Airshack

I recommend sending all of your old non-homebrew carts to Greg at arcadeshopper.com so he can repurpose them. My wife is thrilled with my idea. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The fact that it's an odd system (GROM, VDP, GPL, PEB, etc) is kind or a selling point these days. It's far more interesting now, isn't it? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I believe the popular Scott Adams text adventures were licensed. A. How much RAM in that VIC? B. Good question. They even modified the rev2 beige TIs to lock out Atari carts. Perhaps they were aiming at the education market and homanagement apps to sell it. They probably didn't see it as a game machine console but something more sophisticated. A big mistake. Games sold computers back then. Who knew? Everything was new back then. They were probably arrogant being Big Bad TI. With Speak and Spell, watches, etc. The consumer division was on a roll and probably didn't care about what was happening outside Texas. C. It actually has unique looks which elevates it above the others, cosmetically. A TI-99/4A in 2017 looks the same as it did 35 years ago. It hasn't turned several shades of nasty yellow. This is actually a strength. It looks faster than it is. D. Back then they probably figured the users too unsophisticated to need more power. Originally, TI locked users out of Assembly programming and even simple peeks and pokes. This indicates an approach of,"...let us do the programming and we'll put it on a cartridge for you." Conclusion: It's widely accepted now that TI didn't know what they were doing back then. Abandoning the market and killing the 99/8 is all the confession you need. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is a great story! Second to last at K-Mart. I can only imagine your excitement taking that machine home. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks to: Classic99/Tursi, TIdbit/matthew180, Compiler/senior_falcon, Module Creator 2 / Fred Kaal Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here's a video covering the TI-99/4A COMPILED BASIC workflow with Harry Wilhelm's BASIC compiler. FloppyDays Podcaster Randy Kindig was asking about it and the TI-99/4A scene. https://youtu.be/YwQL1-CZGO8 Check out Randy's interesting Podcast: http://floppydays.libsyn.com Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Is this a two player only game? Most early sports titles were two player games which makes finding someone to play with difficult. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Legend of Tilda looks like a 16-bit console game to me. Amazed! Excellent work sir! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Amazingly fast turnaround time! Thank you swlovinist for capturing some great moments of Festwest17. A pleasure to meet such a friendly and knowledgable game guru. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I believe this to be correct. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

"I'll be the big bald guy with a tattoo on his head. So as not to make it awkward, It's a symbol of a black dragon in embryo..." -- Sinphaltimus A TI user's group meeting with no characters is a meeting with no character. The freakier the better!

Just buy a straight TI-99/4 off eBay and everything is built in via menu option 2. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The entire VAST (Valley of the Sun Ti) User's Group will be flying standby to PDX on Friday. We plan to arrive around 11:30am if all goes well with the open seating issue. Are any of y'all (Lubbock talk) going to be in the area Friday? We're staying at the Best Western...not far from the meet up. Let us know if you want to hang out....

So RXB-Rich's point is the problem with BASIC on the TI-99/4A is all in the design of the hardware. Tripping over dollars to pick up the pennies? A complete lack of vision from a team attempting to build: 50% Home Computer + 50% Ultimate Equation Calculator?

Item1. The competition had 8-bit CPUs (6502 & Z80 mainly) with 8-bit data buses with no speed bumps akin to the 16-to-8 bit multiplexer TI had to use? Item 2. So it's safe to say that money saving hardware design (VDP RAM and only 256bytes conventional CPU RAM) is why the BASIC interpreter HAD TO BE written in GPL, not Assembly; so that's why BASIC is slow. The problem is hardware and GPL is just a symptom of the problem? Question: Just how much cheaper was VDP over conventional RAM and why didn't Commodore/Atari/Tandy/Apple have this design-altering cost problem with their machines?

While watching that video I really enjoyed the look and feel. Sent me back to my Radio Shack groupie days in 1979...cool! Did the Trash-80 have a sound synth? I'm thinking no and that was all generated in software? If you wanted the voice synth to be part of the game you can't use the compiler. Speech Synth is not supported with the compiler. Again, assembly wins. I'd guess someone clever could probably tackle that game in pure XB.

Well done! Wish mine was done that way. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've been plugging away at XB256 and the compiler for the past six months and assure y'all (Lubbock talk) that the IF-THEN issue is not a big deal. It may cause a few more lines of code to be written but that's well worth the 25X-plus speed increase. If you plan for it in advance it's absolutely no issue. If you're trying to compile pre-written code you may have to add some code/logic and tweak a little. More to come on this matter in the near future...needing to talk with the falconator. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'd like to thank EVERYONE on this thread for providing answers and helping the less esteemed members understand BASIC's issues on this wonderfully mysterious mess of a computer. Wow! The experienced and most knowledgeable members of the TI AtariAge group are doing a fabulous job of educating and entertaining the rest of us. THANK YOU! Peace and Love! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So am I to understand Zombie development is undead? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you XB or TI BASIC game is "really good" without being compiled...well, it'll be better (way faster) once compiled. Think 20-50X faster! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

"You may compile, but many programs won't compile, and those that do often fail or misbehave." ^^^^^ Sounded like you were referencing legacy code. I haven't found the compiler unable to compile or noticed any misbehaving at all? If a programmer writes with the compiler as part of his/her workflow the process is as smooth as silk. Additionally, the compiler solves more problems than it creates. Example: I recently wrote a 24k program which compiled down to about 22k. I was able to unexpectedly "over-code" some features into the program near the end of development. My code was too large for XB, yet Compiled and ran with room to spare! I believe there's some misunderstanding here as well. The compiler does compile TI BASIC as well as XB programs. XB256 extensions are not required. I'm not claiming BASIC and XB are dead. That's silly! GAME OVER is more a snarky comment about the 35+ year old BASIC programming workflow. The compiler injects new life into the process by lowering the cost of entry for game programmers especially. So, things aren't going away as much as they're changing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There's a dude on here named Rich who seems to have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of GPL. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hang in there buddy! We need you back writing games anyway. Software is where it's at! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk