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Create Cart from compiled XB?


SteveB

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Hi, 

there are plenty of compiled programs here available ... but I did not find a beginners tutorial on how to make your own cartridge from your freshly compiled XB program. I found hints on a V7 breakpoint .. but when it came to "Save memory as Program" in Classic99 I do not know what to select. I am not even sure if a breakpoint at "run" in the XB module is the rigtht thing to do or if I need to use the E/A.

 

Please give an old XB programmer some hints. I would love to see my program on FlashROM99 on the real thing.

 

Steve

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Hi, 

there are plenty of compiled programs here available ... but I did not find a beginners tutorial on how to make your own cartridge from your freshly compiled XB program. I found hints on a V7 breakpoint .. but when it came to "Save memory as Program" in Classic99 I do not know what to select. I am not even sure if a breakpoint at "run" in the XB module is the rigtht thing to do or if I need to use the E/A.

 

Please give an old XB programmer some hints. I would love to see my program on FlashROM99 on the real thing.

 

Steve

The simplest thing to do is to use module creator from Fred Kahl. You save the compiled program as editor assembler option 5 (ea5) and then copy the files to your pc in v9t9 format the instructions for his program are in the zip.

 

http://www.ti99-geek.nl/ under modules

 

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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@SteveBLet's clarify a couple of things.

 

- Classic 99 can be used to generate a .bin file to use on FinalGROM/FinalROM only for TI BASIC programs at the moment (I don't know if @Tursi will add the XB support in future versions).

I have written a tutorial for the TI99IUC site (https://www.ti99iuc.it/web/?pageid=articoli_tech&artid=195#.X-9NiDSg-Uk). It's in Italian, but you can easily translate it and there are some posts on AA on this topic. It's quite easy, just ask if you need clarifications.

NOTE: You will not obtain a compiled game, you'll just load your BASIC game from your FinalGROM/FinalROM instead of the slow tape.

 

- You can convert most of EA5 in .bin using the ModuleCreator as indicated by @arcadeshopper. In addition you can use also Makecart to generate .G files. You need to already have your files in EA5 format.

 

- If you have an XB program, you need first to compile it, then you can convert the EA5 files in .bin using the ModuleCreator.

To compile it you need to use Classic 99 + ISABELLA compiler package from @senior_falcon. You can find it on the AA forum.

There is one tutorial on this on the TI99IUC site, but it's quite old (https://www.ti99iuc.it/web/index.php?pagina=articoli&artid=193#.X-9Q2DSg-Uk) and in Italian.

I do not have at the moment prepared a new tutorial covering the XB part, anyway if you want, we can use this thread with one of your programs you would like to compile to explain the theoretical process on a real example. ;-) 

 

 

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4 hours ago, tmop69 said:

- You can convert most of EA5 in .bin using the ModuleCreator as indicated by @arcadeshopper. In addition you can use also Makecart to generate .G files. You need to already have your files in EA5 format..

 

Thank you, I am experienced with ISABELLA, but never cared about the files, was only interested in the resuling -X file. It took me a moment to understand that the -E, -F and -G files are these EA5 files everybody talks about. I converted them to v9t9 with Ti99dir and did what the Module Creater 2.0 page told me to do ... the resulting BIN file loads in Classic99 and plays perfectly.  I don't have the hardware here to test with FlashROM99.

 

So in short:

  1. Install Module Creator 2.0 as described on @F.G. Kaal site as @arcadeshopper mentioned. Important is to have no blanks in the path.
  2. Compile your XB program with ISABELLA. I had the 24k setting active and used Asm994a for fast assembly. Clean XB, 14kB of size.
  3. Use Ti99dir to check if the -E, -F and -G files are in or convert them to v9t9 format (select all of them, then Ctrl-F7). I think the "no blanks in path" applies here as well.
  4. Start Module Creator, enter Name and Title, select the -E file as Program and press Create Module.

If everything works you will find a new subdirectory in Module Creater 2.0 with the module BIN file and some working documents and logs. In Classic99 just open it under Cartridge/User and there you go ... If you didn't know ... now you do!  ?

 

That should save me from making a video?

 

Thanks everyone!

 

Steve

 

Edited by SteveB
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  • 1 year later...

Hi people, I've been playing around with the Texas Instruments and put together a video. :)
From a basic program to a FinalGROM99 run.

The Texas TI-99 was one of the first machines I could get my hands on for programming. First in LOGO! (I was very young) and then in Extended Basic which, for me, was already the MIT more or less. Ha!
The machine was very expensive and as I never had one at home, I had been wanting to go back to playing with Extended Basic on the TI99 like in the old days.
In those days I had fun with how easy it was to generate sprites, give them shape, speed and use the collision detection to improvise little games that, because of the double interpreted Basic, soon became unusable because of the slowness.

I recently found an old book in archive.org with very good examples of sprite programming in TI Ext-Basic and I felt like playing with Texas Sprites again. I recommend it for anyone who is eager to get the hang of TI Basic like me. 
https://archive.org/details/tibook_smart-programming-guide-for-sprites

As there are now several tools to compile programs in TI Basic and run them in emulators as well as in physical TI, I started coding a little game as a test and compiling to see how fast programs written in Basic can be. You can't use any assembler routine or trick because the compiler doesn't understand them. 
I leave here some samples of the tests in case someone has experience in IT or his emulator and wants to try and suggest improvements. I'm not a programmer but, like many here, we have fun researching and coding on the machines of the good old days. :)
I made a step-by-step video that goes from a classic Basic program, to a compiled, executable and the creation of a cartridge!
Finally, the icing on the cake, running the binary (cartridge) on a physical TI-99/4A.

 

The video has audio in Spanish but it is totally understandable visually.

Link to the video:
https://youtu.be/q4Ii0LHa9i8
https://www.instagram.com/retroedu/


Thanks to:

@tmop69

@SteveB

@arcadeshopper
Your tutorials and posts allowed me to get here.

UFOWAR4.txt

Edited by Eduu
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