Jump to content
IGNORED

TI-99 Emulator on Android


Ksarul

Recommended Posts

ohhhh finally !! :D ... TI99 Emulater missing on smartphone ! :D ... good to know... now i am really curious to know something more about the developer ;) ... eric .dot. lorimer .at. gmail .dot. com

 

i tried the emulator and it's a good start...

 

Bugs: - Video chess

Incomplete: + sound (clicks, channel mixing) - floppy disk support - noise generator

Improvements: - UI (buttons, settings page (borders, etc)) - Load custom ROMs, cartridges, GROMs

Future Features: - cassette - speech - render audio/video to disk

Edited by ti99userclub
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw one in the Marketplace last week that I wanted to ask about. This is not the same one, though. This one does not appear compatible with 2.2, which is the kernel ACL uses on the TouchPad.

 

/jealous

Edited by OLD CS1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really great start!!! That said, the keyboard is too small for my fingers, and the pad layout is totally unusable. I hope the author will be interested in maintaining this product and enhancing it.

I have used v9t9 on my Nexus 7 tablet through Dosbox, but this is definitely less cumbersome to use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really great start!!! That said, the keyboard is too small for my fingers, and the pad layout is totally unusable. I hope the author will be interested in maintaining this product and enhancing it.

I have used v9t9 on my Nexus 7 tablet through Dosbox, but this is definitely less cumbersome to use.

 

Yeah, about time there is an native android emulator.

 

I am the same as you, running V9t9 via DosBox Turbo on my dual-core 7" tablet (chinese crap) which I got the idea after seeing a video of it working I think on Asus android device.

 

Does this android emulator allow usage of usb or bluetooth keyboard instead of touch pad?

 

Will have to look at it more, and it includes pre-loaded cartridges, is there no way to add your own rom dumps?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

doh me too.. he will now be pummeled with emails from ti nerds

 

HFW

post-27864-0-76152900-1413245713_thumb.jpg

 

 

I downloaded it and installed it, but the TI title screen just sits there. :(

How does one 'PRESS ANY KEY TO BEGIN" ????

 

 

You just want it to be pressed, dum-dum!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like some of you guys, I had gotten v9t9 to run on my phone using DOS Box. I would go on to the Google Play store from time to time and search for 'TI99', and I was actually kind of surprised when Droid99 popped up on Sunday. And, also like some of you guys too, I'd also emailed Eric, so he's really going to be sick of us! lol

 

Rich

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am the author. I really didn't expect it to generate much interest. I wrote it primarily for the learning experience (which is why it has more bugs and is not a port of a better emulation engine like MESS which would probably have been more productive).

 

I totally agree that the joystick sucks. I'm not much of a UI designer and didn't have any great ideas how to squeeze it in there. Maybe a toggle to hide the keyboard and use the whole bottom half for a joystick image?

 

It should work with USB and BT keyboards. The idea was that one could use a cheap Android TV stick and plug it into a TV (that's also partially why it goes full-screen when rotated to landscape mode as that's how it would display on a TV).

 

The cartridges were fixed because they usually come in multiple files so the user interface to load them was more work and they can include functionality that's more than just data.

 

I asked Texas Instruments for permission to distribute the ROMs and they were gracious enough to give me permission for any TI-99 software they have copyright to so if there are specific TI carts that people are interested in, that would be pretty easy to add.

 

Disk emulation is pretty incomplete (and buggy) as it was thrown in there last. I'll have to do more research on the file formats for disks and ROMs. I chose DSK images because they were simplest.

 

All that said, the code is also available and while it is rather messy (too much coupling between pieces that should be separate), it should be relatively straightforward to find the relevant code and improve it and I'd gladly accept code changes and roll a new app for the Play Store. Some of the more interesting features (in my opinion) that might offset some of the bugs and limitations are in the debugger which can be accessed with telnet on port 1234. For example, one thing that wasn't mentioned in the documentation is that the debugger embeds a Lua interpreter and hooks for things like memory accesses and branches, which, with some improvements, might be useful to people developing new software for the system.

  • Like 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome

 

Regarding cartridge file formats, the MESS emulator has a nice file format for TI-99/4A cartridges. It's a single-file format. All files end with an .RPK extension. An XML file describes the binary requirements, and lists any accompanying binary files. The XML file, and the binary files are zipped up together, and the resultant zip file is renamed to an RPK (much like Open Office documents are actually zip files that have been renamed).

 

The maintainer of the TI-99/4A emulation for MESS, @mizapf, hangs out on this forum. He could tell you all you need to know. There's hundreds of carts already converted to this format. We could probably host the carts online somewhere such that your emulator could load them over the air when required, rather than package them with the executable. This is how the Spectrum emulators work on Android (ostensibly because there are tens of thousands of titles available for the ZX Spectrum :-D )

 

Great to see you posting here, and thanks for this contribution to the TI world. An emulator for Android has been a long time coming, and, speaking for myself, I'm over the moon to finally see an emulator for our favourite hobby computer!

 

Mark

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find it interesting to see that there is actually a demand for having an emulator on a handheld device, and to be honest, I sometimes find myself wondering about that. I don't want to convince anybody of the opposite, but maybe it's because of the way I'm working with computers which may be different to the way other people do. There is actually a lot of software that I just don't expect on a tablet or smartphone.

 

Consulting companies keep telling us that the PC era is over, which sounds pretty silly to me - you could likewise try to tell me that being in use for such a long time, the time of forks and knives is finally over. :) Well, those consultants need to do something for their living, after all.

 

I have a tablet that I actually use a lot of times; mostly on my way in the train, sometimes at home to check incoming mail, or to show people some video I recently discovered. After some time of using I noticed that some tasks are always better done on the desktop ... as I'm doing right now. I won't write long texts on the touchscreen. A mouse is much more comfortable than using fingers (how often have I missed the "next mesage" link on this page?). I won't process images from my camera on a tablet. I won't cut video on my tablet. I won't work on my slides on a tablet. I don't see that a handheld device will replace my desktop computer in a foreseeable period of time. (Am I outdated? :) )

 

One thing I heard of is to run an emulator on a miniature computer like the Raspberry Pi to be able to build it into the TI console and replace the actual mainboard. What is the main motivation for having an emulator on a tablet or smartphone? Being able to use it on my way? I'd expect that the fun of using will be severely limited because we do not have a proper keyboard, mouse, or joystick.

 

As said, no intention to argue against emulation on handhelds, just wondering whether the expectations can actually be met.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are some uses for having an emulator on an Android device.

I run PC99 in DOSbox on my Android tablet. It runs at full speed and in the portrait mode where it's ok to type on. It's good for a quick idea to test or play some non-joystick games (such as Adventure which it does real good).

On the other hand, I tried it on my phone and other than the wow-that's-neat-you-can-run-a-TI-99-on-your-phone it mostly useless as it's too small.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...