Switch1995

@Duewester Thanks for the heads-up. Currently running 3B, but good to know for down the road.

Good advice. Thanks!

Sorry for the confusion. I guess what I mean by "traditional" is what the books I've been reading from the early 80's converge on. Example: I'm just weighing the pros/cons of sticking with the "old" guidance for a while until I get my legs under me.

Yeah, there is a "collector" value as well...

I've got a physical copy on order with @arcadeshopper, looking forward to playing around with it.

I've been reading/studying a ton of ASSM over the past couple of months. I feel like I'm ready to start simple programming. Now the question is: to ISR/have access to standard libraries or no-ISR/write your own routines? Looking at the benchmarking thread: Language First Pass Optimized GCC 15 sec 5 sec Assembly 17 sec 5 sec Machine Forth 17 sec 7 sec Camel99 (DTC) 43.2 sec 25 sec TurboForth 48 sec 29 sec Camel99 (ITC) 48 sec 28 sec Compiled XB 51 sec none yet FbForth 70 sec 26 sec GPL 80 sec none yet ABASIC 490 sec none yet XB 2000 sec none yet UCSD Pascal 7300 sec 263 sec The difference in performance improvement of going from XB to "traditional" Assembly or XB to optimized Assembly is negligible (but the improvement from traditional ASSM to optimized is 300%, so that makes this a tough decision). I'm leaning towards sticking with the traditional structure. I think that will be easier to debug once my skill develops and programs get longer. Decisions... Decisions....

I purchased these three items on EBay to get my TIPI PEB set up the way I like it: nylon standoffs: https://www.ebay.com/itm/233655389241?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=F-5RbtsPRzi&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=QfU6nnIiRby&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY 3ft braided cord to power PI: https://www.ebay.com/itm/114634390195?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=pInRSGm0ToK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=QfU6nnIiRby&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY power strip with four USB power ports: https://www.ebay.com/itm/333842426752?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=VQja2x6lQ4y&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=QfU6nnIiRby&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Congratulations on the release! Looking forward to checking it out.

Taking the computer completely apart, putting it back together and then looking at your work table and seeing the 90 deg cartridge port extender sitting there….

Wow! That's all I need to hear. This might have been the shortest time a project was checked off my list

That might be an interesting little product by itself. Are the 4-pin "molex" inputs to the motherboard standard across the many "flavors" of the 4/4A? Maybe the housing for the external socket could be orange as a "warning" for future users. https://www.cablesforless.com/custom-cables/ Also, is the external plug a standard that could be communicated to a service like I link above?

Any of the "regulars" on here using this?: https://www.keelog.com/ti-99-4a-psu-modern-gray-au-replacement-ti-99-4a-power-supply-au-plug/

Just to close the loop on this thread in case it is ever searched down the road: The three TI PIO to Centronics cables received from IEC were of very high quality. They make them to order and ship. The Royal Alpha 2015, however, is currently in a landfill. After about 5 power-on cycles it began to smoke. At that point, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze (for me). This was more a little hobby side-bar than a need for a printer.

SteveB’s TiCoded is my go to for character definition tools: http://lizardware.de/

From XB256: CALL LINK(“RUNL1”,A$) RUNL1 is used to run an XB256 program from a running program. It is similar to CALL LINK(“RUN”) but there is a major difference. After it loads the program it runs line #1, but without doing a prescan or resetting any of the variables of the calling program. By chaining programs together with RUNL1 you can create a very long XB256 program, with instant start up of the chained programs. See page 26 for more information. I am tempted to just pull the ejection handle on SAMS and go this route using XB256 programs loaded from TIPI....

You can say that again!! Haha, no worries. I'll keep plugging away at the documentation and will figure it out.

Thanks, Ksarul. Maybe I can beg @RXB Rich to show what my 3 little programs here would look like in RXB. I did find his source code for "In The Dark", but it was prior to his rewrite of CALL AMSxxx to CALL SAMS.

Hopefully the only chips they are selling them are from unsold copies of "Hustle"

Hoping someone could point me in the right direction here. Can XB programmers use SAMS to pass program control using line numbers? Here is a example program to demonstrate what I'm asking: *Program 1 of 3 10 CALL CLEAR 20 A=10 30 CALL CHAR(96,"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF") 40 CALL CHAR(97,"F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0") 50 ***bank programs 2 and 3 into SAMS*** 60 DISPLAY AT(10,1):"PRESS 1 OR 2" 70 CALL KEY(0,K,S)::IF S<>1 THEN 70 80 IF K=49 THEN 100 90 IF K=50 THEN 130 100 ***load program 2 from SAMS*** 110 GOSUB 9000 120 GOTO 70 130 ***load program 3 from SAMS*** 140 GOSUB 9000 150 GOTO 70 *Program 2 of 3 9000 CALL HCHAR(96,12,16) 9010 A=A+1 9020 DISPLAY AT(18,16):A 9030 RETURN *Program 3 of 3 9000 CALL HCHAR(97,12,16) 9010 A=A+1 9020 DISPLAY AT(18,16):A 9030 RETURN The follow-up question, if yes, is what is the special sauce to replace the *** lines in the code above to make it work? Thanks!

Raw pork is edible? That’s a new one for me. On deployment I once saw some Japanese sailors eating raw shrimp. I guess it all comes down to cleanliness of the butcher/ kitchen.

I needed a brain-break from studying GPL and ASSM, so I put together this little program for fun. I'm going to put $100 on whatever team the TI-99/4A console BASIC tells me to this year. Check back on this thread in February. I ran this model with last year's data. How to interpret the results? Given two pieces of data for each of the two teams in the Superbowl (Vegas line before the game and "actual" line after the game for the 20 games preceding the Superbowl), this program runs a simple linear regression model on it. The model said given a line of -4.5, the predicted post-game line would be -4.79 for the Rams. The model would suggest betting the Rams, but only offers 0.29 points of "proposition value" above the existing line. Vegas thinks the Rams will win by a little more than 4 points and our model agrees. The model said given a line of +4.5, the predicted post-game line would be -3.91 for the Bengals. Vegas thinks that the Bengals will lose by a little more than 4 points, but out model suggest they will win by almost 4 points. There is 8.41 points of "proposition value" above the existing line. So, listening to our trusty console BASIC, we would bet the Bengals. And... We would have won last year. The Bengals ended up losing by 3 points....they would have covered the spread of 4.5. P.S. I know the Statistics Command Module has linear regression, but I would have missed out on programming it by hand SUPERBOWL.txt

Very cool non aircraft/spacecraft vertical shooter. Reminds me of Truxton on Genesis

Contra is a classic

I built my Niece a gaming rig this Summer. She can’t understand why I “choose” to use an antique computer for myself. Haha

$1 in 1980 is worth $3.59 today. $1100 is ~$4000. That was a really fancy calculator!!