Gary from OPA

some one turned off the TI99 console, and forgot to save the AI training data to cassette tape. Has anyone tried AI on doing a TMS9900 Assembly program? or just TI Basic?

Double Super Size Me https://www.dexerto.com/food/the-biggest-burger-currently-offered-by-mcdonalds-is-the-double-big-mac-but-theyre-going-bigger-2672411/

Or Arcade Classic99, each time you load a new game cartridge you get 3 free plays per week once it's game over within the cartridge after you die 3 times you have to buy more credits, or wait until next week. Bring back the quarter coin slots virtually!

Spotify is now adding monthly limit on lyrics for free accounts.

Yeah there no need for scripts if you want just the stripped down version. Unless you like having it listed as option in the user menu. Or course for me I am testing a script the loads the 24k pop-cart console ROMs as well plus another bank of 5 groms also. Which clasic99 supports infact you can load multiple racks of groms now. Just sadly all banks of groms point to the same set of ROM pages as those are not banked (yet) and you only have one set of groms 0/1/2 in all banks. It would be great if @Tursi would allow at least to override groms 1 and 2 the ti basic part in other grom banks that would make things nicer at least for my own development projects.

Love the fact you added 80 col support. -- Have you tried it out on actual v9938/58 system on the /4a -- I will myself later on today or tomorrow, that was one thing I was looking forward to seeing was support for 80 col mode. Second, I use HDX alot currently, as still waiting for my TIPI, but I don't have a HDX DSR installed, so I been using the CF transfer program, does the DM2k80 also include that support, so I can just use my unmodified corcomp or ti PEB rs232 to access my HDX drive on my PC. And lastly, does it support the timestamps for WHTech scsi card, I believe my WHTech ver. F has a clock in it, but I forgot how to set it, as I also have a clock on my PGram clock so not sure if that gets in the way. Thanks again for your great software!

i do get alot of spam from people offering me services and courses, and some sex bots looking for lonely men to scam!

You can now play games on LinkedIn... They are trying hard to make it a social site! https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/linkedin-news-introduces-games-6715874/

this Twitter image I think would make for a great meme background. Save it!

Besides GitHub Sponsors, there is my Patreon page at: https://www.patreon.com/GaryOPA and on my Twitter profile there is a "send tips" feature, but the easiest way is via PayPal at: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bowsergary

The above works, just make one change use type 8 for the C file, so it loads all 32k into 4 pages at the 6000 space.

GIF 99 Viewer for V9938/58 Systems v1.05 by O.P.A. There was some discussion last week during the Zoom call about viewing GIF files on the /4a and Geneve. So I dusted off some old source code and have released it and uploaded it to the GitHub as per my previous releases. * GIF99OPA v1.05 by Gary Bowser and Achim Liese * * 1989 Source Code Release * By Oasis Pensive Abacutors * Via Gary Bowser (GARYOPA) * Released April 30th, 2024 * Uploaded to ti99.atariage.com * GIF-S -> GIF/Viewer Main Source Assemble File GIF-MAIN -> GIF/Viewer Main Assembly Source Code GIF-SUBS -> GIF/Viewer Common Used BL Sub-Routines GIF-BLWP -> GIF/Viewer Video and DSR BLWP Routines GIF-DATA -> GIF/Viewer Data/Text Block at The End! Some notes about this release, it is partly based on a plain 9918 GIF Viewer (before V9938 support) by Achim Liese and some sections are missing comments as they were left-over bits from a disassembly, which I had not go thru totally and optimized and updated for V9938 support. There is also a few pieces I forgot what part that Paul Charlton helped out on as well. Second it is basically designed to load 320x200 256 color GIF's and 640x320 16 color GIF's -- The later format 16 color is hard to generate these days, you need to get a "LowColor" plugin for Paint.net to allow saving in that format these days. Included in the upload is some sample working GIF's of Berry, Gregory, Lou which were taken from the original JPG format uploaded on WHTech under "Users Photos". Finally, there is no "text listed" for menu control, but it is basically you enter the "drive number" and it catalogs the disk, and displays the first file that is in GIF format (it also seems to handle MYART files as well), and then you can press X to skip to the next image, or E to go back an image, and ENTER to display more info about the image itself, like colors, size, etc. -- When on the "image info" screen, you can use the arrow keys to shift it up or down or left or right, helpful if you wish to view a larger image in the mode it has selected, it will pick either 256x212 (256 colors) or 512x424 (16 colors) depending on the image size. -- Pressing ENTER again will start the loading of the image, and after the image is displayed pressing either Space or Enter will return you to file name picker. -- There is no "slideshow mode" and there is "no boost in speed" by using extra ram or caching or tables, this is simple program all fitted within the 8k >2000 space with buffers in the >A000 space of the 32k, it doesn't use extra ram to make things go faster in displaying the image. GITHUB Release Page: https://github.com/gary99opa/Gif99Viewer Enjoy! -=(GaryOPA)=- GIF99OPA58.dsk GIF99Viewer-Source-Files-Only.zip GIF99Viewer_1_05_GARYOPA_04_30_2024.zip

ok i see it now. -- the only reason the TI99 needs the SOB is because the console grom 0 for some silly reason setups the TMS9918 registers wrong by setting unused bits to the opposite default value that listed in the original specs, it of course does nothing on a tms9918/28/29 chip, but when the v9938 or 58 chip is there having the unused bits set, causes all sort of problems. As for ADAM I originally made the hardware compatible, but the job in making the OS compatible was for Dale Wick which was active programmer at the time for the local Toronto MTAG users group, so I installed a AIM as it was called in his machine, and waited for the programming to be done, he did some tests and had a bunch of stuff written and apps working, but sadly never released it, he got too busy with young family and his university schooling, and dropped interest. I did a few years ago, make contact with him and he was looking at picking it back up again, and more recently I was looking at buying a complete Adam machine from someone that had stored one away in perfect condition but i never heard back from the grandson that was selling it from his grandmother collection, most likely he discovered the true value of boxed system and quickly sold it on ebay for much more money. Anyway, at some point I will look into getting some software done on the adam system, and I think some others have recently done similar work, but just like the ti99 world, most have moved onto using the f18a type devices in the adam instead.

darn it, now i will be searching your old posts to see what it was about!

That is correct, it is a small bug in the code. At first I thought it was a problem with emulators but I tested it on real hardware and you get the same error messages.

If you want the it as ini entry you need to have both files listed with the C one as well loading as type 8. I will post the a ini file later on once I am in my office. As for the dsk9 in cartridge version that will not work until I released a patched pop-cart version that includes the special CART emulated disk device. Normally the files come from the larger original ROM file. But classic99 doesn't support the pop-cart banking scheme, but since I have the source code for my own part of this XB3 module I will be able to rewrite it to support today's current banking scheme, give me a couple more days and I will release a more complete version for classic99.

Yeah. Not many left still. There is others but they are hiding or no longer active. I have one person near me that still has one and hoping he will let me play with it for a few hours to dump the gals when he gets back from his Canadian snowbird winter vacation in early May. I had one but it got destroyed in Dominican Republic. Most are either in a dusty box in basement somewhere forgotten or worse in trash landfill site, with a few in heavy guarded collectors vaults to never be inserted into actual system again and have power applied to it.

I am still waiting for the extra bare board I grabbed from @RickyDean to arrive in the Great White North (called Canada), but in the meantime I met up with a local Canuck @wiloson and picked up one of his extra units he nicely built recently, so soon I will have two units to play with and test out, and will be trying out the one I grabbed today, sometime tomorrow and report back my findings on how it works. I have two /4a consoles and one QI one, so a good set of systems to test them on.

Thanks, I will let you know. -- I need to start to update my garyopa.com site, I added a bit about my GitHub on the front page, but I need to add the public source code releases I done so far, and also add in the missing stuff about Pop-Cart, etc.

Good pictures of the TIM and SOB, I should use them (with your permission of course) to update the bad quality photos on my garyopa.com website. The Pop-Cart was basically the next step up from the SOB, as it could do a lot more and override the console groms, I just posted about the PLD stuff in the XB3 thread, as basically the first two GAL's on the SOB are the same on the pop-cart with an added 3rd one. Of course today newer tech can do alot more, but it was not bad for back in the day, I was very good at jamming in all the logic and getting the timing right, all tho the SOB I had to add a resistor as you see in the photos to fix up timing issue on some /4a consoles, that problem was fixed in the pop-cart system. I have been working slowly on recreating the final logic, I have old printouts but not the jedec files themselves. Maybe, if you have the tools and still the SOB you could try cracking the write-protect and dumping the logic for both of our sakes, or if you want and willing to part for it for a couple of weeks I could do it and send it back to you. you have to be careful there is UV window underneath those PLD's can be erased by UV light, later on the Pop-cart used a version with that, and again the different between a normal PLD without UV erase and a electrically erasable GAL is different in timing so the code has to be adjusted depending on brand and type of PLD it is. These days for internal console grom mods, the Grommy from Eric seems to be best idea, but he has not updated that thread in a long time, and I have been looking at various other options as well, besides trying to recreate my original hardware, sadly I lost my own pop-cart, tim, sob in the hurricane matthew in DR, but good thing is my human brain is still working fine and my memory storage is amazing for human at my age, and want to get as much out of my biological sponge before it starts to downhill. Thanks.

As far i as remember Winfried used the 128k Gram Karte device to do the development work on. I didn't have much contact with Winkler only on some of the GPL updates and most of my dialog was with Chris of Asgard. As for the GAL logic I am working on recreating it from some partial early printouts I have of it, I don't have the final code, which was basically the two GAL's used in the SOB with added one to handle the banks of grom and rom logic, timing is very picky with the system, but I got it down good, the SOB needed a tiny resistor added afterwards to fix some timing bugs, but the Pop-Cart had those fixed, but still different brands of the same GAL would not work, infact older PAL were not fast enough at all, reason was the later GAL was used. Now of course the new ATF series would have to be used, and that is what I am working on recreating it for and being faster then the older parts should make the timing a bit easier overall, plus I want to update it to handle QI consoles as the original Pop-Cart would not work on QI systems, that is a bit harder as you can't override the console groms the same way, plus you have no CRU logic for added features. Here is just the XB3 with EA basically working for Classic99 and FinalGrom99 -- The only error is i/o error on startup if there is no LOAD file found on the floppy disk. -- Everything else should work fine, including the "apesoft" graphics library which were included from the mechatronic xb cartridge. This is similar to what @JasonACT posted earlier. I still want to put together a more complete package with Classic99 users that includes the TI-Writer and other Pop-Cart features. Plus re-write my CART emulate disk drive for FinalGrom99 so that things like the files needed for TI-Writer and Editor/Assembler can be loaded from the CART device using a larger ROM file, plus also update the Editor/Assembler part to include the Winkler updates he did later on to select TMS9900 or GPL Assembler from the menu, and add in a 80-col option for E/A (TI-Writer) parts for those with v9938 and F18a cards. XBIIIC.BIN XBIIIG.BIN

Is there not a different model that can handle cassette tapes as well or does it handle both. I sadly don't have a binder right now with one.

Been busy today with a few things so haven't have time to fully dive into this and get something working on classic99 for others to enjoy, I got it partly done, but since classic99 doesn't support ROM banks at different bases, some changes to the code needs to be done, and sadly still te2 text-to-speech is an issue looking at a way to patch that to work. As for Adam original files they are perfect dump, but they are twice as long as needed, each chip is only 128k in size. Here is how it is all layed out in the two files! ====================== In the grom base 9800 first half of the 64k: First 3 6k groms is the console os and ti basic with extra last 2k in each making up the sob opa mm added GPL code. Then you have 5 8k groms that make up the XB3 v3.11 And then you have first 32k in the other chip now active as 4 pages of 8k at 6000 space when at 9800 for the XB3 ROM code. ------------- Then at grom base 9804 second half of the 64k: First 6k is console os grom and next 6k is ti basic, with extra last 2k in each making up the sob opa mm added GPL code, so basically the first 16k of the second half of the 64k matches the same 16k in grom base 0, this has to be done as code is used in both grom 0 and grom 1 in both banks. Now here it starts to change the third grom which is normally the rest of ti basic is scrapped as it's not needed when running in grom base 9804, so it's replaced with the ti-writer grom which been relocated to work at 4000 grom 2 spot and being only 5k in length the last 3k available been used for the new pop-cart menu program and the virtual CART device. Next in grom 3 and 4 you have the first part of the te2 module and then grom 5 you have the hangman game and grom 6 the rest of te2 cartridge and grom 7 the editor/assembler module. Now, the crazy part of grom base 9804 the second half of the chip, the te2 groms, hangman, ea are all only 6k each so the 5 pages of the last 2k each are filled with data sectors from the virtual CART device that stores the various ea5 assembly programs included. And finally the next 32k in the other chip is now active as the second set of 4 pages of 8k at 6000 space when at 9804 in which the first 4k contain the te2 text-to-speech assembly part and the remaining 28k is more data sectors for the virtual CART device. ----------- Finally you have grom base 9808 and 980C which doesn't change the grom area, but does cause the 6000 space to change with 9808 mapping in the third section of 32k and 980C mapping in the last section of 32k. All the remaining pages of 64k at the 6000 space are all filed with virtual data sectors for the special CART emulated disk drive device. -------- The CART device is basically around 400 sectors in size making up 100k of data spread across the empty space between the 6k groms in second grom base and the remaining unused pages of 6000 ROM banks. -------- I will be publishing more information on how it all works including the source code to the pop cart parts and making a patched version that should enable at least most of the features on classic99 at least and a bit less on finalgrom99. I also going to publish my source code for this special virtual CART emulated disk drive thingy and make an updated version that runs on finalgrom99 along with my special patching program that can convert any ea5 program to understand the device as standard DSRLNK doesn't search cartridge space for devices. ----------- Don't blame me if you attempt now to spilt up the original dumps above based on my information layout and you can't get it to work, I suggest waiting until I divided it up and released proper working files. First, since most want just the XB3 part that can be easily done but there is a few minor changes needed as it uses some tricks and changes in grom 0 and that can only for now be emulated on PC not on real hardware using the finalgrom99, etc.