9640News

Thanks. Not a problem as it is not until later in May before I go to John's place. I just wanted to keep things fresh in people's minds! And, FYI, you were not the only one moving slowly <grin>. On a side note, I have had issues with one of my feet as well, but not anything from a known injury. Just pain that has slowed me down a bit. I guess "old age" and too many rough landings on my feet. Beery

Does this mean the Plato terminal emulation needs for the TI-99/4A have been met? Sounds like it. Beery

Just a reminder/tickler for some folks that have indicated they would send me some items for John. Beery

Unfortunately, I am not a hardware design guy and can not assist in that regard. As far as things not working with TI-Basic and the HDX and your RomPage testing, I would have thought that would have worked. Tim and/or Michael will have to speak up and comment if I made a wrong comment. If I did, then it is something I have forgotten. Either way, I just ordered the second RPi to have one for both a TI and a Geneve system for when the PEBox version arrives. Beery

Matt, First, my Geneve does not have GenMod. It is a stock system less the extra 32K ram. As far as any GenMOD Geneve's, with or without the extra line decoding for the memory mapping (which I hope you do add), it should still work "to a point". If someone has a fully expanded Geneve, I wrote a program that "locked" the extra DSR pages from use within MDOS so no program could load in that memory space. That was years ago. I think the program name was something like LOCK7A and LOCKBA or something similar. It would not be hard to write another one again if the program is not out there. It should be though. In MDOS mode, one should be able to map page >BA into a memory page, then be able to turn on a card. Rompage on the Geneve does this already for TIMODE if it is a feature that has not been removed. I'm pretty sure it is still there. If not, it should be just to use an earlier version of the GPL interpreter. In GPL mode on the Geneve, with Rompage active, any TI-99/4A program written I would think should work. I think all the RS232 cards, disk controller cards and the Rave Speech had non issues. Rompage was used with the Myarc HFDC to be able to access MDM5 and the hard drive formatting routine. In MDOS mode, one can still turn on the card if page >BA is loaded into the memory mapper. Been too long since I have played with a TI DSRLNK routine to know specifically how a call would be setup or used, but it should be very close to whatever is done on a TI-99/4A. My interest on the Geneve side would be to able to access the Telnet capabilities. I saw someone with a demo video telnetting on a TI to the TIPI. Should be very close. I would be curious if that program, assuming they are running a TI terminal emulator of sorts, is pulling characters off of a buffer out of TIPI. If that is the case, then is there any potential for a dropped character like we have with a RS232 if we aren't polling frequently enough? If it is pulling characters from a buffer, then baud rate could be maximum internet speeds only limited by speed of the TI-99/4A or Geneve processor and video output to display. Beery

I remember my work years ago, I had specifically typed text in each sector of a track I wanted to read. That way, I did not have to visually look at something "too complex". When I issued the track read command, I could see the individual sectors. I just could not make sense of the sector ordering and in-between track information compared to what was described in the preliminary manual. Pretty much a non-issue now I guess. Beery

Hard to say if that is my handwriting or not, but that definitely looks like one piece of information Barry Boone had provided me some 20+ years ago. Seems like I had at least one other note in that document, but I do not see it present in what you posted. Doesn't matter either way really I guess. Beery

Yeah, PEB design <grin>. Probably going to order a second RPI this weekend to have a card for the Geneve and a card for the TI-99/4A. Beery

Are those your notes you made on the document, or were they on the original PDF? It's possible years ago I scanned my original document with the comments, however the copy I saw on whtech did not seem to have any notes. Beery

For myself, I have an original 9234 Preliminary manual. That manual is also up on Whtech. I think I scanned that documents years ago. What I have not been able to locate is my original notes I made in another copy of the 9234 Preliminary manual. I know I made notes in two different sections, one with some bits/registers that had to be set for drive select due to the way Myarc wired things up, and the other for "something" my memory no longer recalls. The bits/registers, I could probably chase down within the MDM5 source code and figure out. I do not recall if the other information was details on bits or registers that needed to be set for 8K vs 32K ram chip on the card, or if was related to something specific on track reads. Too many years. Nowadays, I do not think there is any interest with a HFDC version of HyperCopy to investigate anyways. Does the MAME emulation of the 9234 have options for specifying 8K or 32K? By default, the Myarc HFDC was 8K but simply pulling the chip, one could change it out to 32K. Beery

I figured the programming logic would be similar for the 9224 as it would be for the 9234. Hopefully, there is some useful information there for you. Beery

I am attaching copies of the two manuals for disk controller and the HDC 9224 I mentioned the other day. If someone would, please upload them to whtech as I am unable to login over there. Beery TN6-2 Improved Functionality Simplifies Disk Controller Design.pdf TN6-5 Programming the HDC 9224.pdf

Myarc was never spelled as MyArc. On all their product manuals, it was MYARC. I would either use Myarc, or MYARC, but not MyArc. MyArc just does not look right. Beery

Those two manuals I have and I know exactly where they are. I will either scan them tonight on my scanner, or tomorrow morning on the work scanner. Beery

Thanks for the feedback. Just trying to understand what the requirements would be. Beery

I have been thinking about the PEBox card and the PI. Will the PI draw power from the PEBox, or use its own external power supply source? If it is able to draw power from the PEBox, thoughts on how to properly shut down the PI? Thinking of some kind of switch that senses the supply voltage is gone, and uses some kind of on board battery to provide power for the 30 to 60 seconds to shut the PI down. Otherwise, I would anticipate in my case the PI would always be on. Not sure what you are doing now with the non PEBox version. Just curious............. Beery

My original hardware manual that had my detailed notes was not where I thought it was for the 9234. My non marked up manuals were there however along with some other manuals if they would assist in any work. I do however have some additional manuals that I do not see up on whtech. TN 6-5 Programming the HDC 9224 Universal Disk controller TN 6-2 Improved Functionality Simplifies Disk Controller Design Right now, I am wondering where that marked up manual is. Hmmmm.

The software I wrote did show all the between sector gap information. It was just something I never understood. There were some bits that were very obscure Barry figured out that passed information to the 9234 for the track commands. I might be lucky enough to have the original 9234 manual I made those notes in that detailed what was needed. I will try and check this evening to see if I have those notes. If not, that is a piece of history lost........... I do know I used Bruce Hellstrom's memory viewer program I called up after the track read to "see" the information.

Back in the 90's with a bit of guidance from Barry Boone, I was able to get the Myarc HFDC to do track reads and display the data by viewing a buffer. I had the 9216B chip on that card, as well as a 32K ram chip upgrade. I was able to see all the inbetween track information as well as the individual sector information. Unfortunately, I could read the same track multiple times, and the contents of the buffer would be offset differently. I was never able to grasp the "why" the order or determine how to identify specific sectors starting and stopping from the limited documentation of the day. My intent had been to add the Myarc HFDC support to HyperCopy. Beery

I was just thinking. I wonder if we knew someone <grin> who could create a copy of the 9938 chip, and add a text mode with color feature to it to be used within MAME. This would be implemented with a new switch to use the 9938 or 9938+ ? Beery

Yeah, the game requires the use of arrow keys. Beery

If I remember correctly, didn't Mike Wright with PC99 write an article or two on Advanced Diagnostics and Diskassembler on how everything loaded with all the security. I thought he accomplished years ago making a PC99 disk of those programs. Beery

If there are an F18A users out there with Telnet capability on a TI-99/4A, I would appreciate if someone could do a quick test with TIMXT (I think that is the name, the TI-99/4A color ansi emulator). I'm starting to add some some door games to my BBS ( 9640news.ddns.net, port 9640). There is a game called "Double Up" (option #7) on my board in the Doors Option. It uses ANSI graphics, moving blocks 4 directions within a grid. If you move blocks in the same direction, and they are numbered up the same, the two blocks turn into one block with twice the number. I've been able to get blocks up to from 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and to 1024. Not easy, and it takes time. For awhile, I had the record high score, but then someone got the 2048 block and at that point, had just about doubled my score. Anyways, with PORT in using the Geneve in color graphics mode, movement is just way too slow to make the game enjoyable. I'm curious if with the F18A on a TI-99/4A, if the speed is acceptable. When I play it "local", or with an iOS ansi Telnet app, it is fine. Any feedback is appreciated. On another note, that the "Double Up" game is written in a pascal like language compatible with the coding for my BBS. Thus, the source code is viewable, and could be a good resource if someone wanted to duplicate the game as all the logic you need is there. Just rewrite in the language you feel comfortable using. Heck, if someone wanted, it could easily be a TIPI game launched from a remote server with the remote server keeping high score for everyone. Beery

Have an app running in the background looking for a file that is not open in a directory where the printer files are going. If the file is closed, it then copies/moves/etc the file to the printer device launching the Epson converter. Perhaps have a "semaphore" file with a a ".bsy" extension. If the ".bsy" is present, the ".txt" file is not ready to be printed yet for the app. Beery

I've got an SD card version verses the USB drive version. I am assuming this update is not for the SD card version???