UberGROM - Show & Tell / Inspiration Thread

[Omega-TI]

Have you done something different, special or out of the ordinary with your UberGROM?  Now that things are cooling down outside, the grass has stopped growing and the indoor season is upon us, project time can begin for many people!

 

Now over the years, there have been many discussions mentioning the UberGROM, however in life sometimes there can be other things going on that make other some things "background clutter", so we miss out on some really cool stuff.  The UberGROM board in my opinion had the misfortune of coming out a little too close to the FG99, and has been overshadowed a little.  But did you know the UberGROM can do things that the FG99 cannot?  It's true!

 

The hope is that those people who have done something cool with their UberGROMs will post some photos, talk about what they did and even how they did it to inspire the rest of us.  I'm willing to bet many of us have at least one UberGROM board lying around, or would be willing to buy one if a cool project turned up.  

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Omega-TI
Changed the title of this rapidly declining thread.

[+arcadeshopper]

What have YOU done with yours?

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[Omega-TI]

18 minutes ago, arcadeshopper said:

What have YOU done with yours?

 

That's a damn good question!  Sadly, not enough, which gave me the idea for this thread.  I have a couple of redundant ones due to the programs now being available on the FinalGROM, and I figured I cannot be the only one.  Now since the UberGROM is a fantastic little cartridge board and much too good to be sitting doing nothing, why not ask the people who HAVE done something with it?  Maybe we can all find something that interests us, get onboard, have some fun, learn something new and enjoy our hobby at the same time.  Sounds logical, right?

[Omega-TI]

... BTW, am I correct in recalling something about a Bluetooth attachment?  I can imagine a matched set of UberGROMs with some sort of head to head game programmed on the 49F040.  Can you imagine what could happen when two or more TI hobbyists gather in one place with cartridges like that?

[+InsaneMultitasker]

I haven't done anything new (or continued anything that is on hold)  with my UberGROM though it is my daily driver on the TI (and in classic99, for the XB27 suite) when I have the time to use it.  But that's not the primary reason for my reply.

8 hours ago, Omega-TI said:

The UberGROM board in my opinion had the misfortune of coming out a little too close to the FG99

I did not create the UberGROM hardware or software but to me statements like this are borderline (edit: could be construed as) insulting.  More recent hardware like the oft-mentioned FG99 does not summarily invalidate whatever came before it, and there is work documented in the forums to 'prove' it.   Strangely, I was reminded of this thread from earlier in the year which has some good information, even if it is another 'comparison' thread. 

 

 

[Omega-TI]

4 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

I did not create the UberGROM hardware or software but to me statements like this are borderline insulting.  More recent hardware like the oft-mentioned FG99 does not summarily invalidate whatever came before it, and there is work documented in the forums to 'prove' it.  

 

Jeez, I see I have to explain myself again for a post I made, and I'll tell you, it's starting to get tiring.  First, I'm sorry you took it as "borderline insulting",  that's on you.  It was not intended to be negative towards the hardware in anyway whatsoever.  I also never inferred that "the new hardware invalidated it".  That sounds more like projection on your part.

 

The UberGROM is a fantastic board, so why would I be trying to start a thread to promote it and generate a little bit of activity and hopefully positive action on it if I thought less of it?  The truth is the UberGROM can do things the FinalGROM cannot, but that does not invalidate the FinalGROM any more than the inverse.  Sometimes the old saying, "out of sight out of mind" is a reality, so I was trying to bring it to the forefront.  Hopefully trying to generate a little bit of activity for piece of tech is not yet a crime in this forum.

 

The FinalGROMs ease of use, being the drag and drop of programs to an SD card does give it an advantage to the majority of users, as does the sheer number of programs available in that format. This is the main reason, above any other that it, IN MY OPINION it overshadowed the other cartridges.

 

 

[+InsaneMultitasker]

23 minutes ago, Omega-TI said:

Jeez, I see I have to explain myself again for a post I made, and I'll tell you, it's starting to get tiring

I don't know to what you are referring.   Maybe you are projecting some past posting issue(s) into this response.

38 minutes ago, Omega-TI said:

It was not intended to be negative towards the hardware in anyway whatsoever.  I also never inferred that "the new hardware invalidated it". 

Intended or not, that's how it came across on my first read.  Explanation noted, thank you.

 

51 minutes ago, Omega-TI said:

The FinalGROMs ease of use, being the drag and drop of programs to an SD card does give it an advantage to the majority of users, as does the sheer number of programs available in that format.

Agreed,  FG99 can make things simpler -  especially for entry level users - to gain access to a wide variety of programs converted to the drag/drop format which for others are available in other cart or file formats.  I'll save other comments for a non-UberGROM thread.

 

[HOME AUTOMATION]

Even with the best of intentions...

 

...Too many comparisons can be disparate. From many points of view. A lesson Not lost on me.

[Omega-TI]

 

3 hours ago, HOME AUTOMATION said:

Even with the best of intentions...

 

...Too many comparisons can be disparate. From many points of view. A lesson Not lost on me.

 

Well, it seems people agree with him, if one takes into consideration the positive clicks on message #5.  But really, what can a guy do if somebody reads something into a message or takes offense in some way?  Since I really don't need or want the hassle, I'm asking myself, why do I even bother?  Honestly, I'm tired of people getting bent out of shape if my opinion is different or if they might perceive something differently than I intended.   I guess I'm a little slow, or have too much enthusiasm for my hobby, but think I finally get the message.

[Tursi]

The UberGROM and the FinalGROM were designed with different purposes in mind. The UberGROM was never meant to be a reusable flash cartridge that you changed out daily. It was intended for permanent cartridges, to be able to reproduce older GROM carts and to create new ones. It was the first cartridge with permanently reprogrammable GROM in a single chip. So I don't see them as directly comparable. At best you can say that the FinalGROM obsoleted the need for individual cartridges, and that's probably fair. But they /were/ years apart.

 

A few people use UberGROM for communications, which was one of the goals. It powers the XB27 suite, and that's probably its greatest use. There was also the Break Free game which used the GROM side (since Jim's PCB supports just the ROM, just the GROM, or both ). I can't remember too many other dedicated uses, but, the GROM side at least was created just so it'd be possible to make reproductions of Editor/Assembler and Extended BASIC. And a few people did that, at least! 

 

My own standpoint, though, is that it was never going to be a mass market product. I intended to aim the GROM reproductions at developers who needed them, sell the chips pre-programmed and ready for loading with GROMCFG, and make that my contribution. It all kind of blew up in my face. While I was forced to accept that and release everything to the community, there's no real need to push it. Developers who need it, have it in their toolbox. 

 

 

 

[+acadiel]

12 hours ago, Omega-TI said:

The UberGROM board in my opinion had the misfortune of coming out a little too close to the FG99

Um, the UberGROM was in development for years before it was released.  It was not built to be a multicart.  Different hardware, different feature set, different audience, and the two devices shouldn’t be compared.

signed,

one of the three UberGROM designers 

[Omega-TI]

52 minutes ago, acadiel said:

Um, the UberGROM was in development for years before it was released.  It was not built to be a multicart.  Different hardware, different feature set, different audience, and the two devices shouldn’t be compared.

signed,

one of the three UberGROM designers 

 

Fine, BUT the earliest I remember seeing the UberGROM mentioned was like in early 2015.  Things take time to be adopted and if I remember correctly by mid 2016 (around Fest West), people were using them, myself included, in a burn and play fashion.  I even bought a number of them off of Ksarul around that time with bunch of chips to burn.  Before the FlashROM, it was all we had, so it only makes sense we would use it in that fashion.  Then, if I recall within a few months the FlashROM was released (not the FinalGROM like I earlier mentioned) but it was a drag and drop to an SD card like the FinalGROM so excuse my error.  Now, the FinalGROM was released around September or October of 2017, but it's predecessor was released FAIRLY CLOSE to the UberGROM from a users point of view.  I even remember doing a demonstration of the FinalGROM in April of 2017 at Fest West.

 

I don't see WHY I cannot compare the two, from a "users view" they do pretty much the same thing (up to a point), just a different loading procedure.  But yeah, the hell with it, I'm no longer going to encourage the use of the damn thing, as Tursi said, "...there's no need to push it."  It's simply not worth the hassle to me.  For a thread that was only meant to encourage and inspire, it's done the complete opposite.  

[+Ksarul]

35 minutes ago, Omega-TI said:

But yeah, the hell with it, I'm no longer going to encourage the use of the damn thing, as Tursi said, "...there's no need to push it."  It's simply not worth the hassle to me.  For a thread that was only meant to encourage and inspire, it's done the complete opposite.  

Sometimes, the intent of the post doesn't come through they way it was intended to. Electronic messaging is problematic that way. I usually read my posts a couple of times to try and make sure that it really says what was intended in a way that makes sense to the reader. I don't always succeed either. The earliest demonstration of an UberGROM was in 2012, using the first board revision that exists only in the hands of the three developers. We fiddled with it for a few years to get it really stable and to develop some comprehensive documentation for it. We met our design goals--and the huge number of TI cartridges that never existed in physical format (but which do as UberGROM images now, thanks to the efforts of @acadiel, @Gazoo, and others), were actually the main driver for this board on my part. I am eternally grateful to @Tursi for the work he did to develop the software and to @acadielfor the comprehensive testing he did along the way. Both became my good friends as the project progressed, and I am really glad to have been able to spend in-person time with both of them at various Chicage Faires.

 

Your intent was definitely good--and knowing what has been done with it may inspire others to do their own thing with it too.

[+retroclouds]

Omega, I wanted to stay clear of the thread, considering the hard development work on both projects by all involved parties.

That is true for both the FinalGROM and the Ubergrom. When comparing there’s like “winners” and “losers”.

 

I  see different use cases. And as with most of my TI stuff, I have both.

Can’t say which one I like better, because -and I’m repeating myself- they’r different use cases.

 

Obviously you have the feeling that your are not being treated fair, as you had the honest incentive of pushing the ubergrom.

I undestand and accept that. What I really don’t like and agree with, is the thread subject title “(...) Now the thread from hell!”. 

 

Don’t think that does the community justice and just calls for drama.

And honestly we already have enough drama in this world.

I visit Atariage because it’s a place of joy where I meet fellow TI’ers and friends, and with friends it’s normal to have different opinions.

 

Just my 2 cents 

 

retroclouds

[+OLD CS1]

This thread needs a cool-down period.