HackMac Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) Hello TIer! I recently look for TI-99/4A schematics and found the usual material on WHTech FTP-Server. But these schematic diagrams are not very useful. They contain errors, are badly readable and you can't do nothing else than watching them. Unfortunately I can't find any digitally captured schematics, so I started to make some new by myself. The first schematic I redraw was the one of the TI console. I took this original as a template. Currently this schematic could contain more errors than the original, because I can't decipher all the small printed and unsharp displayed values and reference numbers of the components correctly. But it should be possible to generate or design a new PCB from it. With this work I also try to separate some function blocks into its own schematic sheets. So the schematics for the console is split into multiple files: CPU Sound Video Keyboard (with Joystick and cassette port) RAM/ROM 8 to 16 bit switch, which generates the A15 GROM logic I/O Ports internal address decoding My work is published in a new repository on the well known git hoster bitbucket. All schematics are (and should be) created with the KiCad EDA, a cross platform and Open Source Electronics Design Automation Suite. I hope here are some people who are willing to support this activity. Greetings! Edited October 10, 2015 by HackMac 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) Nice Idea have a specific Repository, i am scanning for some Schematics i have in A3 Big Format, the quality is good but is not complete readable, what you think ? [(attachment changed with another, see the post n.#6 below please)] I Have other Tables of these all in A3 of the same Quality, think you they are different from the standard ones we have in whtech ? Edited October 10, 2015 by ti99iuc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Is that Eagle PCB files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted October 10, 2015 Author Share Posted October 10, 2015 (edited) No, I don't use Eagle. I've just edited my first post and add the information for that I use KiCad. But at the home page of the schematics repository, I already mentioned that. Edited October 10, 2015 by HackMac 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted October 10, 2015 Author Share Posted October 10, 2015 (edited) Nice Idea have a specific Repository, i am scanning for some Schematics i have in A3 Big Format, the quality is good but is not complete readable, what you think ? This is a real good source! You can notice every fiber of the paper. But the quality is also not the best, but much better than those of my sources. We can try to merge the different sources to get best results. I Have other Tables of these all in A3 of the same Quality, think you they are different from the standard ones we have in whtech ? It would be fine if you can publish your scanned sheets. Perhaps you can play around with the parameters (brightness, sharpness, saturation, etc.) of the scanner to optimize the results? Do you have other sheets of TI related schematics? My goal is that we have a repository with digitized schematics, so we can edit them to correct errors and do some other enhancements. We can make branches so we can work on a true 16 bit machine or with an other branch we can realize the ultimative dream machine, or we can build schematics where the F18a is natively integrated, for example. I just saw that this picture you post on dropbox is scanned and stored with color informations and therefore about 10 MB big. You can optimize the size by reducing the RGB color to grayscale/monochrome color and cut off the edges/frame. With a black and white format we could loss too much on quality, I think. Thanks for your constructive support! Edited October 10, 2015 by HackMac 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 (edited) This is a real good source! [...] I just saw that this picture you post on dropbox is scanned and stored with color informations and therefore about 10 MB big. You can optimize the size by reducing the RGB color to monochrome color and cut the edges/frame. With a black and white format we could loss too much on quality, I think. Thanks for your constructive support! Nice you like anyway the source, i will very happy to support your project with mines docs. me too looking for a definitive Schematics of the TI-99 and other hardware. in the forum of my website some users worked on a PHA2037 (SCART RGB) schemes, i can send you the final (beta) versione done with kicad of that project if you interested in it. also, i worked on the scans i already done and following your suggestion i obtained a more little files, but anyway some of the details on my original A3 sheets are not readable at all because a bad quality of the source page. Schemes A3 part 1.zip this is a zip file containing all the pages of the first bunch A3 Scans. Generic HandMade Schematics.zip These is a spare hadmade scan for a schematic that i do not understand what it is. Schemes A3 Part 2 (in working).zip I started to scan others A3 sheets schemes i found in another folder. i will update this file when finished (i can't attach a .TIFF files, so i zipped it, please decompress to see the images) Edited October 10, 2015 by ti99iuc 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted October 10, 2015 Author Share Posted October 10, 2015 (edited) I'll be happy if you or your forum members spends your work for the collection at bitbucket! They can use git to 'upload' their stuff themselves, if they want to do. They can develop their schemata with the help of git, because it is a source and version control system. Are you able to create on such schematics too? I know, that the quality of your original sheets are not so good and thats the reason for the quality of your results. But your scans are so good, that you can see the structure of the paper sheet. P.S. I can't download the ZIP file. The file is missing... Edited October 10, 2015 by HackMac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 (edited) I'll be happy if you or your forum members spends your work for the collection at bitbucket! They can use git to 'upload' their stuff themselves, if they want to do. They can develop their schemata with the help of git, because it is a source and version control system. Are you able to create on such schematics too? I know, that the quality of your original sheets are not so good and thats the reason for the quality of your results. But your scans are so good, that you can see the structure of the paper sheet. P.S. I can't download the ZIP file. The file is missing... I Updated the Post n.#6, please check now @HackMac i am very busy to already updating my TI99 website so i have not the time to work on bitbucket, and users of my forums worked for this project so much time ago (about 2 years) so no one done others at the moment... i am not me able to create schematics in KiCad i just collected lot of schematics i found time to time for the TI99 in my project were to collect scansion of all the schematics in my DB on the Website, so i will build a section there anyway. Edited October 10, 2015 by ti99iuc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 No, I don't use Eagle. I've just edited my first post and add the information for that I use KiCad. But at the home page of the schematics repository, I already mentioned that. Hi, is it possible to post these files here in this thread ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted November 7, 2015 Author Share Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) Hi, is it possible to post these files here in this thread ? Yes, but why should I do this? Anybody can clone these files with git from the original location and anybody can/should submit changes to the repository. You can clone the repository while typing following command (after installing git client on your whatever-OS) in your command line interface: git clone https://bitbucket.org/hackmac/ti-schematics.git Or, if you like to use a GUI, you can use SourceTree or other to work with the repository. An alternative way to get these files is to download the whole compressed repository as a zip file. Please have a look at the downloads site. When you click there on the Branches tab, you can choose a specific branch to download (there are various compression formats for each branch). Currently the master branch is the only one you can see there. These compressed files are generated automatically by the repository and contains the contents of the last commit. It is useless to publish the schematics here. I don't like to produce outdated stuff. Edited November 7, 2015 by HackMac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 It also depends on the quality of the original diagrams. I have some original, large-format schematics, along with some nice hand-drawn detail schematics done by one of the original engineers back when the system was still being developed. IIRC, the quality of the schematic set in the SAMS book for the console was also pretty high quality, so that would give you another point for comparison and to eradicate errors. My large-format stuff is mostly for the 99/2 and the 99/8, while the hand drawn stuff is for most of the PEB cards. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted November 7, 2015 Author Share Posted November 7, 2015 ti99iuc also had some copies of large-format schematics of the 4a, he already shared with us like you already saw above. It would be great if you work on some (new) KiCad schematics or share your stuff on WHTech, so someone (I or somebody else) can make the remaining schematics. By the way, what is the SAMS book? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 (edited) The book is the: SAMS Computerfacts Computer: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, published in 1984. You might also want to take a deep dive into the schematics included in: The Hardware Manual for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A by Mike Bunyard. The hand-drawn schematics there go into very good component-by-component detail for most of the console. The book is available in the TI Book Archive on HexBus.com. I haven't seen the Howard SAMS book online, unfortunately. A significant number of the schematics on WHT are from me, as I try to make sure the data I dig up for this system is made available to the community at large. . . Edited November 8, 2015 by Ksarul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HackMac Posted November 8, 2015 Author Share Posted November 8, 2015 Thank you for your hint to Mike's book! I yet took a quick look at it, but I already found real good informations in there. I think I'll have to look for the Sams continuously. On WHT I didn't found such large-format schematics you described above... I just found details about the Sams book. It is the correct one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 That's the right one. The schematics in large format that I put up were in the 99/8 section. . .not for the /4A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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