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TI Related -- Ebay / Heads Up Notice


Omega-TI

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You definitely cannot do it for the price unless you spend a good amount of time looking online for the parts, but you can build one of these cables. Easily of TI followed the RS232 specifications, with a little meandering if not. I have built one for my SparcStation 20.

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You definitely cannot do it for the price unless you spend a good amount of time looking online for the parts, but you can build one of these cables. Easily of TI followed the RS232 specifications, with a little meandering if not. I have built one for my SparcStation 20.

 

You got that right! The connectors, the cable, the shipping expense, not to mention the time and effort involved in building it. I figure the reason the price is that low is because their is little to no demand for them. I got the second to last one. One is still available, and now that people know, I figure some smart person will scarf it before it's too late.

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On the red cartridges, they were early release ScottForesman cartridges--nothing special about them except for the case/label combinations. They were not the only things in that lot that were different: two of the other SF cartridges had both the TI and SF logos on an SF-release cartridge (look at the Numeration 2 cartrige right next to the red-case Addition and Subtraction 2 and the Red-Letter label for the Addition and Subtraction 2 in a black case in the middle of the other column of cartridges). All three of the red cases have similar logos.

 

What makes the red cases special: none of the colored-case cartridges from ScottForesman are very common, so for someone who is a bit of a completist cartridge collector, they are a necessary component to the collection. Most of them were sold in really nice color boxes or flip-cases (one or the other, I've never seen both variants for a single cartridge) along with a teacher's version of the color manuals. I have a small number of them, as well as about half of the ScottForesman School Management modules. I suspect most of the School Management modules I don't have are permanently lost to the community (I know of people with one or two of the titles I don't have, but the remaining five haven't turned up anywhere that I've seen). Note also that the color boxes/flip cases and teacher's manuals are much harder to find than the cartridges are, and that not all cartridges from those boxes were color--some were black cases with red labels, like the Addition and Subtraction 2 mentioned above, which almost certainly came from a color box (and not one of the somewhat later black boxes that were apparently their consumer release boxes).

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Unfortunately, I was the underbidder on that SF cartridge auction too--they guy who won is about the only collector out there who is willing to pay more than I am for the really HTF cartridges missing from our collections. . .we need to find him and get him to join the forums sometime, as he does have some really unique items in his collection now.

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Unfortunately, I was the underbidder on that SF cartridge auction too--they guy who won is about the only collector out there who is willing to pay more than I am for the really HTF cartridges missing from our collections. . .we need to find him and get him to join the forums sometime, as he does have some really unique items in his collection now.

 

That is a lot of dosh. Yeah, it would be nice to get this person involved. At least to show off what he has as it seems a shame to hoard this stuff without doing so, or at least a catalog. I noticed the TI/SF logo oddity as well -- very interesting!

 

I wonder how many schools used the school management software and still have them around in a basement somewhere.

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I have literally the last set that SF sold, according to the letter/bill of sale for mine--and they apologized that they could no longer supply a complete set, as the ones in the package were the last copies they had (the buyer had asked for a complete set, but they were only able to partially fill the order, thus the letter and apology). I hold out hope that the others will turn up in a school basement somewhere, but the fact that the only ones that do show up when new copies are found are within the group that is already known speaks volumes--and says they may never turn up. Unfortunately! :(

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... I have a small number of them, as well as about half of the ScottForesman School Management modules. I suspect most of the School Management modules I don't have are permanently lost to the community (I know of people with one or two of the titles I don't have, but the remaining five haven't turned up anywhere that I've seen)...

Interesting that you say this, because although all the class cartridges are available for MESS, I've not found any of the required disks that go along with them, so I think they really are lost :(.

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I have the disks for the eight SF management modules I have (I have complete copies of each of them with the manuals and binders), and the documentation/binder for a ninth cartridge (and I've seen GRAM files of that one, so I know there's at least one of them out there). As already noted, I know of five or six collectors with partial sets, and almost all of them are subsets of the group I have.

 

One note on the disks, except for the Mathematics Courseware library, most of them just require a specific file to be on the disk as the seed for the stored data. Very easy to replicate if you know what the file is supposed to contain (I should probably dig into each of mine and record the data, now that I finally have an archival disk imaging device).

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I just went looking ar the MESS RPKs. The only two they have that I don't are Class Data Recorder (I have the manual/binder for this one) and Payroll Assistant. Both still exist physically, as I know of copies in at least one collection. The five that are not known to be in collector hands are:

 

30419 Student Data Recorder

30422 Test Scorer

30424 Mark Reporter

30425 Scheduling Assistant

30432 Data Analyzer

 

I hope this helps--and more importantly, I hope it turns up one or more of the missing modules!

 

 

 

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If one does not exist already, or is incomplete, it might be a good idea to document the whole package as completely as possible. I am very curious about the whole school management system. It seems really cool!

Totally agree - it does seem cool! I wanted to check it out immediately once I got MESS going a few months back, but then the semester got going and I didn't have time look at it again until recently.

 

Ksarul, could you find out what that file type is and what it's name is supposed to be? Thanks in advance! :D

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Unfortunately, I was the underbidder on that SF cartridge auction too--they guy who won is about the only collector out there who is willing to pay more than I am for the really HTF cartridges missing from our collections. . .we need to find him and get him to join the forums sometime, as he does have some really unique items in his collection now.

Does anyone know who exactly it is?

 

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I had a conversation with him using the eBay messaging system back in June, and pointed him here and to the Yahoo! group. He said he is on the Yahoo! group, though mostly as a lurker I figure he'll let us know when he's ready to participate actively in the community (and as I don't have permission to release his name, I figure it would not be a good idea to do so here, especially since he didn't respond to any of the threads on the Yahoo! group about crazy eBay prices this summer).

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Here is a good read by Bill Gaskill about the Scott-Foresman School Management Applications:

 

ftp://whtech.com/articles/limanews/SFSMA.TXT

 

There are a number of names mentioned in the article, and I found that Bryan Ropollo was asking about building his collection back in 2000.

 

Here is a full advertisement for the SMA and various TI modules and diskettes, including the Apple version of the SMA and SF's Church Management Applications (Apple, only.)

 

ftp://kirklanduncorked.com/magazines/advertisements/sf/adsf.pdf

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The ad actually answers the question on the missing SF Management modules--they most likely never made it into production. Each of the five missing modules is prefixed by an asterisk to denote that they are still in preparation. As the ad came out right in the middle of the winding-down process for their TI series, it is likely they never got around to finishing them. That is both good and bad news: it means that I only need two modules and one set of manuals to complete my set--but it also means that there is very little possibility of a prototype for any of the other five turning up, as SF later did a massive clearing/destruction of their unsold stock (as documented in an article I read on the subject many years ago--someone saw the dumpster full of modules/books but was unable to rescue anything before the trash truck came and mangled them beyond repair in its crusher).

 

Many thanks for the heads-up on that one! I saw a copy of that ad many years ago, but that was long before I started hunting the SF Management stuff, so I didn't remember the list of titles that were still in preparation at the end. At least I can use my new 512K GROM cartridge to make functional copies of the two I'm missing from the GRAM files so that I can have a virtual complete set until I find two originals! :)

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The gray keyboards are pretty much of a crapshoot now anyway--you are often much better off with one of the really old black ones with the sticky keys (just open them up and carefully clean the contact fingers and they work good as new). The gray ones have membrane contacts that crack and wear out much more quickly than the metal fingers do. . .

 

I always keep some cotton swabs and a vial of denatured alcohol handy for sticky keys (the ones that either fail to strike or that strike multiple times with a single keypress).

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