[CC-40 overlays other than the pack-in (BASIC) overlay]

And for the sake of what more completeness may be had, the default overlay:

 

[TI Related -- Ebay / Heads Up Notice]

CC-40 going really cheap.  Some damage to the right side of the display panel, but appears to be functioning (and no missing pixel columns apparent in the remainder). 

 

Could be of interest to someone on a budget who doesn't have one. 

[CC-40 overlays other than the pack-in (BASIC) overlay]

Nice!  Thanks a lot.  The explanation of the function of the six main general purpose software-controlled indicators is particularly helpful. 

[Where on the Earth is Lucia Cupertino?]

E.T.'s Adventure at Sea also has characteristics in common with this genre.  Go to various locations around the world, and collect clues to hone in on the location of E.T.'s ship. 

[CC-40 overlays other than the pack-in (BASIC) overlay]

Does anyone have images of, or otherwise does anyone possess an original for, overlays for the other CC-40 software products produced by TI.  Most importantly, Pascal, Memo Processor, and (least likely) Editor/Assembler?

 

If not, in the case of Memo Processor, Pascal, and E/A, it should be possible to reconstruct them (more or less) from the contents of the manuals and user guides alone, since in each of these cases, the FN key combinations can be found somewhere in their documentation.  And in the case of Memo Processor, a (poor quality, monochrome, but still, very helpful) image of the overlay is even provided.

 

But naturally, an image of the overlay itself would be desirable, for the purpose of reproduction or use.  Even just for emulator users. 

 

Anyone have any?

[Favourite early era (1979-1981) game cartridge]

Finally finished the video (in the works for a few weeks now) which was the reason I ended up asking this question.  On the 10 top TI-99/4A release era classics for the system, which (as such) hit the market before 1982:

 

 

Honourable mentions for me, which fall outside my top 10: Video Games 1, A-MAZE-ING, Mind Challengers/Video Games 2

[Multifile games]

An alternative approach in any (TI) BASIC incidentally would be to read the disk's file index and check whether the file's there, before proceeding to try to open it.  However, this would be slightly more involved than the ON ERROR method. 

 

The original scenario mentioned here (where all patterns are loaded by one program file and the rest of the program is in another file) is not as usefully achievable in TI BASIC, incidentally, since RUN can't pass control to a new program, and only the patterns from 128 to 159 are preserved on return to the immediate mode.  Now, that is a chunk of custom patterns you have available to redefine permanently (until reboot).  But it's not as many as one might like, in this scenario.

 

The situation is better on the TI-99/4.  Since patterns from 96 to 159 are preserved in immediate mode.  So that's a pretty large supply of "persistent" patterns. 

 

The upshot of all this being of course that it makes a lot more sense to load patterns from a dedicated pattern file, in TI BASIC, if you're using a disk. 

 

 

[Multifile games]

5 hours ago, Vorticon said:

Never thought of that before. Great way to do load tracking! Definitely something I'm going to use in the future.

 

Further to this, here is an ON ERROR approach which 

1) Tries to find a DV80 called MYFILE on DSK0 through DSK5

2) If that fails, prompts the user for the disk name and tries that

3) If that fails, prints "DISK NOT FOUND" and terminates.

 

10 ON ERROR 40
20 OPEN #1:"DSK"&STR$(W)&".MYFILE",INPUT
30 GOTO 120
40 W=W+1
50 IF W<6 THEN 10
60 INPUT "DISK NAME? (E.G. DSK9):":DSK$
70 ON ERROR 90
80 GOTO 110
90 PRINT "DISK NOT FOUND"
100 STOP
110 OPEN #1:DSK$&".MYFILE",INPUT
120 ON ERROR STOP
130 PRINT "LOADING..."
REM WHATEVER WE DO WITH THE FILE GOES HERE

 

Of course, file type can be whatever, but it is imperative that the file be explicitly opened as INPUT, since if the open mode is not specified, an absent file will simply be created, and no error will be generated.

 

[Multifile games]

Presuming this is in an XB context (since this doesn't really work in a TI BASIC context), you could have an ON ERROR handler which tries DSK1.MYFILE, DSK2.MYFILE, and DSK3.MYFILE in turn until one of them works.  Then, if *none* of them work, angrily prompts the user for the disk name.

[My first cartridge.]

In my case, this does not start successfully on a real iron TI-99/4A via FinalGROM (w/ SAMS+TIPI).  Listed correctly and menu option appears correctly as MUSIC VALUES, but selection results in a sustained beep on cyan screen. 

 

On unexpanded (likewise real iron) TI-99/4, however, the menu option does not appear at all (i.e., 2 is Equation Calculator, 3 does not exist). 

[Hell's Halls - 16K TI BASIC Game - Completion and Physical Release]

4 hours ago, arcadeshopper said:

I'm waiting anxiously for the cc-40 release of hell's hall

 

 

Well, I do want to do something worthwhile in the CC-40 game development realm, so if I can figure out a Hell's Halls tie-in for it, that would definitely be neat. 

 

Probably shared as a type-in spread, given the nature of the platform.  Also just to be sadistic (given the nature of the platform). 

 

[Advanced TI Speech]

Neat.  Looks like, indeed, it comes with TMS5220 reflection coefficient values (K values) in source, and these would consequently need to be modified for the sake of optimal use with our TMS5200.  Just as previously, with BlueWizard.  But it's great to have another tool. 

[Hell's Halls - 16K TI BASIC Game - Completion and Physical Release]

21 hours ago, jetset said:

FINALLY just got to order my copy! Can't Wait!!!

I can only say I'm delighted that folks are still discovering it

 

Provides me a motivation to keep working hard on the sequel, which hopefully I'll have ready some time later this year:

 

 

 

[TI Related -- Ebay / Heads Up Notice]

TI-99/4 and Disk Controller sidecar and RS-232 sidecar and external disk and PEB up for auction here.

 

 

So that should be interesting. 

[Recording a video signal]

North American TI-99/4As output NTSC composite video.  The VDP doesn't allow for much (or really any) funny business, that tends to make recording some systems difficult (like weird VBLANK timing or use of artifact colours).  So almost any solution for recording NTSC video will work to the extent of its abilities, and the answer to the question of which is right for you doesn't really have anything to do with the TI-99/4A itself (which can just be regarded as "generic thing that outputs NTSC video") and more so has to do with your recording process and budget and expectations, etc. 

 

You could buy a $10 USB capture device and it would more or less do the job, or at the other extreme you could spend anywhere up to $1000ish on a bunch of fancy pants signal conversion and capture hardware and for various complicated reasons, it would also do the job, but while satisfying various parameters and qualitative considerations which may or may not be relevant to your purposes. 

 

You really might want to just try a dirt cheap USB composite capture dongle and see whether it satisfies your purposes, given it seems like you're starting with no particular criteria. 

[Extended Basic]

And here are some videos on the subject (usually about 20 minutes each), in case you find that a helpful instructive medium:

- Compiled BASIC - The Next TI-99/4A Frontier (XBGDP, XB256)

- The Missing Link (TML)

- XB GEM (T40XB, T80XB, TMLGA)

 

 

[Chat GPT]

Now the question is, can it be convinced to write a TI BASIC game.  Understanding that TI BASIC and TI-BASIC are unrelated dialects, and so it must attend to this distinction. 

[Favourite early era (1979-1981) game cartridge]

  

4 hours ago, sometimes99er said:

I voted, but where is Munch Man !? 😕
 

Munch Man did not come out in the 1979-1981 era.  It debuted its disk version at Winter CES 1982 with its announced commercial availability being for March 1982. 

 

What I was aiming for with the 1979-1981 window here was really the titles that were already there for the TI-99/4A's first Christmas.  The "release titles" if you will. Though a few of these (Video Chess, Football, the Gamevision titles) were straightforwardly 99/4 release titles as well. And several released in the interim.  While TI Invaders, Car Wars, and Tombstone City are kind of the odd ones out, in that they debuted before 1982, but after the 99/4A had fully replaced the 99/4.

[Favourite early era (1979-1981) game cartridge]

7 minutes ago, unhuman said:

I put Football.  The only game my father and I could play together.

Nice to see some love for multiplayer games in this sort of way I suppose.  I feel like certain games in the TI-99 library, otherwise including Beyond Parsec, Black Hole and Meteor Belt (off the top of my head), have largely been dismissed out of hand for most of TI-99 history mainly just because without two players, they're largely pointless, and most 99ers did not have a second player most of the time. 

[Favourite early era (1979-1981) game cartridge]

I've added the major (mainly Gamevision) omissions, so everyone can vote for whatever they like, instead of just whatever I think is worth voting for. 

 

But heck, if I went with my gut on this one, the list would read 

 

1) TI Invaders

2) Oops, my finger slipped and I clicked the wrong button

 

So I've got to leave my bias behind, here, clearly. 

 

[Favourite early era (1979-1981) game cartridge]

TI-99 games really did some maturing in the 99/4A era.  But what's your favourite from the first cohort, that were there for its debut?

[Recollections from Donn Granros on the creation of Legends and Legends II]

Donn Granros, author of Old Dark Caves, Legends, and Legends 2 recently responded to a retrospective and playthrough video I did a while back on Legends, and in a series of replies, was forthcoming with some great anecdotes on how these games came to be.  Of principle interest, I would say, are these comments on the backstory of Legends:

 

Quote

Legends had a funny history.. Without taking up too much print I was divorced and became interested in computers settling for the TI. I loved (still love rpgs) and the selection for the TI except for Tunnels of Doom was pretty lame. Too many folks trying to map out 3D hallways with zero graphics to look at. I was aware and played Phantasie for the C64.  I felt that I could design similar graphics for the TI using character mapping for the maps portion and sprites for the rest. This enabled the game to load screens and save games fairly quickly. Part of the power of Legends is it's TMS9900 Assembly language core  The programs are accessed in extended basic through subroutine calls to the Assembly language portion.. Ed was much better than I with Assembly language and I did most of the storyline and all the graphics. This was pretty optimistic  for me as I had only been programming for a little over a year but it was a pretty intense year in terms of learning for me. I am fascinated by the time devoted to going through this program. I had always hoped that folks would fiddle around with the Extended basic parts and maybe rewrite the program maybe improve things.. If there was a really frustrating part of the program for me it was that I had developed a learning/ branching system. This assigned  intelligence values to the characters and a branching story based on player actions.. It didn't take a huge a amount of code to implement but the space on disk or in memory just wasn't there. That bothered me but so it was.

 

I think of Legends 1 and 2. Legends 1 was the better developed. By the time of Legends 2 I had remarried and we moved up to Elk River. I was writing the code in our unheated basement wearing a winter coat and boots. My new and thankfully current wife Vicki was tolerant but thinking that being recently married I should spend more time with family and less chasing imaginary adventures on a computer system that was obsolete. I finished Legends 2 as best I could and moved on. Over time I ended up in charge of IT and software implementation for the company I was with for many years. Ed and I made so little money on Legends 1 & 2 that is was almost a joke. But there was always a sense of accomplishment and we learned skills along the way and now that some folks are still finding something of interest still is pretty slick... Me, I am 75 and retired. My wife is happy to have her own personal IT department and I want back to being an artist which is how I got into the whole thing to start with.  I still like Wizardry and the like. I sometimes play Halo and Wiz7. I am not trying to sell anything, just an FYI, but a lot of my artwork is not in the computer space any more but rather in drawings and oil paintings at donngranros.com. Donn Granros 01/18/2023

 

Always great to unexpectedly hear back from one of the developers from back in the day. 

 

 

[What "must have" accessories do you recommend for a new user to the TI99/4A platform in 2023?]

49 minutes ago, RockLobster said:

 

Finally, what's a good practical intro read / video to bring a new 2023 user up to speed w/o the full blown history of the platform?

 

This video is from a year ago, but it's still an accurate account of the key TI-99 upgrades in the present day (according to me). 

 

[Old TI BASIC programs from back in the cassette days]

Very nifty (and ambitious) BASIC game indeed!

[Rotated JS99er "Space Invaders"]

Interesting idea for overcoming the sprite limit. 

 

So much more would be possible, for a "horizontal" TI-99 shooter, which just achieves that horizontality via rotation. 

 

"Into the screen" shooters (Buck Rogers, Moonsweeper) are another genre which could benefit from this.  Since, despite being more or less "vertical", due to a vertically compressed playfield, their design tends to inherently result in a lot of enemies accumulating on or around the same scanlines.  And rotation would greatly mitigate this.