TI-99/4A manuals and documentation project

[+helocast]

http://ftp.whtech.com/datasheets%20and%20manuals/99-8%20Computer/TI%2099_8%20Hombre%20Logic%20Diagrams.pdf is the original source document (not sure why it is under TI-99/8).

And here it is: Hombre Logic (TAL004)

1) original schematic

2) clean PDF

3) clean VSD

 

Hopefully I dropped no minterms nor introduced Boolean errors - triple checked.

Feel free to add it to the collection. Special thanks to Ksarul for a perfect VSD template!

Enjoy!

Hombre Logic.zip

[ti99iuc]

Wow Helocast, magnific Result ! These are the Scans that i like more

Thanks

Edited February 27, 2018 by ti99iuc

[+Ksarul]

Actually, the reason it was originally associated with the 99/8 is that my source for the document (Steve Eggers) thought it was one of the 99/8 chips, so when I scanned it, I didn't change that. Later, after talking to Mike Bunyard (the designer of the chip), I found out it was for the LCP 99/4A, which became the QI board.

[+acadiel]

Actually, the reason it was originally associated with the 99/8 is that my source for the document (Steve Eggers) thought it was one of the 99/8 chips, so when I scanned it, I didn't change that. Later, after talking to Mike Bunyard (the designer of the chip), I found out it was for the LCP 99/4A, which became the QI board.

If you look at the Gram Kracker source code and development notes, you will note the QI was specifically a test case.

[+arcadeshopper]

Here's the cleaned-up Percom schematic.

 

Can I assume its dssd like the TI controller that uses the same WD chip?

[+Ksarul]

I've never actually tested mine with a Double-Sided drive. I need to do that. . .but it is definitely only single density.

[+Schmitzi]

http://ftp.whtech.com/datasheets%20and%20manuals/99-8%20Computer/TI%2099_8%20Hombre%20Logic%20Diagrams.pdf is the original source document (not sure why it is under TI-99/8).

And here it is: Hombre Logic (TAL004)

1) original schematic

2) clean PDF

3) clean VSD

 

Hopefully I dropped no minterms nor introduced Boolean errors - triple checked.

Feel free to add it to the collection. Special thanks to Ksarul for a perfect VSD template!

Enjoy!

 

 

Hi,

maybe it was sorted under the TI-99/8 on WHT because the first extra topic here for it was tagged with "99/8" on the top.

So I sorted it into my 99/8 folder too

But finally, what is "Hombre", and where can I store that ?

 

thanks

[+helocast]

 

 

Hi,

maybe it was sorted under the TI-99/8 on WHT because the first extra topic here for it was tagged with "99/8" on the top.

So I sorted it into my 99/8 folder too

But finally, what is "Hombre", and where can I store that ?

 

thanks

It was TI's working name for the .6", wide 40-pin GAL which scooped up the discrete logic chips of the TI-99/4A (well, most anyway - still ran out of I/O pins ).

Later, marked CD40050 in some documents and finally stenciled CF40050 on the TI-99/4A QI motherboard after it went to production.

As to being in the pipeline/timeline development wise concurrently with the EVPC, TI-99/7, TI-99/8 support GALs Vaquerro - CF40063, Pollo - CF40064, Oso - CF40065, Mofetta - CF40066, et al?

I'm going to ASSUME from historical documents (and by this numbering convention) that once TI realized a cost reduction in their new-found GAL mask production of relatively large chips, this became the would-be future as they envisioned it.

[+Ksarul]

Based on conversations with Mike Bunyard, Hombre was the first major chip he ever designed to combine discrete logic chips into a single large whole. It was, as noted already, for the LCP /4A which eventually became the QI motherboard. Amigo, Vaquerro, Oso, Pollo, and Mofetta for the 99/8 followed, and were also his designs.

[+helocast]

(Final?) revision 2 ... small stuff and font change for readability - thanks for the sharp eyes and feedback!

1) Added Figure J from TI-99/4A QI schematics (page 1).

2) VCC/Ground pins labeled (page 2)

3) VDP select signals corrected (page 3).

Hombre Logic.zip

[+arcadeshopper]

anybody have Preditor? I just ordered a copy from mdude so I'll scan it when I get it if not

 

Greg

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/253095-flashrom-99-finalgrom-99-image-repository-2262018/page-41?do=findComment&comment=3978756

[+Schmitzi]

bump (I need this on top) :0)

[kl99]

Is this one worth scanning for The Collection or just noise being third party and all?

SAMS Computer Facts, Computer: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Model PHC004A, April 1984

 

I picked it up pristine/sealed off of eBay - several 11"x17" photos of component locations with list by value/tolerance, troubleshooting, etcetera.

 

This book is not yet digitized in any form at all, or is it? I didn't find it in The Cyc and not on whtech nor in Ernie Pergrem Digital Books Archive.

I am highly interested on the content.

[ti99iuc]

I can do it Klaus have it

[iKarith]

Well, I *DID* have this displayed on the wall in my den for about 6 months at one point...

 

 

So shiiiiiny… I need a wall to put that on.

 

 

 

https://www.zazzle.com/z/o4l5g?rf=238577160522691353

 

Cool, but missing what's so cool about the one Ω posted. I likes me some light blue on black! MUCH easier for me to read anyway, especially on a screen. And I do need to read a lot on screens! Which brings me back to…

 

 

Just check to see if it’s on http://www.hexbus.com/tibooks in case it was already done

 

This is kinda where I started the thread. Since we've had at least one major election since I've looked at the thread and I've more or less abandoned my idea due to serious lack of interest, this link illustrates a great resource and the problem with that resource particularly for someone like me. (I'm legally blind after all.) Probably the first and most obvious book for a n00b (which in many ways even a couple years later I still am) is TI's own manuals particularly since your console may not have come with one. Mine certainly didn't, and I tend not to spend much time with printed books anymore. My head is happier for the lack of headache when I don't do that.

 

So the Beginner Basic manual is there. but it's hard to read. The pages are skewed, and a lot of the lines (including those making up key symbols and the like) are broken or otherwise didn't survive the scanning process well.

 

What I was after was converting the text into some format perhaps with CSS markup to recreate the inline text symbols for keys and the like, and perhaps running the graphics through SVG autotrace algorithms. The idea being that with just a quick CSS edit, you could change the font, size, or color of pretty much everything.

 

That's what nobody was interested in back in 2016. I'm still interested in doing it if that's changed at all by 2018. If not, I'm glad to see that PDFs of schematics and the like are being made, cleaned up, and collected. That's a good thing for the electronics people around here, and there's a few of them.

[+Ksarul]

I think part of it is that each of us does what we can with the time available to us for hobby projects. I tend to do schematic diagrams, mainly because most of the ones that have come down to us through the years were of abysmal quality--and they are definitely needed to help guide repairs on existing parts (something that becomes very important as the equipment gets older). I've cleaned up some of the technical documents and source code files as well, especially when the copies we had were truly bad. I don't think it is lack of interest so much as it is lack of time. Each bit helps though. Sparkdrummer has been doing a lot of manual updates, Lee has a completely updated version of the Forth manual, Michael worked on an updated Geneve manual, and there is a nice version of the TI XB manual out there as well. There is progress--but it is slow. You are right that the third-party books are a bit orphaned--but with the online repository we have, we have a lot more now than was available 10 years ago, as back then if you didn't have a dead tree copy of the book, you didn't have access to it at all. There are still a lot of books that aren't in that repository either. They still need to be scanned in. This is especially true for the books in languages other than English. Some of those are on the Italian User Group site, but the selection of scanned titles there is small (but growing). I'm glad that so much has made it online now, and I will continue to enlarge that legacy for as long as I can.

[HackMac]

These days I did some restauration work done...

Due to the 30th anniversary, I digitized my old papers of my EPROMer512 project and publish these documents to my repository. It was one of my first greater hardware projects, back in 1988.
The hardware component was created by Jürgen Reimer and me. We both where sitting in front of the TI-99/4A and handwired each track pixel by pixel on a two layered PCB, which took several month of work. After that we printed the PCB out on an EPSON FX-80+ impact printer to make a transparency film from this print, where the PCB can be produced from.

You can find some more information, schematics, PCB layouts and see some more pictures on my Wiki pages at bitbucket. There are also some screenshots of the including operating software.

 

You probably remember my posting announcing my repository for TI related schematics?

 

Greetings

[+Ksarul]

Jürgen Reimer--there's a name I haven't seen in a long time. . .I talked to him at several of the TI Treffs.

[HackMac]

Yes, I can remember that we met us at 5th Internationale Treffen in Wiesbaden in the year 1990.

(Please pay attention to the 99 in the year )

 

[+Ksarul]

Hey, any year with a 99 in it is a good year. . . The Treff at Wiesbaden was my fourth TI Treff. Every one I attended was a lot of fun.

[+mizapf]

I was not sure whether I attended that specific meeting, but I knew I was in Wiesbaden once (got my RS232 card from there). I found my badges in my drawers.

 

In addition, I was in Duisburg 1990.

[HackMac]

I'm not sure, but in 1989 (it is also a year with two 9 in it, but this doesn't count ) there was the fourth international Treff at Nijmegen in the Netherlands. (Perhaps our member "It's Sparky" can say more about that, he lives there.) I was also there with all my equipment, this time I traveled together with another guy, not with Jürgen.

[+Ksarul]

I was at the Nijmegen event too. One of the folks I went to the event with left a small bag in my car, and the local thieves broke in to see what was in the bag. There was nothing of value in it (a change of clothes and some toiletry items), so they left it in the car. They forced the door lock with a screwdriver, so there was no visible damage to the car--and as I never kept anything of value in it anyway, I never did replace the lock. It did come in handy once or twice when my keys fell out of my pocket in the car as I was exiting the car. The screwdriver blade of my pocket knife would unlock the door every time. . .

[ti99user]

But here at least is what I gather were some of the manuals that would've come with the computer, and they're in good shape, so ought to scan as well as such manuals could. The text blocks should OCR well for searchability and non-skewed black-and-white graphics tend to compress well without quality loss. If the layout can be recreated, text reflowed into logical paragraphs and sections, and figures recreated as vector images ... That'd fully remaster the original manuals, and they could be rendered into other formats like ePub as well.

 

Anyone made a complete mirror or uploaded somewhere?

[+Ksarul]

A recent eBay aucton that I didn't win piqued my interest again on the schematic front. The auction had a whole lot of original artwork from DataBioTics, but it also had what looked to be a schematic for the Miniwriter III+ cartridge. The picture in the auction wouldn't blow up to anything large enough to use, but it did give me enough information that I was able to take some IC datasheets, the drawing, the pictures of the circuit boards here on AtariAge, and just a little bit of sleuthing to create a complete Schematic for the first version of the Miniwriter III+ board. I still have to see what is different with the second version (the one with the addirional 74LS74 and a larger PAL on it), but this gives us a good baseline. One note, I still have to verify the signals on four of the pins on the 20-pin connector. I think I have sussed out the right signals for them, but I have to take one of my cables and ohm them out to be sure. The data lines, grounds, and N/C pins are all verified correct, as are the rest of the board components and the signaling..

A3-Miniwriter-III+-P1.pdf