PeBo

Think those are all probably correct, and what I had assumed (although knowing this was the 80's, Greg has a good point with "Proprietary" which certainly is what dominated the industry's business model back then (still does with Apple) I always had PHA down as Audio/Video rather than accessories though. but that's probably because the only things I've seen it applied to are monitors and the external video adapter. I think I had a GruntMaster 6000!! it sliced, it diced and even made Julienne fries! It was mine for just 12 easy payment's of $29.95 (and came with a full set of Ginsu 2000 steak knives). Operators were standing by to take my call

I said that, what, 3 desks ago??? I do occasionally say "OK, that's it I'm done"... ...then some forum post announces a new sidecar gadget or one of my supposed 'friends' here PM's me about some rare thingamabob they know I'm looking for, and I'm dipping into my savings again. Not to worry, as long as I don't live too long after retirement, I'll be fine. (but I see your Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (83 and still alive, kicking and stirring fudge) and I start to worry.)

Actually Blaine just posted a bunch of interesting disks. Don't think I've ever seen Rubik's Cube or Star Cadet. Would the mass transfer program be useful for use with an HDX mod??

So I guess sending in the free speech synthesizer offer won't do me any good then? Does anyone know what "PHM" stands for or why they started the cart # series at 3000? Not that it matters, just a trivia hound

you never cease to amaze my friend!

Downloaded the manual (and the list of differences with the 4A implementation) but have only given it a casual glance. Maybe this week-end.

Understand completely, and I really do like to see the woulda-coulda-shoulda been of things. I just don't think all of those titles are actually missing from the ninerpedia list. I think some of them were omitted by design. When I decided to start collecting 4A cartridges, I decided to focus on the ones that would have been available to original TI users. While that goes far beyond the day that TI dropped the line for third party distributors, TI-distributed and branded titles would have stopped development with the machine itself. That gave the collection a defined (but valid) cut off point, which was reflected well in the ninepedia list (albeit with a very anglo-centric bent). I guess it doesn't matter as much now that we have the great archiver schmitzi creating & categorizing lists that are more organized than my wife's dresser drawers, but when I went looking, the ninerpedia list was the only one that I didn't have to edit down to half size to be useful. It IS missing a few titles, but with the dozens of cartridge & rarety lists floating around, it is the only one that seems to try to be a true catalog of what software TI offered in October of 1983. I think that's equally important to having lists that include everything.

What exactly should be included on a TI-Cartridge list. Things that actually made it to retail or, as with the list above, should it include items like many of these (Choplifter, Scrabble, BSG) that were on their way - often with programming complete, but were kaiboshed by the 4A's demise. If it never made it to retail, then it was never a cartridge...even though a Gold or prototype board may actually exist. In my mind, these should be on a different list altogether - for titles where the code is thought or known to exist, but where a cartridge never made it to prime time. Why list Choplifter, on a TI-cartridge list if there was never an actual cartridge?

If I'm not mistaken, Battlestar Galactica (um, obviously a favorite of mine) was actually going to be a clone of Intellivision's "Space Battle". At least I seem to remember reading that somewhere. Keeping with the evil Cylon theme, did the unreleased MBX title "Starship Pegasus" (itself a clone of "Space Zap") ever make it to an EA/3 or EA/5 version?

gonna need a bigger bathroom, that's for sure.

I've always thought of Thorn EMI as a Music company (a massive one at that) At one point they even bought Virgin Records! They had a couple of minor artists you may have heard of (like The Beatles, the Beach Boys and Pink Floyd). "But wait, there's more..." They also owned the British television network Thames Television, were a defense contractor, and distributed movies on VHS (The Terminator and the Evil dead series might ring a bell). Aside from River Rescue, Submarine Commander and Computer War, I was never really familiar with their video games, but those 3 were great games (especially River Rescue)

I was actually impressed with the E.T. twosome (at sea and at land) a few months ago when I found them on a disc with a bunch of other titles. If Atari's E.T. offering would have been even half as good, they would never have been buried in shame (only to be dug up 33 years later, so people could say "Hey this really isn't that bad"!) I mean, it was least as good as Zero Zap! <evil grin> (OUCH! who the heck threw that???)

I take it this is the Jeff Bunting's version from 1987 rather than Tadd Woods' version from 1985? Dumb question, I'll find out in a few minutes. Either way, I love this game SSSSOOOOOOOO much!! many thanks!

r Hell, the year I graduated high school, computers didn't have monitors yet (a printer for output), and had to be kept in a temperature controlled room, while the IT folk wore white lab coats. Telecommunication was calling yourself collect to let your family know you had arrived safely at a distant destination (collect calls were free if the person being called was not there), and disco's were still called discotheques (and the music they played was R&B ("Disco Music" wouldn't be introduced for a few more years). Sonny had not yet met Cher, The Beatles were still in the top ten every week, and Keith Richards... - OK, Keith Richards already looked 110! Mini Coopers were distributed by a company called "Austin" and they even had a station wagon mini called the "Austin Mini Countryman" which had a wooden trim body. TV went off the air right after Johnny Carson (who had taken over the Tonight Show from Jack Paar a few years earlier) It would be a decade before TI would introduce the TI-99/4 (and 3 years later the 4A) You don't make yourself seem young, you make yourself seem pre-pubescent. (Then again, anyone born after 1970 should still be in Kindergarten in my mind) Best Wishes, Methusela

Got a similar email a few weeks ago. Noticed right off the bat the PayPal was spelled as « Pay Pal » (two words), and the two-tone-blue colour scheme of the logo was off by a few shades.

Always like seeing what can be done on the TI, so would love to have a graphics thread...wouldn't want a single format since that would probably omit graphics created though programming (Basic/Forth/GPL/Assembler) which, to me, are always more impressive than using a paint program (not necessarily in final results, but certainly in accomplishment). Otherwise we'll likely get nothing but a bunch of existing digital images converted for 16 colour 256x192 (which never look as 'good' as native graphics). Little or no interest here in F18 graphics. Don't get me wrong, I love my F18, with it's stunning graphics enhancements and it's supreme clarity on a modern monitor, but if we're going to show off what a 4A is capable of graphically, I (personally) would prefer to show off what it was capable of as it rolled off the production line. Let's face it, it beat the pants off of much of the competition back then, so let's show THAT off, not what it can do with new tech attached (which makes the 99 no different than any other vintage computer with modern enhancements)!

Except for the main character sprite being far less clean and detailed on the TI, everything else looks pretty much identical. Since this is just a prototype, I'm curious to find out how far it plays...which means I have to do much better playing it than I did on other systems 30 years ago (otherwise I'll be dead after the first few doors and never find out)

Does the DSK version of Tutankham posted a few days ago actually work....tried both E/A 3 and 5 to no avail. The C and G cart files work great under Classic 99, but really want the experience of playing this on original hardware for the first time.

This is a kick-a$$ post! One of my favorite platformers! Its non-release made even more sad by the fact that it was to come from a company that created the 3 most outstanding arcade conversions (imho) for the 4A Trivia: Many might notice that the name is misspelled (s/b Tutankhamun). There is no copyright reason for this, it was simply that the correct spelling would not fit on the arcade machine marquee so they chopped off the end to make it fit. Seeing as this is the age of the internet, I guess that's pretty common knowledge now, but I remember thinking it was cool little piece of trivia back in the day. Of course it was produced in a country that spells colour "color", calibre "caliber", and cheque "check"... so maybe no one south of the 49th parallel even noticed. <evil grin> Ironically the U.S. also invented the Spelling Bee! Better go try these files now, before I get myself into trouble here!

I actually looked into Cortex as soon as I heard it could be used with the FlashROM 99, just haven't gotten around to downloading it yet. For what I would like to do in the coming months though, I think RXB might actually compete with FlashROM 99 as the cartridge I end up using the most by the end of this year.

<GRIN!> Technically the Pontiac did, but only because I switched from TI to Atari before I ran it into a ditch and bent the frame. I would wager though, that the PEB is actually still fully functional somewhere. A seemingly familiar scratch on the front of the one I own today (and the fact that so few were sold in Southern Ontario back in the day), often makes me wonder if I'm now using the same one I sold all those years ago. Unlikely of course, but fun to ponder.

Damn! Even though the exchange rate was about the same (0.77 compared to 0.76 today), back in 1984 when I bought my first PEB (used) it cost me $600 CAD...now that did come with a SSSD drive and controller, but I then had to fork out nearly $300 for 32K and an RS232. I remember it clearly because up until that point, it was the most expensive purchase I had ever made (in 1984 I made just over 20,000 (take-home was probably closer to 15) and paid $500 a month rent for a 3 bedroom house, so the PEB cost me just under a month's wages and about 2 months' rent!!! - heck, I only paid $550 for the used 1978 Pontiac I was driving!)

I do miss having XB at the ready all the time, (and the built in catalog function!), but the FlashROM 99 has definitely replaced 2.7 Suite as my go-to cartridge. But it stands to reason that it would... ...XB2.7 meant you could run E/A3, E/A5 or XB Load programs from disks without ever removing the cartridge. With FlashROM 99, you can do so without ever inserting a disk!! The lack of GROM support has proven to be far less of an obstacle than I originally anticipated (at least for those with 32k expansion), because of all the rips that have been created over the years. While I'm glad that E/A and Turbo Forth can be used, having TI-Basic as the only Basic available when FlashROM 99 is plugged in does suck though.

Is anything connected to the expansion port (speech, PEB, nanoPEB?)

I use my TI exclusively for Porn. It's only 16 colours, extremely pixelated, you usually can't tell what body part you're looking at (or even if it IS a body part), but TIP (TI-Porn) has become pretty well the only thing I use when I boot up the 4A. At least I think it's porn. Kinda hard to tell really. Seriously though I use my TI for fun - whatever shape that fun might take. Sometimes it's spending a couple hours writing little XB proggies - nothing to share necessarily, just to entertain myself, relax (in a most enjoyable way), and remind myself how things work. Other times I spend an evening playing old classic games or see how I do with a random Plato title (and no, I am NOT smarter than a 5th grader). I most definitely use it to help manage my finances (ebay TI auction $175...groceries $125...available funds $250 - re-calculate grocery budget) But more than anything, I use my TI to glimpse back at a simpler time, when the social aspect of computing took place in kitchens, living rooms and meeting halls, often with the computer in the background tying up your phone line! A time when the fun of owning a computer was not in all the amazing things it could do, but instead in all the even more amazing things you were going to make it do!