"Weird & Bizarre" -- Modification ideas for the TI

[Omega-TI]

Here's one you'll probably never see...

 

A "truly portable" TI!

 

Imagine if you will, a TI console devoid of all external connections.

 

AUDIO & VIDEO

Inside would house an F18A MKII hooked to a wireless HDMI transmitter.

 

POWER

The bottom of the case would be replaced with a 3D printed replacement giving it an extra inch or so of space... for a grouping of flat lithium batteries.

 

For the gamer types, a modified TI like that with a FinalGROM and a 32K sidecar would be the bomb.

 

 

[atrax27407]

See MICROpendium 3/1, 7/1, and 8/1/89. A similar project has already been done.

[+Ksarul]

I've seen that original modified TI demonstrated at a MANNERS meeting back in 1989-1990 or so. . .

[Airshack]

This may be better in a completely new form factor with laptop style LCD display connected. Add a fully loaded FinalGROM plugged in and a Shift838 remote control panel installed you wouldn’t need access to the cartridge port. 32k sidecar included and F18A with USB port for keyboard.

 

We could use something like this at the VAST meetings. Totally do-able with available parts.

 

Get on it Omega!

 

 

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[Omega-TI]

Get on it Omega!

 

 

Too many irons in the fire at the moment. You first!

[twoodland]

Greetings Professor Falken...

 

Recently, I have been enjoying my quest for the best ANSI terminal configuration. I would like to see an updated terminal emulator cartridge that includes an updated terminal emulator program that supports 40,80 column (native & F18A), ASCII & ANSI terminal emulation, Baud rates from 300 to 256000 bits per second, the TEII Speech GROM capability, and finally the ability to tap into the speech from the terminal program. I would like to see TI BBS's that are speech capable (like in the movie "War Games"). Not just reading text copied to a clipboard but an actual speech command that could be sent from the BBS which would contain the phonetic spelling of what is being displayed on the screen. I think this would set apart the TI from all other vintage computers giving another reason to continue to enjoy this hobby and community. Hopefully it would support configurations of just a sole stock console, to a TIPI configuration and other popular configurations in between.

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by twoodland

[Airshack]

I wrote a Wargames-style title Back in 1980 called “NukeWar” I believe. I’m still trying to find a copy online.

 

 

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[twoodland]

Did BBS software ever have the capability to use speech or is it vaporware? I know the War Games movie used recordings of actor John Wood's voice through a vocoder, but has this capability ever existed? I would imagine that both the BBS server and terminal emulation client software would have to support the method to send speech commands (maybe via ANSI escape codes?). I know about ANSI music, but do not know if there are codes available in the ANSI spec to send commands to the client software that could be used for speech. I am also guessing that both the BBS server and client would need to support specific speech commands for certain hardware.

 

It would be awesome to have a BBS speak to you though...

[Tursi]

Terminal Emulator 2 could read the screen, as could many other terminals that came later. I don't know if there was any protocol convention for side-band speech though (that is, not reading the screen but speaking independently...). The TE2 protocol had a lot in there, though, was speech?

[JB]

Terminal Emulator 2 could read the screen, as could many other terminals that came later. I don't know if there was any protocol convention for side-band speech though (that is, not reading the screen but speaking independently...). The TE2 protocol had a lot in there, though, was speech?

I believe the provision was there. Can't swear to it off-hand, though.

[+FarmerPotato]

Terminal Emulator 2 could read the screen, as could many other terminals that came later. I don't know if there was any protocol convention for side-band speech though (that is, not reading the screen but speaking independently...). The TE2 protocol had a lot in there, though, was speech?

Yes, speech was in there.

 

The TE2 protocol manual http://atariage.com/forums/topic/262121-te2-manual/

 

http://www.whtech.com/ftp/datasheets%20and%20manuals/TE_protocol_manual.pdf

 

The command opcodes for speech:

 

>26 Speak and display text

>27 Speak text without display

>28 Speak Allophones (refer to TE2 manual)

>29 Look up words (and associate with a number)

>2A Speak words associated with numbers

Text must be from the Speech ROM, or an allophone string (not sure if this means plain text, or preprocessed into allophone numbers by Text-to-Speech utility). I don't think there is a routine to play back LPC data (like from SPGET.)

[+9640News]

There was one BBS back around 1984 out of Florida that utilized the full features of the TE2 cartridge. It played music, graphics, and speech. As a college student, I sent the guy that had developed it something like $60 or $80 for the software and got ripped off as he never sent me anything in return. I've got his name written down somewhere. Somewhere in the 90's, I think I recall seeing the guy had a number of legal issues. I was pretty bummed out as that was a LOT for me at the time.

 

I do know, though I do not know if it works, Tim's ANSI interpreter code has something with music capability as it was part of the ANSI standard. I saw some information out there suggesting the ANSI music code sequence conflicted with another ANSI sequence. To date, I do not think I have ever seen a BBS with ANSI music.

 

As far as speech for the TI, one would need to be able to run an assembly language coded emulator, while having the TE2 cartridge plugged in. The TIPI would allow something like that to load from Basic. The use of the TE2 emulator software kills its use if you want ANSI or 80 column capability. If you are really trying to use speech for what comes across the screen, you would really be limited to 300, maybe 1200 baud on any emulator. To me, that would be unbearable. For a blind person, not so. Hopefully, no members here are going blind.

 

Beery

[+9640News]

 

 

Recently, I have been enjoying my quest for the best ANSI terminal configuration. I would like to see an updated terminal emulator cartridge that includes an updated terminal emulator program that supports 40,80 column (native & F18A), ASCII & ANSI terminal emulation, Baud rates from 300 to 256000 bits per second, the TEII Speech GROM capability, and finally the ability to tap into the speech from the terminal program. I would like to see TI BBS's that are speech capable (like in the movie "War Games"). Not just reading text copied to a clipboard but an actual speech command that could be sent from the BBS which would contain the phonetic spelling of what is being displayed on the screen. I think this would set apart the TI from all other vintage computers giving another reason to continue to enjoy this hobby and community. Hopefully it would support configurations of just a sole stock console, to a TIPI configuration and other popular configurations in between.

 

Much of what you are requesting is in Telco outside of speech and 256,000 baud capability. Any terminal emulator for RS232 in the best of circumstances will peak out at baud rates of 57.6K with generally, 38.4K being the maximum.

 

Anyone have a feel under what the best of circumstances the maximum throughput speed of the TIPI would be? I do not have a handle on how much overhead the DSR has with character/string handling versus direct serial i/o through the RS232 port to know if effective speeds are faster or slower.

 

One also has to keep in mind regarding what one does with a big transfer block of data. Does one write it to the screen, save it to a file, etc. We only have so much free space of memory depending upon the program and something has to be done with it it gets sent to us.

 

Beery

Edited October 18, 2018 by BeeryMiller

[willbilly]

TMS 34020 graphics card for the PEB has been bouncing around my noggin for some time.

[twoodland]

 

Yes, speech was in there.

 

The TE2 protocol manual http://atariage.com/forums/topic/262121-te2-manual/

 

http://www.whtech.com/ftp/datasheets%20and%20manuals/TE_protocol_manual.pdf

 

The command opcodes for speech:

 

>26 Speak and display text

>27 Speak text without display

>28 Speak Allophones (refer to TE2 manual)

>29 Look up words (and associate with a number)

>2A Speak words associated with numbers

Text must be from the Speech ROM, or an allophone string (not sure if this means plain text, or preprocessed into allophone numbers by Text-to-Speech utility). I don't think there is a routine to play back LPC data (like from SPGET.)

 

 

Wow! the TE2 protocol is so cool! I wish that I could have used a host BBS that utilized it's capabilities! Is there a possibility of creating a new updated version that supports faster baud rates?

[twoodland]

 

Much of what you are requesting is in Telco outside of speech and 256,000 baud capability. Any terminal emulator for RS232 in the best of circumstances will peak out at baud rates of 57.6K with generally, 38.4K being the maximum.

 

Anyone have a feel under what the best of circumstances the maximum throughput speed of the TIPI would be? I do not have a handle on how much overhead the DSR has with character/string handling versus direct serial i/o through the RS232 port to know if effective speeds are faster or slower.

 

One also has to keep in mind regarding what one does with a big transfer block of data. Does one write it to the screen, save it to a file, etc. We only have so much free space of memory depending upon the program and something has to be done with it it gets sent to us.

 

Beery

 

I am so anxious to use TELCO! Arcadeshopper is sending me a disk (Thank you Arcadeshopper!!). 38.4k would be fantastic! Any chance of incorporating the TE2 protocol speech capability into or in tandem with TELCO?

 

Maybe I am wanting the TI to do something it just was not designed to do. I am excited to get a TIPI to see how it can be incorporated!

[Omega-TI]

I hate to bust anyone's bubble, but 4800 baud is about the absolute maximum your likely to get out of Telco. Other than the emulations it comes with, I've never seen or heard of any hacks for Telco.

[+InsaneMultitasker]

I remember a Milwaukee BBS in the 80s that used TE2 protocol. It was called The Prancing Pony, themed after Tolkien's world from Lord of the Rings. It had speech, color, and more from what I recall. Although I can't be 100% certain,I think it was this same BBS that upon login 'spoke' to you with the words "Welcome to the best TI BBS".

 

With other terminal emulators coming available - like FastTerm,Mass Transfer, Telco, Triad, and others - there was better emulation, faster speeds, and a way to transfer files from most any system using Xmodem. It helped that these programs could be shared and updated unlike the static TE2 cartridge.