9640News

I am at work, but I am about 99% sure it was on the MESS HD image file that is on whtech. I know I have it on my MAME HD image. If you are able, login to my BBS at 9640news.ddns.net port 9640 and leave me a message there as a reminder/trigger to copy the file to a DSK/HFE image if you are unable to find/use that MESS HD image. I think TIIMAGETOOL or is it TIDIR (forget which) should be able to look at the image if you are setup to do so. If you do not have any Window programs, I will upload the archive to my BBS. Should be a directory called PCT or PICT on the hard drive image. I think the filenames are PICT/PICU if not mistaken. When you load the program, I am not sure if pressing enter, or typing HELP at the prompt inside the program will give you the commands to use for loading images. I've got docs I can scan if need be. I've got several things going on from now through Monday next week that will likely keep me distracted. I bought a 7'x16' cargo trailer last night I need to build some boxes in to contain some equipment, need to install a brake controller in my truck, looks like I am headed up to Cincinnati to fly this weekend to assist in the location of someone believed to be deceased for a search group, mow 3.5 acres before all this rain makes mowing difficult, move items from one trailer to another after the mods to the new trailer, go to the courthouse and get my trailer registered, and finally, play with my TIPI that arrived today in the evenings when things have started to slow down. Just a tad busy for this coming weekend. I'm sure my wife will think of a few other things I need to do as well......... Beery

A 30-06 should take care of the issue. Either that, or some tannerite.

I did not find PC99 for Windows on a Windows 10 system to be difficult to install. Not much more than drag and drop from the flash drive. The only difficulty I had, and I did not explore it any further, was trying to get a HFDC hard drive image setup on the system. MAME was initially difficult to setup post MESS disappearance. Fortunately, I was able to ask here on Atariage what the proper command line syntax should be for a setup for the Geneve I desired. I believe it was Michael that got me an answer back pretty quick and all was well. Using the same command line now. I found MESS to be a bit easier to setup with the Messqui. I still have that setup (not using it), but Michael has made so many improvements to MAME it is my goto Emulator. Beery

Jrhodes, Are you Jim Rhodes, formerly of the Lexington, KY Bluegrass group back in the 80's? Anyways, back to your question. There is something similar, but not exact, to what you are asking if the source code is available. That would be the Myarc 512K DSR code. You could save programs in the memory of that memory expansion card. It had a DSR doing the file saving rather than a Call Link command. I think the DSR code (source??) is on whtech that may help if you need to custom write/borrow anything. I think all you need to do is to rethink your approach on the Call Link (Save/Open) use. Either way, it will be a small section of assembly code and what you are doing is essentially paging memory in/out from what I gather. Your assembly code can either use "assigned" memory areas to specific memory pages if you want to minimize overhead assembly code, or you can get elaborate consuming a whole lot of memory with File tables and File Descriptor records. Obviously, if you do not have to worry about bitmap tables and specific filenames, you can eliminate all the file lookup/location code and have hardcoded addresses to go to. I think what you are describing isn't that hard, it is just how elaborate you want it to be. The more elaborate it is, the less space you are going to have for program storage, etc. My 2 cents. Beery

I do not want to take anything away from Michael, but I do need to say it was Raphael Nabet that brought the Geneve into MESS emulation. If it had not been for Raphael adding Geneve emulation, I probably would have not come back to the TI/Geneve community to do any programming, etc. Since then, and I do not know when Michael took up the interest, Michael has done an outstanding job on improving both the TI and Geneve emulation. Beery

Do you have Picture Transfer by Paul Charlton? That was for MDOS mode. As far as MDOS versions, I would have thought you could have used something like 2.50? Version 1.14F goes back before the MDOS buyout. I know there were later versions than 1.14F that worked on floppy only systems and did not use more memory. Beery

Glad someone got some use out of it.

MDOS has the ability with the multitasking bytes at >0102 in the application to "hide" and return back to any other running program or if no other program, to return back to the CLI. That is what I did with Windows and the Windows GUI standalone driver. Bruce Hellstrom also utilized something very similar with the mouse driver. I'm not sure if the Mouse Driver is compatible with the later versions of MDOS as there were some specific bytes in the >0000 to >03FF memory space used for a hook to the driver. Part of the success in that was using the XOP powerup routine to continue to hold onto the pages after a CTRL-ALT-DELETE was pressed. I have no idea what Tony did, but I can see a modified GPL program storing the memory pages where the other files were loaded into memory, not releasing them, and on a subsequent call of the GPL interpreter, just doing a fresh B @>0400 to "relaunch" the interpreter. It would not hurt. One could have also coped the GPL pages into upper extended VDP ram without giving up memory pages as well and just used the CLI to map things around for the setup. Several different ways to tackle that issue. A long time ago, post 2004, I wrote up an article and some code for a TSR (terminate stay resident) utility. I do not know if anyone ever used it. Beery

The programs I use on the Geneve are My-Word, the tools for the GenProg package (Assembler, linker) and terminal emulators (My-Term and Port). If you are not aware, the source code for My-Word (GPL program for the TI-99/4A side of things) and Peter Muy's EDIT (MDOS program) are both available should you at some point in time want to enhance those programs. Not even sure that would be a decent start to even use those utilities anymore since gcc has open up a lot more possibilities of porting programs over. I once gave thought to some along the lines of Excel with some graphing capabilities, but could not get some test code to behave. Not really sure if anyone would even find something like that very useful or if there would be even sufficient interest. If there are decent games that can be ported, possibly using the TIPI as a data storage device for graphics, that would be interesting. I can think of other ideas, but those would be of limited use to just a couple of people. Beery

Chris, If you have a Rave Speech card, can you put it in the system without the TIPI present? I assume if you do have a Rave Speech card, it has not been modified for a GenMod system. I do not recall if page >BC with the Rave Speech is flagged as a "Partial Page" in MemTest when there is no other ram present in that page. If you do get a white page on page >BC with a Rave Speech card, then it says something about the memory mapping is different between a GenMod system and Stock system on the read/writes to that memory. What I do not recall is if when Ron wrote the program, if he checked all memory in an 8K page regardless of whether the first byte failed on a read/write loop. That is what I am hoping to learn regarding the Rave Speech. If you do not have a Rave Speech, perhaps someone else has one with a stock Geneve and can run the program and report back with MEMTEST. They do not have to have a TIPI to do that test. Beery

I assume you are using Rompage? Assuming you are on a stock Geneve, what does MEMTEST show you at pages >3A, 3C, >7A, 7C, >BA, >BC?

Look at this thread for Telnet.ark http://atariage.com/forums/topic/276218-telnet-client-for-mdos/?hl=%2Bmyterm&do=findComment&comment=3977627 That is an earlier version, but should give you pretty much something very similar to what someone else referenced as far as the CRU bits. Further down in that link to the CRU bits, if I am not mistaken, was similar code for sending/receiving. Beery

Good detective work!

If you telnet into 9640news.ddns.net port 9640, look for the MyTerm source code. I think I also uploaded a version on Heatwave last month. In the archive, look for the SUB1 file that has assembly code for accessing the RS232. The snippits of code in that file should work whether you are using a 4A or Geneve. Now, I am not sure, but I do not believe some of the flow control is 100% so that you only pull bytes from the RS232 when you need them. Still a work in progress. On the Geneve though, I can run at 38400. Not sure what the fastest rate you can achieve is on a 4A before dropping characters. If you have flow control correct and with the correct cabling, I think you should be able to have only one routine instead of embedded checks for characters waiting inside other routines like your VDP reads/writes, etc. I can tell you a couple of things I have learned to keep in mind. I poll the RS232 quite frequently and store characters in a buffer. I have only seen this on non TI BBS's under a specific occasion, but with a Telnet connection at 38400 baud, I can get hit with an 8K+ chunk of inbound data pretty quick that is buffered. As it is a circular buffer pulling characters off it as fast as I can, it can still get overrun so things get dropped and never get displayed on the screen. Keep in mind you should anticipate needing a buffer that could be as large as the largest chunk of data you could receive between keypresses if you do not get flow control or handshaking right. Where this happens on my BBS, is if you do a scan for new messages or new files. If there is nothing "new", there can be upwards of 200 areas scanned with each area requiring a screen clear. So, there is a whole lot of VDP writing with it that just takes time. As far as your PlatoTerm software, are you anticipating using it with just RS232 software, or with TIPI? If you are Telnetting into the website, a TIPI interface should be relatively easy as I think Matt has that code available already for the 4A on github. Now, if you are writing for RS232 control and a WIFI modem, that will take some more effort. From what I have learned from Matt, if you have TIPI, your buffer can be relatively small as the TIPI is buffering everything on the PI and you just pull the characters off the port as you need them. Beery

I have almost zero knowledge on the use of the Raspberry PI or anything Unix related. I have two PI's, one never even used, waiting for the TIPI. The other I have played around with a bit but beyond getting a working image to get online, that is about it. I did not even know the "lite" version had no desktop. Myself, I was interested in some of the work Matt was doing and wondering if I could kill two birds with one stone with the gcc utilities and the TIPI. Thought it would make an interesting development platform if the possibility existed for either the TI-99/4A or Geneve. At some point in time, I will need to get one of those books for "Dummies" to fully understand the layout, directories, etc. At this point in time, I just do not know the system to know what it can or can not do, or its limitations, thus my inquiry. Beery

Fabrice, Will your TI(ny) Computer be available for purchase? Or, is it more of just a personal project of your own? Beery

Not sure if anyone has any interest here in this project or not. Might be something suitable for users with the TIPI or with WiFi modems. https://rhml-browser.blogspot.com/2018/07/rhml.html

Can GCC be run on a Raspberry PI 3 simultaneously connected to a TIPI? I am assuming the RPI has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected to it as well. Beery

I heard someone that had the rights was considering the production of new Horizon Ramdisks. Will this become a reality? Beery

I checked the board this morning before I went out to mow the grass and there were no postings on the subject. By the time I finished mowing, I had posts the units were sold out. Eagerly waiting........... Beery

This may have been suggested in some fashion, but let me suggest a thought for a possible solution to the dilema with the patents. OK, can you continue to use the same cable connector coming off the MK2, but change the signaling to support something other than HDMI without adding anything to the board as it exists? Then, have the HDMI cable you would have been using feed into an external box that reroutes the signals and does whatever magic it needs to have to perhaps a VGA plug as the output of that box? That way, you do not have to deal with messing up the size of the existing layout, your keeping the same small connector, you would still be using a ready made HDMI cable anyone can buy, but it is just for throughput, not for signaling. Then, converting the signals in this "other" format to something like VGA or something else readily available but not covered by a patent. That external "box" contains whatever else circuit wise and space wise you could not fit on your existing board. I think everyone can agree resolving the HDMI issue has costs, so there is cost somewhere. Now, I have no idea if you can bring enough power out through the cable to drive that external box, or if whatever you need to do to modify the signal becomes cost prohibitive. Just thinking out loud in case it triggers other thoughts, etc. Beery

Well, discovered I needed a PS/2 keyboard for potential configuration of the DREM emulator, so I went ahead and ordered a PS/2 keyboard from Walmart. I also went ahead and ordered a USB to PS/2 adapter just to test to see what a USB keyboard would do with the PS/2 adapter. ​Beery

Why not attach a webcam to the TIPI, and "stream" data to your TI. Would likely need an F18a to get some decent graphics. Might work as a security system if you had something to do motion control. I realize streaming video is going to be very frame rate dependent at our TI speeds. Inbound to the TI or WiFi outbound to a WiFi capable TI or Chromecast unit will always be limited by the speed of the processor and the graphics mode. I have no idea how much information you can pump out to maintain a suitable frames/sec for viewing. A Geneve could pump out more. Beery

Is the USB to Geneve XT interface available? I got the PS2 to XT interface in from Chris and yesterday the 5 pin din cables arrived. Went looking for my PS2 keyboards and discovered I must have tossed them when I moved last year. So, I need to either buy a keyboard, or a USB to XT interface.

I'm looking forward to a TIPI as well. Hopefully, with my stock Geneve, I will be able to get some functionality from it as the verdict seems out on whether it will function on a stock Geneve. If not, I will move it over to the 4A and use it there. There are storage aspects of it I will use, but my personal interests are more Telnet related. So, if someone builds a HRD 4000 I will get one (maybe 2) of those as well. I'm already waiting for 9/1 to arrive when I can place an order for a couple of DREM emulated MFM drives. Between Telnet capability, and mass storage, I will be really close to the point of going with diskless media where anything can be plugged into a Win10 computer and backed up as well. My 2 cents. Beery