mozartpc27

This is how we got our CV too. Mom wanted to get my sister a cabbage patch doll and had to buy me a ColecoVision. Fortunately our birthdays are 8 days apart so we each got our gift, and I think my cousins already had a ColecoVision so I had some familiarity. My mom then went on to buy an ADAM so we doubled down on the Coleco thing, and indeed it is the ADAM that I use today.

Wait, what? They ADAM has, like, wisdom teeth? Pictures for sure!

Way late to this party but I have to admit, as a Commodore user, the notion suggested by the OP two years ago of porting GEOS to the TI-99/4A is fascinating to me. Even as a hypothetical not sure how feasible it is, maybe with the memory expansion? Still, interesting.

Ikranaka, thanks for posting and sharing that article. I'd never seen it before; very informative. And how about that mail away ad for the "private arcade" home cabinet thing? That's amazing. Wonder if they ever sold any, and if there are any left around.

I only have an Atari 800XL, which does not have the Atari key that the 800 has. What was this key used for, and why was it dropped?

Yes, but on the Commodore, first off, all commands worked in both upper and lower case, and second of all, the "upper case" characters that appeared on the screen were ready-to-use in terms of writing commands. if you shift-lock a Commodore in BASIC, the characters that are printed are the special graphical characters - those would not be recognized by BASIC. To get lower case characters in Commodore BASIC, you had to hit shift while holding down the Commodore key, and, like I said, if you did that, all BASIC commands would still work just fine.

I guess it is the "default" in terms of what the computer expects to see, but the computer doesn't boot by default to "upper" case, so, between that and the fact that the "lower case" letters are really "upper case" in appearance, I have to say it is a bit confusing. Add to that that the manual nowhere mentions the upper case requirement... All that said, what is really embarrassing is that I had figured out the upper case thing once before on my own, and had forgotten it. Until I read jedimatt's post, that is. Then I dimly remembered having discovered this little quirk before.

So the COMMAND doesn't need to be capitalized (old), but the device name does (DSK1)? And even if that is the case, CAN you have a device "dsk1"? Aren't the device names fixed - DSK1, DSK2, DSK3 - and aren't they limited to 3?

I am an idiot!!!!!!! I completely forgot that the DISK commands only work if you type them in ALL CAPS - which of course is very subtle on the TI-99/4A, because even the "lower case" character set appears to be ALL CAPS. So this was my problem! So stupid! My only question is - since it was the COMMAND that was wrong, rather than it being BASIC being unable to read the damn disk, why did get error codes of the style x0 on any command I tried, instead of a BAD COMMAND NAME type of error?

OK... so, thank you, Casey, for the suggestion about trying CALL FILES(1). I tried this in regular AND extended BASIC, and it does NOT return an error message with the PEB plugged in, turned on, and hooked up to the computer. Extended BASIC recognizes the memory expansion card, as before. The disk drive in the PEB also initializes and does something - a self test? - when you load Extended BASIC. I can manipulate disks - catalogue, rename, format, run diagnostic tests - from the Disk Manager. But, out of either BASIC or EXTENDED BASIC, I CANNOT read from, write to, or otherwise use a floppy disk. The errors I get are all of the x0 variety - indicating neither BASIC reads the drive as present. But, again, the CALL FILES(1) command does NOT return an error in either BASIC or Extended BASIC, so I guess the computer CAN see the card, but somehow not the drive. But it CAN see the drive if I am running the Disk Manager and just trying to manipulate the disk through that. Any ideas?

I did try the various commands in Extended BASIC, and was still getting x0 errors. I'll have to try the CALL INIT test.

Will need to try this at the next opportunity.

arcadeshopper was kind enough to send me an Extended BASIC cart, I used it yesterday, and the computer does see the memory expansion card from Extended BASIC (reports two lines of memory, STACK and another line - if I turn off the PEB and try the same command, only one line of memory).

Any statement referencing the drive returns an error of x0.

The error is definitely of the x0 variety - the computer is not reading the presence of the disk drive in BASIC. But if I load the Disk Controller, it absolutely does read it. I have initialized a disk, and changed the name of another. So why can the computer recognize the drive in one application (Disk Manager), but not another (BASIC / Extended BASIC)? Again, the memory expansion card installed in the PEB is read and detected within BASIC just fine, further suggesting the cable isn't the problem. Hard to see how this could be cable-related. I tried reseating the disk controller card before, with no luck. I suppose I could try again.

Well, thanks to arcadeshopper, I have tested the memory card in the PEB, which appears to be in good working order, making a connection to the computer, etc. I can still manipulate disks in the disk manager. I just can't load or save files from the disk drive in BASIC. Any ideas?

So a special thank you to arcadeshopper for agreeing to loan me an Extended Basic cartridge with which to test the system as I hAve it. In the mean time, any other suggestions about the disk drive issue? Seems like a very strange problem to me.

Hmmm. I appreciate the insight, but I am in a bit of a catch-22, I guess: I don't want to spend more money just to test the system, only to find out that it doesn't work, and need to spend more money - but I guess there is no way to know if the RAM expansion card is working unless I invest in something besides a basic TI system? Is that the case? The point of testing the RAM expansion card to my way of thinking isn't so much about the RAM, it's about testing the PEB versus the disk drive: if the RAM expansion card works, and the disk drive works in Disk Manager, I think that suggests a different problem than if NEITHER the RAM expansion NOR the disk drive work in BASIC.

Don't have the flashROM cart. What is the EA cart? Also, anyone have any other suggestions on my "main" problem of the disk drive being readable and writable in Disk Manager, but not in BASIC?

One question I have: my PEB has a RAM Expansion card, but I do not have the extended BASIC cart. Is there a way to test whether that card is working without extended BASIC?

Thank you for the suggestion, but this does not appear to be the issue.

OK, so I am going to piggyback on this topic. I am a TI novice (really a Commodore guy) so bear with me. I have the PEB. I played with it once before, got it to initialize and then write to a disk, and load back from it. All good. Put it aside. Today I took it out to fire it back up, and I am having an issue. When I go into the disk manager, I can catalogue the disk I used before, it shows it being in the drive and the name of the file I made, no problem. Go back out to BASIC to load the file with the OLD command, and I get error 50. Write a program and try to save, error 60. Just run the little diagnostic program in the Disk Memory System manual, error 00. I know the codes are telling me the specified drive can't be found. I used the DSK1.x command to try loading and saving, then switched to DSK.[name].[filename]. Neither worked. Back into Disk Manager, I can still catalogue the disk. I even changed the disk name, successfully, from TI-99/4A to TI994A, thinking maybe the special characters were causing issues. Back out to BASIC, still no dice. Eventually I got to a point where, in the Disk Manager, I got told the disk I was using was not initialized. I figure now that the disk is the issue, but I reformat it just the same, and am told it is successful. then I break out another disk to format and try. Same results with the second disk. So I *think* I have eliminated the disk as the problem. I also tried reseating the disk controller card. After reseating, same issues. Anyone got a clue what is going on?

I am in PA but apparently I need to check out the Englishtown swap meet.

Old thread, but I just found it. I bought the 2600 version of this game for my CV Expansion Module I. The idea that there is a CV version out there unreleased is amazing but is killing me!!!! Also really want to know what MOTU II would have been. I have an MOTU "Arcade Game" produced for the C64, but I believe that was in Britain.