Beast?

[barry.peterson]

From West Penn 99ers?

 

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?76867-A-beast-of-a-TI-99

[wierd_w]

Looks like a custom made enclosure.  The sharpie marker TI logo is kinda ghetto though.

 

The prior owner was clearly an enthusiast though.

[Tursi]

I think that's a plastic TI logo attached to the case, I didn't see any sharpie...

 

Heck of a machine though, would love to play with it.

 

[Ed in SoDak]

I replied there. The only other reply was drooling over the IBM keyboard...   This deserves a more encouraging response!

[Omega-TI]

Freaking awesome work there, does anyone have any more information this guy...

I reposted one of the images here in case the other website disappears someday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Toucan]

41 minutes ago, Omega-TI said:

Freaking awesome work there, does anyone have any more information this guy...

I reposted one of the images here in case the other website disappears someday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like Rob was the librarian in the late 80s of the West Penn 99ers. This might be the potable TI/PEB mentioned in a 1987 newsletter:

 

http://www.whtech.com/ftp/user groups/West Penn/1987/1987_10 WEST PENN.pdf

 

[epitaxial]

Hello all. I'm the poster from vcfed and owner of this. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. First of all let me say no the keyboard is not going on eBay. I'm into vintage computers but never had any experience with anything from TI. Old UNIX boxes are more my thing. Did some googling of Rob Ekl and it turns up this obituary https://www.shirleyfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Frances-M-Ekl?obId=10847954 Then if you google Joseph John Ekl you see his obituary https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/triblive-tribune-review/obituary.aspx?n=joseph-j-ekl&pid=185397845&fhid=17246 where it says he was a computer club member. The estate sale was in this area so it looks like Rob was a nickname.

 

 

[Ed in SoDak]

Great to have you here, epitaxial! That is one fascinating TI bitbox you've come across. I've seen in print just a couple other "portable TI" homebrews over many years. Jan Jankowski's battery portable was chronicled in MICROpendium. Yours looks more like a luggable, portable but still tied to a wall outlet to power and use.

 

I read those obits. They're Rob's parents. I didn't search for Rob himself, maybe he'll spot the references sometime and join.

 

I thought a screen grab of the West Penn 99ers newsletter's reference to this system might be useful to associate with this thread. I noticed it does not mention a hard drive, so obviously it continued to be upgraded after this meeting report was published.

-Ed

Edited September 26, 2020 by Ed in SoDak

[epitaxial]

I removed the front panel and can get a better look at the insides. The power supply is putting out +5 and +12 just fine. I guess that feeds the TI but still can't easily tell. The hard drive is a 20mb MFM drive cabled to a Winchester controller. On the same bus is an RS232 adapter. The drive spins up fine but I was told that imaging MFM drives is difficult because of how the controller handles all the low level signals. The board with the orange sticker on the chip is the adapter for using IBM keyboards. 

[+pixelpedant]

A variation on or predecessor to this unit seems to have appeared in Micropendium (1989) and shown at the Chicago Faire.

 

[Ed in SoDak]

Some portions of a stock TI console require -5 volts as well as +5 and +12. Mainly the 4116 RAM chips, but possibly other chips or peripherals. With all the mods yours has seen, such as the four-chip 32k mod, it may no longer have that -5v requirement.

 

Loss of -5v in a stock console can be a death sentence for the 4116 RAM chips.

 

I posted this package of pdf TI schematics in a PEB repair thread. You may find parts of it useful as you test.

-Ed

 

TI Circuit Diagrams and Schematics.pdf 2.61 MB · 24 downloads

[Ed in SoDak]

Looks like Rob is about 45 years old now, being age 14 when Micropendium ran that pic and writeup. That's a sizeable investment of both cash and labor BITD when many of those add-ons were still current. Plus we know it has the hard drive and controller. I guess people move on over time. Maybe he moved too far away to be able to keep it. Countless bigger investments in other systems has gone to the landfill or estate sale. I'd probably have to pass on myself before relinquishing that machine if it were mine.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Ed in SoDak

[Omega-TI]

It would be real cool if someone could track him down and send him the link to this thread.  Even after all these years he might get a kick out of reading it... and you never know, the TI nostalgia bug may bite him and bring us another returning member.