I use my TI for...

[Omega-TI]

What do you actually use your TI for?  Do you use it simply as a game machine?  Do you use it for any productive purposes?  How much are you invested?

[+Lee Stewart]

I am not sure of my hardware investment, but I am reasonably sure it exceeds $3000 over the years.

 

...lee

[mindlord]

I use it for development, experimentation, and fun-n-games. I'm in for about $200.

I have a beige unit that blew up about 2 weeks into ownership. A silver unit that's been going strong for awhile now. A cassette recorder, Flashrom99, nanopeb, 1GB CF card, and a small collection of cartridges, like extended basic, tunnels of doom, adventure, and such.

I think I'm lucky in that I've managed to keep it cheap. The most expensive thing I've bought so far is the nanopeb, which I'm still not really utilizing.

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

[mizapf]

I use my (real) Geneve for ...

... improving the TI emulations in MAME. 

 

 

[+pixelpedant]

I guess there's some inevitable trickiness in the question (in particular, "5. I use my TI 'this much' per week on average."), given I've been spending an egregious amount of time on TI-99 projects lately, but almost none of that is done using my TI-99 itself (i.e., coding on real iron) outside brief tests, and is rather done in development of my own support applications/scripts (for modern PC), and in use of the community's collection of TI development support applications (for modern PC). 

 

The irony is, I feel like the more I'm working on TI development, the less I'm using my TI!  Since if I were just playing games, I'd always be doing that on real iron.  But for development, I just can't give up Notepad++/Magellan/GIMP/etc., and more than half of the code associated with my current RS-232 automation project is Python support scripts rather than the XB which talks to them.

 

So my answer is, now that I'm completely obsessed with my TI-99, I barely use it!

[Mehridian Sanders]

Right now I am impressing family members with mine... when the FG gets built you bet your sweet bippy I'll be playing on it a lot.

Will move Into programmin, then pcb design. I kinda gotta admit that Jedimatt42 is the reason I found this place. So thanks for placing that needle in my hand [email protected] !!

(No.. really ... Thanks!!!)

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[+Ksarul]

I know my investment over the years is well in excess of your max value here--as it is easily twenty times that. . .I have a couple of single items that break that cost budget by themselves (my 99/8s).

 

 

I use my systems mostly for hardware development/testing, but as there are two users here, @iliketurtles uses it mostly for gaming, with a little bit of programming thrown in.

[fabrice montupet]

Difficult to aswer to this poll...  Questions are incomplete. I play games very few, I program a little, I often use utilities and  I spend a lot of time to study the Texas Instruments TI-99  and third party hardware and to developp new TI hardware.

Not sure if I have well answered to the final question. I have chosen the before last budget, and after reflexion I think I would have  to choose the last one.

[FDOS]

Yes, my investment in my TI-Geneve hobby has been very significant over the decades since 1982.  However, I'm in the process of divesting myself of all hardware related to my Geneves and hard drives, except for my HFDC, and mostly concentrating on MAME emulation for primary TI-99/4A with 80K GramKracker function, and my SNUG TI-99/4P, obviously; also keeping it (the hardware) along with one TI-99/4A with NanoPEBs, for real hardware testing of software developed on MAME.  All this just in hopes of completing a few software development projects started more than 10 years ago, only to prove to myself that I'm not a "quiter" or speller.  It does not matter if anyone else ever makes use of any software that I may happen to finish.  My only hobby accomplishment was Forth+ 1.01 for the Geneve released December 1993, and it never had more than 10 registered users.

 

I may not have accomplished much with this hobby, but I certainly enjoyed it, even during my travels all around this country (USA), and around the world attending TI user group meetings and sponsored Festivals/Treffens; which included meeting some of the most significant TI hardware & software contributors, and chatted with many other interesting like minded hobbyists.  Some of which contributed ideas, and even coded many parts of TIB+ (still unfinished).  To me, it still has purpose; Tony Knerr's module loader for the SNUG HSGPL frees up all 16 banks of my HSGPL card in my SNUG TI-99/4P and in the MAME emulator as well, for TIB+ software apps.  Of course, my true hobby desire is to get back to X4th99 development, which is totally 1 MB SAMS dependent, right down to the very core!  So also very dependent on the HFDC hard disk and floppy diskette support, by design!  Just call me RETRO Bill.

Edited November 29, 2019 by FDOS
typo

[+RXB]

Since 1983 programming with TI99/4A 

Started GPL in 1987 and RXB in 1989 to today...

[hloberg]

in reality I use my TI-99+PEB just to show off and test what I wrote for it works on real iron. probably only fire it up a few times a year since I don't have a dedicated place for it and that durn PEB is so frik'n heavy to move.

[Davvel]

On 11/29/2019 at 7:46 PM, RXB said:

Since 1983 programming with TI99/4A 

Started GPL in 1987 and RXB in 1989 to today...

Hi RXB, me and a friend of mine are interested in doing a small write up on GPL, covering things like :

   The History  

   How it came to be and why it was developed

   Who came up with the idea

   How TI developers coded with GPL in the early days (1980/1) and what they produced with it. How much easier it is today with modern laptops, compilers and emulators.

   The difficulty way back in the 80's to code in this language if you were not working with TI - Gram Kracker - expensive - limited information - no internet to lookup things.

   What was done with it and what can it be compared to in the modern age

   Dates and as much factual information as possible on the language and achievements like your cartridge (RXB).

 

Do you think you can help us out with some of our questions ?  or maybe better still add other stuff which should be preserved for histories sake.

 

Our plan was that before we post anything on GPL we pass it by you for review on correctness. We will also include as many links as we can find on it's syntax and other historical writings we can find on the internet.

 

Thanks in advance 

 

- David

[matthew180]

I use my 99/4A primarily to test hardware I'm making.  One day I would like to have one all put together and set up for general use.  One day...

[ClausB]

My answers are for the time period 1977 thru 1980, on my TI SR-56 and TI-59 (prices not adjusted for inflation).

Edited December 22, 2019 by ClausB

[digdugnate]

I assume that I voted in the poll and just don't remember it, or the poll is closed. 

 

My personal story is that mine is used predominantly as a gaming console with a little programming on the side.  I'm half-decent I feel like with Extended Basic and good enough in Assembly to put my eye out, haha.  I just don't have time to devote to it since it'd require me sitting down and FOCUSING on something like that and not having to get up a billion times a day.

 

[+RXB]

On 12/21/2019 at 12:53 PM, Davvel said:

Hi RXB, me and a friend of mine are interested in doing a small write up on GPL, covering things like :

   The History  

   How it came to be and why it was developed

   Who came up with the idea

   How TI developers coded with GPL in the early days (1980/1) and what they produced with it. How much easier it is today with modern laptops, compilers and emulators.

   The difficulty way back in the 80's to code in this language if you were not working with TI - Gram Kracker - expensive - limited information - no internet to lookup things.

   What was done with it and what can it be compared to in the modern age

   Dates and as much factual information as possible on the language and achievements like your cartridge (RXB).

 

Do you think you can help us out with some of our questions ?  or maybe better still add other stuff which should be preserved for histories sake.

 

Our plan was that before we post anything on GPL we pass it by you for review on correctness. We will also include as many links as we can find on it's syntax and other historical writings we can find on the internet.

 

Thanks in advance 

 

- David

History wise some other people are better informed than me.

What I do know is having the original GPL and Assembly source for XB and some other projects created by TI originally and notes on the side handwritten.

It was pretty obvious there was competition and sometimes no communication was done between the GPL and Assembly programmers.

Example is XB ROM has routines that are in GPL or GPL routines that use the OS to do same functions by access to Assembly OS.

A huge problem for XB is the Console is set up for TI Basic and that hurt the implication of XB as everything had to be stuffed in the Cartridge.

TI Basic and XB use different headers in GPL, TI Basic does not use RAM but only VDP, while XB uses both RAM/VDP thus even crippling XB speed.

 

I think XB should have been RAM only based and not copy TI Basic using VDP, but hindsight is always like that.

We could use FACEBOOK FACETIME or SKYPE or what ever if you want to talk.

 

Rich (RXB)

[Davvel]

4 hours ago, RXB said:

History wise some other people are better informed than me.

What I do know is having the original GPL and Assembly source for XB and some other projects created by TI originally and notes on the side handwritten.

It was pretty obvious there was competition and sometimes no communication was done between the GPL and Assembly programmers.

Example is XB ROM has routines that are in GPL or GPL routines that use the OS to do same functions by access to Assembly OS.

A huge problem for XB is the Console is set up for TI Basic and that hurt the implication of XB as everything had to be stuffed in the Cartridge.

TI Basic and XB use different headers in GPL, TI Basic does not use RAM but only VDP, while XB uses both RAM/VDP thus even crippling XB speed.

 

I think XB should have been RAM only based and not copy TI Basic using VDP, but hindsight is always like that.

We could use FACEBOOK FACETIME or SKYPE or what ever if you want to talk.

 

Rich (RXB)

Thanks for your feedback. We are not into getting to any level of technicality as we want to keep it a light read for those who simply are interested to know a little more about gpl and why it was so obscure when compared to other languages. I will inform my friend and see if he would want to talk to you using skype etc.. but as far as I am concerned I feel that a few pointers to high level info on gpl is enough for now. 

[1980gamer]

Hours per week is hard to say.

When I am working on a game, it can be 25+ hours a week.

Otherwise it is 3 or 4 hours a week.

 

[+RXB]

On 12/25/2019 at 11:43 AM, Davvel said:

Thanks for your feedback. We are not into getting to any level of technicality as we want to keep it a light read for those who simply are interested to know a little more about gpl and why it was so obscure when compared to other languages. I will inform my friend and see if he would want to talk to you using skype etc.. but as far as I am concerned I feel that a few pointers to high level info on gpl is enough for now. 

Sounds good to me, let me know a time you are looking at.

 

Rich

[GDMike]

My electric bill alone just over the years for my TI, Exp, drives,printer, monitor, and of course, I've gotta have the TV on behind me while I code, PLUS my TI MADE me buy a cell phone to answer this forum question.

Edited January 2, 2020 by GDMike