xabin

Okay, we found an old analog TV, and a balun to plug it in. Tried it with both cables, got black screen, no sound. We're at a loss, now, as to what's wrong,

Ours say TV, so...we'll just have to see.

There's something wrong with the TI itself. Great. I'll be in town, tomorrow, and I'll be passing by Walmart, so I can pick up a balun of the type you mentioned, if they have one. If not, there's a Lowes next door, so we can try that. Fortunately, the TV does have a coaxil port, just don't know which setting on the thing we'd need to put it on to test it out (probably cable).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008N29OSG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Also, this is the cable I had bought. It has 2 reviews on it that mention it being used for TI-99/4a computers, and both said they work well, so...

We do have the RF modulator, but not any screen that can take them. The screen we have is a flatscreen TV with HDMI and composite inputs, an old 28" Visio. Just tried my boyfriend's PS2 with composite on the TV, and it still works, so the RCA ports are fine.

Fortunately, my boyfriend's dad messes around with electronics as a hobby (mainly CB radios), so he has a few multimeters he can bring over for the mapping. We can do that tomorrow. That's alright, I'm not sure how much it would cost me to have you make it, and I'd like to test to make sure the one I paid for is the issue, first, before we go ahead with getting another one.

I don't want to shell out more for another AV cable, but I guess it can't be helped. I found one on Etsy that I can get for $15, and it's specifically listed for TI-99, so I hope it works out.

We'll be getting the means to open the computer tomorrow, so I'll have close-up photos of the insides then. Hopefully, you guys will be able to help us out. The thing that bothers me is that there's no sound when the cable is plugged in to accompany the black screen that appears, like the other examples of this issue I've seen on here and other sites. Is that significant?

I know of that. We've tried the white into yellow, and got no signal. only the yellow one changes the signal, and it's changed to a black screen. Believe me, once we get the screwdrivers needed to dismantle it, we'll take pictures of the insides for you guys to look over.

We don't have access to a screwdriver long enough to get to the deep screws on it, right now, and our car is in the shop, but his dad works on electronics, so when he gets the chance, we can ask him to try and find an old CRT TV for us and bring his tool kit so we can disassemble it and take pictures.

We tried every combination. The best we can get is that Yellow in the Yellow jack gives us a black screen, and sometimes with it and the black one plugged into the white or red jacks gives a high-pitched whine or repeated beeping sound. It doesn't do it all the time, though, with the sounds.

Well, it was mostly the basics that he learned from the guy, like looking for cracks in circuits, how to clean off rust and debris, etc. Plus, as far as I know, he hasn't tackled a TI, yet, so we didn't have much in the way of his videos to work with. We did find a diagram for how to dismantle it for cleaning and repair, though.

Thanks. It's his old TI that he had as a kid; apparently, he was programming on it when he was 3, so he has very fond memories of it. He's got several cartridges for it and the speech synthesizer that we want to test, as well. We'll see about getting an old CRT TV/Monitor that we can plug it into; for the most part, the instances I've read of a black screen coming from it also accompanies a loud beeping sound, and there isn't that here, so I'm not sure if that makes a difference. It was pretty beat up and weathered (been in a barn for years), but thanks to watching the 8-Bit Guy restore stuff on Youtube, my boyfriend figured out how to dismantle the thing and clean up the rust on it. We dunno if any of the contacts are broken on it, but it doesn't look like it, so...

We don't have the equipment, here, to do that, but I've tested multiple configurations. The yellow line gives the black screen, the white and/or red ones gives us audio (either/or, we're still not sure which), and the black one gives us sometimes a lighter blue screen without a "no signal" indicator, and sometimes graphical corruption. Still no beeps at all. EDIT: I checked the two reviews for the cable on Amazon that mention using it for the TI-99/4A, and one said that the yellow was composite video and the black was the mono audio. So I tried that combination, and still got nothing but a black screen.

I recently got a 5-pin, 4-line composite cable for my boyfriend to test his TI-99/4a from his childhood that he tried cleaning up. We get a blank screen when booting it up, no beep or other sounds, and we don't know what needs to be cleaned or fixed. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.