Gary from OPA Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Day T-4: 12 days of Retro Christmas We are almost there and just in time to wear for Little Christmas, is my custom Ugly TI Xmas Sweater. Now, I just need to get a New Year haircut and fully re-arrange my office, as I also got today, two new computer desks for my TI99 systems. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+9640News Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 4 hours ago, Gary from OPA said: I ordered a Zulu board and mounting bracket and power connector from their local Canadian distributor, DECromancer which located in Toronto, so it should not take long to get to Scarberia, at least now i can use my whtech scsi card with a microsd. still have to track down ez135 and sq270 drives, the 270 more important as those disks have info on them, the 135 not so much, but seems the 270 drives are rarer. Now, I just need to find a proper MFM to SD emulator at affordable price so i can use my Myarc HDFC as well. Deme.info for mom emulator. Not cheap, but it works. I have two of them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+9640News Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Oh, the drem, never got it fully working properly with floppies. I have the original, not the newest version so I do not know if there would be any issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 I have to look more into it. Wound be great if it handled the floppies as well on the myarc hfdc, but not too worry about that. I got lots of 3.5 and 5.25 drives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Finally, found and the seller accepted my counter-offer, a pulled working syquest ez135 drive, at least now I will be able to access some of my archived hard drive cartridges I have with my personal files on it. Still need to find a drive that accepts my larger 270mb cartridges I have, but sadly those scsi drives are more rare, and more costly, as the ez135 was the most popular of the syquest drives back in the day, so there a lot more of them on the market. Now to see how much Canadian customs and brokerage fees comes to once it gets here around the end of this month, already just on taxes and ebay shipping and our weak Canadian loonies buying power, it came to $104.63 CAD basically double the selling price. most likely the brokerage and customs fees and more taxes, will hit me around another $35 CAD, so crazy that it ends up being 3 times the cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff White Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 On 1/3/2024 at 12:32 PM, Gary from OPA said: still have to track down ez135 and sq270 drives, the 270 more important as those disks have info on them, the 135 not so much, but seems the 270 drives are rarer. Did you mean SQ3270 drive which reads SQ327 disks? Or EZ230 disks? The EZ Flyer 230 can use both EZ135 and EZ230 disks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 Day T-2: 12 days of Retro Christmas. Today, I finished re-arranging my office, to make room for two more desks, so I can setup at least two of my #TI99 systems. Now I need to find another small LCD monitor, plus I am waiting for the black & silver /4A console to arrive from eBay. VID_68110826_121410_457.mp4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 19 hours ago, Jeff White said: Did you mean SQ3270 drive which reads SQ327 disks? You are correct..I looked at my cases again and they are SQ327 cartridges. Now, maybe I will have better luck searching eBay and finding a SQ3270 drive. At least my EZ135 drive will be here early next week depending on customs and my zuluscsi thingy already here so I be able to get my whtech card back up and useful. Just need to access my archives on these 4 sq327 disks at some point. As not sure if I had everything mirrored on my ez135 disks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) Well, we made it officially Little Xmas and it's snowing outside and my first power-up test works with my v2.2 console, TEII, Speech, Thermal Printer, Official Monitor, Axiom, PE-Box, Myarc FDC, My ROS Floppy. Next, is the rest of the cards. Edited January 7 by Gary from OPA can't upload video, use added my tweet 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 Did some more testing of my Retro TI99 systems. Got a couple of my Horizon Ramdisks working, one still had its memory fully intact after 13 years of storage. Also a friend of mine donated 4 VGA screens so the next step is to get my V9938 video cards working with a converter box. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Have fun last night chatting with Mr. Big 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 Ahh... The sound of retro computer cooling... I miss hearing the roar of TI99 PEB fans, and that just with two boxes running, wait until I get all 5 up and running. I got a Epson 24pin Dot-Matrix Color printer in, even found a box of tractor-feed paper for it, now I just need to find the "Color" ink ribbons, tough you can find "Black" ones. A good friend donated me a TI Extended Basic and Editor/Assembler so I am good on the main cartridges that are needed, and I was able to find a SuperSpace II online at affordable price. I got my SCSI card working along with my Syquest EZ135 drive, and my PGRAM+ card working, all is left is to get my DIJIT AVPC Graphics card installed, for that I need to do some minor mods to my 99/4a black/silver console, shame as it never been opened before, but needs to be done. So far still only got two of my Horizon ramdisks working, the other 5 I have look like they going to need some real board-level repair/diagnostic work, some are only seeing 18k of RAM. Still need to find MFM hard drive or emulator to test out my Myarc HDFC card, and I need to get some more /4a consoles and Flexcable interfaces to get the other boxes up and running, but the main two are going to be fully stuffed soon with 8 cards each. Sorry for the short video, I really just recorded it for sound of the fans running... I will do a big demo later on. 🥳 PXL_20240121_214436056.TS.mp4 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 Added bonus : you can warm the room with 1-5 pebs and monitors 🤣 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDMike Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 (edited) 1 minute ago, InsaneMultitasker said: Added bonus : you can warm the room with 1-5 pebs and monitors 🤣 You can also break your back like I almost did when I slipped and fell on my back deck by carrying one. Edited January 22 by GDMike 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 15 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said: Added bonus : you can warm the room with 1-5 pebs and monitors 🤣 Yes I adding some more monitors today. My den does not need the little space heater already. 15 minutes ago, GDMike said: You can also break your back like I almost did when I slipped and fell on my back deck by carrying one. I used a small dolly to move them around, I getting too old to carry them and my left leg as well. Not like when I was 16 and I just have one in each arm. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 19 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said: Added bonus : you can warm the room with 1-5 pebs and monitors 🤣 Did ever someone try to record the PEB sound as relaxation and sleep induction agent? 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 Office upgrade day... More screens... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 3 hours ago, mizapf said: Did ever someone try to record the PEB sound as relaxation and sleep induction agent? When I ran my BBS 24/7 in my bedroom, the PEB noise was exactly this - sleep inducing. to this day, I must have a fan in my room to go to sleep! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 38 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said: When I ran my BBS 24/7 in my bedroom, the PEB noise was exactly this - sleep inducing. to this day, I must have a fan in my room to go to sleep! Me too. I am the same way, need some type of fan or fireplace cracking sounds to sleep soundly Edited January 23 by Gary from OPA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 26 Share Posted January 26 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDMike Posted January 26 Share Posted January 26 Don't look back. Congratulations on your new projects 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 The TI Tower of Retro Goodness along with The Leading Edge of Technology is complete. My new Oasis Pensive Abacutors office is now ready for business. Starting in February I will be working on a new project for the Texas Instruments. Stay tuned. Thanks everyone for your support! Snapinsta.app_video_10000000_259851117140068_9021256631208518327_n.mp4 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 The Guardian has finally published a nice article on me, my life history, legal issues, restarting my life. It is from a series of interviews, I did a while ago with them. Good to see it in print. 📰 Check it out, and I will answer any questions you have. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/feb/01/the-man-who-owes-nintendo-14m-gary-bowser-and-gamings-most-infamous-piracy-case 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reciprocating Bill Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 (edited) 17 hours ago, Gary from OPA said: The Guardian has finally published a nice article on me, my life history, legal issues, restarting my life. Also referenced in this Ars Technica article. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/02/after-14-5m-judgments-console-hacker-paid-nintendo-25-a-month-from-prison/ Convicted console hacker says he paid Nintendo $25 a month from prison | Ars Technica.webloc Edited February 2 by Reciprocating Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 Family Day holiday here in Canada so I spent some time finally getting my PC to talk to my TI99, so now I can transfer over files from my archives to floppies and get things like my PGRAM card running again and soon be able to start working on some new Texas Instruments projects! VID_80021128_004509_510.mp4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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