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TIPI - TI-99/4A to Raspberry PI interface development


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I re-flashed my SD card for my PEB-TIPI tonight with version 2.5, and now it won't show an IP address on the configuration screen. I tried to log on to the raspberry pi directly to try to set the network manually, but when it boots it does no give a log on prompt but the screen goes blank after a bunch of services are run and I cannot access it. 

With the older images I used to get a log on prompt. Any idea what's going on?

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I re-flashed my SD card for my PEB-TIPI tonight with version 2.5, and now it won't show an IP address on the configuration screen. I tried to log on to the raspberry pi directly to try to set the network manually, but when it boots it does no give a log on prompt but the screen goes blank after a bunch of services are run and I cannot access it. 
With the older images I used to get a log on prompt. Any idea what's going on?
Probably a HDMI issue with your monitor and the raspberry pi not auto-sensing each other with the new version you might have to set a flag

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

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2 hours ago, Vorticon said:

I re-flashed my SD card for my PEB-TIPI tonight with version 2.5, and now it won't show an IP address on the configuration screen. I tried to log on to the raspberry pi directly to try to set the network manually, but when it boots it does no give a log on prompt but the screen goes blank after a bunch of services are run and I cannot access it. 

With the older images I used to get a log on prompt. Any idea what's going on?

that is super weird... 

 

In the boot partition there is a config.txt that contains various options around the HDMI port. You might have to fiddle with some of those. 

 

I don't generally hook a screen up to my PI's... but I have somewhat recently checked that the console comes up on my primary TIPI's PI. 

 

The boot partition is a Windows visible partition, so if you shutdown the PI, place the SD card in your PC, you can edit the config.txt directly there. 

While you have the SD card in your pc, you can edit your wifi settings by creating a wpa_supplicant.conf file next to it ( too many details to quote here, just google that file name and raspberry PI and you'll get good examples ). Once wifi is up, even if the HDMI doesn't work, you can SSH in for further tuning.

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14 hours ago, jedimatt42 said:

that is super weird... 

 

In the boot partition there is a config.txt that contains various options around the HDMI port. You might have to fiddle with some of those. 

 

I don't generally hook a screen up to my PI's... but I have somewhat recently checked that the console comes up on my primary TIPI's PI. 

 

The boot partition is a Windows visible partition, so if you shutdown the PI, place the SD card in your PC, you can edit the config.txt directly there. 

While you have the SD card in your pc, you can edit your wifi settings by creating a wpa_supplicant.conf file next to it ( too many details to quote here, just google that file name and raspberry PI and you'll get good examples ). Once wifi is up, even if the HDMI doesn't work, you can SSH in for further tuning.

Thanks for the suggestion. I was able to get the Pi on the network using the wpa_supplicant.conf method and I am able to SSH into it. Seems to work fine.

Now the problem is that when I try to boot the TI, I get a solid red light on the PEB slot where the TIPI-PEB card is and a blank screen. Rebooting the PI does not solve this. Pulling the TIPI-PEB card out restores normal function. I'm starting to wonder that given all the weird issues I have been experiencing lately the TIPI-PEB card is faulty somehow...

I'm going to try to flash the Pi one more time tonight and see if it changes things although I'm not too hopeful.

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6 hours ago, Vorticon said:

Thanks for the suggestion. I was able to get the Pi on the network using the wpa_supplicant.conf method and I am able to SSH into it. Seems to work fine.

Now the problem is that when I try to boot the TI, I get a solid red light on the PEB slot where the TIPI-PEB card is and a blank screen. Rebooting the PI does not solve this. Pulling the TIPI-PEB card out restores normal function. I'm starting to wonder that given all the weird issues I have been experiencing lately the TIPI-PEB card is faulty somehow...

I'm going to try to flash the Pi one more time tonight and see if it changes things although I'm not too hopeful.

So, with no PI attached, the TIPI board should still allow the 4A to boot, and execute all power up routines fine. 

 

I would try disconnecting the PI. 

If it still fails to boot, remove the eprom. If it still fails after that, reflashing the CPLD (there are instructions on the wiki). If it is still bonkers after that, then the CPLD is not controlling the bus transceiver (74hct245) direction correctly, and I would want to use a logic probe and see which of the 2 chips is being a jerk. 

 

 

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Turned out a couple of the cables on the PI harness were a bit loose. Note to self: try not to pull the harness connector by the wires... ?

So now my system boots up fine. But my tribulations were not over unfortunately. The most glaring problem is that the physical disk drives were no longer accessible from the EA cartridge option 5. Works fine with option 3 or from XB or from within FC with the LOAD command. Totally weird...

 

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2 hours ago, Vorticon said:

Turned out a couple of the cables on the PI harness were a bit loose. Note to self: try not to pull the harness connector by the wires... ?

So now my system boots up fine. But my tribulations were not over unfortunately. The most glaring problem is that the physical disk drives were no longer accessible from the EA cartridge option 5. Works fine with option 3 or from XB or from within FC with the LOAD command. Totally weird...

 

Loose wires shouldn't cause that gang during boot unless you mean something other than getting to the TI title screen when you say, "boot"

 

The new symptom sounds like a crubase conflict... 

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In my system, the TIPI is at 1000, the disk controller is at 1100 and the RS232 is at 1300/1500. I cannot see why there would be a CRU conflict.

The whole thing is acting up, including FC issues, so I still think it's the TIPI-PEB card at the bottom of it. Taking TIPI out completely restores all functionality...

I'll play with it some more later today and see...

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On a whim, I replaced my original SAMS card from 1995 with a standard 32K expansion card and all the problems disappeared, including the FC instability. Would that make sense? It seems to work fine with the TIPI-PEB out of the system, but then I really don't use any software currently that requires the full SAMS capabilities, just 32K. When I am back home tonight, I will run diagnostics on the SAMS card and see if it passes. 

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13 hours ago, Vorticon said:

On a whim, I replaced my original SAMS card from 1995 with a standard 32K expansion card and all the problems disappeared, including the FC instability. Would that make sense? It seems to work fine with the TIPI-PEB out of the system, but then I really don't use any software currently that requires the full SAMS capabilities, just 32K. When I am back home tonight, I will run diagnostics on the SAMS card and see if it passes. 

The new version of Force Command utilizes the SAMS if present. So if it is unreliable, then you'll see lots of crashing in Force Command. Outside of Force Command, sounds like the board is not good at pretending to be a 32K, or even just co-existing in the PEB by keeping it's data off the bus when it isn't it's turn... 

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Back to developing TIPI itself..

 

I'm working on adding file timestamp support. For people with the HDX, IDE, HFDC, or Geneve, this is a historical thing.

 

So, I'm adhering to Fred's docs on the matter: ti99-geek.nl, -> documentation -> reading directories

 

In my implementation, I'll also follow Fred's DSRs, and return a full 4 digit year. 

 

What I cannot do / isn't worth the effort / is produce the linux creation date. Last modified date is natural and common on linux/unixs, but creation date isn't supported by all filesystems, and from the best of my ability to research, is possible, but difficult, running external custom executables as root, etc... and who actually needs the creation timestamp? We live without it on our modern computing systems and the world hasn't ended. So, creation time will be filled in with zeroes.

 

I have the TIPI side working. But other than a hand crafted BASIC program, ( finally used PRINT USING, WooT! ) I don't know of any 4A software that cares...

 

Anyone know of anything to test it with?

 

 

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Back to developing TIPI itself..
 
I'm working on adding file timestamp support. For people with the HDX, IDE, HFDC, or Geneve, this is a historical thing.
 
So, I'm adhering to Fred's docs on the matter: ti99-geek.nl, -> documentation -> reading directories
 
In my implementation, I'll also follow Fred's DSRs, and return a full 4 digit year. 
 
What I cannot do / isn't worth the effort / is produce the linux creation date. Last modified date is natural and common on linux/unixs, but creation date isn't supported by all filesystems, and from the best of my ability to research, is possible, but difficult, running external custom executables as root, etc... and who actually needs the creation timestamp? We live without it on our modern computing systems and the world hasn't ended. So, creation time will be filled in with zeroes.
 
I have the TIPI side working. But other than a hand crafted BASIC program, ( finally used PRINT USING, WooT! ) I don't know of any 4A software that cares...
 
Anyone know of anything to test it with?
 
 
Mdmv?

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

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Matt,

 

Just a head's up on something I saw.  I updated the TIPI last night and had been working on Directory Manager.  I was beginning to think I had some bad source until I went back and retested an unmodified version of Directory Manager and it would lock up as well.

 

I went into the tipi logs, and the last thing it recorded in the log files, was my loading of TIPICFG last night right before the update.  After that, it stopped logging.  I did not reboot the TIPI last night.

 

After rebooting the TIPI, now at least an unmodified version of Directory Manager is giving me a listing of 128 files and the modified version has successfully listed a directory with 500 files.  


Beery

 

 

 

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I don't know what Directory Manager is. 

 

I have seen the logs fill up, but haven't been able to track down why... Other than that, and failure to find a home network, I haven't seen any reason to reboot a TIPI's PI. 

 

The update restarts the services upon completion. This is usually visible in the daemon.log (unless you reboot) 

 

I will have to figure out why the log rolling for the OS isn't working. 

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Directory Manager is Clint Pulley's Disk Manager program (DM is typical program name) for running from MDOS.  The program is written in c.  Right now, it will catalog 750 files off the TIPI.  Takes a bit of time to pull up that large of file listing, but it does.  I am not sure at this point if I have pushed it too far for the other buffers like file copying until some other underlying code is working. 

 

Beery

 

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On 12/12/2020 at 1:22 AM, jedimatt42 said:

I'm working on adding file timestamp support. For people with the HDX, IDE, HFDC, or Geneve, this is a historical thing.

 

The timestamps are working well.  Thank you!

 

Along the same lines... for the third float below, specifically program files, could you please confirm what TIPI should return during a directory read?  0 or size in bytes?

 

 

image.thumb.png.b3d64eb4553220988f8bff15f7d97299.png

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Matt,

 

I have a folder mapped on my Windows system to the TIPI folder.  In it, I have a folder (DL) that has 2800+ files.  When I open the DL folder, despite clicking on the NAME field to alphabetize the folder, I still have filenames not in alphabetical order.

 

I should also add in this folder, the filenames in many cases, had filenames that were in the 8.3 architecture before I used an Excel tool to rename the filenames as a maximum 10 character filename.

 

Bytes >10 through >19 in many of the files, do not have filenames in the TIFILES header.  As I recall, the use of those bytes for containing the filename was not standardized and various terminal emulators handled things not the same.

 

So, I am a bit perplexed the windows folder mapped to the PI is not alphabetizing the files.  With my limited understanding of the operating system, I do not understand why the directory listing is not alphabetized since I thought Windows should have done that.  

 

Now, with DM2K and the use of an MDOS program, XDIR, I can get an alphabetical listing or at least until the buffer fills.  The MDOS DIR command needs work as it is not getting an alphabetized list, yet!  Working on fixing that piece.

 

Is there an explanation? Something that could be changed on the PI to address the ability to click the NAME field and to alphabetize the list?  I'm asking here in this area as I do not  know if this may be a configuration setting on the PI that may warrant modification.

 

Beery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, BeeryMiller said:

Matt,

 

I have a folder mapped on my Windows system to the TIPI folder.  In it, I have a folder (DL) that has 2800+ files.  When I open the DL folder, despite clicking on the NAME field to alphabetize the folder, I still have filenames not in alphabetical order.

 

I should also add in this folder, the filenames in many cases, had filenames that were in the 8.3 architecture before I used an Excel tool to rename the filenames as a maximum 10 character filename.

 

Bytes >10 through >19 in many of the files, do not have filenames in the TIFILES header.  As I recall, the use of those bytes for containing the filename was not standardized and various terminal emulators handled things not the same.

 

So, I am a bit perplexed the windows folder mapped to the PI is not alphabetizing the files.  With my limited understanding of the operating system, I do not understand why the directory listing is not alphabetized since I thought Windows should have done that.  

 

Now, with DM2K and the use of an MDOS program, XDIR, I can get an alphabetical listing or at least until the buffer fills.  The MDOS DIR command needs work as it is not getting an alphabetized list, yet!  Working on fixing that piece.

 

Is there an explanation? Something that could be changed on the PI to address the ability to click the NAME field and to alphabetize the list?  I'm asking here in this area as I do not  know if this may be a configuration setting on the PI that may warrant modification.

 

Beery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

very much a windows issue nothing to do with the TIPI .. mine are all sorting by what I click on.. 

 

Greg

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Just now, arcadeshopper said:

very much a windows issue nothing to do with the TIPI .. mine are all sorting by what I click on.. 

 

Greg

Yeah, I was just going to post that as I was going to restore that folder from a backup and saw Windows doing something similar.  The oddity, is that I can recreate some of that same behavior with the MDOS DIR command.

 

Beery

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13 minutes ago, BeeryMiller said:

Yeah, I was just going to post that as I was going to restore that folder from a backup and saw Windows doing something similar.  The oddity, is that I can recreate some of that same behavior with the MDOS DIR command.

 

Beery

Pretty sure TIPI presents the folder in alphabetical order

 

Greg

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Yeah, it is starting to look like that though I did find some information out there where others have found issues on how the directory list is presented.  I think I am going to have to approach the solution from a different angle as it is going to result in too much rewriting of the DIR command with the way the code is currently written.


Beery

 

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21 hours ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

The timestamps are working well.  Thank you!

 

Along the same lines... for the third float below, specifically program files, could you please confirm what TIPI should return during a directory read?  0 or size in bytes?

 

 

image.thumb.png.b3d64eb4553220988f8bff15f7d97299.png

 

TIPI returns whatever is in the record length field of the TIFILES regardless of if it is a PROGRAM file or record type file. Typically that value is already 0. 

 

 

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