patrickmcmichael

Thanks! MY TIPI-PEB card arrived and I have a Raspberry Pi 3B+ ready to go. Just need time to install and play with it. Excited, as that opens tons of doors, one of which is the ability to easily move s/w I pull from the web on my Mac to my TI w/o jumping thru rings of fire to do so.

I had a PCode card for my original TI, but sadly do not yet have one for my new TI. I have some Pascal tools on my FinalGROM99 but am guessing they need the PCode card to function.

Just what I needed! Thank you!

I managed to get my hands on a triple tech card, but I cannot remember the extended basic commands to access the clock. Does anyone recall those?

Yes! I would LOVE a modern day rendition with those kinds of extras. Btw...thanks for the scans...think TM was the one I was remembering. That's also bringing back s/w titles I need to hunt down again that I used to have on floppy.

My bad...think it was the SDF v9t9 format, with .dsk extension that was synonymous. I mashed that up mistakenly b/t TIFILES and DSK, hence why the import was needed and my rename bombed. Is .p99 just another extension vs the ones referenced here (http://www.mizapf.eu/files/tiimagetool.html#list) for TIFILES, or are there sub formats within TIFILES ? Guessing the former.

You still have my +1 on the original idea. Those old catalogs were like Christmas wish lists year round for me. What was the other big one besides the Joy Electronics? The one that came out more like newspaper print/paper quality?

That seems to work, though if it's TIFiLES why wouldn't it open directly? Just confusion on .p99 vs .dsk file extension? Though on that note, I tried copying one of them with a .DSK extension instead, but it said it couldn't read it. Also, when I do your import route, they come up as PROGRAM type (not sure if that's XB or EA or ...?). Since it's split into *DSR, *DSS, and *DST, that feels like EA but not sure... Most XB program files are just a single file if I recall.

@ Ω, my apologies if this has gotten off topic and let me know if I need to move this to a different thread. My discussion truly was intended as a positive response to the your original post about the shopper catalog (a true trip down great memories from my earliest TI days) and the possibility of some educational articles in it, of which this has been a burning topic for this returner to the TI fold. Who knows...maybe with my learnings here I'll write an article for your new mag! @Greg - sounds like the TIPI I have ordered is just what the doctor ordered for going back and forth with files, especially w/ the v9t9 (DSK) and TIFILES usage/conversion options. @mizapf - I just pulled down your TIImageTool for my Mac. I used it to drill into a DSK download I had of the old Ernie and Bert speech demo. B/T that and the TIPI I have coming I'll be in biz! I also recently got my hands on the SNUG SPMVC card, but will need to get the s/w there to my TI: spvmcdsr.zip v2.03 2011-04-02 - DSR for the SPVMC vsm0.zip - Speech data for Speech ROM 0 (Original TI) vsm1.zip v1.00 1999-09-17 - Speech data and XB test program for Speech ROM 1 vsm2.zip v1.00 1999-09-17 - Speech data and XB test program for Speech ROM 2 The zip file had 3 .p99 files, spvmcdsr.P99, SPVMCDSS.P99, and SPVMCDST.P99. I had thought these might be the PC99 track dump files, but I could not seem to open them in TI Image Maker. The rest were collections of .bin files, which I"m guessing are memory image dumps the DSR portions will use somehow. Anyhow...as I couldn't open or inspect this .p99 files directly in TIImageTool, I thought you might know.

Thx for the update - looking fwd to this!

I'm laughing at myself with a sense of irony. I actually do IT for a living (Java coding, some iOS now and then (Obj-C back in the day, Swift when I get the chance) and work with our API Gateway for micro services and the corresponding security aspects (OIDC, etc). But take me back to the machine of my youth, my first love, and I feel like a newbie all over again. I used to have boxes of floppies, and by the time I was done with my original TI-99/4A, I had one DSDD 5 1/4" HH and one 3 1/2" floppy drive as my go to's with an upgraded Myarc controller for the latter. But most of my content was either files I saved during my undergrad from the FW 80 column hack to TI-Writer (w/ OPA's video upgrade and multi-docs via the FW hack into its 192K VRAM), or auto-load disks galore that my uncle hooked me up with. In short, back then, I never had to think about file formats. In terms of any manual file work myself, I did write some XB code back in the day messing with DF and DV 80 stuff, as I recall, so I'm used to those. I do not remember .bin files back in the day (didn't hit those until my PC and Mac days), but that's the format my FinalGROM99 content is all in from that whtech zip of content for that. For my FinalGROM99, I just formatted an SD card FAT32 using Mac DiskUtility, dropped the files on it from my Mac, and it was good to go on my TI. Any content I save directly from my TI on floppies I format w/ whatever native TI-99/4A disk manager I feel like playing with is also cool. The question is how I get content I download from my Mac onto a floppy, since my Mac obviously has no floppy drive connection. If I'm understanding correctly, the .DSK file is really just a sector dump, not an archive like files from the old Barry Boone archiver program that was like a zip utility for my TI-99/4a back in the day as I recall. But how do I write that from my Mac onto a floppy usable directly on my TI (native, not emulator)? I do have a TIPI-PEB card coming soonI'm not sure if the network and storage aspects of TIPI will let me then write any files pulled from the web to a floppy in my PEB, all directly from my TI? I also have a Lotherek FDE drive that I'll be installing as soon as time allows, so that may give some optionsFrom what you wrote, it sounds like I have to somehow get an HFE file (not sure if there are TI sites with HFE downloads directly available, and I'd simply saving them from my Mac to the flash card for that Lotherek FDE, or if I have to convert the files from some format X to HFE). Thanks in advance!

Love that idea! I remember as a kid pouring over my Joy Electronics catalog and one other (can't remember the name of the second one?) with all the TI goodness I had to save paper route money to buy. In terms of education, having just gotten back into my first love this year, I'm trying to sort thru the various file formats. Some are for emulators, but even if some are supposedly native, they're in file formats online that I presume need to be converted for use on a native TI-99/4A. The .bin files from the WHTech FTP are cool as they play on SD flash in my FinalGrom99. But for files I'd want to copy to floppy (or soon, floppy emulator), what formats are ready to go, what formats can be converted to native? Back in the day it was me, my modem, and a BBS do d/l straight to floppy or Horizon RamDisk. Info on this front would be super useful!

Any good word on the F18A MK2? Having gotten back into the TI-99/4A after the original F18A was beyond run, and having seen the tentative MK2 specs and features, I am super excited!

AtariAge marketplace, or FB, or...? Didn't know link for where to check for those.

The ebay options for the 910mp right now are crap condition and high price.... but have a saved search

@Tursi For those of us who were just getting back into TI as this project and your licensing window were winding down... If enough of us pre-comitted or even pre-paid, could you buy enough licensing to do one more run? So bummed I missed this one.

I've noticed Google search results for Samsung 910mp come up with hits on Dell UW042. Is that just google silliness, or is this dell model actually the same as a Samsun 910mp?

My last several years have been in the Java world, but I've done C and C++, Objective-C, and even some Swift (LOVE swift for productivity!). So this will be a mental paradigm shift for me, but I'm determined to pick up when time allows where the young me was perusing the old Molesworth book. As I get cycles to play with that, I may pick your brain from time to time. But yes...decomposition is key, even if you don't have the constructs of modern languages to do that decomposition. The scratch RAM part was really cool, since that (and system ROM) if I'm not mistaken are the only two parts of the TI-99/4A to actually be enjoying the full 16 bits of the TMS9900. Getting that working had to leave you totally stoked.

I do software for a living, but in the biz world, not the gaming and graphics world. @Tursi - that is an epic feat and I absolutely love the way you came at the problem! As an 11-12 yo kid I was doing XB on my TI-99/4A (and Basic on an Apple IIe at my school around that time). But the TI-99/4A was and is my first love (computer-wise, anyhow). I still remember the day my buddy Gene tells me I gotta go see this new game at the arcade, Dragon's Lair. The laser disc tech for a video game was so cutting edge, there was no way for him to describe it to me fully, so we hopped on our bicycles, I went, and I was amazed. In arcade terms, Dragon's Lair, and of course The Addams Family pinball are still all-time greats. I was too late on the draw on this one, though if you ever get the licensing to do a second round, I will happily shoot you the funds for this! And when you decide to mod the old TI Pinball game from back in the day to Addams Family, count me in. I work full-time, do volunteer work, have a special needs kid, and am back for another Masters, so not much personal / fun programming time for me these days. But I intend to dig into assembly and/or GPL when I get free time and bang out some code on the machine of my first love. As a little kid I remember getting the Editor/Assembler package, and reading the brown Molesworth book on a greyhound bus b/t Detroit area and Grand Rapids after visiting a bud of mine. I got a little bogged down at that age with all the binary/hex conversion and never got back into it enough to code assembly, but it's been on my wish list for some years. Can't wait now that I'm again the proud owner of a TI. Anyhow, Tursi, thank you for your work and inspiration!

I'll try to join via the stream. I did my undergraduate in Chicago, and one of the friends I made during my years in Chicago, whom I found to share my passion for the TI-99/4A was an older gentleman named Jim. He passed on some years ago, but was an active member of the CTIUG. His last name escapes me, but I'd hop on the Red line down to the South Side and he'd pick me up around 87th and the Dan Ryan El Station, where'd we'd head to his joint and talk TI for hours on end. He used to run a BBS off of either his TI or his Geneve, not the main CTIUG BBS but a secondary as I recall. Man is he missed. After finishing my undergrad, on one of my Chi Town trips from MI, I tried to visit him, but met his brother and he'd just passed away in that timeframe. Wish I could remember his last name...I can still picture Jim and his amazing TI and Geneve systems in all their glory. I'm sure some of the long time CTIUG-ers remember him. I went to the Lima faire with him once, and I believe I met him at the Chicago faire one year as well. The other CTIUG-er I interacted with, though more online than in person, was "Froggy" - Mike Maksimik (sp?) - is he still active in the community?

A related question on FinalGrom99 cartridge images that want a disk... I'll be running most things off of SD in FinalGrom99. However, some cartridge images there want a DSK1, so I'm assuming that should actually be a disk w those supporting files in DSK1, right? For example (from wht FG99 image): MANUFACTURER. MFN. TITLE FOLDER WORKS? 32K? DISK? CONV? COMMENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TI PHM 3041 Adventure GAMES yes yes For that, once I put the 80 track updated card into my P-Box, I will likely set up the Lotharek SD FB - HXC Rev F I have on order as DSK1. The 80 track upgraded TI FDC I ordered came w/ two 3 /12" drives, but I'm thinking I should use the Lotharek as DSK1 and a physical 3 1/2" for DSK2. (My card is set up as 80/80/40, and while theoretically I might have to run some legacy 5 1/4", I'd probably be able to get my hands on that same file and put it on SD for Lotharek, or worse case, get it on a 3 1/2" floppy. ON that note, while I don't anticipate using it much, I may order just one 10 pack off of amazon of 3 1/2" floppies. Almost everything I see there is HD, and my setup is still constrained to SD, despite 80 track upgrade eproms from what I can read up on. As long as I order the unformatted disks (or reformat them if preformatted) they should work even though w/ my setup I'll sadly top off at 360K (80 track, DSSD), correct? Being soft sector, I'm assuming this just means those disks could go up to HD, but no problem formatting as 80 track DSSD, right?

Makes sense. That one Myarc card I had with the upgraded chipset got me to at least 720K on the 3 1/2"...forget if it took me to 1.44 or not. If it was 80 track mod but still DD, that would explain top-out at 720. Anyhow...when I put in that 80-track EPROM upgraded TI card...does that upgrade only control # of tracks, but I'm still tapped out at Single Density of 9 sectors per track?

From that wiki page, I was going by this: For example, the HD format of ​3 1⁄2-inch floppy disks uses 512 bytes per sector, 18 sectors per track, 80 tracks per side and two sides, for a total of 1,474,560 bytes per disk. But if the TI is always limited to 256 bytes per track (TI computer, or TI controller, were you saying?), then to get to the 720/1.44 for the 3 1/2" you'd have to be 36 sectors per track, 80 tracks. (If double density is 18 vs 9 sectors per track, then what some called QD would make sense for 36 sectors per track. Wonder why that article implied that it was 512 bytes per sector, but still with 80 tracks and 18 sectors per track.) Either way gets you to 720 SS and 1.44 DS, I suppose.

That zip file had a .dsk file and a couple of bitmap images. I'm guessing those are for emulators, but I use a native TI. I do have the FinalGrom99, but the files on my SD card there are .bin files. How do I go from files built for the emulator and get them back to a form I can use natively on my TI or on the FinalGrom99?

Having been out of the TI-99/4A game for years, I realized how dusty my memory had gotten on the various FDC and implied capacity options. Trying to piece together info from (http://www.unige.ch/medecine/nouspikel/ti99/disks.htm#Tracks%20&%20sectors) and (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk), I landed on the two tables below. For those far more informed than I on this, please enhance/correct.