palmheads

Last couple of days on a New Zealand Vintage Computing Group Facebook page we've been talking about the TI-99/4a. One of the guys had this great story where he recounted to us ... found the original 2011 message https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=505 Basically a Research Vessel called the "Tangaroa" for one of our Science Research Institutes (NIWA) had a broke comms system back in 2011. The CPU in the comms system was a TMS9900! It needed to be fixed urgently, and would have taken too long to get a replacement chip into NZ, so the guy repairing it found a collector here in NZ, and this guy had a non working TI-99/4a so he donated the motherboard to get the comms system fixed!

"decommissioned in 2022 in the UK after 37 years of 24/7 service" Wow!

Hi So was the Tomy Tutor able to poke/peek from basic/gbasic? Any assemblers on the machine itself? Googling appears the answer is no, just be interesting to confirm. cheers Daryn

Hey guys I remember @rasmus saying once for a port of a Z80 game for the TI, he really needs Z80 source code. So here is an intriguing possibility! https://github.com/santiontanon/transballmsx Its a "Thrust" like game for the MSX with full source. Same graphics chip as well. Looks a great game! You can play it online here: https://homebrew.file-hunter.com/index.php?id=transball Anyway, another game to add to the list of possible ports for the TI! cheers Daryn

Working from home last 2 weeks, New Zealand about to go into full lockdown w/state of emergency as of 11:59pm tonight for 30 days. Am actually finding am working longer as people with flexible hours now have different work schedules. I did look at my xdt99 config for my "Thrust" game code couple of days ago, so fingers croseed

Probably not exactly what you want, but there is that Miniwriter word processor that ran on the mini memory module.

We find out this week how long they want to keep us. Won't say much more until after gone. But yeah, I think feelings are rather obvious. Ugh. cheers Dazza

Hobbies are a great distraction! Good luck, hopefully you can find a role that makes you happy & gives you enough moola!

Hi guys Done nothing in a while I'm afraid. Although am about to be made redundant thanks to these Texas Capitalist **** buying the company I work for in NZ...forbes article about them... https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2018/11/19/how-a-mysterious-tech-billionaire-created-two-fortunesand-a-global-software-sweatshop/#7439ab76cffe I may have alot of downtime & therefore more time for hobbies over next few months. cheers Dazza

Oh wow that is slow. Graphically it does look doable though! Could be an XB/Assembly job then

Hey Whenever I'm mucking around with my other retro computers, if I see a game they could be cool on the TI-99 for TI-BASIC & mini memory (perhaps for next 4k challenge) I make a note of it. Been playing this game on my ZX81 (real & emulated). http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/tape/CityPatrol You are a turret that turns 360 degrees. In front of you is a city scape. The city is in layers - some buildings closer, some further away. You have a gun sight. UFO's fly up/down/between buildings. You have to aim with your sight & shoot them. You can blow up buildings but you lose points. The UFO is also shooting at you (quite effective - a white square with an asterisks when it shoots. Its really playable & enjoyable! cheers Daryn

Gotta learn howto build stuff like that first! From my limited knowledge, it does look relatively simple.

When you look at the quality of some of these games, if only TI had introduced the mini memory module maybe 6 months earlier than they did. You would have seen a bunch of impressive games on cassette for the console only. Only a handful were actually developed. These games are fantastic

Oh wow thats fantastic Bones-69!!! Thanks awesome feedback from Jeff Minter himself!! And Mr Minter - love Gridrunner on Android! Also love opening up a Vic 20 emulator and playing Matrix. That PS4 version looks great!

Interesting too see doco relating to converting the Model 770/771 terminal (used as terminals for the /4, /10, /12 etc) to a DS990/1. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ti/990/ds990/2262327-9701_Model_771_Intelligent_Data_Terminal_Upgrade_Instructions_to_DS990_System_Model_1.pdf