Can the QI console be "fixed"?

[iKarith]

I don't think it'd drop in performance until such time as it fails entirely. Just about all of the major ROM types are susceptible to some form of bit rot. Mask ROMs probably the least so, but even they'll fail eventually.

 

We have new memory devices that will give another 40-50 years of life to these old machines, and that's all we really need for obviously decades to come, but we need to have the chips' data when it becomes necessary to start replacing them, and in the case of oddball formats that just weren't used a lot of places like GROMs, we have to have to have a way to map the data into the physical carrier package. It has been (and is being) done for lots of machines, but we can't currently just pull the GROMs on the TI motherboard and replace them with a nice little GROM emulator. At least, not yet we can't.

[+arcadeshopper]

Or just talk to Tursi since it's a software lockout that adds this requirement, not hardware. I didn't want uberGROM carts to accidentally conflict with the console GROMs, and the addressing code needs a little more testing. It'll be released with MPD.

[+Ksarul]

The MPD will definitely be interesting to see once it is ready, Tursi!

[Tursi]

Not motivation.

[Tursi]

Tursi, if I every come across a QI machine that happens to have 2.2, would you be up to working with me to cook up a GROM replacement for it? As I said, I'm contemplating the future when we might all need to replace those chips.

Of course. Of course I hope that you'll choose the MPD instead, by that point.

 

The code works, I've run my console on it before with no real GROMs in system (I have a video of it). But it's stale now...

 

As for MPD itself, it's stale too, so I need to wake it up. Hopefully this year though.

[+arcadeshopper]

Not motivation.

 

What you've been back almost a whole week!

[Tursi]

What you've been back almost a whole week!

hehe.. actually, I only got home 6 hours ago. I've already updated Flipterm and unpacked half my stuff.

[+arcadeshopper]

back in north america I mean

[+OLD CS1]

Will you be in Chicago this year, then? Welcome home!

[Tursi]

It's not looking good for Chicago this year, I have committed to road-tripping to Dallas the very next weekend, that makes flying to Chicago awkward.

 

Next year, though, I should have stuff to show, so it'll be harder to keep away.

[dphirschler]

This looks like a QI console and it has a 1981 firmware in it, if anybody wants to go for it. I have one already or I'd get it myself. No telling if it has a Mitsumi keyboard though. Chances are though, if it had a Mitsumi keyboard, they would have said the keyboard doesn't work. So strong likelyhood that it's a good keyboard too.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Texas-Instruments-Home-Computer-TI-99-4A-w-BOX-Tested-Good-Shape-/272277891421?hash=item3f6506e95d:g:X~4AAOSwzJ5XZNFu

 

Darryl

[+Schmitzi]

.

Hi, wasn´t Blue Switch = non-QI ? or did I write it down wrong ?

Or maybe there are different models on the blue switch, too ?

And yes, this one has the silver shield on the side-port. This was QI IIRC.....?

I´m getting crazy

 

 

to QI or not to QI ? That is the question...

 

[iKarith]

This looks like a QI console and it has a 1981 firmware in it, if anybody wants to go for it. I have one already or I'd get it myself. No telling if it has a Mitsumi keyboard though. Chances are though, if it had a Mitsumi keyboard, they would have said the keyboard doesn't work. So strong likelyhood that it's a good keyboard too.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Texas-Instruments-Home-Computer-TI-99-4A-w-BOX-Tested-Good-Shape-/272277891421?hash=item3f6506e95d:g:X~4AAOSwzJ5XZNFu

 

Darryl

 

Definitely a QI, but I'm broke. And I think I'd actually want to do the downgrade as discussed before as documentation.

[Omega-TI]

 

 

 

This is how I feel every evening after watching the news... the U.S. political season is TOO DAMN LONG!

[+Schmitzi]

.

yes I am also following this cartoons with Clillary Hilton and Tronny Dump, from the Tooney Lunes.

We have a similar show right here in GER, for the next years elections.

[+OLD CS1]

 

This is how I feel every evening after watching the news... the U.S. political season is TOO DAMN LONG!

 

If more people followed politics more than for just a year every four years we would likely not have the political issues we have today.

 

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

-Plato

[iKarith]

A memory of longer than just five minutes would be nice too.

[CC Clarke]

The QI will often have a two-pin power connector instead of four pin. It works with the same transformer, but has fewer pins. Older consoles could possibly have this power supply because of a repair, and I'm not sure all QIs have it, but I'm basically asking if anything was done to actually improve quality of the QI version, aside from locking out Atari games and using fewer chips. Like, were bugs fixed or anything, or was it purely hardware?

 

And (especially if the answer is that the only software change is the lockout), what does one do about the Atari games?

 

As I dig through old posts, I found this one that asked about the differences in the QI and thought I might be able to shed a little light on it:

 

As most readers know, the final version of the QI was TI's effort to reduce the cost as much as possible, both in materials, and labor. The 4A is an exceptionally-well built (from a manufacturing standpoint) machine, and cost more to produce than it's rivals, some of which were built overseas. With price reductions occurring and more looming during the summer of '82, every effort was made to economize the design to try to "tough out the market" and determine which competitors would fall during what were later dubbed, "The Home Computer Wars."

 

From a historical perspective, it was very interesting to work as a grunt in the trenches, wondering how this would all play out. TI had done very well with their consumer products, (calculators, Speak and Spell, etc.) but got their butts handed to them with watches, --once they were produced by overseas competitors. I'm sure corporate pride came into play, but we all know the forces that converged to make the company throw in the towel later on.

 

I have a very late model QI, produced in Oct '83, when TI exited the market. The plastics module next door to the production line module was downsizing, (they hired hundreds of low-paid summer interns, eager to get experience learning about plastics manufacturing before they returned to school) so that worked in the company's favor if they could reduce costs there as well.

 

"The Beige" --as we called it, was not well-received (cosmetically) compared to the venerable, aluminum-clad 4A, which was called "The Classic" by us.

 

QI Changes Include:

 

1. Elimination of the red power LED and two-piece black slider in favor of a colored (blue on mine) slider at the foot of the GROM port enclosure to toggle the power supply switch.

​2. Reduced parts count on the motherboard. The majority of the timing and control logic chips were consolidated in a single, custom 40-pin chip. This made troubleshooting a lot easier, since dead computers having timing-related faults required more labor to isolate. Of all the bad chips, the 26 & 27 ROMS were by far, responsible for most failures, but were easy to fix - usually by piggy-backing them with known good ROMS.

3. Elimination of bus bars, which varied in build quality. Some were paper-covered and others were laminated and more robust. Instead, power was distributed via blue bus wires.

4. Elimination of sockets (except for the VDP.) This was good for the bottom line, but made troubleshooting a little harder since the first step with a dead board (after verifying power and clocks) was to pull the GROMS and sound chip to free up the bus if it was being held down by one of them. Sockets, GROMS, the 9901, 9900, and VDP and connectors were hand-stuffed, which increased the chances for human error (bent pins, and chips inserted backwards.) Everyone got a kick out of finding a 64-pin 9900 installed the wrong way (rare, but it happened.) The laughing subsided when the time came to de-solder and put one back in.

5. Crap-tastic, cheap keyboards. By this time, Mitsumi was the most prevalent keyboard vendor (yeah, low bidder) and the reliability then was nearly as bad as now. The best keyboards always came from Alps.

6. A re-designed power supply with fewer components and increased heat-sinks for more efficient cooling. Heat is the sworn enemy of electronics, and this power supply ran cooler, plus it was easier to install without having an LED to position in the case. I'm sure the metal cladding contributed to the retained heat too.

7. One-piece shielding, which was hand-soldered to the board after it had passed power-up and diagnostics. This eliminated the two clips and dual-shell shield, along with the different-sized fasteners with retaining nuts to keep everything intact, saving labor.

8. Elimination of the I/O port door.

 

The newer power supply with two pins (vice four) eliminated the ground wire. The fourth (cosmetic) pin was mainly for alignment. When you're building 10,000 machines per shift, all of these changes saved a lot of money!

 

I hope this thirty-five year-old recollection answers the (new) question!

 

CC

Edited January 1, 2017 by CC Clarke