TI-GAMER Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 This is probably going to be a really stupid question but I have to ask. I have a Miner 2049er Cartridge but the connector on the end is female unlike a regular cartridge that has a male connector. I did verify it is a TI-99 cart. So how the heck does this cart work? The only plausible connection would be in the Speech Synth from what I can see but I hate to plug it in and fry the cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Side-port cartridge. i have two Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TI-GAMER Posted May 8, 2015 Author Share Posted May 8, 2015 Interesting. So you have to disconnect your PEB whenever you want to use it. Is there a particular reason for this design style? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Most likely to try and keep people from copying the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TI-GAMER Posted May 8, 2015 Author Share Posted May 8, 2015 Cool! I never had a side-port cartridge before. You learn something new every day. Thanks for the info 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Most likely to try and keep people from copying the game. That and no need for any 8k bankswitching. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Google "Arcturus TI-99" for a drool moment... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 it did not keep the smart ones from copying it as I have it on disk somewhere. Along with Espial.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unhuman Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Espial was a victim of awful color choices. I couldn't bear to play it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 I believe tigervision made the side carts to override the 2.2 console lockout. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
budz2355 Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 This is probably going to be a really stupid question but I have to ask. I have a Miner 2049er Cartridge but the connector on the end is female unlike a regular cartridge that has a male connector. I did verify it is a TI-99 cart. So how the heck does this cart work? The only plausible connection would be in the Speech Synth from what I can see but I hate to plug it in and fry the cart. All of a sudden the 'kick stand' on the bottom of the cart makes sense. I had seen pictures of this cart before, but now I know why the funky shape. Good post! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 The nice thing about the side port cartridges from the developer's standpoint was that you could use the DSR space at >4000, which let you utilize the console power-up routines to guarantee that your cartridge would run. Add the 32K space to that and you had a cartridge that could contain up to 40K of Assembly software--without bank switching. Even better was that it avoided the v2.2 console issues as well, so the side port cartridge was a really good idea. There are several different ones too: Miner 2049er and Espial (both TigerVision), Arcturus and Killer Caterpillar (both Exceltek), GROM Buster (Navarone and CorComp varieties), and the Hamsoft Module (Kantronics). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Arcturus & Killer Caterpillar are on my "Want em...but never gonna get em" list. Along with a '69 Goat Judge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Alyssa Milano is on my list... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdorman Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Alyssa Milano is on my list... I remember dumping this cartridge back in the day. I could not use the 32K memory or disk since the cartridge got in the way of the PEB. I wrote a small program to dump it by reading a few bytes at a time in Basic and saving it to cassette. When I reconnected the PEB, I read the data from tape and put it into the same memory location. It worked perfectly. I then saved it to disk and converted to a cartridge format. I don't remember that part but it might been CSAVE. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Definitely need a "Who's the Boss" TI-99 game... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patrickmcmichael Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Miner-2049er-Starring-Bounty-Bob-Texas-Instruments-TI-99-4A-Tigervision-game/362563519760?_trkparms=aid%3D333200%26algo%3DCOMP.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D56586%26meid%3D41468307865a4aabac70efc369f91076%26pid%3D100008%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D163564937603%26itm%3D362563519760&_trksid=p2047675.c100008.m2219 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Miner-2049er-Starring-Bounty-Bob-Texas-Instruments-TI-99-4A-Tigervision-game/362563519760?_trkparms=aid%3D333200%26algo%3DCOMP.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D56586%26meid%3D41468307865a4aabac70efc369f91076%26pid%3D100008%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D163564937603%26itm%3D362563519760&_trksid=p2047675.c100008.m2219 If you are not a 'collector', it's cheaper to buy a FinalGROM and get the program << HERE FOR FREE >> then you can get hundreds of other programs to run on the cart for free too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 True, but the same could be said for the console too. Just run an emulator an save a lot of money and physical space. But part of a retro hobby is using the actual hardware. If I did not have to deal with carts and disks, I might actually play the games more, and that would remind me of how bad a lot of them really are. ? 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patrickmcmichael Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 If you are not a 'collector', it's cheaper to buy a FinalGROM and get the program << HERE FOR FREE >> then you can get hundreds of other programs to run on the cart for free too! Yeah, I can’t justify it, but the whole sidecar cartridge makes it pretty unique. Think I had it on floppy from a Graham Kracker export someone did back in the day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 Because I'm curious and because I don't have one, what happens if you plug in a side port cartridge and a "normal" cartridge at the same time? Does the TI menu give you a choice between the 2 cartridges along with TI BASIC? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 Because I'm curious and because I don't have one, what happens if you plug in a side port cartridge and a "normal" cartridge at the same time? Does the TI menu give you a choice between the 2 cartridges along with TI BASIC? Enquiring minds want to know! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 You play the side-cart game. The reason for using the side port is because when the 99/4A powers-on and scans for devices on the side-port, it gives any device it finds a chance to run any necessary setup code (in the device's ROM typically). This happens before the cartridge port is scanned and before the selection menu. The side-cart game just starts up and never returns back to the 99/4A's startup process like a good device driver does. It was an attempt to prevent copying. Any cartridge plugged in never gets to run any code, and you can't plug in any device down-stream of the side-cart game. Of course this failed to protect the game, everything gets cracked, but some companies tried. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 I had this cartridge. I promptly sold it off. The technological ingenuity aside, it is a horrible game. Far worse than Zero Zap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 I had this cartridge. I promptly sold it off. The technological ingenuity aside, it is a horrible game. Far worse than Zero Zap. I sunk many hours into beating this game as a kid. The worst thing about it was the requirement to jump from exactly the right pixel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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