ElectricLab

What do the switches do?

Also - there's no way to challenge other players - yet. For now, you can create a new game and it will then show up for others when they click "Show Open Games". Everyone can play up to five simultaneous matches, and I can increase this if the need arises. It was more of a screen real estate limit, and I can open it up and allow for scrolling to see more.

I finally made a move in our match We need more players.

To all TI chess players, I have released version 1.1, and it has a lot of fixes in it. You can now actually end the game I still am working on some of the logic, but for now, you can end a match by conceding that you are in checkmate, players can agree to end a match in a stalemate or draw. You can also resign from a match, which will give the win to your opponent. I cleaned up several of the screens and made the text more clear, hopefully. Please send me a note if you find any problems of any kind. I should note that I'm using version 8.2 of Stuart's browser which allows for larger pages (in bytes) to be displayed. If you're using lesser versions, you'll want to upgrade as soon as he publishes version 8.2 to his site. If you'd like to join our chess community and you already have your TI on the web, visit myti99.com and create an account. Thanks, Corey.

Yes it was. One of the protagonists is in (I think) *the* meeting where the decision was taken to kill the TI.

TI 99, Landcruisers, and BMWs - I wonder what else we have in common Schmitzi? As for this poll, I guess I would say the answer is in the eye of the beholder, or blowing in the wind, or something.

Website updated.

Good idea

That's cool. I'd like to get setup to burn eproms - I haven't done that since the late 80s when we used to hack our PC BIOS roms. As for software for our envisioned TI webring, I created that user registration system would I though I could present to other programmers via an API, so they could write their own games and host them where/how ever they'd like. I want it to be modeled sort of like the game center that Apple and Android uses, where anyone can create and distribute games and use a common user database. We could open this up to other retro platforms as well, and play games against C64 users for example. Basically I want the system to be language and technology agnostic on the backend so anyone who wants to create cool games or apps in their preferred language can do so and we can link them together. It sounds like we have similar backgrounds. I have done mountains of Perl and really still like it (myTI99.com's user system and the chess game are in Perl) but I've also done PHP coding with a couple of frameworks, and I started learning Grails last year but now my day job involves hardware, C#, and Powershell. I think actually straight CGI-style with Perl or PHP is going to be easiest for the fact that there is such a small amount text that you can send to the TI browser due to the platform's constraints. Stuart has done a fantastic job of pushing the limits of what a browser can do, but you can only go so far. Even with my chess game, I have to watch the whitespace that gets printed to back to the TI to save space and I keep my form variables to 1-2 character names. Quite a few times I had to find ways to reduce the output, which was actually really fun to be honest. I think a little more work could be done on the browser side where whitespace can be removed from the stream as it's being loaded into the browsers parser, and things like the Apache header preamble stuff could be ignored, leaving more room for his 99ML code. Anyway I just feel that if I attempted to use a framework for the chess game, I'd have had a heck of a time making tight enough HTML/99ML. Also, rIght now there is no support for cookies with the browser making it difficult to tell users apart on the web, so I got around this by using a screen name and PIN that get used in each hyperlink on the page. Obviously this is lame in terms of security, but hopefully only Retronauts like us will be using this and gentlemanly behavior will be the norm. I thought about trying to use the remote user's IP address for this, but IP addresses change frequently, and I needed to support two machines behind a NAT router like I did during game development. This is all from my personal findings, and certainly nothing is etched in stone. I'm certainly no expert and would love to hear others' ideas. My hope is that we can tie things together with an open user registration backend and make a webring and this thing will expand and be full of useful things to do on the web with our ancient systems -Corey.

Correct. This is the only way you'll get any network connectivity with the TI, which I guess is how I took the question. There's no way the TI has enough memory and computing power to host a TCP/IP stack and do anything else useful.

Mika73, Yes there is. A handful of us are using the Lantronix UDS-10 devices. Stuart Conner has created a web browser that uses this device. All you need is: A TI with a serial interface, either a PEB or NanoPEB (The sidecar interface would probably work also), A Lantronix UDS-10 box (usually readily available on eBay), an Editor/Assembler cartridge and a copy of Stuart Conner's browser which he made available here: http://www.avjd51.dsl.pipex.com/ti/ti.htm#internet_web_browser I have made a chess game that allows for multiplayer matches using this browser, and you can play it on your TI at: myti99.com (You first have to register using a modern computer on myti99.com) I should add you might have to make a custom-made cable. There are plenty of people here to help you along the way. Cheers, Corey.

Well that's one of the coolest coincidences ever Hey jedimatt42 - I was wondering if you had any luck with that cable? I have the chess game working really well now. I am scheming on a couple of new game ideas, and it would be cool to collaborate on one.

That's cool. I live and work to the Hillsboro Airport. We'll have to meet up for lunch one of these days. By the way, I took the chess game down for a bit while I fix the 'check/checkmate' bug. It turns out chess logic is harder than I initially thought Anyway I took the page down because 500 errors look especially awful on the small TI screen.

Awesome! That translation program is one I threw together quickly, and is just a collection of regexes. Are you a developer?

I'll have to bring a couple of systems to demo, which is fine by me. I think if wa can have a mini swap meet that would be cool. I certainly have some extra stuff and some wants.

Ok - it's Stuart who will have to do all of this, and I'm sure if people with the various hardware could give feedback, he could make it work. The problem is that people with stock systems would be constrained, and the web app would have to be aware of what you have in order to make or not make use of larger web pages, >12K. Web apps already have this sort of problem with modern computers, and any web developer will tell you what a pain it is. The web apps would need to target the lowest common denominator for mass appeal, and everybody wouldn't necessarily win. One thing for sure is - I have a lot to learn about this other hardware that some of you have. I sure hope people bring their systems to Fest West for show-and-tell.

Omega, Sorry about that (That'll teach me to make entries on my iPhone on AtariAge ) To view somerandomurl.com on the TI using this program, you'd enter: www.myti99.com/xlat/?somerandomurl.com I had omitted the question mark which is necessary at this time. I could modify the web server to work without it, but I didn't take the time before. As for the 'm.' in the Reddit example, that's a pseudo-standard host name that I've seen websites use to indicate a mobile site. Some sites will do device/screen resolution detection and redirect small screens to a mobile-oriented site hosted on m.whateverurl.com. It's certainly not a true standard and not a guaranteed thing at this time.

Actually the 'm.' Should be removed also, so it's just /xlat/(your URL)

I must learn about this Cortex BASIC

Greg: I don't think FC mode matters, and I forgot to mention that two of my Lantronix UDS 10 devices do not support it, while just one does, and they all work OK. When I was configuring the ones that don't support FC, I think it said "not supported" and set it to 7C which works fine. The only difference is between the two modes is one and two stop bits, which are not critical.

@Ohm: Yes - I'd be happy to give a presentation at FestWest! @Greg: I am getting no retries or any glitchiness using a PEB and cables with ONLY these pins connected between the Lantronix and the PEB: PEB (DB25) Lantronix UDS-10 (DB25) Pin Pin 2 3 3 2 5 4 7 7 20 5 I have two systems set up with two PEBs w/non-HDX modded RS232 cards, Lantronix boxes, and I have been testing the heck out of my chess game and I didn't get any glitches at all over the weekend. I would venture to say more than 300 successful HTTP requests were passed through this setup. When I was using the NanoPEB, I would quite often get stuck in a retry loop, and eventually it stopped working altogether. I had tried different cables, and three different Lantronix boxes. I am pretty certain that I ended up frying it with ESD. I have since stopped storing the NanoPEB with my wool socks. J/K. Anyway I'm not sure if my experience is relevant, but before I killed the NanoPEB's RS232 port, I would get the occasional lockups and the light on the status light on the Lantronix would blink steadily, as if in some debug or test mode. A reset would clear it. I hope you can get it going.

Thanks Ohm. There is a limitation on overall URI length which is why I went for a smallish domain name and all my query string variables are short. I'll be working more on the game this week to polish it a little more.

Good idea I think if Stuart adds text input ability, we could do basic messaging easy enough.

I can understate how amazing Stuart's browser is! It's absolutely incredible to be on the Internet with the TI and think about the possibilities we now have. Granted we won't be playing first-person shooters with the slow speed of the TI, but turn-based games like chess are ideal. I think even a Tunnels of Doom type game would be possible. If any of you want to play the chess game, I created a registration page on MyTI99.com which you can use (on your modern computer) to create an account. You'll then be able to play on your console against other chess players. The chess game is a work in progress, and I'd appreciate any feedback/comments/bug reports. I should warn you that as of right now, you can't actually win at the chess game just yet. The game has only basic move validation and piece capture. I'll be working on proper check and checkmate detection over the next couple of days. Who am I kidding? I probably won't be able to sleep until I get it working Cheers, Corey.