Really Stupid Miner 2049er Question

[TI-GAMER]

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.

[Opry99er]

Side-port cartridge. i have two

[TI-GAMER]

Interesting. So you have to disconnect your PEB whenever you want to use it. Is there a particular reason for this design style?

[matthew180]

Most likely to try and keep people from copying the game.

[TI-GAMER]

Cool! I never had a side-port cartridge before. You learn something new every day.

Thanks for the info

[+retroclouds]

Most likely to try and keep people from copying the game.

That and no need for any 8k bankswitching.

[Opry99er]

Google "Arcturus TI-99" for a drool moment...

[Shift838]

it did not keep the smart ones from copying it as I have it on disk somewhere. Along with Espial..

[unhuman]

Espial was a victim of awful color choices. I couldn't bear to play it.

[sparkdrummer]

I believe tigervision made the side carts to override the 2.2 console lockout.

[budz2355]

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!

[+Ksarul]

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).

[Opry99er]

Arcturus & Killer Caterpillar are on my "Want em...but never gonna get em" list.

 

Along with a '69 Goat Judge.

[+OLD CS1]

Alyssa Milano is on my list...

[mdorman]

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.

[Opry99er]

Definitely need a "Who's the Boss" TI-99 game...

[patrickmcmichael]

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

[Omega-TI]

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!

[matthew180]

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. 😝

[patrickmcmichael]

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.

[Casey]

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?

[+save2600]

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!

 

[matthew180]

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.

[+OLD CS1]

I had this cartridge. I promptly sold it off. The technological ingenuity aside, it is a horrible game. Far worse than Zero Zap.

[+FarmerPotato]

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.