palmheads

Ha! Thanks guys! Been a glorious summer here in Christchurch, NZ. Been enjoying not sitting in front of the 'puter (except at work)...got some potentially horrible melanomas from our vicious sun, but hey... ...sorry to go all GoT...winter IS coming... So suspect will get back into my wee project cobbled together with luck, flukes, Computes great assembly language book, ralphb's xdt tools and the help and encouragement of you lot on this great forum!

Argh been so lazy lately - must get back on this!

Would you class Dropzone as a port? Kinda has elements of Jetpac & Defender I guess Mercenary was pretty damn cool!

Amazing stuff! cheers Daryn

Bloody hell! Given there is a really good PDF of it, thats alot of money! No way I'd pay that. Guess someone will though

hahahaaa - ahhh dear old Bottom!

Just realised how awesome this module is. Gonna have to keep a lookout on arcadeshopper I feel! cheers Daryn

Yeah that looked to my untrained eyes to be a bit dicey!

Yeah one of the guys at work had a multimeter - I've also got one since then. Looks like the guy who did this on ebay got the +/- wires mixed up! Mate at work good at soldering so he's gonna switch them for me - will see how that goes. Used mainbyte as our reference http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/minimem/minimem.html

Thanks so much for this info ralphb, will try the local labels out for sure! Fantastic set of tools!

Funny, I use labels everywhere...but did not think of doing this! haha cheers Lee! Daryn

Had an idea to help newbies like me. And this may already be possible... One thing that I get stuck with is figuring out how many bytes each instruction uses. ie ;rotate keys ci r3,90 ;z key - rotate jne $+4 b @rotl ci r3,67 ;c key - rotate jne $+4 b @rotr li r9,0 bl @collsp For the small keyscan routine above, to figure out that I needed to jump $+4, I actually loaded up the LBLA & entering each instruction (as the LBLA compiles each line as entered) it told me how many bytes each instruction took. If it was possibly for the xdt tools to take an .asm file, & from a starting AORG actually output how many bytes each instruction took in 2 columns ie 7D00 lwpi >70b8 7D04 li r0,>0384 7D08 etc etc That might be useful for useless people such as myself! cheers Daryn

Here are a couple of pics Maybe the soldering onto the mainboard?

Bugger! :-( New battery, same problem. Might need some help too diagnose - I'II take the mini memory module apart & attach some pics cheers Daryn

Cheers Stuart, thats good to know the setup should work if the MiniMem etc has a working battery - will buy a new battery today & try tonight. It might be a case of gettng a dodgy MiniMem on eBay as well if the external battery has not been connected up properly. Thanks for your help man, that CART_RAM/O is pretty awesome. cheers Daryn

I actually have another mini memory module which has the exact same behaviour as my external mounted battery one. Am wondering if the nanoPEB does something funky, like doing a CALL INIT everytime it starts or something!? That would nuke what was in the mini memory huh?

Think I might have found the root cause! And yip, was doing the 4. EXIT command you suggest Stuart. Did a small TI-BASIC program SAVE MINIMEM NEW OLD MINIMEM LIST Program still there. Turned console off. OLD MINIMEM Error 57! Reckon I have an issue with my Mini Memory! Which is odd, because my Mini Mem is one with an externally mounted CR2032 lithium battery. I don't know if this is the root cause, but it might have something todo with it.

Its is quite funny how time changes your memories of the past. Take the ZX81 for instance. If my parents had got me that for Christmas, I would have been most upset (I got a 16K ZX Spectrum). However, looking back, the ZX81 despite all its drawbacks was probably THE most important thing to happen to the home computer market. It made the whole computer at home thing achievable for the masses. I look back at the ZX81 now with wayyyy different eyes than I would have back in 1982! Aquarius was still kinda shit cheers Daryn

Hi Stuart Yip, its repeatable for me. Just seems weird that "OLD" works everytime. For the first two tests, yes, I did have to power-off as the green screen made the machine unresponsive. So could be the mini mem battery? Its odd, 'cos when the green screen happens, sometimes I can FCTN-QUIT, other times I need to reboot. Thats funny, 'cos I've done a few tests saving files to it, and it seems to be fine. Tonight I'II try saving a file to it, powering off, then seeing if the file is there afterwards. cheers Daryn

Does anyone out there have a nanoPEB and a mini memory module to help test something for me? Before I start, I have made sure I have re-initialised the mini memory, making sure it is clear. Download the Miscellaneous.zip from Stuart's page & copy to CF card for inserting into nanoPEB http://www.avjd51.dsl.pipex.com/ti/ti.htm I put the DSK image to DSK3. Boot up TI with Mini Memory module, Choose 3. Mini Memory, choose Load and Run: DSK3.CART_RAM/O Then choose option 2 DSK3.MM_LBLA Quit out, then go back into 3. Mini Memory, and choose Run Type "NEW" For me I get a green screen!? Now try this. Choose 3. Mini Memory, choose Load and Run: DSK3.CART_RAM/O Then choose option 2 DSK3.MM_LINES Quit out, then go back into 3. Mini Memory, and choose Run Type "LINES" Again, I get a green screen. Now for the odd bit. Choose 3. Mini Memory, choose Load and Run: DSK3.CART_RAM/O Then choose option 2 DSK3.MM_LBLA Quit out, then go back into 3. Mini Memory, and choose Run Type "OLD" BOOM! I get the Line By Line Assembler prompt! Now of course, following the exact procedure above using JS99'er etc, everything works perfectly. ie "NEW" gets new LBLA starting at 7D00, "LINES" works perfectly etc Anyone have any ideas what might be going wrong? cheers Daryn

Thats a super fab icon! Thanks Rasmus!!!

Pretty cool idea though, hadn't thought of trying that!

Rasmus, have you noticed that the smartphone icon for js99'er seems to have disappeared? If I add bookmark to home screen in android now for js99'er, I get a generic bookmark icon. cheers Daryn

Was just reading this thread again, and had a thought. The JoyTalk couldn't work with a modem, but in theory could you have linked the TI to another computer via RS232 & transferred a file (i.e output only)? Obviously you'd probably had to write your own software todo it (probably modifying the JoyPrint software). Can imagine a scenerio (a kinda pointless scenerio) where if you had written a doco with 'Mini Writer I' and the mini memory and wanted to edit more, you could have transferred it up to a larger computer to continue editing. That would have been quite cool

Thats a good question, I think Entrapment, Enigma & Jailbreak do I'm pretty sure from what I read Defend the Cities II would have, as that like Entrapment was a targeted mini-mem only game. Ksarul I think has summarised Rock Runner well, that one is a bit confusing as there are multiple versions of that game. Bandit I'm not 100% sure about. Funny, when using js99er and a real console with nanoPeb - the 32K is just there! And in fact the loading of these old games need the 32K with tools like CART_RAM/O & the likes reading from DSK & loading into the minimemory ram (in the absense of tape decks & cassettes) cheers Daryn