ElectricLab
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Posts posted by ElectricLab
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less than $4 on amazon as an add-on item...
Just ordered one today to see how that does.I've been running all day drawing 65mA off the sideport for the memory card, with the speech synthesizer attached. Between running memory tests and playing parsec, my little 4A is acting quite happy. Oh, it is powering my wireless USB keyboard and the teensy3.2 as well.
People have been running CF7/nanopeb off the sideport with hacks as well. I think it should be ok. But the option to provide separate power will be there.
How's the voltage with the current at 65mA? I'm wondering if it's causing the voltage to drop a little since you're technically exceeding the 50mA "limit".
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I have been playing with using USB chargers as power sources. A USB to barrel connector can be found relatively inexpensively.
That's a good idea, since those things are typically smaller than your average wall wart. You can get 500ma from USB 1.0 so I'd think any of those would work OK in terms of, although I'm not sure how clean the signal is. Since they're designed just to charge batteries, I wonder if they have much in the way of filter caps in them.
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all the one's I've seen did.. corcomp, TI, Tachyon systems, nanopeb/cf7 imho a power supply isn't a deal breaker long as we can get them easily and sell them with it and or provide the specs.. Either that or make a pigtail that goes to the video port with a passthrough..
Greg
I like the pigtail idea. You'd just need a regulator to get to 5v, which would add another component to the board, but not too big of one.
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It may be that it's possible... but thinking about the target consumer, this would eliminate the "Plug & Play" aspect of the devices design.
If an internal console modification 'was required', that would probably suppress the market some.
Right you are Omega. I know jedimatt is going for plug-and-play which is the whole point of his project. Hopefully he can build this to not require an external 5v source, since that complicates things too. I know the TI sidecar 32K ram had its own supply built in - does anyone know if other manufacturers' ones did too?
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External power, or draw more off the sideport than it is designed for... I'm measuring ~65mA through the memory board with the LS245 buffer chip instead of the HCT245. This seems to be the big win for stability. More testing though.
Anyone know if there is a physical restriction on the sideport +5v? I guess I have to open a console and see what is between that sideport pin and the actual +5v from the power supply.
It's possible that this design was to discourage 3rd party development. I don't see why you couldn't tie that line in with an internal wire, straight to the PS's regulated 5v output.
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Contact him via http://www.cozx.com/dpitts/ti990.html - e-mail address at the bottom of the page.
Have you tried asking your wife, see how much she thinks it's worth?
When the wife notices your latest acquisition:
"What, that computer/ham radio/misc boat anchor ? That's been there for years." Practice in front of a mirror until you can keep a straight face.
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You might want to ask Dave Pitts that question, as he's the 990-family guru.
Thank you. Do you know his AtariAge user name?
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Off-topic question: I have the chance to purchase a TI 980 (the TI 990 is the successor), and I might get it just for the heck of it. I have a Silent 700 and an early 70s Texas Instruments printer that I could connect to it. It's just the big box with a backplane and power supply, and it's loaded with cards. I have no clue what to offer the guy.
Does anyone have any idea what something like this is worth?
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I received the components for the sample last night... This morning I assembled a board.
I tried the 74HC245 bus transciever, but that failed memory tests. It did however play parsec better than my earlier breadboard prototype.. although parsec would still crash before the 'bzzz-bzzz-bzzzst' baddies. I was bummed... Any of a million things could be wrong. But, since it sort-of worked, I focused on the data bus. I swapped out the HC chip for a nice old fashioned LS, and gave it a test...
Rock solid!
Then I decided to compare datasheets and build an understanding as to why that might be ( you might think that my behavior is backwards...
it is. ) The HC chip is lower power, but also that comes with lower output power. Given that it needs to signal back into the console through edge card connectors, I'll take that as explanation enough. Here are some photos of the assembled unit, connected to a TI, some different angles of it disconnected.
https://goo.gl/photos/a9c1BtSKucaPukhQ6
To solve the problem of extending the edge card connector far enough to the left, so that a plastic case could one day be there, I found a supply of single-pin machined sockets ( a 1 pin socket ) and just needed 44 per board --- so that was $1.20 a board, instead of edge card connectors with long leads... It is only 44 more solder points per board... And with 44 of them, it is strong.
The board is using 63ma. It just doesn't work off the side-port's +5v with the 50ma limit... I'll leave the selector/jumper, but it will require modding the TI to allow more current out the sideport. It looks like most of that current is the 62256 memory chip. Or maybe a source of much lower power 32k sram chips...
Anyway, enjoy the pictures.
Awesome. I can't see the pictures though. Perhaps you're still uploading them.
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getting mounting holes just right is a perennial problem on board designs. . .it is one of the hardest parts of the layout!
They're called, at least when I still worked at a PCB shop, tooling holes, and are also used for registration for electrical test to align the finished board on a fixture. When you get more complex in your designs with tighter pitch SMT and multiple layers, you really need them. Often they're left unplated which allows for tighter tolerances since plating and solder makes the finished size a little less predictable.
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Packet is largely dead, and is no where near as popular as it once was. I talked to the ISS once too back in the height of packet. Mostly what I see when I camp out on a frequency are beacons for mail relays. Not much actual traffic though. I would like to set up a station for doing packed on HF and relaying email for people - maritime mobiles and what not, but I don't know when I'll get time to set that up.
APRS is popular, but not terribly exciting for me. The Emergency Communications guys are all about the APRS, and there are packet nodes at many hospitals in my area and they're set up to exchange data in the event of infrastructure failure. There's that D-STAR stuff, but being proprietary and therefore against the spirit of ham radio, not interesting to me.
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I started out maintaining teletypes, though most of the truly mechanical ones I touched were from Kleinschmidt, Teletype Corp, and Siemens.
I have a collection of the things and I've gotten them printing with AVR microcontrollers, and more recently, with Raspberry Pis. I only have two that speak ASCII, since most of my collection pre-dates 1963 which I think is when ASCII became a standard. When I was a kid, my Dad had a model 19 hooked up to a radio and was doing RTTY. I became enamored with the mechanical wonders.
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There is a project where a guy did create RS232 functionality using the joystick port: http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/joytalk/joytalk.html
It wouldn't be a drop-in replacement for the standard RS232 port and software would have to be written to use it, but a really cool project.
I am an active ham and I've always loved digital modes. In about 1987, I used to decode morse by feeding in the audio from my HF transceiver into a simple circuit with an LM567 tone decoder chip. One of the LM567's pins would go low when a tone of ~1000 hz, as controlled by an RC circuit, was presented in its input. I fed the output of the tone decoder into a 2N2222 to simulate joystick button presses, if I remember correctly. I was able to write an XB program to listen for pulses and calibrate to the sender's speed and could decode the dots and dashes into text up to about 10 WPM. Any faster than that, and the poor TI running XB couldn't keep up. I new zero assembler back then, or I'd have made it work a lot better. It was cool nonetheless. For modes like PSK31, you'd need some more computational power to sample fast enough to be useful, even though the bit rate is just 31 baud. If you were able to feed Q and I into a TI, you might be able to do something in assembly. There are some interesting standalone projects like this one that I bought when they came out: http://www.nue-psk.com
I still tinker with packet radio and am in the process of putting a digipeater on a hilltop near where I live so I can do some experiments. I fully plan on using a TI console at home using an RS232 port connected to an old TNC, running at 1200 baud.
I'm a sucker for old tech.
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I did suggest a while back that the TI-99/4a joystick port could be used as a Rs232 port of some kind for us poor bastards who don't have PEB (as I don't).
My interest was that with a serial port, the TI-99/4 could be connected to a shortwave radio and used to decode Morse code, RTTY (Radio teletype) and other, more exotic data modes like JT65, PSK31 and other.
Unfortunately, I simply do not have the skills or resources to make this a reality.
I was also curios to see if the commodore 1541 family of disk drives could be interfaced to the TI-99/4a, as they are serial devices, and it has been done before:- http://www.sharpmz.org/mz-700/mz1571.htm
I am very impressed with your work
There is a project where a guy did create RS232 functionality using the joystick port: http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/joytalk/joytalk.html
It wouldn't be a drop-in replacement for the standard RS232 port and software would have to be written to use it, but a really cool project.
I am an active ham and I've always loved digital modes. In about 1987, I used to decode morse by feeding in the audio from my HF transceiver into a simple circuit with an LM567 tone decoder chip. One of the LM567's pins would go low when a tone of ~1000 hz, as controlled by an RC circuit, was presented in its input. I fed the output of the tone decoder into a 2N2222 to simulate joystick button presses, if I remember correctly. I was able to write an XB program to listen for pulses and calibrate to the sender's speed and could decode the dots and dashes into text up to about 10 WPM. Any faster than that, and the poor TI running XB couldn't keep up. I new zero assembler back then, or I'd have made it work a lot better. It was cool nonetheless. For modes like PSK31, you'd need some more computational power to sample fast enough to be useful, even though the bit rate is just 31 baud. If you were able to feed Q and I into a TI, you might be able to do something in assembly. There are some interesting standalone projects like this one that I bought when they came out: http://www.nue-psk.com
I still tinker with packet radio and am in the process of putting a digipeater on a hilltop near where I live so I can do some experiments. I fully plan on using a TI console at home using an RS232 port connected to an old TNC, running at 1200 baud.
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I just published my little artillery game for Stuart's browser, and have a few other web-based games in the pipeline. My adventure engine is nearly complete also, so hopefully someone will help create some cool new text adventure games that we all can play. I'm a sucker for those, since they were among the first games I ever played and I started writing some half-baked ones 30 years ago in XB.
To add to what Matt stated - it would be fun to get together again, even if there's not much new. I think I'm like others here in that there is no shortage of ideas, but spare time in which to execute them is the item in shortest supply.
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I wanted to let users of Stuart's Internet browser that I got inspired this past week to hack together a program to simulate an artillery game that would run in it. Basically I put together a simple trajectory algorithm on the server-side that takes two fields of input from the user: Angle and Velocity. A couple of mountains are rendered on the screen and a projectile's trajectory is calculated and plotted on the page using custom character definitions which are created on the fly.
Basically I wanted to experiment with maintaining a bitmap of the TI's screen on the server side, scribble stuff on it, and run it through an algorithm which would iterate through the bitmap and create <cdef> statements on the fly. These <cdef> statements are then printed ti the browser to show the screen.
I want to make it multi-color (Presently the "target" is a bump on the side of a mountain, and is the same color of the mountain), and also make it 2-player. I'll keep working on it as time allows, but wanted to see if anyone else could help me test it in the mean time. It's linked up to the home page of myti99.com (It works on a modern browser too, using Javascript, but what's the fun in that?)
I think this approach could be used to make some cool games. If anyone is interested, I'd happily share the code - I wrote it in Perl. If anyone wants to create some games or apps, I'll be happy to host them on myti99.com. I am working on making a TI web platform using Python and Flask, but it will be a while before that's done.
Thanks to Rich Gilbertson for suggesting such a game for the browser, way back at TI Fest West this past April
-Corey.
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To clarify, is there any interest in out there in creating new adventure games for others to play? Some years back, I created an adventure engine that uses MySQL on the backend, and I could create all the needed ingredients for interactive adventure games that could be played from the command line in UNIX. Basically I made it so one could create Zork and Pirate Adventure type games just be adding the right entities to database. I never did much with it, but I recently modified it to work on the web and tied it to MyTI99.com (It's not active just yet. read on if interested) and I've made it work with Stuart's Internet Browser.
I've been putting the finishing touches on web-based admin screens where one can create new adventures, create all the needed parts like locations, items, phrases, etc. The goal was to make it REALLY EASY for anyone with a little creativity to use these screens to put together adventure games, and publish them on MyTI99.com for others to play on their TIs.
I've only made one simple 18 or so location game that I created to test and debug the engine and admin tools. It's kind of fun, and I always enjoyed these types of games. I understand they're not for everyone, but I suspect there must be someone who will be interested in this project. I hope
Personally I have fond memories of staying up way too late with my best friend in High School, circa 1983, trying to solve Pirate Adventure on the TI. Say YOHO anyone?If anyone is interested in creating some games, please let me know and I'll make the admin tools available to you when I get them completed. I should mention that the admin tools are meant to be used on a modern web browser, but the finished games/maps are all playable on the TI itself using Stuart's Internet browser.
Just throwing this out there to see if I'm the only one that would be interested in this stuff or not.
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So I got back from Argentina yesterday, slept for most of the day, and today managed to reconstruct the prototype breadboard without buffer chips, and get it to somewhat work.
It is using about 15ma. and only sort of works when powered off the TI +5v sideport. This circuit doesn't work at all when powered off external +5v supply with shared ground.
The early buffered version worked fine off the external power supply.
So my question to anyone who understands digital electronics: Does this make sense? Is that part of what the buffers are for?
With the external supply I'd double-check that shared ground, and make sure the voltage is staying at 5v.
I wonder if the addition of buffers is affecting (data not being held?) the ability to read data. If you want to borrow my Logic Analyzer, it could shed some light. At least you'd be able to record some traffic and look at the timing. It's a Gould logic analyzer k205 and it is about as loud as a stock PEB, but useful. I even have the manual and several pods and connectors. I've not used it much other than going through its own internal diagnostics. Anyway you're welcome to it if you want.
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Darn, I just had bad timing then.
I see what you did there
You were billions of nanoseconds too late!-
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Hehe... cool video.
Mind you, the cable does not affect speed. The console does not wait for RAM, if it's not ready we just don't get the data.
Haha true! Sure if the RAM's not ready, you don't get your data. It might take more cycles to perform a read or write with a sufficiently long cable, which would be just as slow an approach as waiting for your data to be read/written. I think the TI is slow enough that you'd not even notice if a physically long bus was slowing you down, unless it were some miles long.
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It's cooler still to just remove the 32k card from the PEB. It's going to draw less power and be more reliable, too.
Remember - if your memory expansion is in the PEB, your entire RAM bus is running over that massive cable. Guess what happens if you bump it? Can confirm, that bumping the firehose cable has caused me many a crash. Also, that cable is looooong in terms of nanoseconds!
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I've heard that Micro$oft does indeed still patch XP to this day and that updates are being created. It's because XP is so widely deployed on important systems that aren't easily upgraded or upgradeable at all, like point-of-sale systems, and it would be a bad thing tm for M$ to abandon them.
I've also heard that you can change a registry setting in your home version of XP so that M$ will think it's a PoS (Point of sale, not the other meaning of pos which may also apply) system and that you can still get updates that way. Has anyone ever tried this?
(I heard this on a security podcast about six months ago, so your mileage may vary.)
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if I remember correct you play the tape past the first recording (pennies) and then stop it, do a load at that point and the 2nd bunch of bongabongabonga on the tape is quest..
and I think its the same thing on side 2 btw..
Greg
"bunch of bongabongabonga" lol
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I have a silent 700 at home, with its power cord. I don't know the name of that type of cord but I'll look when I get home to see if there are any numbers or markings on it.
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32k expansion for the side port - released
in TI-99/4A Development
Posted
lol no - no turning traces into fuses
What I was getting at was, if the current is limited to 50ma through current regulation, then I wondered what's happening to your voltage level if you're sourcing 65ma. It may bring the voltage down inversely as you pull more current. If the voltage drops below the min required by the ICs, you might get some flaky behavior.