9640News

I know you have a lot on your plate. Maybe you can put something like that on your wish list for the future. Focus on the PEB version release for now <grin>. Besides a BBS program making use of those features, I could see someone running a program that periodically polled for an incoming connection for chatting, or any other potential set of capabilities. I think the capabilities are endless but only limited by the few programmers that could pull something off. Beery

Matt, I have a few questions with respect to the TIPI on the TI-99/4A. I am trying to understand the differences one must accommodate between the TIPI and something like a RS232 based WiModem232. If a router redirects a specific port to the TIPI, will it auto connect and establish a connection for an inbound connection? If not, is it possible some kind of command could be executed from within the DSR that flags a Connection as being present/not present on a specific port? In the RS232 world, one can look for a CD Carrier Detect to know when someone has connected with the modem. Is there a method one can use to know when a Telnet port has been opened on the TIPI. If there is not, then would a programming solution be to stay in a loop outputting "Press Enter to Continue" waiting for an Enter keypress from the inbound connection? Or, would the connecting system get a buffer dump of repeated "Press Enter to Continue" messages that had accumulated from hours/days of being in that loop when a connection was established? Is there a command one can use from Extended Basic to allow one to retrieve a single character from the Telnet port? Thinking here along the lines of BBS's written in Extended Basic that are single character based to know if any of them may be modified for use. If an Extended Basic program is listening to a specific port for Telnet, if a second inbound connection comes in, does a connection issue become a problem? I ask this because my Windows BBS listens on one inbound port, and it can sustain 20 separate simultaneous logins. I know somewhere there is some IP address subnet (?) mapping going on, but do not know how the TIPI would respond. Anyways, just doing some thinking here on what can be done in the BBS word with TIPI as a host BBS server. Beery

Looks like we were cross posting messages. The good thing is, I do not have a GenMod geneve with the extra decoding lines. It has been so many years, but for some reason, something is telling me several disk controllers did not work with Rompage. I want to say it had something to do with access speed or timing, but not 100% sure. That was over 20 years ago and that has been just too much time. The Myarc HFDC did work, but it seems like there may have been an issue with some other cards. I can not confirm that one way or the other. Yeah, I went digging into your C source code this afternoon for your Telnet app and I think the pieces I will need to understand are there. I know I can page/map the TIPI DSR into the >4000->5FFF space and I saw the SBO/SBZ instructions to turn the card on as well as some strings passed to define buffer lengths. At most, if things do not behave as I think they should, I will need to run some quick snippits of code by you. Those snippits would be the same whether they were on the 4A or the Geneve. Myself, I am thinking of only polling a single character at a time. I know the actual terminal speed is really going to be tied to the screen writes and I have a few tricks I can speed things up there from single character writes. As far as My-Term with RS232 operations, I thought I was missing characters in one place Turned out, my circular buffer (~3K) was being overrun in one place on my BBS I was testing. I increased it to ~11K, and I can still overrun the buffer at 38.4K in one place that pumps out a lot of data to the terminal. I now know where to target that piece of code to resolve which I will address this week. I doubt anyone has seen the issue with My-Term as I think it was limited to a specific menu option and one had to have LOTS of areas to see it. Anyways, sounds promising TIPI will work with the Geneve as anticipated. Beery

Matt, please see my above message if this question is affirmative. After I thought about it more, I remember a post being made indicated something was working with Rompage and the Geneve. Did the TIPI work with a stock Geneve? Seems like I recalled something being said about it not returning some data to a register. Just need to clear that up. Beery

Got a bit of a programming question regarding the TIPI. This will be on a Geneve. So, let's assume I have used Rompage and done all the configure items necessary, and things are setup and working under the TI-99/4A environment on the Geneve. OK, I power down the Geneve, and then power the Geneve back up and reboot. Without returning to the TI-99/4A environment and using Rompage, I am going to stay in MDOS. Does a power-up routine need to be run on the TIPI card to load any settings or other information before it can be accessed? What I want to do is to be able to use a terminal emulator for Telnet purposes and desire to modify My-Term's RS232 code to talk to the TIPI. I know I will have to map in the DSR page for the CRU the TIPI is using. From an earlier question I had asked a month or two ago, it is my understanding the TIPI will buffer all data coming in and basically only remove it off the stack as I request the individual bytes. Thus, if I told a website to give me a 100K text file listing to display on my terminal, if I am slow in grabbing text, I will not lose anything. Thus, one could have a 100 byte circular buffer instead of multi-K circular buffer and it will only grab the characters as I am ready to display them. If my understanding is correct, I could have four routines: 1. Get Telnet character from TIPI 2. Check for keypress from keyboard 3. Transmit key unless special function key 4. Process incoming Telnet character from TIPI And then any other code I desired. Effectively, one would not need to worry about buffer overrun errors even if code was running a large routine consuming time? I just want to make sure my thinking is on the right page. If I am correct in my understanding, then we have really shifted away from baud rate maximums of 38.4K, to a limitation of how fast we can display things on the video. If that is the case, I can focus on other aspects to achieve faster display speeds on a stock Geneve and trim other code and buffers. Thanks for any feedback. I know you are not officially supporting the Geneve as it is a TI-99/4A product. Just trying to identify any hurdles I will need to understand. Beery

Sadly, at times, my DVR does record 3 or 4 shows simultaneously. Now, it may be later in the week before I can watch those shows, but I do. I've got about 30 TV series I record when new episodes air. Both my TI and Geneve systems have Myarc HFDC's with the TI system also having a Myarc 512K card. Been debating on whether to turn that 512K card into memory expansion for the Geneve or keep it as is so I have Myarc Extended Basic 2. Beery

It has been so long since I have done it, but yes, you should be able to type commands in a terminal emulator on a TI-99/4A connected to a MSDOS machine, and those commands executed if you have the redirect/pipes/etc configured properly. The reverse, as mentioned, is not possible at the moment without some custom software that I do not think exists at this point in time. The TI-99/4A "operating system" is not smart enough to receive characters over the RS232 treating it as input from a TI keyboard to run programs, select menu options, etc. It is only as smart as the Terminal Emulator which is displaying what was received over the RS232 port and saving files. Beery

Combat Commando, Maybe I am reading too much into what you wrote, but assuming you get a system put together, what are desiring to accomplish when you connect the TI and your DOS computer together? The serial cable will allow data transfer through terminal emulation software to move file and diskettes. What you will not be able to do is to type commands on the DOS computer and have the TI execute them by redirecting keyboard input to the serial input port. Just want to make sure you are not misinformed about anything. Beery

Great, thanks for the information. The last I recall on the V2 (?) CHD image, all sectors were laid out in one continuous manner with a short header. We are up to V4 (?) now, so I do not know specifics with that format as I also thought you had captured information between the sectors as well. If you look at the manual for the DREM at https://www.dropbox.com/s/0l7q8mjjk0sqkze/DREM-2.User.Manual.pdf?dl=1starting on page 18, it indicates how the bytes/sectors are stored for floppies and further on for the hard disk drive. Can you confirm the way MAME handles the layout is the same, or whether a reordering of sectors would be necessary for either the floppy image or the hard drive image? I just do not know how the HFDC DSR (TI or Geneve) lays out sector numbering between sides of disks and tracks, as well as cylinders and heads for the hard disk drive. If the format is different, a utility may be required or a n + 1 + 1 feature may be needed for TIIMAGETOOL. The worse case, it is different and you format out a disk and just copy files over rather than copy a MAME image after preprocessing through TIIMAGETOOL. Beery

I agree. If someone is contemplating a Gotek or Hxc and have a Myarc HFDC, then it becomes an obvious choice. I will make 2 x 120 MB hard drive images and will periodically copy those image files to my PC computer for backup. What I am not sure is whether IMGTOOL for MAME will allow me to strip the header off the file to give me straight up sector by sector disk image and then if it is useable directly on the DREM. If not, I will have to format out an image, and use Tim's Port program to transfer a mass of files over from MAME to the real system. Let's see, that will give the Geneve 9640 system an emulated WiModem232, HxC floppies, and DREM hard drives. Add to that the SCART monitor and Chris's new PS2 keyboard interface on its way to me, and the system is much different than it was from years ago. Beery

The new DREM emulator product description has been posted at http://www.drem.info . You can not buy it yet, but the details and manuals have been posted. Price is listed at $255.57, but I am not sure if that is US or Canadian dollars. Beery

I am not aware the source code to PRESS was ever released. If it was, someone please let me know where it can be found. An ambitious project would be starting from scratch writing a "PRESS" equivalent. Was TI-Editor source code, or source code for the editor from Funnelweb ever released? It would probably be easier to begin work with one of those as a starting point. If those were not available, I did have Peter Muy's Editor source code for MDOS. It would provide the base that could be recoded for the 4A. Just a thought throwing it out there. I think the printing to a range of printers may be a challenge in this day and age. It used to be printer manuals would have all the details and character codes necessary to do fancy things. Today's printers, plug and play with maybe a CD for a driver. Is there a DV80 to PDF tool for the TI-99/4A? Something useful may be to target something for the TIPI nobody is working on. Maybe some dreamers out there can come up with some ideas......... Beery

Can an interrupt service routine be written such that it checks for something in one of the TIPI registers or does a poll with some timed frequency, and if the trigger exists, the ISR then does its thing? One could use a counter that actually does the polling with whatever frequency was required. I do not know enough about the TIPI to know limitations, yet. I'm not sure what would happen if you have a program running using the TIPI, then an ISR does a poll as well, etc. Beery

Items ordered. Thought that box was something special. I'm guessing some mods to it will be necessary. Beery

Chris, Can you please post where one can find the case and the cable? Thanks.

Hard to say if it will be cheaper or not. He has removed the daughter board simplifying the design, but making it so it will fit a drive slot. Either way, I will be in for one and hopefully will get it to work with the Geneve. I only have a few files on the real iron that are not on the MAME image. I am hoping either a MAME or MESS image will work on the device without anything special. I just do not have all those details yet. In an earlier email several months ago, he indicated when the device was initially released, it would work with only floppies or hard drives (user selectable) initially. Then, with an update, it would support both 2 hard drives and 2 floppies simultaneously. Beery

I've got an update from Oleksandr regarding the DREM device: Manufacturers delivery date is August 22nd. We will start shipping on September 1st. On weekend we will be updating the web site with new brochure, user guide, pictures etc.

The problem is finding a Horizon ramdisk to install. If it had been built in, a big plus. Would have given hard drive like speeds and in my opinion, used more than the SAMS expansion. Nothing wrong, but would have loved the speed. Beeyr

The only downside I see regarding approaching a hobbyist fee previously discussed is that the total income brought in would unlikely pay for a couple hours of lawyer's time on their end drawing up the contract. They are a business out to make money. For business reasons, it would not make business sense to spend that effort. Only if there was a reasonable carrot in front of them that offered significant returns in the 1 to 2 year timeframe, would they consider. It's just business for them. Beery

If you are looking for features to add, I honestly do not know how much interest and software would be developed for the SAMS card. Me personally, if you were going to add more memory to the system, something like a horizon ram disk equivalent with 8 or 16 MB would definitely make things stand out for the unit if it were embedded. The hard part from what I understand would be maintaining memory backup in the event of a power failure. Maybe some kind of rechargeable battery system that plugs into the motherboard so you can isolate the battery and charging circuit away from the main board so you do not clutter it up. Then, another dip switch that enables/disables the "ramdisk" so if a user did not want to install memory expansion, they could opt out of that feature. My 2 cents. Beery

Geneve, right? If so, I want it. Include cable from Geneve to board? If not, where to purchase?

Have you tested the 9640 News BBS at 9640news.ddns.net, port 9640?

I am interested in one!

Something's wrong here. If it is a TI trip, it is only you. Otherwise, the rest of the family is going on the trip and you should be at home playing with the TI into the wee hours of the morning .

Do not confuse a 360K DS/DD disk (40 tracks) with a 360K DS/DD (80 track) image. They are different. A TI Controller will not recognize a DS/DD disk. As far as your disk drives, if you had two in your system, they were likely two drives, DS/DD. If you had a Myarc FDC with the appropriate 80 track eprom or a Myarc HFDC, then you could get a 720K disk. Only if you had a Geneve could the Myarc FDC, Myarc HFDC, or CorComp FDC get 80 tracks without a modified eprom on the card. If you get the time and can identify the card, and post a photograh of any mod(s) to the card, someone should be able to tell you what your limits are. Beery