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iKarith

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About iKarith

  • Birthday May 21

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  1. I've been thinking about this a bit… I know the desire would be to create a modern desktop metaphor GUI, but … do we need or even want that? If an alternative to Matt's 32k giving us a TiPi-compatible SAMS were to be created, or a P-box SAMS card with TiPi, you'd have access to a modern mouse. All for that! F18A Mk 2 should be able to give us the option of more colors, more sprites, more graphics in general. What I wonder is … what if the text screen and the graphics screen were essentially the same screen? That's not far from how the stock VDP operates anyway, but let's maybe improve upon that. What if a program can take over the screen or part of it to render graphics on top of the text? Again, almost the VDPs native mode, except there's no coordination or standardization. I think about Contiki, a GUI program on the C64, but plain text for faster speed on the Apple II. But its TUI tries to implement ASCII icons. What if it could just draw graphics there? What if it could use colors to use the text screen more like a GUI screen, and instead of being a character cell MouseText "arrow" or inverted block, the cursor were a mouse cursor that moved like you'd expect? From where I sit, the desktop metaphor is going away. It's not really used on modern versions of Windows and is increasingly less used on macOS. The desktop is becoming a scratch space for a current project and the usual menus and the like are being replaced by program finders or selectors—pop up screens full of programs to choose from or search through. A setup like this might lend itself nicely to a Norton Commander style file manager, or maybe you could run a modified beginners or extended BASIC that ran under it. Multitasking maybe with a model like screen/tmux, either full screen or in subwindows, or maybe both? And because programs would be cooperating, you could mix GUIs and text. This IMO capitalizes on the fact that the TI, like most 1980s vintage computers, is pretty good at text, but still give you the power to use graphics wherever you need them. I know I've often wished I could just switch tmux on my Mac or Linux machines to a tab with a GUI web browser in it. I don't often tile things because I like being able to see what I'm doing with large fonts, but a split screen does have its advantages. Throwing a pipe dream out there.
  2. Definitely the issue with the console is the internal power supply. The transformer is pretty robust. I'm interested in a power supply to replace the one in the PEB,. Ideally I'd like it to be a DC-DC power supply, but I haven't really found a +5v +12v -5v supply. The PicoPSU things exist—you could use a 7905 to get -5v and the regulator board could provide power switch and mounting inside the console. If I were doing that, I'd probably have additional space on the PCB. I've got a few ideas about things you might want to transplant inside the console if you had the option.
  3. I haven't gotten into this yet. I should correct that problem.
  4. I have one of those things. I hate having to use it, so I try to be careful of the knee. Unfortunately I'm dealing with another painful medical issue right now. I'll be seeing a surgeon about it Tuesday. Two surgical options exist, and one of them requires a nearly one month recovery. I won't be able to get around the way I usually do during that time.
  5. Those aren't quite right for me I'm afraid. I can picture what I have in mind, I'm just going to have to try and find a way to get it made I guess.
  6. I kinda like the case for the TexElec joystick adapter and hoped something like that would be created for the 32k/TiPi. Doesn't look like it's forthcoming though. It'd have to be a little taller than the speech synthesizer and possibly the console itself. And like COREi64's case, it'd probably need some sort of table stabilization because the case would just add too much weight to want it hanging off the card edge connector. I'm also on the lookout for a new Pi case since the one I've been preferring doesn't have facility for both cooling and connection to the GPIO port. The only heatsink case (I like the passive nature of these things) that does is one made for ASIC miners, and it's not been updated for the 3B+ so I can't recommend it to anyone today even if I get one for my older Pi 3. It's also not exactly elegant. The plastic cases with fan support exist I guess. Not silent, but my Sunon fans are pretty quiet and they work with even those dinky $1 Pi heatsinks that otherwise are completely useless.
  7. Eh screw it, SAMS in console using 8M x 8 SRAM and 5v-capable CPLD as a two-chip solution, along with your speech synth. TiPi with passive edge connector adapter. :P When did my head develop interest in plumbing?
  8. Debian uses systemd by default, but still includes the ability to replace it with half a dozen other things. The point of Devuan was because Debian was expected not to give people that choice, but since it does, I don't know why Devuan exists anymore. Systemd … I won't say it was a solution seeking a problem, because there was a problem it was trying to solve. It's not an optimal solution IMO, by far it's not. And I still think it's poorly documented for something as different to traditional inits as it happened to be. (I'm not 100% sold on some of its technical design either.) That said, there are some definite advantages to using it, and more than once I've found myself annoyed trying to do things the Debian way so that they work with or without it since you'd do the thing in two completely different ways depending on whether you've got systemd or not. These are kind of edge cases, I realize, but … meh. I recently found a book on Amazon about systemd … it um … I'm not posting a link here. Rule 34 and all that. I'm just walking away from that crap…
  9. I've not seen many phones support a touchpad. And I think that your left hand will hate that split location. I've used a lot of mobile keyboards over the years from the PalmOS days, and the only split keyboard that works well is the center split: This one does it right. Although, the problem with that one if you're an Android user is that it's a Mac/iOS layout keyboard, strangely with Windows ctrl/fn layout. I did finally force myself to learn to use that layout because I use a PC keyboard on my Mac. It may be that putting it in Android or Windows mode swaps the win/alt keys, if so the legends would just be wrong. I don't think that's a big deal on Android really, which is probably why it's labeled for iOS. No guarantees there, only that the keyboard mechanism is easier to not miss g, t, b, etc. I miss the original Stowaway design personally. You can still find them, and they're more convenient than the Logitech non-folding keyboard I carry, this one. It works, and you can physically turn it off. I mentioned i use a PC keyboard on my Mac—basically its big brother with the numeric keypad, sans the Mac driver that puts it into Mac mode. That's intentional because the Mac mode is actually horrid on a Mac. Works okay on iOS.
  10. I think what you're witnessing is the hodgepodge nature of the TI, and the fact that it was abandoned by TI before anyone had come up with a cohesive BASIC with DOS built-in that could also run EA5 programs. It all seems to have been doable, it just didn't get done originally for cost/time cutting reasons, and later because TI had pretty well abandoned the platform because … of cost reasons.
  11. Schmitzi, you have too many PEBs. You need to send a few of them to other people.
  12. If you're interested in a beginner's guide for the TI itself, it's a bit outdated now, but I cannot recommend enough watching Vectrex Roli's video on the subject: The first thing to know is that there's now FinalGROM/99. (Also FinalROM/99, but you want the GROM version because it does more.) This little cartridge will take just about every piece of software made for the TI-99/4A on cartridge. The only exception I know of is Tursi's Dragon's Lair port, and that thing uses a cartridge that doesn't exist yet because it's 128 freakin' megabytes! The 32k addon is still desirable. There's several ways to get it and you can't have more than one of them installed. It's actually possible to put the 32k in the console, but obviously that's a bad idea. I like JediMatt's 32k because it works with TiPi. You can read more about that elsewhere, Omega's done much evangelization on it. That's enough to do most things people are doing with their TIs these days.
  13. And I didn't even notice the one that ended up upside-down of my cleaning stuff.
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