Would anyone be interested in a contest?

[Omega-TI]

With all the recent interest in cartridges, and the 32k internal memory project starting next quarter, would any be interested in a contest to see who could make the best new cartridge utilizing the UberGROM?

 

[Omega-TI]

Guess. not....

[Iwantgames:)]

I would but no idea on how to make cartridges and busy learning XB and designing a game right now.

[Opry99er]

...busy learning XB and designing a game right now.

Great news!!! I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

[Iwantgames:)]

Well I got all but 2 screens screens designed in Magellan. Then the fun part, coding, begins. Its just a port of a existing game I got a original idea I started on but its a bit bigger of a game so will have to wait till I get more XB knowledge

[Asmusr]

With all the recent interest in cartridges, and the 32k internal memory project starting next quarter, would any be interested in a contest to see who could make the best new cartridge utilizing the UberGROM?

 

 

Perhaps it would be more fruitful to hear if anyone has good ideas for new cartridges? When you write "utilizing the UberGROM" I guess you're thinking about about more than pure ROM cartridges? For me the problem is I have no good ideas, and no knowledge of GPL either.

[Omega-TI]

My problem has always been many ideas, but not enough time to do anything about them, in fact three or four ideas just popped into my mind while writing this. Of course I also have no knowledge of GPL and honestly never will.

[Davvel]

Is there a tutorial anywhere to explain the following different concepts:

 

All of these will finally end up in an UberGrom which can be plugged in a real, unexpanded TI 99/4a.

 

1. How to convert a TI BASIC program in way to be able to store it in an UberGrom

2. How to write a small GPL program "Hello World" and place this in an UberGrom

3. How to write a small Assembly program "Hello World" and store it in an UberGrom

4. How to convert an XB program in a way to be able to store it in an UberGrom

 

All the above would be useful with detailed instructions on the software tools and hardware that one should posses to be able to conclude such a task,

 

One can also act as a community and have the following software team setup

 

• A small team to come up with a new idea, which will be discussed in this forum.
• A person write the XB/TI Basic/Assembly/GPL code
• One designs the graphics
• One writes the music
• Several testers
• One convert it in a format to place it on UBERGROM
• One will be responsible to burn the GROMs
• One to market and distribute the new cartridges.

 

 

In this way everyone will be used to his best potential. Probably there are also Windows applications that convert JPG to tiles, WAV to TI Music/speech and so on.

[Tursi]

1. How to convert a TI BASIC program in way to be able to store it in an UberGrom

 

2. How to write a small GPL program "Hello World" and place this in an UberGrom

 

3. How to write a small Assembly program "Hello World" and store it in an UberGrom

 

4. How to convert an XB program in a way to be able to store it in an UberGrom

I think you may find these questions are more complicated than you expected.

 

First it's important to note that a cartridge holds two kinds of memory - normal ROM, and GROM. Most homebrew cartridges are pure ROM because it's simpler on nearly every angle to do. The Ubergrom is a GROM emulation chip that supports memory and I/O interfaces, so is not necessary for every cart.

 

I can loosely answer some of those though...

 

TI BASIC on a cartridge - you have two possible routes. It's possible to run TI BASIC programs from GROM directly, although I think a group is in the process of working out HOW to create such a cart - I've not been involved in that one.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/246757-decoding-basic-source-code-from-cartridge-binaries/

 

The other route is to load the data from a ROM and restart TI BASIC - I have a tool built into Classic99 that creates cartridges that can do that. There's a summary of how it works in the manual, but I think Owen has used it the most, maybe he's got some notes?

 

GPL Hello World, check out the GPL HOW2 videos by RXB. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/180471-gplhow2

Putting one on a GROM cart is just a matter of building the code for the cartridge space (>6000 - >FFFF) and putting a valid header on it.

 

An assembly Hello World would not normally be stored on GROM (it's possible to have a GROM program load assembly code into RAM and execute it, but that's far more complicated than you're asking). In that case it would just be stored on ordinary ROM with a header. It's been covered a few times here, but I can't find a link (and my own 'hello world' tutorial was lost in my server crash). Anyone have a link handy?

 

Finally, converting and running an XB program from a user-cartridge is a large problem that has no straight-forward (or existing, I believe) answer. You would need to duplicate Extended BASIC /and/ work out a way to load your program. My first inclination would be to suggest compiling it to assembly and running it that way. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/205511-extended-basic-compiler

[kl99]

I am trying to increase my knowledge on the internal TI System since 1 year now, where Gpl is a big part of it. The Web99 project is the result of that.

Just recently I was able to decode GROM cartridges which contain a TI Basic Program back to their original Basic Listing.

Now I am working on a converter for the other direction. Transform your Ti Basic/XB Program to run from Grom which is of course best usable with the Ubergrom cart.

So far I managed to convert PRK to contain below program instead of its original one.
100 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
110 END
It works and finishes with a Text * DONE *, but you don't get back to the prompt yet. Because >8389 is set to >FF instead of >00. If you change that at the right moment in Classic99, you get to the prompt.

So still some things need to be figured out. The intro Screen from PRK also shows before the TI Basic program is loaded. The intro is coded in Gpl and only after the Gpl BEXEC command is called.

 

I totally agree that there is the need for some guides. However you can cut the tasks into two big pieces

- Guides helping you how to generate the Grom binaries

- Guides helping you how to burn all types of Grom binaries onto an Ubergrom Cart

[Davvel]

I think you may find these questions are more complicated than you expected.

 

First it's important to note that a cartridge holds two kinds of memory - normal ROM, and GROM. Most homebrew cartridges are pure ROM because it's simpler on nearly every angle to do. The Ubergrom is a GROM emulation chip that supports memory and I/O interfaces, so is not necessary for every cart.

 

I can loosely answer some of those though...

 

TI BASIC on a cartridge - you have two possible routes. It's possible to run TI BASIC programs from GROM directly, although I think a group is in the process of working out HOW to create such a cart - I've not been involved in that one.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/246757-decoding-basic-source-code-from-cartridge-binaries/

 

The other route is to load the data from a ROM and restart TI BASIC - I have a tool built into Classic99 that creates cartridges that can do that. There's a summary of how it works in the manual, but I think Owen has used it the most, maybe he's got some notes?

 

GPL Hello World, check out the GPL HOW2 videos by RXB. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/180471-gplhow2

Putting one on a GROM cart is just a matter of building the code for the cartridge space (>6000 - >FFFF) and putting a valid header on it.

 

An assembly Hello World would not normally be stored on GROM (it's possible to have a GROM program load assembly code into RAM and execute it, but that's far more complicated than you're asking). In that case it would just be stored on ordinary ROM with a header. It's been covered a few times here, but I can't find a link (and my own 'hello world' tutorial was lost in my server crash). Anyone have a link handy?

 

Finally, converting and running an XB program from a user-cartridge is a large problem that has no straight-forward (or existing, I believe) answer. You would need to duplicate Extended BASIC /and/ work out a way to load your program. My first inclination would be to suggest compiling it to assembly and running it that way. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/205511-extended-basic-compiler

Tursi, sorry for the late reply but I must have missed this. Thanks for the detailed reply.

[RXB]

 

Perhaps it would be more fruitful to hear if anyone has good ideas for new cartridges? When you write "utilizing the UberGROM" I guess you're thinking about about more than pure ROM cartridges? For me the problem is I have no good ideas, and no knowledge of GPL either.

Scroll down to GPL Tutorials:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/153704-ti-994a-development-resources/

[RXB]

My problem has always been many ideas, but not enough time to do anything about them, in fact three or four ideas just popped into my mind while writing this. Of course I also have no knowledge of GPL and honestly never will.

GPL Tutorials are here and my videos with examples. At least you can get an idea from it.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/153704-ti-994a-development-resources/

[RXB]

Is there a tutorial anywhere to explain the following different concepts:

 

All of these will finally end up in an UberGrom which can be plugged in a real, unexpanded TI 99/4a.

 

1. How to convert a TI BASIC program in way to be able to store it in an UberGrom

2. How to write a small GPL program "Hello World" and place this in an UberGrom

3. How to write a small Assembly program "Hello World" and store it in an UberGrom

4. How to convert an XB program in a way to be able to store it in an UberGrom

 

All the above would be useful with detailed instructions on the software tools and hardware that one should posses to be able to conclude such a task,

 

One can also act as a community and have the following software team setup

 

• A small team to come up with a new idea, which will be discussed in this forum.
• A person write the XB/TI Basic/Assembly/GPL code
• One designs the graphics
• One writes the music
• Several testers
• One convert it in a format to place it on UBERGROM
• One will be responsible to burn the GROMs
• One to market and distribute the new cartridges.

 

 

In this way everyone will be used to his best potential. Probably there are also Windows applications that convert JPG to tiles, WAV to TI Music/speech and so on.

Scroll down to GPL and see my work:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/153704-ti-994a-development-resources/