Gazoo Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 I know someone has to have done this before. There surely is a way to put a 32k Sram in the speech synthesizer, I'm betting that it could be even partially piggybacked on one of the chips in there with only a few support parts. I can't find any info on it, though. Anyone got any info on this? Thanks, Gazoo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 (edited) I am sure it was done before. You could search thru all the scanned in Micropendium and Various User Group club newsletters. (They are all on WHTECH FTP site) Thinking of that it would be nice to have a searchable index of everthing that can be only found in scanned PDF format, so you know where to look for old useful info. EDIT: (added my personal opinion on doing 32k mods!) Oh'tho personally if you going to solder in chips, I would get two 32k sram's solder them over the two sram's in the console, and just with a tiny bit of support wires and some bending of pins, and one or two support logic chips, you got yourself nice 32k 16bit memory instead! (and extra bank of 32k with a switch if you wish) Edited May 10, 2014 by Gary from OPA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazoo Posted May 10, 2014 Author Share Posted May 10, 2014 I am sure it was done before. You could search thru all the scanned in Micropendium and Various User Group club newsletters. (They are all on WHTECH FTP site) Thinking of that it would be nice to have a searchable index of everthing that can be only found in scanned PDF format, so you know where to look for old useful info. EDIT: (added my personal opinion on doing 32k mods!) Oh'tho personally if you going to solder in chips, I would get two 32k sram's solder them over the two sram's in the console, and just with a tiny bit of support wires and some bending of pins, and one or two support logic chips, you got yourself nice 32k 16bit memory instead! (and extra bank of 32k with a switch if you wish) Well, consoles die. Speech Synths seem to last forever. I'm thinking of someone with a minimalist system that wants to use a 512k cart. If the console goes, you can take the SS and the cart, plug them in a new console, and you're good to go. Gazoo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Well, consoles die. Speech Synths seem to last forever. I'm thinking of someone with a minimalist system that wants to use a 512k cart. If the console goes, you can take the SS and the cart, plug them in a new console, and you're good to go. Gazoo Yeah I have the same problem, I have heavly modded console with 32k on 16bit bus, and the video ram is gone. -- thinking the only way to save this console is mod it more put in F18A as it does not use the old onboard now flaky video ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Well, consoles die. Speech Synths seem to last forever. I'm thinking of someone with a minimalist system that wants to use a 512k cart. If the console goes, you can take the SS and the cart, plug them in a new console, and you're good to go. Gazoo I'm thinking this would probably also get around the speed issue/problem some programs have with the 32K on the 16 bit bus mod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Look in the West Penn-99er's newsletters. I seem to remember something there (John Willforth put a lot of his hardware mods in there). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Look in the West Penn-99er's newsletters. I seem to remember something there (John Willforth put a lot of his hardware mods in there). It's a great place to put stuff, it's a cavern in there with plenty of room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Found it... Page three of << THIS >> .PDF file. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazoo Posted May 10, 2014 Author Share Posted May 10, 2014 Found it... Page three of << THIS >> .PDF file. Thanks! I just did a Google search for John Willforth. He shows up in the same town. I wonder if he may want to do a little soldering... Gazoo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 It's a great place to put stuff, it's a cavern in there with plenty of room. Well, originally the Speech Box was to have a small cartridge slot in that 'cavern', so plenty of room for 'word' expansion. Sadly, the option was dropped when 'text-to-speech' was decided as the route, instead of modules with sets of recorded words for box to synthesize. There was to be various modules to expand, chemistry, math, other languages like german, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 I think I need to make a small circuit card that puts this into the Speech-Synthesizer case. One more ExpressPCB project for me to work on. . .although this one will go fast. I just need to set a jumper field on one side so you can connect the wires between the SS connector and the daughter board, and put six chips on it. This might be interesting. . . 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 There was to be various modules to expand, chemistry, math, other languages like german, etc. I'm still dreaming of a Real Time Clock. The one avenue I was working on did not pan out. I'm sure one would fit in there quite nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Yall should upload PDFs like that to Planet-99.net. It has a searchable online database behind it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jens-eike Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 I think I need to make a small circuit card that puts this into the Speech-Synthesizer case. One more ExpressPCB project for me to work on. . .although this one will go fast. I just need to set a jumper field on one side so you can connect the wires between the SS connector and the daughter board, and put six chips on it. This might be interesting. . . Use one 62256 RAM and combine the select signals via (schottky) diodes plus a pull-up resistor - that saves 3 large chips (or stacking). The '138 + diodes could be replaced by a 74LS156... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 There's also this ... http://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/ti99/memupgrade.htm ... which replaces the internals of the speech synth. The schematic link doesn't work but it may give a few ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unhuman Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 What we really need is the CF7+ inside of the synthesizer. That'd be the bomb. Especially the flippy access to the memory card... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 What we really need is the CF7+ inside of the synthesizer. That'd be the bomb. Especially the flippy access to the memory card... Actually tried some ideas recently but the CF7+ is too big, in it's current form, to fit in the synthesizer.The IDE to CF is just a few mm too big the fit under the door of the synthesizer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jens-eike Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 Here are some scans from TI-Revue (HCA) 10/1987 showing a simple RAM expansion using only one 62256 and two TTL chips. The 74HCT08 is a better choice than my idea with diodes to combine select signals (same trick saved a Horizon RAM disk for me from flaky operation). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 I like that one, Jens-Eike. I think it will be the one I turn into a board for the Speech Synthesizer. . . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazoo Posted May 11, 2014 Author Share Posted May 11, 2014 I like that one, Jens-Eike. I think it will be the one I turn into a board for the Speech Synthesizer. . . Yippee! I'll definitely want a few of these. Suggestion, put a header on it for a switch, so the user can turn it off if a different memory expansion is used. Gazoo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 I have taken a lot of the PDFs I downloaded from WHT and run them through OCR, I just do not know what to do with them. In any case, It would be fairly easy to implement a sort-of document management system using OCR'ed document which would be fully searchable. I might actually have time now to play around with this idea. Would be helpful for finding stuff like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jens-eike Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 Yippee! I'll definitely want a few of these. Suggestion, put a header on it for a switch, so the user can turn it off if a different memory expansion is used. Gazoo Easy: connect a switch between pin 6 and ground. Closing the switch will disable the '138 decoder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted May 12, 2014 Share Posted May 12, 2014 (edited) I have taken a lot of the PDFs I downloaded from WHT and run them through OCR, I just do not know what to do with them. In any case, It would be fairly easy to implement a sort-of document management system using OCR'ed document which would be fully searchable. I might actually have time now to play around with this idea. Would be helpful for finding stuff like this. Depending on their size, you could upload them to planet-99.net. One of these days I'll get my ass around to finishing the site properly. Having said that, the documents part of the site is fully functional. You can create your own folders and upload the docs. Just make sure to fill in the fields properly when you upload a PDF - the SQL search functions use them, so the more stuff you include the better the chances of it being returned in search results. I can't remember if I need to give you special permissions or not. If you fancy giving it a try let me know (and let me know your username) and I can give you the appropriate permissions if you find you can't create folders and/or upload. Edited May 12, 2014 by Willsy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 I'm still dreaming of a Real Time Clock. The one avenue I was working on did not pan out. I'm sure one would fit in there quite nicely. http://www.ebay.com/itm/131169025116?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Why not stick one of these somewhere and use that? someone could easily write the code to get the time, that's what the Crapple II users used just stuck it on a rom somewhere Greg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 http://www.ebay.com/itm/131169025116?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Why not stick one of these somewhere and use that? someone could easily write the code to get the time, that's what the Crapple II users used just stuck it on a rom somewhere Greg I've written it off as wishful thinking. something that will never happen. First, I know not where that 'somewhere' is, let alone how to interface with it. Second, whoever that someone is, would also have to consider how the time is accessed as well. I prefer the ComComp method over the MBP format as it gives more data, which gives the user more options and is fully compatible with Remind Me, but also works with Boot just fine and I believe some old TI BBS software. It's also partially compatible with Classic99. Now that brings me to third,.. I guess some people like to program, others play games, no one, other than myself, seems even remotely interested in a RTC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.