pneubauer Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 (edited) I'm will be demonstrating the F18A and AppleTI card at KansasFest next week. I'll post working code and (hopefully) a video. In short, (1) the AppleTi works well, (2) the AppleTi is backwards (component side facing power supply) and has clearance issues with adjacent cards, and (3) legacy SuperSprite and Amparcade software (available on Asimov) mostly works with it. Thanks for creating this card. Edited July 15, 2016 by pneubauer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 Sorry, it was my first A2 card, and I had some vague reason for putting the chip on the PS side, which escapes me. I ran the layout by Matt Hagarty (sorry if I misspelled Matt) who designed the F18A and just happened to wander by my desk when I asked him about un-used TI pins on the 9918A and drew a rough diagram with his help. The pins that needed to correspond to the Apple bus may have been an influencing factor. It might have had something to do with a CFFA in the adjacent slot. Or, as Dr. Hibbert put it, "chalk it up to a lack of concern on my part" so the chips are on the left, or "sinister" side of the board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pneubauer Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 I've posted a video of my presentation at KansasFest and software using the AppleTi/F18A. Please let me know if you have any questions. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted August 8, 2016 Author Share Posted August 8, 2016 (edited) How was it received? (I didn't watch the video yet,) was Kansasfest the three days of love and joy I've imagined? The link you gave at your site for the video led to a donation page for Internet Archive, but works on a reload. I'm looking forward to your tutorial series. Edited August 8, 2016 by towmater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 WOW!!! I can't Wait to watch the Video!!! Thanks for Presenting.... MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pneubauer Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 The F18A and AppleTi were well received at KansasFest. I gave away two unused AppleTi PCBs to individuals who talked to me after the presentation. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbag Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 BTW, I got an email today that Matthew, the maker of the F18A board, has them back in stock. http://codehackcreate.com/store I saw the KansasFest video and I've been waiting for him to get back in stock to make one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbag Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 I was able to make 3 of the AppleTi cards and tested them today with pneubauer's Kansasfest 2016 presentation disk. Everything works great! I did find that they are incompatible with a ZipChip. Initially, the Ampersand driver would crash, or sometimes it would load but the PRESENT or GAME programs would crash. I tried moving the card to different slots with varying success, but the programs never worked correctly. I tried disabling the ZipChip via their utilities, and making sure the slot speed was set to normal instead of fast, but nothing worked. So I swapped out the ZipChip for a normal 65c02 and everything worked like a champ in any slot I moved it to. I hope to play around with it some more over the long weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted September 1, 2016 Author Share Posted September 1, 2016 I wonder if a high speed hex inverter might help in your situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted September 13, 2016 Author Share Posted September 13, 2016 On close examination, that sprite demo disk has some odd imagery. One sprite is obviously flipping you off, one is dropping a deuce, one is seemingly popping pills. The demo was seemingly written by hippies. Now get off of my lawn! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted October 6, 2016 Share Posted October 6, 2016 I was able to make 3 of the AppleTi cards and tested them today with pneubauer's Kansasfest 2016 presentation disk. Everything works great! I did find that they are incompatible with a ZipChip. Initially, the Ampersand driver would crash, or sometimes it would load but the PRESENT or GAME programs would crash. I tried moving the card to different slots with varying success, but the programs never worked correctly. I tried disabling the ZipChip via their utilities, and making sure the slot speed was set to normal instead of fast, but nothing worked. So I swapped out the ZipChip for a normal 65c02 and everything worked like a champ in any slot I moved it to. I hope to play around with it some more over the long weekend. I would be curious to know if the problem is the software or something else. The F18A should easily support the faster CPU. Any possibility that you will be writing some of your own software to use the F18A? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pneubauer Posted December 1, 2016 Share Posted December 1, 2016 I was able to make 3 of the AppleTi cards and tested them today with pneubauer's Kansasfest 2016 presentation disk. Everything works great! I did find that they are incompatible with a ZipChip. Initially, the Ampersand driver would crash, or sometimes it would load but the PRESENT or GAME programs would crash. I tried moving the card to different slots with varying success, but the programs never worked correctly. I tried disabling the ZipChip via their utilities, and making sure the slot speed was set to normal instead of fast, but nothing worked. So I swapped out the ZipChip for a normal 65c02 and everything worked like a champ in any slot I moved it to. I've tested in a IIgs at 2.8 MHz. Maybe that isn't fast enough to show the problem, or maybe the issue is unrelated to speed. When AmpArcade crashes, what happens? Does it break to the monitor? If so, what's the program counter, and what data is at that address? AmpArcade tends to crash if it's unable to detect the card. Maybe there's a bug in the detection logic. Also, AmpArcade scans slots to find the card, and the scan process involves writing to whatever cards are in your slots. That could "mess up" other cards. What happens if you move the AppleTi to slot 7 (the first slot in the scan sequence)? On close examination, that sprite demo disk has some odd imagery. One sprite is obviously flipping you off, one is dropping a deuce, one is seemingly popping pills. The demo was seemingly written by hippies. Now get off of my lawn! Many of the AmpArcade and SuperSprite demos do not work with the AppleTi. Those vintage cards include sound and video mixing hardware. When the software attempts to write to that non-existent hardware, you end up with random writes to the F18A registers. That has various odd effects. You might be seeing these effects -- you'd have to remove sound and video mixing hardware accesses from the demo to confirm this theory. Or, if the demos use AmpArcade rather than direct POKEs, we could disable the unsupported commands in AmpArcade. I would be curious to know if the problem is the software or something else. The F18A should easily support the faster CPU. Any possibility that you will be writing some of your own software to use the F18A? I'll investigate the software side. I do plan to extend AmpArcade with F18A-specific features, but, like all hobby projects, that might take awhile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daschewie Posted May 8, 2017 Share Posted May 8, 2017 Hello, I don't want to order the wrong f18a from codehackcreate.com. What "System and Pin style" is compatible with the OSH-Park board? Options are: TI-99/4A, low profile pins ColecoVision, tall pins ADAM Computer, adapter board MSX1, low profile pins Other, low profile pins Other, tall pins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted May 9, 2017 Author Share Posted May 9, 2017 I used the tall Coleco one, though that choice and the IC socket make for a fairly thick board that might interfere with a neighboring board if you have other cards already installed. You could forego the socket, or use the TI low-profile version with or without socket. If you want to use a firmware updater in a TI (and have a disk or nanopeb for the TI to do it), then you'd need to make it socketed, or also if you want to send it to Matt for updating he'll need it removable from the board, I believe. That said, I've only updated once and that was for fixing a single obscure bug that was long ago eradicated, so perhaps you'll never need to remove it. The knucklehead that drew up the Osh Park board put the IC's on the "wrong" side of the card for Apple II's, I think having something to do with the direction of the VGA header or perhaps extreme arrogance, so mine, for example, cannot sit to the right of an Uthernet or CFFA with the tall pin offering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daschewie Posted May 9, 2017 Share Posted May 9, 2017 @towmater, Awesome, thanks for the advise!! I will go with the TI Low profile then. I am excited to code on it, but wonder if any games have been made with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thej Posted January 15, 2018 Share Posted January 15, 2018 Has anyone confirmed if Apple Sprite Logo works with the AppleTi? Also, where can Apple Sprite Logo be downloaded from? And, what version of Terrapin Logo works with the AppleTi? Thanks! J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 (edited) BTW, I got an email today that Matthew, the maker of the F18A board, has them back in stock. http://codehackcreate.com/store I saw the KansasFest video and I've been waiting for him to get back in stock to make one! I can't locate an e-mail to contact Matthew at his web site.... EDIT: I found a Contact Form... MarkO Edited January 31, 2018 by MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted February 1, 2018 Author Share Posted February 1, 2018 (edited) This was a rainy-day project and it never seems to rain, I need to find out how PR#3 works. A recent podcast, maybe Floppy Days, interviewed the designer of the original card who was a ghost writer for Steve Ciarcia. I want to say... John Harrington? Edited February 1, 2018 by towmater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted February 1, 2018 Share Posted February 1, 2018 o.ô That I need to find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdoty Posted November 30, 2021 Share Posted November 30, 2021 I was finally able to locate a F18a chip and finally able to test out a program on the AppleTi card in an Apple IIgs. Here's the Apple II/AppleTi port of a simple graphics program that runs on various computers with a TMS 9918a based graphics chip. https://github.com/cdoty/9918-Adventures/tree/main/AppleII 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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