iKarith

For that price, the fact that I haven't actually tested my tape recorder yet, and that I neither have nor want a PEB and disk drive, I think I'm likely to fall back on software piracy for that one.

If you wanted to do the RAM on the 16 bit bus, I suspect you'd need a few more wires, but that's still very promising. It could also be a good way to add CRU to the QI models as well. Solder those wires if you need them, don't if you don't. Quite interesting.

Currently I think the AVR just gets out of the way as soon as its done flashing and is never seen by the TI at all. Also, I think the FR99 provides just 32k of SRAM—is more needed for GROM stuff? I suspect it might be? I think the combination of FR99 and UberGROM would pretty much let us run ALL THE THINGS that don't require disks and tapes, wouldn't it?

My TI will probably mostly get used for gaming, maybe a little tinkering once I have some more idea what I can do with it. I just love making old hardware do something useful and cool.

I have a ROM3 board in a functional (but melted!) case of another IIgs, but that machine's got a severe drive problem because the only 5.25 drives I've got don't have Apples on them (BTW the Commodore 1541 and 1571 are HEAVY!), and my 800k drive is actually busted open and needs some work. I use a CFFA3k and Appletalk to get stuff on to it. I've also got two other ROM01 boards with clipped batteries. One of them works fine. The other has some kind of fault in the keyboard circuitry—if you control-reset with an ADB keyboard, it acts like you've got a Command key pressed too. The ADB MCU and GAL are SMDs and I can't actually test that, let alone replace it. Reflowing the solder may fix it, or it may need new ADB chips and someone who can do SMD soldering. I'm teaching myself to solder and with my eyes I'll be able to do through-hole DIP stuff eventually, but not SMD. Was gonna take the board to KFest to see if Henry or James or someone would be willing to poke at it and see what they can do. The damaged board has some sentimental value to me. And I have a specific long-term project in mind if it can be made to work again. Using a //e keyboard is a valid solution, if it works, as long ADB works for mouse, which we never got to test. The Baked Apple will live again! Since that's more fun, I'll describe it first: I think I can fix my 800k drive, but its case is toast. If I can find a dead UniDisk 3.5 (in //c white with offset button), I'll get my 800k drive working possibly with a Mac drive mechanism if that's what it takes. I've got one around here I know works even. I bet you can guess what I have in mind for the Baked Apple by now. There are more dead //e systems out there that don't need their shells than dead UniDisks, and I like to find one with an older keyboard. Helps if it's a plastic top, but I think that was common enough. I'd like to fit the Baked Apple into it, replace the lamp (dead bulb or not) with an LED (still debating on green or dimmed warm white, I don't think those older keyboards ever had LEDs at the time), and of course I'd need to cut out the back and epoxy in new standoffs, some of which need to be nylon. Haven't decided if I want to rig up Disk ][ drives to the end of the SmartPort daisy chain or use some of the pre-platinum UniDisk 5.25s, and I have no idea where I'm going to find someone who can cut me a new back panel or what I'd do about getting an ADB mouse in M0100 or 3rd party mouse shell. I want to put some kind of "hard drive" into the system. I've actually got a CMS card and drive, but there's some problem with either the card, the cable, the drive enclosure, or with me, because I never got it to work. One of these days I need to go visit pilgrim out in his bunker and take that with me. He's had a lot of experience with them. But ultimately I think I want a memory device of some kind, and trying to connect a SCSImonster to a CMS card sounds like a needless exercise in wasted money and needless masochism. I'd be better kicking a few bucks to Ian Kim or someone else for an Apple-specific solution. The other things I'm hoping to accomplish at some point is to build a //e for Appletalk Raspple II testing, and I have … hardware hacking in mind for the Apple //c. Hope to acquire the machine for doing that at KFest. Someday I'm going to a Starbucks with a 12v powered screen, a //c, and a battery. The //c will talk. It may even be able to connect to the network. Whether or not it can, I fully expect to ask at some point to borrow a phone to check my email. And I intend to be prepared if they actually have one. There will be games and speech synthesis. And we'll see what happens at a Starbucks when someone like me brings such a thing in. I predict it will be GLORIOUS, and there absolutely will be someone off in the corner with a camcorder. I may have to do it in Salem so there's a larger pool of people who can actually watch it go down, but I really ought to do it in Portland just because … Portland. I'm a very warped individual.

This is HIGHLY RELEVANT to my interests!

PiPlay apparently uses VICE for C64 it claims. *shrug* So what are they doing that we're not, I wonder?

I'm a blind guy. I DON'T DO "small monitor". I've been using a 20" cheap-ass TV that takes composite in the Y channel. Unfortunately unless I can get C split into Pb and Pr (which isn't exactly how that works I know), it's limited to composite. Mitchell Dayton from the FB group's got a 20" Dell monitor with S-Video input, but I need to talk to him about whether it's better to send that on to KFest for me to use there or to Oregon for me to take to KFest. I'm leaving on the 15th for KFest, so I don't know if I'll be there on the 14th or not. If I otherwise do my packing ahead of time, I could do it depending on what hour Mark plans on leaving Portland the next day.

My IIgs doesn't take too much space. My C64 does, only because it needs a big flippin' disk drive. It shouldn't be too bad otherwise. My TI-99/4A wouldn't be too bad if I had an external keyboard on it since I don't use a PEB. That's three machines. Ideally I'd like two more in my full setup, but I don't have them yet: An Atari and a CoCo. I'm thinking like 18x24" restaurant shelves could hold systems pretty well in a vertical space if I can arrange some way to use them all. PS/2 keyboard adapters? Hm.

Mark, you can always send me an extra //e. Actually, the thing I really need is drives. I have 5.25 drives, but none with an Apple logo. And my 800k drive is broken. Appletalk and CFFA pretty much are how I get anything done at all.

The IIgs did have software speech using its DOC, and unlike SAM it could speak while the computer was doing something else. Only almost nobody ever used it. It's there though.

Appreciate the effort you're about to put into this. The more modern replacements for old peripherals there are, the easier these things become to collect and actually use.

I dunno if the buyer will feel 100% welcome with people raging about their willingness to spend so much money on it. That said, eBait is getting ridiculous in the asking price if nothing else. Not everything 30 years old is worth hundreds of dollars. But they think people will pay huge amounts for it. Once in awhile, somebody will. Like I said, the 99/8 I'd expect to go for bank because it's an unreleased prototype. But the average beat up TI console? Box or not, I don't think so. Even a clean, nice-looking one. Now, a /4 in that condition might fetch $100 or more from folks right here on the forum, I'd guess. But it's all a question of condition, rarity, and desirability. I don't want any /4 myself any more than I want an Apple ][+. No need, I'm not building a museum here, I'm buying stuff to use. I'm happier if it's stuff in good condition, but this stuff isn't an investment for me—and I'm gonna laugh if it's an investment for anyone else. Only a few rare machines really are worth thousands upon thousands of dollars. Things like the Apple 1. The rest? It's just old toys for people who still play with them, mostly. Worth a bit, but not much unless there's a reason why you're not going to find many of them.

That won't do it electrically, no. This would. Again, no easily linked datasheet to know if the stem fits.

I'd need to take some measurements and compare to an engineering drawing, but I find this: That's 4PDT, which is more than you need, but you just wouldn't connect the other leg of the switch, and you can leave the 4th pole unconnected as well. You do need to worry about whether or not that switch can handle the power, and I haven't checked that yet either, but these do exist.

Or start looking into a collab project to being developing the uberFlashGROM99. Not that I'm hinting at anything of course…

I think the RAM was installable with or without the wait states (with option to make it switchable). Tursi, is it possible to modify that board a bit to socket one of the existing chips (or use an already socketed chip) to clean up the wiring installation even more and give a place for the board to fit? That already looks like a major improvement over the piggybacked chips, a modding technique I have never been a fan of for reasons that threads about the nanoPEB make all too clear.

I tried to set up VICE on a Raspberry Pi for that, and was really VERY disappointed. Best I could get was 38fps. Maybe that's part that I don't know what I'm doing, but the tips I were given was to try FastSID and disable any screen filter. Check and check. It's using OpenGL for video output, but I don't know if that's helping or hurting. Probably the best thing to be done is port VICE to SDL2?

My 1571 was sent with the transit card in backwards. It seems to have survived the trip, even if the original box it came in did not. (Whew!)

I do! They're a great bunch, too. Greg's got my C128 still because I haven't had the opportunity to go and collect it from him, and I am a permanent pedestrian so I couldn't carry it home along with the C64, a 1541, and my TI-99/4A which I brought to show people while everyone was getting down with soldering irons and test harnesses and whatnot. Someday I hope to be lugging only a C64C and some flash memory device. Much easier on the back!

I was always a fan of primarily text adventures. I say primarily because some of them had graphics as well, but the primary descriptive interface was text, and so were the commands. I've been meaning to play the more graphical versions, but ... time.

Lots of folks wind up with "retrogaming" and "retrocomputing" rooms, museums, man caves, whatever they want to call it. Aaaaand some of us live in small apartments. If you live in a small apartment, or you otherwise haven't got a whole lot of flat space for setting up lots of retrocomputers, how do you manage in your little corner? Pics, people, show off your small setup.

Hey all, I picked up a couple Atari Flashback 2s earlier in the year, and of course that's the machine that can have a cart slot installed because it's actually a VCS on a chip, with a flash chip you can bypass. Nifty. Of course I learned these consoles have several hardware bugs that make several real VCS carts, some of which are actually worth playing, not work right or not work at all. But the VCS when you get right down to it is TTL-level power supply, three chips, and video and sound hardware. People have replaced the flash chip with a real cart slot, but has anyone replaced the VCSoaC with a board that has the three chips on it? Searching for this, I found BenHeck's hand-soldering job push anything else that might be relevant into such obscurity I couldn't find it, but the mere fact that he did hand-solder the chips shows that it could be done. If I were to try it at some point, I'd want an actual board to solder to. Am I cra—er, is this something that's realistically doable, and has anyone else tried?

A memory of longer than just five minutes would be nice too.

Definitely a QI, but I'm broke. And I think I'd actually want to do the downgrade as discussed before as documentation.