jenorton Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Hi: I know that, using MAME, I can run the TI 99/8 emulation. I know it has some nice built-in things, but, I am curious. Do any of you prefer using it to other TI 99/4 or 4A emulation? If so, what do you use it for and why do you prefer it. Are there things you want to do that you cannot use the TI 99/8 emulation for? If so, why not? Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColecoFan1981 Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 (edited) The TI-99/8 really should have been released, but as with Atari's 1400XL its release was canceled due to (among other factors) the success of the Commodore 64. I wish you the best of luck trying to get this unreleased computer emulated! ~Ben Edited March 3, 2022 by ColecoFan1981 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhataKowinkydink Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 7 hours ago, ColecoFan1981 said: The TI-99/8 really should have been released, Funny - I was just thinking about this earlier today --- I agree completely. It could have turned things around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 The problem with the (real) 99/8 is that we have numerous different versions, since all are prototypes. Some have Pascal inside, some don't. Some have the speech synthesizer inside. Also, you need the Hexbus floppy. I tried to collect all features I could find, and assemble them to an "idealized" version of the TI-99/8 in MAME. In that sense, the emulated TI-99/8 could indeed be the best version you can find. Sorry, that sounds just like bragging, I hope you understand what I mean. The only problem with the emulation is that it is really performance-hungry. Don't try to run it on less than a Core-i processor, in particular when you want to run the HX5102 (floppy) as well. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+acadiel Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 1 hour ago, mizapf said: The problem with the (real) 99/8 is that we have numerous different versions, since all are prototypes. Some have Pascal inside, some don't. Some have the speech synthesizer inside. Also, you need the Hexbus floppy. I tried to collect all features I could find, and assemble them to an "idealized" version of the TI-99/8 in MAME. In that sense, the emulated TI-99/8 could indeed be the best version you can find. Sorry, that sounds just like bragging, I hope you understand what I mean. The only problem with the emulation is that it is really performance-hungry. Don't try to run it on less than a Core-i processor, in particular when you want to run the HX5102 (floppy) as well. Yep, if you think about it, you're having to emulate multiple TMS9995's running at the same time - the floppy disk uses its own TMS9995. (Which is quite funny because all the other Hexbus peripherals used TMS70CXX CPUs....) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Yep. And the HX5102 CPU is faster clocked than the main CPU. Here is the device dump from MAME: ./mame ti99_8 -hexbus hx5102 -listdevices Driver ti99_8 (TI-99/8 Computer (US)): <root> TI-99/8 Computer (US) cart_list_ti99 Software List cass_out Speaker cassette Cassette dram8 RAM gromlib0_0 TMC0430 GROM gromlib0_1 TMC0430 GROM gromlib0_2 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_0 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_1 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_2 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_3 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_4 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_5 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_6 TMC0430 GROM gromlib1_7 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_0 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_1 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_2 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_3 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_4 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_5 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_6 TMC0430 GROM gromlib2_7 TMC0430 GROM gromlib3_0 TMC0430 GROM gromlib3_1 TMC0430 GROM gromlib3_2 TMC0430 GROM gromport TI-99 Cartridge port single TI-99 Standard cartridge connector cartridge TI-99 cartridge grom3 TMC0430 GROM grom4 TMC0430 GROM grom5 TMC0430 GROM grom6 TMC0430 GROM grom7 TMC0430 GROM hexbus Hexbus connector hx5102 TI Hexbus Floppy Drive crulatch0 74LS259 Addressable Latch crulatch1 74LS259 Addressable Latch d0 Floppy drive connector abstraction 525dd 5.25" double density floppy drive floppysound Floppy sound @ 44.10 kHz flopsndout Speaker d1 Floppy drive connector abstraction drivecpu Texas Instruments TMS9995 @ 12.00 MHz hexbus Hexbus connector i8272a Intel 8272A FDC @ 4.00 MHz ibc_1052911 Intelligent Peripheral Bus Controller u12_ram RAM u19_ram RAM u21_ready_ff 7474 TTL u24_motor_mf 74123 TTL u24_motor_speed_mf 74123 TTL ioport TI-99 I/O Port joyport TI-99 Joystick port twinjoy TI-99/4(A) Twin Joysticks mainboard8 TI-99/8 Mainboard amigo TI-99/8 Address space mapper mofetta TI-99/8 Physical Address Space Decoder oso TI-99/8 Hexbus interface vaquerro TI-99/8 Logical Address Space Decoder maincpu Texas Instruments TMS9995-MP9537 @ 10.73 MHz screen Video Screen @ 5.36 MHz sound_out Speaker soundchip SN76496 @ 3.57 MHz speech CD2501ECD @ 640.00 kHz speech_out Speaker speech_region TI Speech ROM sram8 RAM tms9901 TMS9901 Programmable System Interface vdp TMS9118 VDP @ 10.73 MHz 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenorton Posted March 4, 2022 Author Share Posted March 4, 2022 Hi: I'm using an Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1035G4 CPU @ 1.10GHz 1.50 GHz Think that'd be ok? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 4, 2022 Share Posted March 4, 2022 Yes, also see my chart at https://www.mizapf.de/en/ti99/mame/mamereq 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelpedant Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 If the 99/8 featured some next gen TI PSG or VDP or speech tech with new features, I expect it would attract a great deal more interest. When people lust after 99/4A successors, and major feature expansions, they're usually lusting after 9938s and 9958s and OPLs and SIDs and all that, more than anything else. Aside from lacking a final production build (such as would allow people to be drawn to it with a well defined notion of what *it* is), the 99/8 also specifically lacks any of the improvements which would make it compelling and interesting to a large audience. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhataKowinkydink Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 7 minutes ago, pixelpedant said: the 99/8 also specifically lacks any of the improvements which would make it compelling and interesting to a large audience Probably largely true, but the 15MB of RAM is nothing to sneeze at. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 On 3/2/2022 at 7:30 PM, jenorton said: Do any of you prefer using it to other TI 99/4 or 4A emulation? If so, what do you use it for and why do you prefer it. I use it so I can say I've used the 99/8. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 It's been ages since I've played the the MAME emulation of the 99/8; does MAME emulate memory expansion for the 99/8? As an aside, I actually had a 99/8 for a while many years ago. Mine had the p-system intact, but there was no card edge connector for the expansion bus on the side (just bare board), so I could only use cassette with it. I sold it when I had to, but I hated to do that and I wish I still had it. It was definitely faster than the 99/4A, and TI Extended BASIC II was more full featured, but it definitely suffered from not having a better video and/or sound chip. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 I don't know of a memory expansion for the TI-99/8. How is it connected? The 99/8 in MAME offers the stock 64K DRAM and 2K SRAM, the full GROM libary (22 GROMs), 40K console ROM, and 16K P-Code ROM. (Edit: and the 128Kx1 speech ROMs) Although you can use the P-Box (I implemented the Armadillo interface), I recommend to use the Hexbus floppy drive, since Extended Basic II proved to crash with the TI-99/4A disk controllers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 44 minutes ago, mizapf said: I don't know of a memory expansion for the TI-99/8. How is it connected? The 99/8 in MAME offers the stock 64K DRAM and 2K SRAM, the full GROM libary (22 GROMs), 40K console ROM, and 16K P-Code ROM. (Edit: and the 128Kx1 speech ROMs) Although you can use the P-Box (I implemented the Armadillo interface), I recommend to use the Hexbus floppy drive, since Extended Basic II proved to crash with the TI-99/4A disk controllers. 99/8 memory expansions for the PEB exist. I have a 128K card and a 512K card. Both work using my round cable Armadillo Interface. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 1 hour ago, Casey said: As an aside, I actually had a 99/8 for a while many years ago. Mine had the p-system intact, but there was no card edge connector for the expansion bus on the side (just bare board), so I could only use cassette with it. There is actually a wiring description out there to convert the edge-connector boards to the 50-pin Centronics connector. A significant number of the machines in the wild have this modification in place. I used the wiring description to create an adapter to plug into the side port edge connector to perform the modification without making changes to the original hardware. It works great. I am not the only one that has done this, as I have seen a clamp-on adapter that fit on the end of a round-cable Armadillo Interface that did the same thing in a more permanent form of attachment. I saw that one before I found the wiring data I needed, so I knew the modification between the two types of Armadillo Interface was possible. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 21 minutes ago, Ksarul said: 99/8 memory expansions for the PEB exist. I have a 128K card and a 512K card. Both work using my round cable Armadillo Interface. If we have some specifications, I'd be happy to add them to the emulation. Since the memory access of the 99/8 is paged, it's not just like adding the good old 32K. (I really never heard of an existing memory expansion until Mar 05, 2022.) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrospect Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 I had a little tinker around with the 99/8 emulation in MAME. I found something quite interesting in that "protected" programs in XB don't come up with "Protection Violation" when you press break and type LIST. They actually disappear completely as soon as break is pressed! I like the idea of the 99/8 because of it's extended memory in XB we get something like 62K to play with which is nice. The faster clock is nice also. I did intend to create a game for it but at the time two reasons kept me from doing so, the main one is that I'm not used to using MAME for emulation as such and I found it a little awkward, and the other reason was that I didn't think anyone else was using the 99/8 enough to justify my creating a game on it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhataKowinkydink Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 6 hours ago, Retrospect said: and I found it a little awkward Understatement of the century ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mnielsenau Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Not wanting to discount the great work that @mizapf is doing on the 99/8 Mame emulation side... However would it be possible to look at the MiSTer as a possible "hardware" target for both 99/8 and possibly Geneve given that we have the circuit diagrams for those machines? I am not a coder, but I am really enjoying the TI-99/4A cores that @Flandango and others are working on at the moment, and to have an FPGA implementation of both of these machines would truly be awesome from my perspective. Just a thought... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 8 hours ago, Retrospect said: I didn't think anyone else was using the 99/8 enough to justify my creating a game on it. I dunno. I might be compelled to fire up 99/8 MAME machine to play Super Buttplug Simulator. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said: I dunno. I might be compelled to fire up 99/8 MAME machine to play Super Buttplug Simulator. Now that one would be a use case for the 99/8 all by itself--the first game expressly made for the machine and with the most bizarre premises. In cartridge form it might have to use something like the UberGROM loader though, as the 99/8 OS was intended to ignore ROM-only cartridges (although some machines apparently ignore this restriction). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 3 hours ago, Ksarul said: Now that one would be a use case for the 99/8 all by itself--the first game expressly made for the machine and with the most bizarre premises. In cartridge form it might have to use something like the UberGROM loader though, as the 99/8 OS was intended to ignore ROM-only cartridges (although some machines apparently ignore this restriction). I wonder if the 99/8's Extended BASIC at native speed is fast enough not to require compiling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 On 3/5/2022 at 4:01 PM, mizapf said: I don't know of a memory expansion for the TI-99/8. How is it connected? The 99/8 in MAME offers the stock 64K DRAM and 2K SRAM, the full GROM libary (22 GROMs), 40K console ROM, and 16K P-Code ROM. (Edit: and the 128Kx1 speech ROMs) Although you can use the P-Box (I implemented the Armadillo interface), I recommend to use the Hexbus floppy drive, since Extended Basic II proved to crash with the TI-99/4A disk controllers. The update history comments within the HFDC DSR source code mention 99/8 compatibility. Is the HFDC an option or did it also crash? * UPDATES 3/25/83 CLOCK OPTION * 4/14/83 DSK1/DSK FEATURE * 5/14/83 99/8 COMPATABLE * 9/87 99/4A AND 9640 COMPATABLE * 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 The problem lies in Extended Basic II, which blindly assumes you can use a PAB in CPU RAM, and which has no proper error handling at that point. The controllers do work in Editor/Assembler, for instance. It would be interesting to see what "99/8 compatibility" means for the author of the comment. Remember that the HFDC was the default controller for a long time in MESS before I added the other options. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 On my physical 99/8 with an Armadillo Interface connecting the PEB to it, I used a Myarc FDC and the TI standard 16-sector double density for my disks. The Disk Manager 3 cartridge could read and write to the disks with no problem, with or without a 128K memory expansion card in the PEB. Extended BASIC II could save and load from the disks as well, although I only ever tried it with smaller programs that I typed in or example programs I found on some of my 99/8 disks. Adding the 128K card does increase the total available memory for BASIC. Oddly enough, when I inserted an Editor Assembler cartridge in that machine, it wouldn't work, as it said there was no expansion memory (with or without access to a 128K card). There are four jumpers on the back of the 128K cards that set the base memory address though (hard wired with resistors on mine), so it is possible mine is set to the wrong address space to be recognized by the E/A. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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