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99/8 MESS & disk drive cards


hloberg

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I remember asking this several years ago. Since I fiddling with the 99/8 again I thought I ask again.

The roms for the 99/8 on MESS never worked with disk drive controllers a while back. tape worked but not drive. it was because the rom or system uploaded for the 99/8 hadn't gotten far enough in development to support drives. this was about mess .149. just wondering if new mess has a working 99/8 as some newer 99/8 board been found since then?

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ROMs for the HX5102 are on WHtech. You should use single density because TI's DD format is 16 sectors/track. A flexible formatter can be found in the Pascal system; the Extended Basic II formatter only produces DD disks.

 

The HX5102 has an internal plug for another drive. You can add the second drive in MAME this way:

 

 

mame64 ti99_8 -hexbus hx5102 -hexbus:hx5102:d1 525dd -flop1 firstimg.dsk -flop2 secondimg.dsk

 

The d0 slot is by default connected to a 525dd drive.

 

Please search the forum for more information about the HX5102; I posted quite some messages a while ago.

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I'm running this 99/8 MAME emulator on a Windows XP, long story, anyway, the newest version of MAME doesn't seem to want to run on XP. I'm assuming it's not compatible. Is there an older version MAME runs the 99/8 -hexbus also is WIn XP compatible?

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Not sure, I'd rather say no. The HX5102 is part of MAME since 0.197; you'd have to check whether that release would work on XP. On the other hand, there were still many bugs in the emulation of the floppy, which is the reason I generally discourage people to use old versions.

 

Also, please mind that your computer must offer some performance, since the 99/8 together with the HX5102 is a really big thing. See my benchmarks on https://www.mizapf.de/ti99d/mame .

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researched the MAME error in XP and it's missing a hook in the compile of kernal32.dll.therefore the latest MAME is no longer XP compatible. oh, well.

the reason I'm using XP is that I have to have an XP around for a client of mine who still uses XP and rather than have it sit useless I'm putting emulators on it. it's a core duo so it's fast enough.

I guess I'll pursue this later when I can dedicate a Win Vista/7/10 to the project. thanks for the help.

FYI: I'm still using the older MESS for the TI/99-4a and it works great.

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FYI: I'm still using the older MESS for the TI/99-4a and it works great.

 

Yes. The older MESSes were not bad. But as you see here: New features and bugfixes (of those bugs that hit you in an unexpected moment) require you to catch up at some time.

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researched the MAME error in XP and it's missing a hook in the compile of kernal32.dll.therefore the latest MAME is no longer XP compatible. oh, well.

the reason I'm using XP is that I have to have an XP around for a client of mine who still uses XP and rather than have it sit useless I'm putting emulators on it. it's a core duo so it's fast enough.

I guess I'll pursue this later when I can dedicate a Win Vista/7/10 to the project. thanks for the help.

FYI: I'm still using the older MESS for the TI/99-4a and it works great.

 

linux will run fine on that pc, and runs the latest mame.. just sayin

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researched the MAME error in XP and it's missing a hook in the compile of kernal32.dll.therefore the latest MAME is no longer XP compatible. oh, well.

the reason I'm using XP is that I have to have an XP around for a client of mine who still uses XP and rather than have it sit useless I'm putting emulators on it. it's a core duo so it's fast enough.

I guess I'll pursue this later when I can dedicate a Win Vista/7/10 to the project. thanks for the help.

FYI: I'm still using the older MESS for the TI/99-4a and it works great.

Update it to Windows 7 then use the free XP mode download from Microsoft to run your clients stuff in, then you can still run emulators on the outside :grin:

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Update it to Windows 7 then use the free XP mode download from Microsoft to run your clients stuff in, then you can still run emulators on the outside :grin:

It's a small non-profit school I maintain their roughly 35 WinXP PCs in their class. most are donation PCs I refurbished for them. the minimum is core duo (except 1 very slow P4. even with XP it's barely usable. I'm probably going to get rid of it). So I know if the forms and software I write for them runs on a stock core-duo they will be OK.

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  • 2 months later...

Just got the 99/8 working in MAME. Very, very cool! drives work and everything. It is a tad sluggish at times, even on my i3, but not too much so. Also playing with the 99/4! haven't tried using the drives yet. So cool you guys brought a bit of vaporware out of the vapor. thanks.

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Just got the 99/8 working in MAME. Very, very cool! drives work and everything. It is a tad sluggish at times, even on my i3, but not too much so. Also playing with the 99/4! haven't tried using the drives yet. So cool you guys brought a bit of vaporware out of the vapor. thanks.

 

Yay! Please bring your emulator setup to the Fest! I'd like to see it working (I have not invested the time)

 

There will be a real 99/4 and 99/2 (non working) at 99/4ATX,

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Yay! Please bring your emulator setup to the Fest! I'd like to see it working (I have not invested the time)

 

There will be a real 99/4 and 99/2 (non working) at 99/4ATX,

Well that is cool. I never knew they actually even made a case for the 99/2. I'll bring the emulators for 8 & 2 (also got a Geneve) to the fest, there all on my laptop.

Edited by hloberg
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didn't mention but I had to set my laptop i3 MAME priority to max in task manager to get it to run acceptably fast. Sound still stutters a bit though. I guess an i5 or better wouldn't be as sluggish.

I tried running some of my utilities such as Missing Link and KXBII and they crashed.

There seems to be some slight difference in XB and 99-8 XBII such as SIZE doesn't work. But so far all my XB programs seem to work.

I played with the 99-2, B/W graphics only but I kinda like it.

It's cassette and emulated keyboard only. BASIC a little different than the 99 and a different character set.

A thing about both these, I wonder if they are like the Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park as they are interpretations of the 99-8 and 99-2 since they were never finished and we only had bits and pieces? Such as just how compatible would the 99-8 been?

I guess I'll read the documentation.

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update on 99/8

this startup command line works best on my i3 laptop:

mame64 ti99_8 -skip_gameinfo -autoframeskip -window -audio_latency 34 -hexbus hx5102 -hexbus:hx5102:d1 525dd -flop1 disk.dsk

 

-autoframekip makes it jump some but gives resonible speed

 

-audio_latency 34 makes the sound a little slow coming up but it reduces the double speak of the beeps and the words (call say)

 

update on 99/2

got the system to start with the HX5102 (i previously typed in wrong) but the 99/2 doesn't ackkowledge the disk drives or the hexbus. more research.

here is the command line for the 99/2

mame64 ti99_232 -skip_gameinfo -hexbus hx5102 -hexbus:hx5102:d1 525dd -flop1 disk.dsk

Edited by hloberg
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Remember that DD images are not compatible to the 99/4A. The disk controller cards of the 99/4A (BwG, HFDC) use 18 sectors/track, while the HX5102 uses 16 sectors/track.

 

When you want to load a file on the 99/2, you don't use DSKx as device name:

 

 

> OLD HEXBUS.101.SOMEFILE
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FYI from the BWG docs:

 

SBR Calls

The DSR supports the following CALLs in TI.Basic or the HRD-Menu with “K“:

Call Files (x)

With this CALL you can store the number of file buffers in VDP-Ram. For each open file there must be the same number of data buffers or you will get an error message. Possible values for (x) are from 1 to 9.

Call 16SPT

This command switches the controller software to a disk format with 16 sectors per track in Double-Density, for those disk controllers that support it, that was planned for the predecessor of the TI Disk Controller PHP 1240 that never made it out of the beta stage and was never produced or sold..

However, this is the format of the HEXBUS-Disk Controller and the one that MYARC products used so disks in circulation in this format can be run (and are).

The command of 16SPT goes to all of the disk drives that are connected to the BwG Controller. Access to “normal“ Double-Density format is no longer possible and can only be done through a Ramdisk or a diskette with Single-Density..

The 16-Sector format remains in effect until switched back with a CALL 18SPT.

This change affects all programs that use the DSR for reading and writing.. Also formatting for most programs should function since these all use the individual DSR routines.

Call 18SPT

Switches back to the “normal“ Double-Density format (18 Sectors per track)

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Remember that DD images are not compatible to the 99/4A. The disk controller cards of the 99/4A (BwG, HFDC) use 18 sectors/track, while the HX5102 uses 16 sectors/track.

 

When you want to load a file on the 99/2, you don't use DSKx as device name:

> OLD HEXBUS.101.SOMEFILE

that worked. I now got 8 & 2 working. thx

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I was messing with the 99/2 and interestingly it does not have a command to determine amount of memory like the console TI-99 BASIC.

Now there is a little trick to determine the amount of memory on the console BASIC.

1 A=A+8

20 GOSUB 1

error out, print A.

 

If that works the same as in the TI99 console BASIC I'm only getting 4kb on the 99/2 with the 232 ROM which I thought supposed to give you 32kb? Am I missing something in my batch file?

99/2 batch file:

@mame64 ti99_232 -skip_gameinfo -window -hexbus hx5102 -hexbus:hx5102:d1 525dd -flop1 disk\BASIC-proj.dsk

 

of course, that may not work the same for the 99/8.

 

also, is there a CUT & PASTE feature in the new MAME like in the old MESS? I like pasting code into the emulators.

 

thx, HLO

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32 KiB refers to the ROM, not the RAM. The RAM is 4 KiB in all versions.

 

Cut and paste is conceptionally difficult and unsafe in MAME; this is because the emulation engine (MAME) is absolutely ignorant of what it is actually doing. In particular, it cannot know whether the emulated system (99/2) has successfully picked up a character that you pasted. In fact, MAME does offer a paste feature, but without a guarantee that all characters are transmitted. The ancient MESS versions were not much safer in this respect. The standard key combination is "LShift+ScrLock".

 

It was for that reason that I added a text import feature in TIImageTool: You just paste your programs as a file into the disk image.

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32 KiB refers to the ROM, not the RAM. The RAM is 4 KiB in all versions.

 

Cut and paste is conceptually difficult and unsafe in MAME; this is because the emulation engine (MAME) is absolutely ignorant of what it is actually doing. In particular, it cannot know whether the emulated system (99/2) has successfully picked up a character that you pasted. In fact, MAME does offer a paste feature, but without a guarantee that all characters are transmitted. The ancient MESS versions were not much safer in this respect. The standard key combination is "LShift+ScrLock".

 

It was for that reason that I added a text import feature in TIImageTool: You just paste your programs as a file into the disk image.

.....32 KiB refers to the ROM, not the RAM. The RAM is 4 KiB in all versions.

Oh,OK. that explains it.

 

......It was for that reason that I added a text import feature in TIImageTool: You just paste your programs as a file into the disk image.

my bad, I forgot about that. FYI, TIImageTool is now my tool of choice for disk images. I like what you done with it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/11/2019 at 1:26 PM, mizapf said:

32 KiB refers to the ROM, not the RAM. The RAM is 4 KiB in all versions.

 

Cut and paste is conceptionally difficult and unsafe in MAME; this is because the emulation engine (MAME) is absolutely ignorant of what it is actually doing. In particular, it cannot know whether the emulated system (99/2) has successfully picked up a character that you pasted. In fact, MAME does offer a paste feature, but without a guarantee that all characters are transmitted. The ancient MESS versions were not much safer in this respect. The standard key combination is "LShift+ScrLock".

 

It was for that reason that I added a text import feature in TIImageTool: You just paste your programs as a file into the disk image.

Mizapf;

Playing with the 99/2 and have two questions:

1.) TIImagetool seems to corrupt the .dsk file when you write to the disk with the 99/2 formatted  disk. my guess is that the sector structure is different (?). anyway, is there a trick to get tiimagetool to work with the TI99/2 formatted disk?

2.) I think you already answered this but, the max memory on the 99/2 is 4k. Did you create a device to emulate the 99/2 memory expansion? 

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