Gary from OPA

May 16

Also should be noted that originally only wds1, wds2, wds3 existed for Myarc hdfc.

Whereas SCSI allows up to 7 devices.

May 16

9 minutes ago, FarmerPotato said:

It sounds like you have the original FORTI software? I've been hoping to find that--I only have half of it. (My half is mostly demos.)

So I recreated most of the words from documentation.

As you found, FORTI software makes the internal sound chip sound bonkers.

The console decodes the whole 1K at 8400 to go to the sound chip.

FORTI hardware decodes separate addresses. They are actually a bit mask:

8400 writes to all 4.

841E should not do anything.

8402 masks off chip 0.

841C writes only to chip 0.

841A writes only to chip 1.

8416 writes only to chip 2.

840E writes only to chip 3.

So the internal sound chip follows whichever chip (s) were last written to.

The Bach "Little" Fugue in G Minor uses only one chip so it sounds ok on the 4A.

Demos which do not sound ok are Chariots of Fire, Ricercar. Chariots uses percussion and more than one chip, so on the 4A it chops off the noise channel and tones "stutter."

Ricercar uses 12 voices and sounds awful except maybe where parts double up.

All of them continuously modify the attenuation of every tone, possibly even tone 3 when it should be silenced. Super clobberation.

I designed by FORTI sidecar to have CRU bits which mask whether it responds at 8400 or 4400 or not at all.

The original software stores the sound address in each voice's workspace.

(The other 6 bits are my DSR ROM select, and additional effects.)

You could fix the "choppiness" by replacing 8400 in both software and hardware.

Yes, better to use a different set of addresses unless you add hardware in the 4a console to limit the address decode range, or remove the tms9919 chip totally inside the console and just jumper the audio in to audio out.

Would be good if @JasonACT shares the forti software he has well, I been looking around for it as well.

May 16

Well, I guess drunk drivers will increase, or the old taxi companies will finally be back hanging outside of nightclubs and bars at 2am.

May 16

39 minutes ago, humeur said:

Hello;

I can't understand the difference between these two terms, the advantage or disadvantage of using one better than the other.

JL

I guess it depends on the software, some were written only for wds from the Myarc hdfc days.

I think scs was added do you could have both a Myarc hdfc and SCSI card in the same peb, I have both but haven't try that yet, as I don't have any mfm hard drives or emulator device.

May 16

54 minutes ago, JasonACT said:

Tonight's lesson is, you can't dither sound. Or at least, without it sounding bad. I've been experimenting with the ForTI card specs. to see what can be done with the Pi Pico. I'm kind of locked in to 32KHz for the speech though, and this limits me with what I can emulate for the 4 x TMS9919 sound chips in the ForTI. Also, the Pico PEB routes it's sound through the console sound chip, and it's become quite apparent that the ForTI sound card requires you to turn down the volume on that to experience quality sound directly from the ForTI card from a stereo. So I'm bypassing it here for my USB powered speakers:

I didn't implement the noise channels at all, only the 12 voices, and the frequencies being generated are not really correct (a 32KHz issue) but, it's something worth putting up here, even if I don't take this any further. It's been a bit of good fun. With the slightly off frequency generation, it does make ordinary TI sounds quite different, if you go through the console's audio output to hear all 5 sound chips playing together. (Really it's only the 2 though.)

I had hoped the ForTI sound software set the console sound chip to silent after programming the 4 ForTI chips on each note, but it doesn't and is quite clippy if you don't bypass it like I did in the photo.

Attached... Something to fool around with. 2MB PPEB version only.

PPEB2_2MB_ForTI.zip 396.38 kB · 1 download

Might be better to try emulate the sid blaster instead if possible to allow for better sound effects and music instead of the forti design.

May 16

50 years later and I still don’t really understand what the fuck Sea Monkeys were.

May 16

10 minutes ago, sometimes99er said:
Do not run. Take a guess. How many years would this program run ?
100 x=1
110 x=x+x
120 if x<>x+1 then 110

Would be a lot quicker as it is doubling each time. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024 so I would say about a minute or two at most.

May 15

May 15

48 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

When I do these images, is dumping to .dsk files sufficient, or will I need to provide more detailed dumps?

That should be enough.

May 15

The CC40 uses Radix100 as well, infact the manuals for CC40 go into more detail than the 4a ones

May 15

May 15

22 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

When I was a kid, Leonard Nimoy told me we were heading into an ice age.

We had snow in North Florida in 2018.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Weather here in Canada is slowly shifting seasons. When I was a kid ot always snowed before Halloween. Now it doesn't snow until after New Year's, and March is the coldest winter month instead of January. And infact we end up with more snowfall after it officially turns spring then all the previous official winter months, which pushes the remaining seasons down as well with summer not starting in July but instead September and October being the hottest months.

I got spoiled living in Dominican Republic for ten years there the season is 28c year around with the sun coming up at 7am and setting at 7pm. But the only issue is the rainfall is more compacted to shorter but heavier rainy season with bigger floods and more months of dry weather.

Oceans are about the same not really any increase in height, no less land but the amount of plastic garbage washing up on the shoreline and beaches has increased ten-fold.

May 14

May 14

May 14

May 14

The new crack... smoking fibre optic cables...

https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/crime/fibre-cable-theft-smoking-drugs-nyaope/

May 14

6 minutes ago, HOME AUTOMATION said:

I can see how this could assist in complex-positioning!💑

Though I'm not sure what purpose the microphone serves.

...Oh wait, maybe that's not a microphone.

It does look like a microphone.

Maybe a streaming podcast from bed?

There is one in fact were they do interviews with the host and guest together in big king size bed.

May 14

May 14

45 minutes ago, Tursi said:

ooooh, have I got a fun link for you!

Yeah, I briefly read that back a decade ago but never tried. But looks interesting a glitch to break out of basic

May 13

1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:

God Mode: make the demo run on the 99/4

and only use ti basic and tape! and no 32k! (mini-memory is allowed at least, so you have peek/poke/load and 4k for assembly) only way it would be possible!

May 13

24 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Something else my parents had me do, especially when it was just Dad and me making the trip, is I would navigate. I earned a Cub Scout badge for doing that -- reading the map, plotting our travel, working out ways around back-ups, and such.

no more for badges for that, unless using a GPS counts!

May 13

3 minutes ago, FarmerPotato said:

I took my graph paper in the car. Erased and redrew sprites without ever seeing them on the screen.

for me sitting in the backseat, i could not read anything, i would get motion sickness, front seat was ok, so looking out the window was best for me.

May 13

1 hour ago, Tursi said:

Nice. I got to sit quietly and look out the window. 6 hr drives to and from Vancouver were some of my least enjoyed memories.

Now that I'm old and time is much faster I can do the drive and barely notice it.

i used to play car bingo. i had a board with sliders on it, and when a car pass us by, would try to match the first letter and last two numbers to the spot on bingo card.

then later on when i got a bit order i was the map reader for my day (no gps), and he always got lost.

and finally when i had kids myself in the backseat i installed a gamecube with small lcd screen, the gamecube was great for installation as it ran off 12volt dc natively, so easy to wire in.

May 13

1 hour ago, acadiel said:

For those of you who like this sort of thing; here’s some TI-99 sidecar cartridge pics of the subject cart. 😂

Eagle eyed viewers among us will see that this cart can actually support 24K of EPROMs (3 x 8K - one in DSR space, and two in upper 32K), and TMM2016 2K RAM IC. Along with a 74LS138.

What they were planning on doing with the TMM2016, I have no idea.

If you trace out the PCboard signals and the 138, most likely the ram chip mapped to the 2000 space.

May 12

1 hour ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

Does anyone happen to have a copy of WordPerfect? I'm looking for the GUI version, most likely version 6.x, it came on five or six disks, if I recall correctly.

I found a disk that I was sure I had lost but had instead put in a "safe place" with some personal files. The disk contains the manual I wrote for my "CYA" program nearly 30 years ago. LibreOffice loads the file, but the formatting is wrong, and the graphics & line art are not showing up. Word online simply ignores the file.

here you go: https://archive.org/download/word-perfect-6.0-and-6.0a-for-windows-6.0-6.0a-1994-10-1994-04-english-3.5-1.44-mb

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