Omega-TI Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 I found this photo elsewhere on the Internet and I'm curious... did this thing use a 9918 for video? I figured *IF* it did... an F18A might make a great upgrade... or is it sacrilegious to even mention modding such a rare beast? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Not quite - it is a 9118. The difference is that it uses two 16Kx4 DRAMs (instead of eight 16Kx1), and it does not produce a GRMCLK. So it is not pin-compatible (which does not mean it is impossible). Yes, and it is a bit sacrilegious. What do you hope to achieve, apart from connecting it to a VGA monitor? There are so few devices out there that we will probably never see any sincere software development for them. (OK, we could have millions of them, if you accepted its MAME emulation in place of the real iron ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoFan1981 Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 (edited) How I wish the "99 stroke 8" was a (full-blown) reality! ~Ben Edited February 22, 2017 by ColecoFan1981 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 What did I hope to accomplish? Nothing other than to fulfill my curiosity. Those things are so rare and expensive, that I could never justify buying one even if one became available. -- Thanks for the info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fabrice montupet Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 (edited) I found this photo elsewhere on the Internet and I'm curious... did this thing use a 9918 for video? I figured *IF* it did... an F18A might make a great upgrade... or is it sacrilegious to even mention modding such a rare beast? And, by the way, why not replacing the HX5102 hexbus disk controller by a flashdrive and replacing the TMS9995 MP9537 by an overclocked and emulated in a FPGA. My personal opinion: It's a sacrilege. I think the work of the TI engineers deserves to be respected. :-) So, for my part, I will never modify my 99/8 prototype that way. About the video: the only modification that I made is to replace the TMS9118 by a TMS9129 to get R-Y, B-Y, Y signals and to be able to use a RVB adapter. The pictures are now crisp and beautiful :-) Edited February 22, 2017 by fabrice montupet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Having been one of the lucky ones to have a 99/8 at one time, I always had wished TI had been able to hold out and release this as their Commodore 64 competitor. It would have been the perfect upgrade path from the 99/4A, you wouldn't have had to replace any of your software or hardware, yet you'd have a much faster machine with a lot more memory for what would have been an excellent price. The keyboard alone was a vast improvement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fabrice montupet Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) Hi Casey,I remember your 99/8 prototype (it had a V3.0 ROM and Extended Basic II inside) . You owned it in 2002. Since many years, I count all the 99/8 surviving and I would like to know (if you remember) the serial number of your prototype? Edited February 23, 2017 by fabrice montupet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Hi Fabrice, I will see if I can find the pictures I took of it when I had it. My initial reaction was I thought it was 37, but I could be way wrong on that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 The F18A can be used in 9118/9128/9129 systems. Aside from the memory size support, the pin differences are: ___________ RAS =|1 U 40|= XTAL1 9918A 9928A/29A 9118 9128/29 F18A CAS =|2 39|= XTAL2 ======== ========= ======= ======= ==== AD7 =|3 38|= ....... CPUCLK R-Y CPUCLK R-Y HI-Z / CPUCLK AD6 =|4 37|= ....... GROMCLK GROMCLK NC CPUCLK GROMCLK / CPUCLK AD5 =|5 36|= ....... COMVID Y COMVID Y NC AD4 =|6 35|= ....... EXTVDP B-Y EXTVDP B-Y NC I'm surprised the 99/8 did not have a better graphics subsystem (9938 or something like that). Maybe TI was actually making the computer that the 99/4A should have been. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fabrice montupet Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) @matthew180: The 9118 was a good choice in 1983 (the year where the 99/8 was developped). It permitted to keep the 99/4A software compatibility.The enhanced VDP Yamaha 9938 was released later, in 1985 @Casey: Thank you! I am waiting news from you. Edited February 23, 2017 by fabrice montupet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Ah, sure. I did not realize the 99/8 was designed that early (and that the 9938 did not release until 1985). Still seems like it should have had some video capability over the 99/4A though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 This is the reason why I keep saying we're better off this way that TI did not bring the 99/8 to production. It would have become a miserable failure with all the competing systems available. The 99/8 would have become way too expensive with all that built-in memory (at least I can imagine TI would have gone for some premium price). While the C64 already had a full 40 col mode, we would have been stuck with 70s graphics. The peripheral devices of the 99/4A would not have been compatible (as we learned from the MAME emulation; Extended Basic II only runs with a Hexbus floppy). Sorry TI, that console would have pointed in the wrong direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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