FALCOR4

Another test board! It's missing the switch, just need to dig though my stash and look for something that will work. These are nice boards, very well done! Can't wait to give it a spin!

<lol> Yup! 😎

Quality work as usual! Classy too, canned transistors! Nice touch.

Yep, that's what it is, the new switcher power supply. I've never seen a silver v2.2 console so that's different! I read somewhere that TI did a lot of mixing-and-matching the last year of production with consoles? We've seen beige QI consoles that were both v2.2 and not, non-QI beige consoles which were both v2.2 and not. It looks like you have a rare one with a silver console! And, a nice acquisition!

Also, here are the original TI sidecar FDC DSR listings. One time in the past I compared them to Thierry's disassembly of the PEB DSR and there were some changes so, beware. TI sidecar FDC DSR.zip

Doug, why do you only collect QIs? Just curious. Doug

Here's what is missing: GROM0 is missing >0C46 - >0C6A GROM0 is missing the keyboard/joystick tables at the end of the GROM GROM2 is missing the first page of equates GROM2 is missing two pages >5156 - 51A2 I would like to get all of these if you have them. Thx!

Yes! We do have several missing pages! We are very interested in what you have. I will go back and locate which pages are missing and post them. It would be great if you had them. I'll be back........

All night perfecting code then the next day, "can't find sector zero......"

Enjoying a relaxing day, browsing through some of my archives and saw the old 99/4A keyboard scanning routine that I coded a long time ago. Nothing special but, it really helped me to understand what that goofy keyboard was doing sometimes. For example, the "phantom key" that Thierry talks about really gave me fits when coding the mg explorer. You can easily see it with this tool, just press FCTN SHIFT D for the right arrow and you'll see that a fourth "phantom" key appears. That was a key sequence in the explorer memory editor for dragging the window around. That fourth key had to be trapped in the software and ignored. Hook up the joysticks and play with the dreaded alpha lock/up stick to see what happens. Anyway, enjoy. The code may have appeared in one of the Smart Programmer issues but I didn't look to see. Again, nothing special, very simple, just came in handy sometimes. Loads with the E/A (uncompressed tagged object file) and named, "keybrd." QUIT is disabled so you have to cycle power to get out of it. KSCAN.dsk

Really sorry to hear that and I can totally relate having raised four boys. Hope you will be ok and you're always welcome you here.

Thanks for sharing that! I used your card-stock trick and some gentle tugging and the Mylar came off cleanly on my Mitsumi keyboard. One more TI working again!

That would be cool. I thought about that as well, I still have several ASUS gaming cases sitting around just begging for a TI mod!

Certainly true. I have a TIPI and a few mega carts but it's nice to have some of the older hardware when you need to test/build software for compatibility. Also, echoing Shift838, it's just plain cool and it's encouraging that there are still so many folks out there in TI land that continue to be creative. It's all good!

Not sure. Seems like an open ended question?

Yes, I agree. That could potentially be a gold mine if he's willing to share. WOW!

Just finished re-capping the interface card and fire hose. Project complete and PEB good for another 35 years...well..... 🙂

What part burned up on your original p/s?

All valid; you could use DC-DC converters, replace the whole thing with a switcher (but you may have to bypass the regulators on the cards, depending). I just used stuff I had (except for the fan) so it was cheap, does the trick and keeps it simple. BTW, I did replace the huge linear p/s in my WDS100 MFM drive box from Myarc with a small pc switching p/s and that works great, once I got all the grounds properly placed. The p/s came out of an old pc that was junked. Please continue to be creative, it's what makes this hobby fun! Thanks guys!

As a matter of interest, I would be good for three bare boards. Thanks for considering this!

Thanks Jim! Really looking forward to the boards. Pls keep us posted.

Decided to do a refresh on the PEBs I have and the first one turned out great. After replacing the caps: I removed the 12v and 5v regulators off the PCB and put replacements on the PEB floor with heatsinks: Then replaced the four diodes with 2 amp subs: Last was to replace the "vacuum cleaner fan" with a new 115V fan: An old warrior ready for new battles!

The GramKracker got around this by just using the console GROM address registers. That's why you'll see "synchronize GROM addresses" code written into the GramKracker built-in software to assure that all three of the registers are sync'd to the same and expected address that was then used by the GK. Also, the GK utility disk had a routine that allowed the user to re-configure the MG Explorer for two different architectures of GRAM simulators. One selection forces the EXP to do a DECrement before GRAM address write and the other selection does not perform the DEC. Back in the 80's this could be a problem depending on which simulator you happened to have. So, that might be the problem you're referencing?

Yep, my old favorite console was a refurb. It came to me through Radio Supply with a 32K 16-bit mod installed via a daughterboard. I don't know how they obtained it for the mod. It has both the sticker and an "R" burned into the plastic bottom right by one of the feet.

I'm in for two and probably three.