JonnyBritish Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Today I received an original TI99 in the silver case with black keyboard. All works fine with one exception. The up direction does not work on the joystick port. Wondering if there is an easy fix on this or is it a dead unit. Luckily I have found two beige Ti99/4a's without the 2.2 ROM so good so far, sucks to dump a TI99/4a though because of a joystick port failure on one direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyBritish Posted July 24, 2011 Author Share Posted July 24, 2011 Today I received an original TI99 in the silver case with black keyboard. All works fine with one exception. The up direction does not work on the joystick port. Wondering if there is an easy fix on this or is it a dead unit. Luckily I have found two beige Ti99/4a's without the 2.2 ROM so good so far, sucks to dump a TI99/4a though because of a joystick port failure on one direction. Always the way. You post a question then find the answer...of course as a TI99/4a newbie I did not realise having alpha lock on would stop the up on the joystick working. Oh well now i have a totally working and shiny silver and black 4a :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Hehe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 There is a quick and semi-easy hack involving a single cut trace and a single diode which allows the ALPHA LOCK to be engaged without interfering with the joystick. Programs that detect the ALPHA LOCK state cannot tell if you have this hack in place or not and will warn you, anyway. I have a few photos of this hack done on one of the several keyboards used in the TI, the original project is from http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/console/alpha_lock.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Depending on your type of keyboard you may not need to cut anything. My original keyboard conveniently had a wire jumper in the exact location the diode needed to go (see photos). On another console I have there was also a wire jumper but it was half buried under the switches. I removed all the solder and pulled the wire jumper with needle nose pliers, then soldered the diode in on the bottom; but I didn't have to cut any traces or otherwise modify the board. One last style of keyboard I have does not have any wire jumpers at all, so hacking up traces would be the only choice. There seem to be so many variations of the keyboard, so check your options before you start cutting. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 Ha, I was having this exact problem just now, after taking my TI-99/4A out of storage. I was convinced something had gone bad and was about ready to post a thread asking for help. A good day to be grateful for AtariAge (and Google). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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