PeBo

So, the piece of plywood is the famous "Guidry Board" ???

it came with one pre-printed one, all the rest were blank. The pre-printed strips were included when you bought software that used the CTL or FNCT keys, but if you get blanks, there are threads in these forums that include scans of ALL the various strips that you can print and glue/tape onto the blanks. Looks like you got a great collection of nearly everything.

A great video and a real gift for those of us who could not attend!

My quest to acquire the complete (English Language) Texas Instruments branded Command Module catalog is nearly complete. Hoping that someone here will help me make it to the end by being the source for the only two remaining TI-released cartridges that I still need to find... PHM3045 - Electrical Engineering: Circuit Analysis 1 (including the associated Disks (2) or Cassettes (10) if possible) PHM3213 - TI-Calc Manuals would be nice, but that may be dreaming in technicolor, so the cartridges alone would at least let me cross them off the list (and PDF's can always be found/printed) . Also looking for PHM3066 - Individual Accounting (Buchungsjournal), but the two above will complete the English language carts, and are my current priority. Thanks to everyone who has assisted me in getting the list down to the last two in a relatively short period of time.

Same thing happened with one of my 4A's, he just masking-taped it up, and slapped labels on it, and shipped it. In the end the box wasn't salvageable, but if it had been a /4 box, I think I would have cried!

I stand corrected... Just went through my docs, and sure enough I have the Blue Beginner's Basic book - still in shrink wrap. Didn't buy it, so must have been in the box!

very cool, thanks for sharing!

AND the famous Bill Cosby self-help book "How to Pick Up Chicks (and Knock Them Out)"

Was that only with the beige models? Did the silver/black versions have it too? OR, was it an item that was only included in the US domestic market, because my original machine did come with the book, I did forget to mention that the consoles on both sides of the border also included a TI-Basic reference card (two in my case, one in English and one in French - the latter is the only thing I still have from my original TI), and a bunch of FNCT/CTRL key strips.

Nah, just a picture I found online...If I had an original monitor, I'd love to find one of the second gen models (the more familiar Panasonic model that matched the PEB). Unfortunately, anytime one comes up it's in the States, and shipping/import fees would make it a luxury purchase. I did find one within a couple hundred miles a couple years ago for $75, but it was listed as "dead", and the last thing I needed was another piece of dead hardware that would never be fixed coming into my place.

Ya, that's what I figured. Same with the 1985 version of Space Station Pheta (the Tad Woods Forth version) only level 1 will load from a nanoPEB 1600 sector formatted volume, Too bad too, because the 1987 Jeff Bunting version (I think it's the one that was released for FR99) doesn't allow you to load or edit levels, and most importantly (on a game that one can spend several hours playing), it does not save the high score. I did manage to get a copy of the 1985 version on disk, but I assume the original was protected, as it just asks me to "insert program disk and press any key" Oh well, of the hundreds of programs I've got stored on CFs, I've only ever encountered problems with those two programs (Legends II and the 1985 SS Pheta), Even if there are a couple more, I'd say is a pretty good track record for a custom formatted emulated disk.

We have to try to see through TI's eyes back in the 80's. The way they saw it, the only profit to be made from selling computers, was in selling the software, not the hardware, so while it could be argued that if they opened up GROM access to 3rd party developers (at least at less than $4 a chip), that development would have gone wild (and that, by removing the 8K restriction, we would likely have had some of the best software of any of the "home" computers of the time), the TI piece of the pie would have been less significant. AND if this development would have resulted in selling more consoles (which by that time TI was selling at $50-$100, it would have ended up costing TI a ton of money.) Also important to remember that in the early 80's, memory cost a small fortune.... "Prediction: The cost for 128 kilobytes of memory will fall below U$100 in the near future." - Creative Computing magazine December 1981 (to put that in perspective, at that price the 256MB CF card I use in my nanoPEB would have cost me $200,000 WHOLESALE!!! (If CF cards had existed in '81 of course) And remember, that was a prediction... real world retail price for 128k in 1980/81 averaged $300-$400! And as mentioned, the video-game industry looked like it was going to crash (which of course it did), and no one could have expected the Famicon would come rising from the ashes, creating a second wave that we continue to ride today. It is just sad that TI didn't fix more of the "quirks" when they moved from the 4 to the 4A, and recognized that their competition was the Commodore 64 / Atari 800, NOT the VIC-20 (which never held a candle to the 4A). They dig their own grave when they decided to play along with Commodore's VIC-20 price war. Mind you, if TI would have done everything 'right', and successfully released the 99/8, would its home computer line have survived the birth of the Amiga and Atari ST a few months later, when they themselves did not survive the end of non-standardized hardware/software a couple years later. (except of course for Apple, although they DID nearly commit suicide with their bland beige PowerPC line - until saved from death's door by Jobs, with his bright coloured translucent iMacs and the neXT based osX) TI just never had a Steve Jobs (but neither did Commodore or Atari - although Tramiel came close for both of them in a purely capitalist (non-visionary) sense).

that would be this (which at first would always have included the "monitor" as well)...

OK, let's see how my geriatric memory does (although I usually remember 40 years ago better than 40 minutes ago),,,, - console - RF modulator - external Power supply (depending on when the machine was manufactured, it may or may not have a short "fix" cable attached) as far as paper... - a glossy orange 8.5 x 11 set-up pamphlet entitled "Read Me First!" - the whole punched Green "user reference guide" you mentioned (no, there was no binder) - two small 3.25 x 8 (?) pamphlets... - one (black and white except for the words Texas Instruments which were in Blue) was an invitation to join the Texas Instrument Computer Advantage Club - another (same size, brown cover, about 6 pages) was information on Texnet online services (this one also included a yellow Business Reply Card - a smaller pamphlet/instruction sheet for the video Modulator - an FCC warning flyer on radio frequency emissions, and a warning/instruction fly sheet on the power supply fix. - a blue TI registration card - an addendum on the differences between the 99/4 and the 99/4A....referring to the difference in particular software manuals - there might also have been addendums on the disk controller and drive, and further corrections to the User Reference guide - finally, depending on where and when it was bought, it might have included a Bill Cosby TI software flyer and an edition of the TI Newsletter (my Canadian Machine came with neither of these in '83, but DID come in a bilingual (French/English) box). I THINK that's about it...as you can see, besides the hardware, it was all paper..

That one's frustrating, coz I love the game, but every copy I have crashes when entering any dungeon except the one right outside of the starting town, rendering the game unplayable I keep blaming the nanoPEB's disc format, but not sure if that's what it is. It would be Legends II

Don't think anyone in particular is confirming responses, so I think we can agree that you're up etownandy (unless Space Bandits had a look alike clone we don't know about)!

Can't say much more than what Ω has already said, but will add that if you like Q-bert variants, I HIGHLY recommend Q-maze (also called Jumpy) distributed by DataBioTics (not sure who actually produced it). It's Q-Bert, but with changing block arrangements on each level which adds a real element of strategy that the original game did not have. Wasted several hours of my life on that one!

While I agree that Super Mario is a jaw-dropping accomplishment (as all the "that's a fake, right??" comments on YouTube attest), I'd hate for us to crown a demo as our flagship F18A "game". For that, I like to show off Scramble... ...to see why, just take a look at the "Let's compare Scramble" youtube video, and tell me that ours is not the best of the arcade ports (yes, I dare say even better than the 2015 C64 version!!). While Mario is an awesome spot-on duplicate of the nintendo game's first couple of levels (especially impressive considering it was done without documentation or references - kinda like playing Rachmaninoff by ear!!), the F18A enhanced Scramble is simply the best conversion of that game on ANY era-specific machine! (and it's the whole game...or at least it seems to be judging by how far I get) AND you don't NEED an F18A to play it!

That's what I thought. Of course in a world of credit card sized sidecar memory expansion (that can simply be removed when using the PEB) I guess it's really not an issue.

just curious, does installing the internal 32k memory upgrade preclude using a SAMS card in the PEB??

I have played Tutankham so much over the past few weeks that I see it in my sleep! Too easy digdugnate!! See, that's what happens when you're over 60...you dream about dudes roaming around dungeons instead of nay nays and tokhes!

I was gonna say "How did I miss that???", then I saw the price!!! That would be why I missed it!

Just remember it does nothing that any XB cartridge doesn't already do (except it allows you to do it in TI-Basic)

Geez dude, that is excellent...I also kept my shielding on which made seating everything a real biotch! Excellent alternative...I've got a couple extra sets of shielding lying around, think I may try re-installing it your way! Kudos/

yuppers digdugnate! This one is another one known by two different titles! Seems like DataBioTics released games under two different names quite often...Spot Shot (Dragonflyer), Q-Maze (Jumpy), this one, and probably a few more... would love to know the story behind that...sure must have made it confusing to buy them back in the day! They did release some great software after the 4a's demise though! They never made it to this side of the border back then, so it's been fun discovering them for the first time in the 21st century! Jumpman was instrumental in making me move over to Atari in '85, might have stayed with TI a bit longer (at least until the Atari ST was released) had I known I could get a great clone of it (minus the Epyx level) for the TI. Of course, I could be wrong on this one, making all my other points unrelated!