9640News

Can you sector edit the file format in the header and change it from Program Image to I/F 128? Might be easy for a one-off case. Barry Traver had code back in the day the first time files were compressed to a single file in Genial Traveler. That should have the necessary assembly code.

@arcadeshopper I don't know why, but this thread is not showing up on the recently posted list of topics. To my knowledge, I have not told the website to ignore this topic. The only reason I know something was posted here was that I had a notice about a reply to one of my posts. If I did hit the Ignore topic, is there any way to unignore the topic? Oh, I just figured it out. Somehow, I got to this topic from another link and it is not in the TI-99/4A topics, rather the Classic Computing forum.

@RickyDean One of the 3 buttons on the Geneve mouse is not tied to the VDP chip. I'm guessing that is the button that is responding in MyArt. Are you using an original Geneve mouse?

Have you considered getting Funnelweb? It has been so long since I have used Funnelweb, but I think there are both Extended Basic and Editor Assembler loaders for it and it has a lot more capability.

Folks, here is MyTerm for MDOS versions 7.40 and higher. This has full ANSI (color graphics too) support and uses the TIPI for Telnet connections. I thought I had previously provided some updates back with the 7.40 release of MDOS, but that was not the case. Either way, here is an update. Also to be noted, you can connect to the localhost of the TIPI. Generally, username/pwd is "tipi" (no quotes, lower case). If someone finds useful applications that can be run from localhost on the TIPI with the ANSI support, please let us know. Beery MYTERM120.zip

The filename should be LOAD-IDE, not IDE-LOAD.

@RickyDean What version of GPL are you using? Hopefully version 7.40 with MDOS Version 7.42. I know there were changes with the powerup routines @InsaneMultitasker made.

Yep! Good catch! Going to edit my previous post.

OK, back in the release of MDOS 7.40 was the first version of the ANSI driver for MDOS, useable with the TYPE command and with the TELNET command. Apparently the use of the TELNET command is not widely used by many as @Shift838 caught a typo in the documentation that if users read, the TELNET command would not have worked. Users should type the command as follows: TELNET heatwave.ddns.net:9640 /T or, TELNET heatwave.ddns.net:9640 /G The /T is for ANSI Textmode (no color) and the /G is for ANSI Graphics mode (with color). The type was the comma between the URL and port number should be a colon. Now, the Heatwave BBS I do not think has much color support, however color is used in the other TI-99/4A BBS's running ANSI color graphics including MYTBOX99.ddns.net:61644 (english) and MYTBOX99.ddns.net:61643 (german) as well as TheKeep.net:9918 . Beery

@arcadeshopper Does this mean from MDOS you can telnet now? If so, that is EXCELLENT news. Still waiting for my PI5 to ship. Beery

Not knowing when you may have acquired your Geneve, any testing on a real Geneve should have confidence which PAL is in the Geneve. I know I acquired that update, but I do not have that Geneve. As far as my current Geneve's, I have no idea if any were updated as they were second hand.

I remember I was one of the first individuals to test the chip on a GenMOD Geneve. It involved removing VDP wait states. The very "original" had too many wait states removed for a GenMOD Geneve and they had to add some additional wait states back. It was still a bit faster and measureable wihen graphic modes (Graphics mode 6 comes to mind) were utilized.

The video port addresses are managed by CRU call with MDOS or GPL modes. The Geneve source code for the V2 eprom is at BeeryMiller/Boot-Eprom at Version-2.00 (github.com) The only thing that comes to mind is maybe there is a video register setting on the 9958 not consistent with the 9938. The 9938 does have settings for the type of VRAM and maybe things are setup differently for what you are using???? One thing you might try after booting to the MDOS prompt is to type MODE 60. This puts the VDP into Graphics mode 6. There is also MODE 40 which places the Geneve in Text mode 1 and MODE 80 that places the Geneve in Text mode 2. I do not recall if the 9958 has mouse support. If it does, and if you have a mouse, then there would be a good program I can point you towards to test all the video modes. If you don't have a Geneve mouse and had a way to

Version 2 of the eprom does not give you a menu selection of devices to boot from. It gives the swan and then starts looking for the OS on detected devices until it finds one to load.

Oh, the drem, never got it fully working properly with floppies. I have the original, not the newest version so I do not know if there would be any issues.

Deme.info for mom emulator. Not cheap, but it works. I have two of them

Yeah, I think @InsaneMultitasker had it right, DHE Shell. Coming in 2048!

OK, here is the final Geneve version running in MDOS mode with workspaces within on-chip 9995 Ram, and several loops expanded to maximize memory moving and all the previous code changes by the author included. Works in MAME as well. TESS9640.zip

========================================= Myarc Disk Operating System Copyright (C)2023 9640*News and Contributors Updated December 16, 2023 Updates by T. Tesch (InsaneMultitasker) & B. Miller (9640News) CRC CHECK >461C FOR ORIGINAL RELEASE ========================================= OS Corrections: - The SCSI powerup routine was not clearing the common buffer used by SCSI/Horizon/IDE whenever a SCSI card was not in the system. The most common problem was intermittent access to the Horizon hard drive partitions; the drive parameter table was invalid, since it contained values set 'randomly' when the system was turned on. The powerup logic has been corrected and tested. - SCSI routines now check for the presence of the SCSI card. The OS no longer locks up if you inadvertently try to access a non-existent SCSI device. - Floppy controller powerup was testing for the presence of a card, however, the flag was reset if a TIPI was in the system. Fixed the powerup routine and then added a test to the low-level code. OS no longer executes the floppy code when there is no FDC present. - Floppy format code has been tested with above correction; attempting to format a non-existent FDC now reports an error. - Removed old SCSI code and labels. Cleaned up some of the statements. Removed comments that were no longer relevant or accurate. - Change Directory command now validates whether the directory exists. - Fixed VDP header setup in /4A mode - SAVE file issues - SAVE file issues have been fixed to the the extent that an incomplete file can now be deleted and is reported as the proper type. Further research is needed to review DSR error traps and boundary conditions. Note: ABASIC may lock some files after an error condition; a soft reset will clear the file lock. - VIDEO command repaired. - TELNET command has been enhanced and updated. enhanced and updated. - ANSI Driver has been updated to v1.03. Corrections and improvements. Informational: - The TIPI SAVE and LOAD opcodes are limited to 64K by the TIPI; this may be resolved in the future by utilizing BREAD/BWRITE to bypass the TIPI /4A-induced limitation. -Source code folder and file structure preparation for Github repository. Binary, object file separation. CYA V7.42 is included with this distribution file. Functionality remains the same, however some code has been removed to prepare for the release of the source code on GITHUB. Look to www.9640News.com for links when the code is released. MDOS742DIS.zip

Got it, thanks.

Nice to know the trick.

Hmmm. I guess that is a difference/nuance with the 9938 having more registers. Did not realize writing to VR#8 would roll to VR#0 on the 9918. Beery

Can you post your entire DRAWIT routine? I was able to make the horizontal adjustments, but it was not clear where you were making the vertical adjustments for R1/R3. Also, note in previous message, at least for the Geneve, the code is needed for VR#8 to disable the sprites, mouse, and lightpen. I don't know if the Geneve/MDOS defaults this to an "on" setting, or if the 9938 defaults this to on. I don't have docs on the 9918 to know the specifics to what these settings may be on the 4A real hardware, or how even Classic 99 may handle this.

I fixed the sprite issue. In the setup of the VDP bitmap mode in label BITM, I added one more setting following the two VWTR's setting up the sprite attribute list at >3880 and sprite descriptor table at >3800 LI R0,>0802 BLWP @VWTR This disables both the mouse and lighten bits, and disables sprites.

Under GenMOD with Geneve emulation, it took I think less than 30 minutes for the image to shrink to a 1 pixel image.