mäsäxi

Just wanted to mention that I got a cassette cable.

Thank you, it was a relief to hear that! On the sides there are no extra homemade ports either.

Yes, I did understand memory problem. No problem!

Thank you for your replies, and thank you Astharot for offering to help to get a cable. I took some photos, I will show them first. For me, these things look unmodified, but please share your knowledge with me. I can understand if somebody makes Atari type joystick port or makes a new expansion port for homemade hardware, but I cannot think a reason why somebody would modify a cassette port though, if they are all the same. Also, are joystick ports of my both TIs the original ones? I can see metal clips under them.

My TI was missing cassette cable (which connects cassette recorder to TI), I contacted the seller and he searched and found one for me afterwards, but said it was unfortunately for the US model and looks different than the port at the backside of my TI, so it won´t plug to my TI. I didn´t knew there could be any difference between cassette ports in the same machine, no matter where they were sold. At the backside of my TI-99/4A there is a port which looks exactly like 9-pin joystick port. I guess this must be the cassette port as TV modulator cable and power supply cable are plugged in already. So there is different looking port in the US machine? Is there any (cheap) adapter for connecting US cassette cable to my TI? Or could somebody nice european person sell me european TI-99/4A cassette cable for reasonable price? Thank you in advance, MäSäXi

ti99userclub, wonderful picture! This has modern day photoshop touch in it (colours, blends) but as a picture I-like-it! Sorry, I miss too much that era when computers weren´t used to make/colour pictures. I am such an old geezer.

COMING SOON !! Us gals need to stick together - (our men´s stupid ´n ridiculous "hobbies") In selected female forums around the web! Beware.......

Just fantastic! This is one of my favourite games! Sure title screen would be nice to have, but I think missing title screen would be a small thing if at least most of this game can be converted to TI. And title screen was like in-game screen with some added text anyway. I think if this game will not have title screen at all, but just shows starting screen, it will add some charm to this game, as many 1980s game conversions were usually not perfect, they usually missed a thing or two or more from the original game. Thank you for your job already!

it gave me 403 forbidden, but on the second try it worked. Thank you! Looks very nice! Speaking with MSX terms, sure it would look even more nicer with some Screen 2 extra colour, but I do like it the way it is now. If the background had any more colour, maybe it would look like non-TI-ish. May I say that I would like to play the finished game on my TI someday? Yeah, now I have my own TI!!!! At last!! Well, now it´s said. Lovely looking computer!

Just great! Please continue, want to see this finished some day! By the way, for some reason, I cannot see Miracle_island_1.png picture from the first post, it tries to load it, but nothing happens.

Thank you! No problem, I am the CRT user.

I got curious about french SECAM. As NTSC games will work on PAL, I assume there is no difference if one buys TI game from france to use it on PAL?

Thank you, that was a relief to hear!

If I buy Speech Synthesizer from USA, will it work on PAL machine? I guess it is made to work on both standards, but I want to be sure before buying one. Is there anything I should know about using Speech Synthesizer? Also, will cassettes made for NTSC machine work on PAL? I started to wonder when I understood Tunnels of Doom cartridge also has a cassette. Are there certain cassette games which may not work on PAL? Does Slinky work? Thank you again in advance! MäSäXi

Thank you for the answers! You made my life a bit easier now.

Hello, that´s the question. Are there cartridge games which allow player to choose to use either joystick or keyboard? Are there any cartridge games which don´t read the joystick port at all but will use keyboard instead? I started to wonder these, as it is possible that if I find suitable TI-99/4A lot someday, joysticks may not be included in that lot. It would be a sad moment, if I buy some TI lot from home continent and then buy games from USA and then all those games will need a joystick.... Am I right, if I say Atari standard joysticks cannot be used with TI? (at least not without modification) I have some memory that TI joysticks also had 9-pin connector, but wires were in different order than in Atari sticks. Of course it would be lots nicer to use original TI joysticks than some modified joystick. Thank you in advance for any help! -MäSäXi

Thank you again everybody! I am from Finland, sorry for not pointing that out. My idea was to buy some cheap enough PAL TI-99/4A from some european country, hoping to find one, which has correct power plug too. I am not going to import NTSC machine from the USA. Just NTSC games from USA, as TI games and game lots seem to be cheaper in the US Ebay. If I can get a cheap cartridge lot, it could be still "cheap" enough even after shipping costs and taxes are counted to total. I think I have some universal power supply which has a selector switch for AC or DC. But Does the TI-99/4A has suitable port for universal power supply unit´s plug? I have no idea. I was originally thinking to get PAL TI from european country which uses the same voltage what is used in Finland, but even in that case, power plug may be different, at least in the UK power plug is "wrong" type. I think in the Netherlands there was correct type of power plug and it´s PAL country too. I am asking about the universal power supply unit just in case if I end to buy PAL TI with the "wrong" power plug, using universal power supply would save my time, as I could start using TI without needing to modify power plug to finnish type. Oh! Thank you for pointing that to me!!! I didn´t knew that!!!!! I always thought that only happens on the southern side of the equator... You guys have given so much good answers to me, so I am not sure, if I have answered everything now.

Thank you everybody for your help!!!!!! I am familiar with the speed difference. In the eighties I may not have been aware that such thing could even exist, but in this millennium when I started to use emulators, I tried some of my old favourite MSX cartridge games on emulator and found out that japanese 60Hz MSXs played music disgustingly fast! May I ask one more (different) question, so I don´t have to open another topic for it? Does ordinary universal power supply unit plug into TI-99/4A? I mean those ones which can be bought from the shops and they have at least voltage select switch too. I thought as different type of power plugs are used in different countries, so most probably I will get TI-99/4A with "wrong" power plug type which will not plug into my wall socket, and it would be easier to just use some universal power supply unit, I have several of them already.

What a relief to hear that! I haven´t watched too many ebay TI-99/4A listings lately, but it seems usually there aren´t many games (if any) bundled with TI-99/4As in Europe area. In U.S.A. things seem to be totally opposite. I hope I could get cheap enough PAL TI someday.

Is there any sense in dreaming of buying NTSC cartridges for PAL TI-99/4A? Will I have graphics and sound problems or games not working at all? I don´t have TI-99/4A yet, though.

Ok, thank you. Does anyone here have played Pirates of the Barbary Coast? Can you say anything about it´s good and bad points?

Hello again. I used to play Microprose Pirates! on Amiga, I am familiar with that game. Then I know that there exists Pirates of the Barbary Coast by Cascade. In Colonization you can practise piracy as well, thought it is limited to purchasing desired ships and control your ship icon to same location with other ship icon and then "battle" happens, which is just a text box saying if the other ship evaded you or if you lost or won and in the latter case had the ability to choose what kind of cargo you want to rob. Are there any other Pirate strategy games for Amiga 500 than first two mentioned games? Let´s say Pirates! is a good average game. Is Pirates of the Barbary Coast in the same class or worse? Atari ST conversion didn´t get too good review in Computer & Video Games magazine back in time. I have some vague memory that it was mentioned that the treasure was always on the same island, which surely drops replay value down a lot, but was that problem only on 8 or 16-bit conversions, or both?

If anyone would like to see more colourful clone of Bejeweled!, then check MSX conversion of Sinclair Spectrum homebrew Be Tiled!. I like the looks of this Bejeweled!, but as I said, there exists more colourful version for our dear VDP.

You are right, Rasmus. Smooth scrolling and original speed are important things, and game will surely be more attractive with smooth scrolling even it will be less colourful. When I suggested another colour for the top layer of the ground, I was afraiding that you would tell me about having too few tiles. There are still some ways to bring more colour, without being tile consuming. You could make "sand" (everything below the top layer) having other colour than black, and to prevent colour clash, you will need just one more (I think) tile, which has just one colour, all pixels are purple. That way colourful "sand" tile and top layer will not have any colour problems. I do understand, that when missiles are placed in the open area, they may look a bit strange, if they will get more colour after they are fired to the sky. I guess all explosions are made with sprite? Otherwise the explosion of the missile which is sitting in it´s silo, will be monochrome. As you are probably using sprites for the explosion, you can get more colourful explosion even just using just one sprite, by changing it´s colour on every frame. If you have any sprite memory left for just one sprite, you can use second sprite to make explosion have two colours, and you can still alter the colours of those two sprites on every frame, to make explosion even more colourful. This second explosion sprite must have low priority, so it will be showed only if there aren´t too many sprites on the same row. I think that colourful explosion is a simple but very effective way to get some extra colour, and having colourful explosion is always very satisfying for the player. Even more, if all the spaceships and missiles and comets/meteors are monochrome, then colourful explosion will look really good! One more idea would be to use one flickering sprite to make flickering colourful windows for U.F.O., cycling the very same sprite for every U.F.O.. U.F.O.´s windows usually tend to be flashing in strange colours. Same idea could be used for meteor swarm, I think it would suit well for meteors, if you use that sprite for making fumes behind the actual meteors. As far as I know, there is no decent Scramble clone for MSX. The best one is Super Cobra, and that´s not very much said. I do remember, that it looked allright in mid-eighties thought. There is one clone called Skramble from Aackosoft, but it´s totally monochrome and badly made, cannot be compared to what you are making right now. There was also one "clone" with funny idea, called "Scrambled Eggs". Game was like meteor shower stage, eggs coming at you fast, and when shot little chicks hatched and flew away. It was fun for few tries, but that´s all, there weren´t any ground targets and I think there were nothing more to see in that game, please correct me if somebody knows better. I am not sure if there was any more Scramble clones for MSX, but if there were, they weren´t any good ones. I have always wished to have decent very colourful original style Scramble clone for MSX.

Looks good so far! Being an MSX owner, I must say it looks quite colourless though. This is not an insult towards this TI-Scramble, which would be a good name for this game, but just caused by buying and seeing too many direct ports of monochrome Sinclair Spectrum games decades ago. Fuel tanks have good contrast against monochrome background, but mostly game looks monochrome. As top of the ground has another colour in the arcade version, I was thinking, if it would be possible to alter graphics design a bit, to try to make background more colourful, by carefully designing and placing white tiles here and there. I am not talking about 100% imitation of arcade game now, in some diagonal places those white tiles must be thick (use two tiles), to prevent colour bleeding, and in some places you may have to not use white tiles at all, but it´s possible with careful designing. I am not saying your graphics design is bad, not at all. I am just trying to say some ideas to make this game to look even better. I was also thinking about those missiles, as being tiles before they are fired, they have to be same colour as background. I got a thought that they are camouflaged and as they sit waiting in their missile silos, they are sitting in shadows, and that´s why they are in same colour as the background. When missile is fired, it comes visible and you can alter it´s sprite colour to same what it is in arcade game, it doesn´t have to have background´s colour anymore, as it is not sitting anymore in the dark missile silo. My another thought for missiles was if you don´t run out of memory, missiles could have another sprite for fire which is coming from their motor. To prevent fire becoming invisible (as there will be many sprites in the same row), I thought you could use same sprite for every missiles´ fire (cycle them), it doesn´t look too bad, as fire is not a solid object. If you keep your original rocket design, which has missile and fire in same sprite, you can then have two coloured fire, if you add that flickering fire sprite there. And in moments where fire sprite will become invisible (because there are too many sprites in same row), it doesn´t matter too much, as missile already have fire. Fire will just loose it´s second colour when fire sprite becomes invisible when there are more than four sprites in the row. And you can give fire sprite plane the lowest possible priority, so all the other sprites are showed first and flickering fire sprite will show only when there aren´t too many sprites in that same row. About two button problem, I have played many old games which always used joystick´s only one fire button only, so player´s bullets and missiles were fired at the same time and it worked good. I have also played some games which fired bullets and missiles separately, first bullet, then missile, then bullet, etc... it worked ok, and it increased excitement in those games, but surely there are games where it doesn´t work. So I prefer that bullets and missiles are shot at the same time, using joystick´s fire button only. No keyboard. Pressing fire button and moving joystick down is a good idea, but the drawback is, that if you are flying on a very low altitude, your space ship will dive and hit fuel tank. Sure you can make the ship not moving when launching it´s missile, but it may easily cause too much excitement (and easy dead) as you cannot control your ship while firing a missile. It´s a very short moment without control, but if some U.F.O. or meteor shower is incoming fast, you may think how nice it would be if you could have ship control while firing a missile. These were just my ideas, please keep up your work, so TI folks can enjoy Skramble some day!