RedBaron

I have a Gotek USB floppy drive, but I cannot seem to get it to read or write to a USB flash drive. Can anyone help me to get this going? Thank you Ricki

I need to upload a correction to fix a small issue with the game. If you use the ESC to get another marble it does nor reset the keys that you gathered. This new version fixes that. I run this on an emulator and have tried it with CPU throttling on. I find that while it does load much faster it is also harder to move the marble to exactly where you want it. MARBLEMAZE.zip

Here is a new TI game that I just wrote: MARBLE MAZE By Ricki Baron This is a TI99/4a program that was inspired by Michael Nelson. I do not know if it is the same person that is on MST3K, but I don't think so. The original game was called "MARBLES" and was written for DOS (Disk Operating System) on a PC. I do not know what programming language the original game was written in. I have tried to find this old game several times on the Internet. but could not locate it or the person who wrote it. I enjoy playing this game so much I thought that I would bring the game to the TI community. This is nearly identical to the original game as far as playing the game. I hope that you will enjoy it as well. While it is not a shot them up type of game or even fast paced, it does have the things that I prefer. I like a more thinking type of game to keep my interest. Being a combination of a puzzle and a maze I find the game is unique in design. The game has 20 levels already created for it and ready to play. One issue with this game is that each level takes about 3 minutes to load from a standard TI99/4a set up. Each of the 20 levels gets harder to solve as you go along. I tend to use an emulator on a PC to write and run most of the TI stuff I use. With the emulator you can throttle the TI up to run things faster. This does come with its own issues though. While loading each level is very fast so is the movement of the Marble in the game. As you play you will notice that there are Arrows pointing one way. Once you go the way the arrow points you cannot go back the same way as it will stop you. During play you need to get the keys that you need to open the lock you want to go through. Only the red key will open the red lock and only the blue key will open the blue lock. You have to stay on the squares to move around. The game will not allow you to go onto any of the black squares. You do have to watch out for traps. In some levels you can get stuck in a place you cannot get out of. In this case you can use one of your Marble to start over on that level. Once you run out of Marbles you lose and will have to start over. I have included in the zipped file 20 screen levels the main program "MARBLEMAZE", and a screen level creator program "MARBLESCRN". All of these files need to be in disk 1 for the program find the screen levels. They are numbered from 1 through 20. I am always looking for these kinds of games. As a side note, I had started, a long time ago, to program an old Atari game called, "Journey to the Planets". I needs to written in Assembly Language to work properly. This is also a type of puzzle/maze game that I like to play. Currently I am at a stopping point in its creation as I forgotten how I used to write some of the code in that language. Unfortunately, the TI group that I used to be with is no longer around. They would have helped me with this program if they were still here. Enjoy Ricki Baron MARBLE_MAZE.zip

Hello Chicago TI users group, I just finished making a 50 star flag if you are interested. If so please tell me how I can get the Extended basic program to you. Ricki

Yes, I have seen your work on the plotter. Great job. Perhaps we could work together on some projects.

Thanks, This helps a lot. I will try and post things when I get something up and running. I am going to be using standard GCODE when I write the TI program so that people can maybe learn a little about how CNC machine work, I also plan a short tutorial in GCODE to be included as a package. I will only be using some simple GCODE commands but I think people might like it. You can also put a laser engraver instead of a cutter or a drawing device (pen).

Can you help me get the files you wrote onto a TI disk. I have a peb box with both a 5.25" floppy and a GoTek floppy emulator with a flash drive. I did try and copy the files but it won't let me copy the Object file "PIOLIB". I did finally get something going on the Classic99 emulator, but I don't know yet if it is actually going to work on Ironware. I have written programs in Visual Basic to sync my Christmas lights to music on a PC. So I have worked with direct access to Digital Cards install in a PC. I don't how similar my Technik is compared to your access of the printer port on the TI. I do have to work many times with Decimal, Hexadecimal, and Binary to get my stuff working. I do plan on making my own circuit boards to make the interface between the TI and the CNC. Would it be possible to get each of your files separately so that I could then just copy them were I need them? Thank You for your help.

I have a question about your PIO code. Could this be done using CALL LOADS? I am have trouble getting your code to work.

I know that this is a older posting, but I thought you might like to know that I use CNC machines that I built all the time. I am know trying to use the TI99/4a as the computer to interface with a small CNC that I have. I am hoping that the Assembler code you wrote will work with my CNC. I am creating a TI GCODE. It will not have all the bells a whistles of a regular GCODE, but it should be enough to get things going. If there are any more hints of things that I should know please tell me. I am also writing a small Tutorial on how to write GCODE. I don't know what kind of accuracy I will get, I am not expecting very high accuracy, but it should make for an interesting project. All I need for your code to do is turn on and off the 8 bits that are accessible to be able to control the machine.

If anyone is interested. I created an Extended Basic 40 column program that shows how the 40 column characters are made. I have been using the Classic 99 program to go into Extended Basic and wrote a small program then save it to DSK1. I am not sure how I can share this with anyone that would like to have it. If someone would like to see it I could use a little help with how to post the code here. I will give it a try myself and hope that this program is posted correctly. Thank You. 40COLDEF

I would like thank everyone for this info. I think that this is what I was looking for.

I used to have a TI994a Extended Basic program that would redefine the cursor with any pattern I wanted. Does anyone remember how this was done? I think that it used pokes or peeks. Thank you