LynxHandyCaster

I'm looking to buy a black TI Program Cassette Recorder for a display I'm creating for the TI 99/4a for the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast in April. I'm looking for a CIB, but I'll take any recorder as long as it's a TI Program Recorder, it's black (not beige), it works and looks ok, and it's a reasonable price. Thanks!

It's almost too embarrassing to mention, but the Epson drives have a button that says "Push". I though it was the ejector button. It apparently doubles as the button to engage the head after inserting a disk. I thought, as many later floppy drives did, that just inserting the disk was enough. So stupidity was the problem...MY stupidity.

Found the problem with my floppy drives in my PEB...simple fix. Thanks to Pete and Flash at the Atlanta Historical Computing Society meeting today for finding the problem quickly. The AHCS rocks!

Thanks for the offer...I may take you up on that. But first I want to see what the folks at the local vintage computer club can do to help me. I'll be meeting with them this Saturday.

Both floppydisks.com and Athana have no SSSD 5.25" disks (if they ever even existed).

Both drives are identical Epson SD521 drives. And hooking just one of them up (with the termination resistance pack installed) resulted in the same error message when performing the test from the Disk Manager 2 Cartridge: "ERROR 16." And yes, I am putting the floppy disk into the drive the correct way. I've tried testing with and initializing other floppy disks that I have, both blank and already initialized (for the Atari 8-bit, but that shouldn't matter); same result every time. Of course all of them are labelled double density disks, but I'm now not sure if that matters. Thanks, and any other thoughts?

I appreciate very much everyone helping me to try and narrow down the problem with these drives. Here are answers to some of the questions that have come up: The drives were used when I bought them and I'm told by the seller that they worked but I'm not sure if he had them installed in a TI PEB. I haven't checked the model number of the drives, but I'll do that as soon as I get home from work today. I haven't checked to see if just one drive works by itself (the power capacity of 2 drives had not occurred to me), but I will try that also when I get home. And I don't have another drive to test the PEB or Disk Controller Card for problems. As both drives correctly light up individually when performing the tests with the Disk Manager 2 Cartridge, I wouldn't think that power overloading is the problem, though I'll grant you that each drive is probably only drawing power one at a time when I perform those tests. I'll be attending the Atlanta Historical Computing Society meeting this Saturday and I'll be bringing my entire TI system. I'm hoping someone there who is more knowledgeable about this kind of problem (by that I mean ANYONE) can help me get the drives going. In the meantime, if anyone here on the forum has any other troubleshooting ideas, please feel free to chime in. And thanks, again. MillipedeMan

No twists in the ribbon.

The last drive definitely has the termination resistance pack installed; I made sure of that. And I've checked the shunt pack jumper settings; disk drive one is set to DS0 and disk drive two is set to DS1.

Okay, understood. Thank you for clearing that bit about the floppy formatting up for me. Knowing what I now know, then I must have a problem with my half-height Epson 5 1/4" floppy drives. I was finally able to get the controller card in my PEB to recognize them; at least, I think that's correct. When I received the drives, no matter how I configured their connections with the card, the drive lights stayed on solid. Eventually, I found that the pins in the shunt pack of one of the drives were bent and touching each other. I straightened the pins out and the red lights on the drives no longer stay on solid; they flash as they should when I ask the Disk Controller Card (thru the Disk Manager 2 cartridge) to test them. But when doing a test or initialization thru the Disk Manager 2 cartridge, I still get a "DISK MANAGER ERROR 16," which means "NO DISK or NO DRIVE," even though I have a disk inserted. I've tested the drives (no floppy disks inserted) in Basic using the 2-line test program from the Controller manual; the drive light comes on briefly, and I get the "*I/O ERROR 06 IN 100" message as I should, therefore the drives are connected properly (according to the manual). Any ideas why I can't get either drive to be recognized through the Disk Manager 2 cartridge? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

My understanding: the problem is that the Disk Controller Card for the TI 99/4a PEB can only read/write single density floppies, even if the drive can read/write double density.

Yes, I looked for any single density using every permutation of the description I could think of. No luck.

Ok, it's now February 2016 and I can't find single sided single density 5 1/4" floppy disks anywhere on the Internet, NOS or otherwise. Any ideas?

Thanks, Old CS1: you don't need to check if you don't want to. I've already purchased a 32k memory expansion card, 2 half-height drives and a disk controller card/disk manager cartridge from another poster to the Atari Age forums. They should arrive within the week. Thanks all the same.

Hi: Thanks so much for the link that shows how to do the mod on my console. I am a bit of a purist, though, and since I never owned a PEB back in the Ferg (day) and I now have an empty one, I would like to experience what a TI user would have done to get his/her PEB up and running in the original manner. Also, I'm not too good with a soldering iron. As it turns out, it looks like I'll be able to get two half-height 5 1/4" TI floppy drives, a TI Disk Controller Card (with Disk Manager Command Module cartridge), and a TI 32K Memory Expansion Card from another TI collector for a very reasonable price. So I'll pass on the mod, but I very much appreciate your response. MillipedeMan

Hi, Thanks so much for your kind words about the condition of my console and PEB. The console I got from feeBay about three years ago for around $45. It came with no games (or, obviously, the menu strip), but it was in an original box. I got a few CIB games (Parsec, Blasto, and Munchman) as well as the Speech Synthesizer a little while later. I just got the PEB from a seller on feeBay for $80 plus $30 s/h. It's empty, but what sold me on it was its immaculate condition and the fact that at least the flex "fire hose" cable was included. The seller did an excellent job of packing it into an old Dell box (I know, the irony, right?)...lots of bubblewrap. I won the auction on Sunday night (1/31) and it was on my front porch yesterday afternoon (2/5). A great sale all around, and kudos to the seller. And I have to thank David Greelish (of "The History of Personal Computing" podcast) for directing me to the feeBay auction listing via his podcast's Facebook page. Also, thanks for directing me to the PDFs of the menu strips! Talk to you soon. MillipedeMan

My TI 99/4a console (w/Speech Synthesizer) and PEB. Anyone willing to sell a 32k memory expansion card and/or disk drive and controller card for the PEB? Sorry, my Atari 130XE and 1050 floppy drive photobomb end the pic.

Wanting to buy a 32k memory card for the TI 99/4a PEB. Prefer TI brand, but any brand will do.

Just purchased an empty PEB and want to find a disk drive and disk drive controller card for it. Also looking for a 32K Memory card.

Hope this photo helps show you how I have the TI hooked up (the white coaxial cable). The black cables are connected to my Atari 130XE.

Here's my humble TI 99/4a setup, combined with my Atari 130XE on the same monitor, at the latest meeting of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society last week.

Thanks, Kyle22 and Bryan...you're right. Just bought a white brick power supply off of eBay and that cleared the problem right up. You guys are great!

The video signal on my 130XE is apparently degrading. There is a distinct horizontal "bar," which takes up about a third of the screen vertically, that scrolls slowly up the screen distorting both the image and the color. I get the same problem with using a cartridge, booting to Basic, or loading from my floppy drive. I've switched the original composite cable with an S-video cable...same problem. It's not the monitor because my TI 99/4a looks just fine on it. I suspect that either the chroma or luma components are degrading, but I don't know for sure. Anyone got any troubleshooting tips or, better yet, solutions? I fear that I will end up trying to find a reasonably priced 130XE on eBay to replace it, but that's not my first choice. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Turmoil: I don't recall this game at all back in the day, but I heard a few solid reviews about it just last year, so I picked up a cheap loose cart on eBay. It's a really fun, fast-paced game with colorful graphics and great sound. I love it.

I'd prefer not to say how much I sold it for; business transaction between the buyer and myself. All I'll say is that I think we were both happy with the price.