+davidcalgary29 Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 I visited one TI-dominated booth at PRGE and saw a 99 4/A with multiple peripherals daisy-chained to the side. It was quite an impressive length, but the owner said that he was missing several components which could have extended the size. Out of curiosity, exactly how long can the longest daisy chain be on a 4/A? Would this have been any different for the 99/2 or 99/8? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 you mean my booth? Texas Instruments sidecars I'm missing in the photo: Speech (I didn't bring enough with me) P-Code and Video controller. correct me if I'm wrong but that's the max from TI. This is not counting 3rd party sidecars. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+acadiel Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Yep, Pcode, Video Controller, and the Hexbus sidecar are the hardest to get. @Ksarul has several of the Hexbus ones and they’re simple enough to make a copy of. It would let us use Hexbus peripheral for one 🙂. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhataKowinkydink Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 53 minutes ago, arcadeshopper said: you mean my booth? For me at least your image appears broken :( 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Grumble Google photos grumbling 9 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 1 hour ago, acadiel said: Yep, Pcode, Video Controller, and the Hexbus sidecar are the hardest to get. @Ksarul has several of the Hexbus ones and they’re simple enough to make a copy of. It would let us use Hexbus peripheral for one 🙂. Of course I forget about the hexbus was it even made in aluminium or only beige 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 The homebrews at @arcadeshopper's booth were very nice -- I wish I could have spent time with that Trailblazer/Yoomp playalike! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhataKowinkydink Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 6 hours ago, arcadeshopper said: Of course I forget about the hexbus was it even made in aluminium or only beige I'd suspect only beige - I've never seen a Hexbus unit in person, but all the pictures I've seen were sporting the Beige Look 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 17 hours ago, arcadeshopper said: Of course I forget about the hexbus was it even made in aluminium or only beige All of the Hex-Bus Adapter prototypes for the 99/4A were beige. I have several--all from different prototype phases, some of which don't actually do anything other than to test the protocols (the DSR needs to be able to recognize the Hex-Bus devices connected to it, and was still somewhat incomplete in the last available revisions). The pCode sidecar is probably the hardest one to find. Most of them went into the educational market and ended up landfilled when the schools switched computers out. I know of only four of them in the wild. The Video Controller is really HTF, but they do show up now and again. They were mostly sold to businesses (and per a comment from @FarmerPotato, military recruiters). There are probably 20-25 of these in the wild, with another 15 or so of the PEB card variants out there. TI couldn't sell these to consumers because they were rated as a Class A device by the FCC, which was a business-use only category for electronics hardware (based on its emissions, as Class A was somewhat more lenient than the Class B that governed consumer devices). 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 This was the one I brought to an event in Italy in 2015 😊 I had two RS232 connected but still missing PCode and the Video Controller ones are very rare to find, also if I have to say that all this stuff I rare to find in Italy. Better easily to find this in the USA. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 I wonder if the TI engineers laughed about this as they sat in design review meetings? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airshack Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 (edited) Does size really matter here? I think the important factor is just how long can one maintain his daisy-chain. Word on the street is Greg @arcadeshopper can keep his up all weekend long. Edited October 22, 2022 by Airshack 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speccery Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 20 hours ago, ti99iuc said: I had two RS232 connected but still missing PCode and the Video Controller ones are very rare to find, also if I have to say that all this stuff I rare to find in Italy. Better easily to find this in the USA. Impressive display there! What is the Video Controller? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 The video controller allows connection of one of several different video tape recorders or laser disc players running specially formatted interactive video software. One track is reserved for program data (works a bit like a serial disk), another for video, and yet another for sound. User decisions can cause the program to branch to other parts of the media, a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure book. Definitely more useful than the video training lessons I had to suffer though back in that time period. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 Oh yes, and if you read through the design documents prevalent at that point in time, the side port was originally intended to support three sidecar devices. The specification was updated several times, with the final version identifying support for up to six devices, although the onboard DSRs would have supported up to 16 different devices, just like the PEB address space. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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