+OLD CS1 Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Quote from Heinlein? Sounds familiar. hrmmm Perhaps, but it does not ring a bell. Quick call to MYCROFTXXX should sort this out... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 My wishes for the future are that old and new projects around the TI are made open. More Open Source for the TI! I wish that software and hardware are developed faster and better and the needs of the community are considered better. We should provide all our Basic, Assembler, C or Forth projects (from TI, Windows or Mac) and circuit diagrams, printed circuit boards layouts or our GAL, PAL, FPGA (etc.) listings as Open Source available to everyone. Let us grow together! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXB Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I have maintained RXB as open source since 2001 as the community just did not appear to be of a size that could support costly RXB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Hardware or software can be closed source and still provide to the community given the person or people involved are committed, provide support, and are not greedy. When faced with a real free market, which the retro communities are pretty much the only remaining semblance of such, a greedy or uncooperative entrepreneur harms himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregallenwarner Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I simply maintain everything I do as open source, across the board. That way, I don't have to deal with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 Interesting reactions ...Yes, it is true that some of you opens the sources of their projects. You are the real idols! Not only RXB is open, but also, for example, Funnel Web is open too. But my desire is, that this path would be followed by more of you (and hardware developers too).There are so many advantages of, but I think many of you still havent grasped the meaning and purpose of open source. This topic I will not discuss here, I just wanted to express my wishes and hopes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 We've (Acadiel and I) provided the Gerber files for some of the hardware designs to the world once the initial demand for boards went down, however hardware is a bit different than software, in that there is a significant initial investment in the environment to produce it (one that can't really be used for anything but hardware fabrication). Cartridge boards have usually saturated the market once about 250 of any given design are in the wild, unless someone has a special project that uses a bunch of them (and those usually hit the limits of the market at 50-60 or so)--and we've provided Gerber files to people working that type of project when asked, but it is actually usually cheaper to source the boards from me directly, as I get enough of them made in a run to keep the price per board pretty low (the price per board in a smaller run is often quite high, but some sources are better than others on price--and board quality). I try to keep all of my boards available, which also means that considerable funds are tied up in stock (I've got well over $10,000 in parts, bare boards, molds, equipment, labels, and general supplies tied up in my TI projects). The bare circuit cards that have gone out into the wild this year cost over $4,000 to fabricate--and then I had to get the parts to build them (and take the time to do so over the protestations of my wife). The investment is worth it to me because it keeps the community alive. I do it because it is fun--and because I want to do something for the community. When others design new hardware (or software) I try to obtain it directly from them or I do what I can to help them get it out to the world (or both). I know how much work went into it--and I respect that. One of the reasons the UberGROM was created was to allow really useful programs like RXB to be obtainable in physical form for use by people without a GRAM device. Several of us labored on that project for four years to get all of the pieces working in rock-solid fashion. Would open sourcing it have sped the iterative process? Possibly. Pictures of the bare boards (and assembled boards, for that matter) have been on AtariAge for much of that time, and core code necessary to simulate the GROMs was up on Tursi's site the whole time. Gazoo was the first person outside of the original team to actually do something with the result of the project--and he's made images for it to allow it to be programmed as RXB, XB 2.7, Winkler's Expanded BASIC 3, and as Super Extended BASIC. That was not a trivial task either--but it makes these boards very useful today. Very few people in the community have the necessary hardware (or skills) to program all of the parts used here--I'm still learning the process to program the Atmel 1284 myself, although I can do all of the other chips with the setup I have already. My newest cartridge board required moving to a 42-pin memory chip, the 27C160, to get the maximum possible capability available to the cartridge port using just two chips. Larger memory chips are available, but they are usually 3-volt (adding complexity) and surface mount (beyond the capabilities of 99% of the community to work with). Projects have to strike a balance between what is possible and what can be built by the people who build it. All that said--I welcome new folks into the community who are willing to work to make existing projects better. It isn't open source--it is crowd-source, in that the ideas the community throws at us while we're mulling over the need for something get incorporated into the design (and credited to the individuals with the incorporated ideas). I usually provide the final Gerbers to each person credited on the board if they want them--and they can easily get their own fabricated (and some do). Wenn Sie uns helfen wollen, wilkommen. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 I Open Source, Crowd Source or whatever it's called these days! I also want to thank you and all the other TI-Gods that have invested INCREDIBLE amounts of time, effort and money to bring us all the toys that we enjoy so much. Believe me, I am VERY APPRECIATIVE and cognizant of all the effort involved. I'm also looking forward to all the other projects in the pipeline, expecially the PS/2 keyboard adapter. In the spirit of Open Source, I paid homage to it's spirit by replacing the TI-Logo on one of my cartridges when I made the label. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 TurboForth is open source. You can download it for free and burn it onto your own cart. The source code is on the website. There's even been some collaboration: Lee Stewart helped out a bunch on the floored math and even wrote a floating point library. Bob Carmany has done a couple of Man-months of testing at least. This community is actually very good at working together. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted June 1, 2015 Author Share Posted June 1, 2015 Well it's the middle of 2015 and a few of my plans from message #2 have come true. Stuart's Browser arrived on the scene and can be used by both NANO and P-Box users. That was a nice ! Stuart even did a WEATHER APP for his browser. Keyboard Mod Gave away a TI Still a few to go, but the year is only half over. How have your plans gone? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic1975 Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) It would be nice to have FPGA version of TI99/4a. Lotharek have MIST FPGA board and many cores of popular home computers. I know we have PC emulators of TI99/4a, but MIST is much smaller and could solve problems with software on modules and loose connection on connectors. It is hardware emulation. Put it in TI99/4a case and you have new Computer. Edited June 2, 2015 by Manic1975 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bholcomb007 Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 I am a bit late to the topic, but I was wondering if someone with the knowledge (this is a pretty big one) of say a Yamaha Y8950 chip (sound chip) that can use a ROM beside it to store sound samples, to be made into an expansion board? Seems like it would be possible. I believe the hard part would be the writing of the software to communicate with it. I can do software (I just got my TI 99/4A after 30 years of not having it anymore...WOOT) and plan on learning the FPGA and attempting some assembly games, but as for the low level interface to that chip it seems like a bear! But it would be sweet to have an FM sound chip that has on board samples in ROM (it uses a 256K ROM) to have some amazing sounds. It can do 9 channels of sound with built in drum sounds for rhythms! Just a thought! Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Not quite the exact same, but you should.look up the SID card that Marc Hull made for the TI. Marc and Ksarul can fill you in on more.details, but it is epic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I gained 3 CorComp-cards last days (Triple, 512K, FDC) - so, my calendar seems to be full for this year... (...or for this month, I really don´t know oh sorry, have to go offline, there is something on ebayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 (edited) is there an AA-function called "auto-like" ? / EDIT to buy a "s" / Edited June 11, 2015 by schmitzi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bholcomb007 Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Not quite the exact same, but you should.look up the SID card that Marc Hull made for the TI. Marc and Ksarul can fill you in on more.details, but it is epic. Yeah that is pretty cool, that is what got me thinking about something in that realm with newer technology. Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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