ralphb Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 My latest project is called SDD 99 and is both a multi-function expansion card and a PEB replacement. It's currently in the prototype stage and about 80% complete. The SDD 99 features an SD-card based disk, 32 or 64 MB of SAMS-compatible RAM, Wifi and a remote file server, and various ports. This video shows how to use the SDD 99, but be warned, I suck at YouTube. The SDD 99 uses an ARM Cortex M microcontroller and one SDR SDRAM IC. Programming the Cortex M has been both a breeze, and a nightmare. It's been super easy to create logic such as the cartridge emulation, but dealing with its peripherals such as SD, RAM, and Wifi has been major stumbling blocks that cost me months. I started this project end of last year, mostly since I wanted to see what a Cortex can do. Of course I'm fully aware that TIPI has long since been released, but I never meant to compete with or best TIPI. In fact, I abstained from AA for the past view months, since I didn't want to learn too many facts about TIPI. So, I'm aiming for completing this by next spring, but of course my original plan was to show the prototype in May. 39 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 I Already love it ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vectrexroli Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Wow!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+acadiel Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Amazing job, Ralph! I am truly amazed at the amount of ingenuity with all these peripherals coming out. You have literally two chips doing everything on this board. It's a great time to be in retro TI computing. And you're right... each peripheral has a different audience. And, then you have geeks like me that change things around all the time for different scenarios, so keep just about everything laying around in case I need it. :-) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 I like it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kl99 Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Hi Ralph! Congrats on the announcement here! Is it okay to publish the video recording from your presentation at the TI-Treff 2018?I would have it prepared on youtube.com. BR Klaus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralphb Posted November 11, 2018 Author Share Posted November 11, 2018 Is it okay to publish the video recording from your presentation at the TI-Treff 2018? I would have it prepared on youtube.com. Sure, go ahead. You can see then how much difference a month makes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick99 Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Amazing, this will be a must have! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Unreal..... this is the bees knees, as we say. You have once again blown me away. I would mostly be interested in this as an expansion card, and using it mostly as a Hard Drive. I can't wait to see more information on this thing as it comes out. Thanks again, sir! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Ralph, you basically created a true DOS for the TI with a hard disk implementation. Absolutely awesome! Now you mentioned something about ports but don't give much detail. What kind of ports will this device have and will they be compati le with existing ones like RS232 and PIO? Also will there be capability to run Basic and XB programs with the XLOAD command? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted November 12, 2018 Share Posted November 12, 2018 very nice. looking forward to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralphb Posted November 12, 2018 Author Share Posted November 12, 2018 Amazing job, Ralph! I am truly amazed at the amount of ingenuity with all these peripherals coming out. You have literally two chips doing everything on this board. It's a great time to be in retro TI computing. And you're right... each peripheral has a different audience. And, then you have geeks like me that change things around all the time for different scenarios, so keep just about everything laying around in case I need it. :-) Thanks, but to be fair, there's an extra chip for the Wifi connection (not shown). It's a widely used ESP8266, and I absolutely hate it. There are other options, though. In fact, there's the W600, which is basically a Cortex M3 with Wifi. Unfortunately, I need at least M4, otherwise I'd really need only two ICs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralphb Posted November 12, 2018 Author Share Posted November 12, 2018 Ralph, you basically created a true DOS for the TI with a hard disk implementation. Absolutely awesome! Now you mentioned something about ports but don't give much detail. What kind of ports will this device have and will they be compati le with existing ones like RS232 and PIO? Also will there be capability to run Basic and XB programs with the XLOAD command? Thanks! There's already a serial port, but right now I'm using it to log status and error messages. This thing will be TI-compatible, unless there is a reason not to be. Then, I thought of PIO, if I can spare a few pins, and the rest would be general I/O pins, readable by CRU and one or two CALLs. USB would be possible, but I don't know what to use it for. No, you cannot just plug in your Logitech mouse or MP3 player. About BASIC programs ... Probably. The BASIC files are more or less a memory dumps, so they should be easy to transfer back. For XB, though, you could just use RUN, although I guess the filename would have to be static. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralphb Posted November 12, 2018 Author Share Posted November 12, 2018 I forgot to post a picture of the working SDD 99 connected to the side port. The appendages are, from left to right, battery, serial connection, and Wifi chip (off the photo). Thanks to clever pin assignments, the LED is dead. Also, I put the side connector upside-down on the PCB. That's why the PCB is facing downwards. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jstimson Posted November 12, 2018 Share Posted November 12, 2018 As mentioned above, would love this as a PEB card. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdilling Posted November 12, 2018 Share Posted November 12, 2018 Amazing work! I will definitely want one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXB Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 (edited) Cool but does it support anything in XB or is this 100% just TI Basic? If that is the case it would exclude a insane number of programs and applications in XB? Edited November 13, 2018 by RXB 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 Cool but does it support anything in XB or is this 100% just TI Basic? If that is the case it would exclude a insane number of programs and applications in XB? I'm just guessing here, but with the insane size of the memory, the ability to load CARTRIDGES and his previous work on the FinalGROM, I'm thinking any BASIC in cartridge form should be loadable executable. The ideas and possibilities are flooding into my head right now.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralphb Posted November 13, 2018 Author Share Posted November 13, 2018 Cool but does it support anything in XB or is this 100% just TI Basic? If that is the case it would exclude a insane number of programs and applications in XB? No, that's not my plan. But subprogram parameter parsing in XB is somewhat different than in BASIC, and I haven't implemented those changes yet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralphb Posted November 13, 2018 Author Share Posted November 13, 2018 As mentioned above, would love this as a PEB card. For a PEB card, you would set the CRU to >1000 (before the TI controller), and then configure which DSK devices you would want to use. The other drives would then be passed to the real floppy controller. If you don't want to use the DSK devices of SDD 99, you can choose any CRU you want. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 I am impressed by what looks like near-instantaneous file loading / IO speeds. Very nice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 The ability to load cartridge images from files is really cool, I assume it works for ROM carts only? What if you have a GROM only cart in the physical slot, could you still load a ROM cart from the SDD99? Do you also allow RAM mapping into the >6000 region using the SAMS mapping registers? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 What's the pin connector for? Is it just the bus(44pin)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kl99 Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 Sure, go ahead. You can see then how much difference a month makes. Part 1: Part 2: 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralphb Posted November 13, 2018 Author Share Posted November 13, 2018 I am impressed by what looks like near-instantaneous file loading / IO speeds. Very nice. That's because the data read from the uSD card and written into the RAM stays on the SDD and does not involve the TI 99 at all. OLDs, on the other hand, are just as slow as you know them, because the data has to be funneled into the VDP RAM by the TI 99. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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