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Life's Reality -- Does owning a TI require a soldering iron?


Omega-TI

On the topic of TI's & soldering irons...  

56 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you own a TI-99/4A?

    • Yes
      51
    • No (I'm just messing with the poll)
      5
  2. 2. Do you own a soldering iron?

    • Yes
      52
    • No
      4
  3. 3. Have you ever used your soldering iron in or on your TI-99/4A (even if it was just the simple diode mod).

    • Yes
      37
    • No
      19

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Of course one does not require a soldering iron to own a TI, but this is just a fun little poll, to see if TI-99/4A's & soldering irons go together like milk & cookies.

 

Many of us have done simple modifications to our systems, like making up cable connectors or doing the keyboard diode modification, so this poll is just to see how many of us TI'ers actually have performed an operation on our systems or own a soldering iron..

 

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Crystal mod

Reset mod

Load Interupt

Pause switch

Cap lock mod

Made a remote TI keyboard

Atari joystick mod (many times)

Bally Joystick mod

video resistor mod

video capacitor mod

angle up joystick adapter

angle down joystick adapter

Disk side switch

 

Probably more, just can't remember right now.

 

conTInuing,

-Ralph...

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This might sound cruel, but the TI community has gotten helpless.

 

Back in the 80s and early 90s everybody did their own work. You made your own cables with parts you got from Radio Shack. You bought a Horizon Ramdisk or Pgram 'KIT', and built it yourself. If it didn't work, somebody looked it over and found the problem and fixed it or if you were lucky, Bud fixed it for you.

 

You installed your own reset and load interrupt switches in your console. If you were little adventurous, you soldered a 32k ram chip on top of one of the the Rom chips and added the wires and diodes like I did to add the 32k to the console.

 

These days it's "Can someone do this for me?".

 

The answer is "NO, don't be a pussy. Do it yourself, it's not that hard." Learn how to solder, fuck something up while doing so. It's how we all learned.

 

Sorry, but I had to rant a little.

 

Gazoo loves all of you. :)

Edited by Gazoo
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Back in the 80s and 90s there were thriving user groups with people who were willing and able to assist fellow members with the soldering, programming, and other support. Additionally, many requests would have been made locally or to one of the TI-supporting companies like BMS, Cecure, WHT, and others. Today there is no similar buffer and most requests are aggregated into a few list servers or web sites like Yahoo and AtariAge where people can read and respond almost real-time.

 

While I feel some folks are less inclined to help themselves, I think there is a higher percentage of people who are willing to do the work today than there was 25-30 years ago. It is great if you can solder and support your own hobby, but not everyone is so inclined, which is why things like cartridges and pre-made boards tend to sell well.

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Back then, I could see clearly too!

 

Bwaaaa Haa Haa! I can so relate, which is why I got the "Codger's Helper" shown in the attached photo below! :P

 

Now "Back in the day", we were forced into making our own cables, simply because there were so many different computers out there and the concept of 'standards' did not yet exist, and with the TI being kicked to the curb, many stores no longer supported our little orphan.

 

Now everyone has different skills and strengths. Not everyone is a hardware hacker, programmer or rocket scientist. Now that being said, soldering is an acquired skill, and believe it or not, a cable is a great project to start with... IF you are so inclined. The easiest mod by far is the diode keyboard fix. I recommend that one to anyone.

 

I fully understand why someone without the proper tools might not want to buy a soldering iron, flux, or solder for one single cable, especially if they doubt they'll never use those tools again, which could easily double or triple the expense of the wanted item.

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post-35324-0-46991000-1426049618_thumb.jpg

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For the ultimate solution I'd have suggested to switch to a float number for the gender scale, but this would imply a total order of values (you can always compare two values for being greater than or equal), so the only reasonable way would be a two-dimensional float vector. We just have to define the meaning of the two dimensions. I guess this makes sense.

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I hereby claim the RIGHT to be known as a TMS9900-GENDER-MALE-VARIANT. It's my RIGHT DAMMIT. AND WHY ISN'T IT LISTED ON FACEBOOK? WHO DO I SUE? :mad:

 

You select "Other." No, seriously, look it up. (How is that for a thread hijacking? hehehehe)

 

 

For the ultimate solution I'd have suggested to switch to a float number for the gender scale, but this would imply a total order of values (you can always compare two values for being greater than or equal), so the only reasonable way would be a two-dimensional float vector. We just have to define the meaning of the two dimensions. I guess this makes sense.

 

Two-dimensional genders... I love it!

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Ive never done any significant TI modding. I have, however, marvelled at the mods done by the skilled hands of many on here.

 

Now, due.to space constraints (hopefully temporary) Im primarily a Classic99 user.

 

Were it not for that program, i likely would have never finished any of my games.

 

Need to get a NanoPEB, for realz. My first Gen CF7 kicked the bucket.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lifes Reality - does owning a TI require a soldering iron ....

 

 

Well .... I do have a real TI at my home but it's not getting used too much because of circumstances .... but if it was to be used all the time I feel it would be inevitable that at some point a soldering iron, or some other fix, would be necessary .... however .... I have noticed that a 30 something year old TI can still run reliably at the side of laptops that break down frequently ..... now, there's a theory from a friend of mine that it's because they don't use lead in solder these days so the parts can be dicky .... back when the TI was made, it was made to last, TI really did build those computers solid, if yours didn't * start * with problems it probably wouldn't get them anytime soon.

 

One day though, the parts will run out and the systems will start to fail - the most common part to fail I think is maybe the 9918A / 9929 chip .... that can be gotten around thanks to Matthew Haggarty's F18A which pretty much over-rides the whole thing anyhow.

 

In an ideal world, I would have a TI sat on my desk with a little monitor, and most if not all of my coding would be done on the real iron.

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One day though, the parts will run out and the systems will start to fail - the most common part to fail I think is maybe the 9918A / 9929 chip .... that can be gotten around thanks to Matthew Haggarty's F18A which pretty much over-rides the whole thing anyhow.

 

 

Sadly, there's been more than one message or two from users with different with video issues. Fortunately all those issues were solved with one a single F18A fix/enhancement.

 

I agree Matthew's little gadget has saved at least some TI's from being disassembled for parts... or the dump outright.

 

I hope I can get at least another 20 years out of mine, because after that, if I'm not dead already, I'll probably be a that demented old fart in a wheelchair parked in a corner at the local nursing home.

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