which caps it might be. Cold solder joints or dead ICs are almost as likely. I don't read much where dead TI boards are being worked on or serviced successfuly at the board level. I'm sure with the right equipment, parts stash and patience it's possible. Most folks simply find a working replacement I guess.
-Ed
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Any further developments to the ideas brought up in this thread? My simple but unobtainium extender cable continues to work. The TIethernet concpt was very intriguing. Could multiple consoles access one PEB in a network? Or even cross-platform?
-Ed
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I have one of the firehose extender cables that were sold years ago. If you could still find those connectors, it would be easy-peasy to use a shorter ribbon cable to invite the speech board to move indoors.
Thread about it here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224648-fire-hose-to-ribbon-cable/
-Ed
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There's no peripheral interface card or fire hose sold with it or separately in another auction. Somebody who is unaware of the missing items will be disappointed and need to hunt those down to be able to use this PE box. What good is it without them? Spare parts?
-Ed
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Does js99er have a speed control? Vt9t9j (written in Java, not javascript) speeds up well beyond original hardware.
-Ed
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I use my Tiger MkII to rid my garden of pesky gophers. It's the right tool for any job!
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I only got search results. One for Hot Russian Babes and the other for Viagra or Farmer'sOnly.com, I forget which since the HRB site took all the bandwidth I could muster.
But I never saw where I could vote! So I did a buncha back-buttons and redos to help keep your results more accurate!
No thanks needed, glad to help!
-Ed
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They're memory-card based replacments for the large PEB expansion box for the TI. CF7 replicates the serial RS232 while the nano the PIO parallel. EDIT: Or the other way 'round! Don't quote me!
Both provide 32k memory and a disk emulation. 5 replies came in while typing this, so I'm no doubt being redundant already!
-Ed
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It's been awhile, but it seems my old Epson would crank out an 80-character line in about a second in the faster modes. A listing went faster, due to much shorter lines, but paper advance and other things took the same time regardless of line length, so maybe a half-second per line.
So that's something like 60-120 lines per minute, and the printer was definitely the bottleneck at that speed, so long as the TI did not need disk access for more data to print. A buffer freed the TI much, much faster than a large file would print, so 300+ lines seems doable with a fast printer.
-Ed
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After many hours of thrashing my way upwards in Legends back when it was a current offering in the TI catalogs, I tired of idly tapping the 1 key to hit yet another monster and that's when I began hacking the program.
It was all great till I moved it to emulation on my old Macs. MacV9T9 and the DOS version both do not properly handle large Program files that have grown to become Int/Var 254. Large programs like these can't be saved back to disk after editing them in MacV9T9. You can edit and run them in the current session, but that requires breaking into the program while it's running and then continuing. Which really doesn't work when the programs get loaded and reloaded during a gaming session.
Another fatal emulator error was with saving the PDATA file. That would get corrupted because it too was in INT/Var 254 format. It would show in a TI directory as a program file and data would be lost when saving it. I could load an old Pdata file, but couldn't save it after a session without corrupting it. Took a long time (years) to figure that one out!
I just recently worked around the problems and have my old super team back in action. One change was to make the PDATA file into INT/FIX 254 so it did not run into the program-filetype snafu. I used V9T9j on my wife's Mac to edit the various large programs and port them back to my PPC macs for testing.
I think I went way beyond the hacks others have done. For the dungeons, pressing Q to call up the menu then exiting resets most of the screen graphics so you can see where all the traps, monsters, hidden doors and treasures are! I also changed a lot of stuff in the Generate and Island programs. My party's level and HP/MP is so high, there's no room to display the actual number and I had to change the program where it decides how many hits each player gets per turn, since my team is at level 115 or so and the original listing couldn't handle that big a number, heh heh! My team needs no firestorm spells, 6 or 8 of any breed of monster are usually dispatched in a turn or two just using hits. A Firestorm 1 might smite a foe with 100-300 hits!
I streamlined many of the inputs in Generate to run faster or take fewer key clicks and added a variable to Island and the dungeons to control how long text messages are displayed. The Create a new team option has been enhanced as well. In the Island program, where you can choose to save and quit, I added choices to take you back to the Island or head off to the guild. There's other hacks too, but this is a sampling of my "version" of Legends.
If you're tired of swatting flies and Dark Knights and just want to explore uninterrupted, here's an easy hack for the Island program.
-Ed
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Apple II+ keyboard encoder chip source?
in Apple II Computers
Posted · Edited by Ed in SoDak
Hey, thanks Osgeld! That first auction looks newly listed, might be the correct chip. Don't know about the B1 suffix, but everything else says BUY. I emailed the link to my friend.
-Ed