Things that annoy me about the 99/4a

[GDMike]

2 hours ago, Duewester said:

Thank you @GDMike and @Stuart for the quick response. I think Stuart is correct GDMike. You're thinking of the two ROMs (mounted 90 degrees to each other). But, you are correct about programming those and the stuff I'll need to do it. 

Time to order some 6810's and cross my fingers.

Thank you again.

Ahhh ..yes indeed...

[Retrospect]

On 10/27/2022 at 7:56 PM, RXB said:

Is the error that important? 

And you have a easy tool to see the problem called TRACE

Yeah that's a fair point, 'specially regarding it would mean more ROM space taken up to have the computer tell us where.  I kinda see it now.

[JB]

The thing that annoys me most about the 99/4a is having to explain that I'm not talking about a friggin' calculator.

[Keatah]

I remember getting a 99/4A sometime after having owned a Speak'n'Spell, Speak'n'Math, Speak'n'Read, DataMan, Ti-30, Ti-59, and Language Translator. I loved how TI did "Solid State" Software - as if it was something new and special. So computer made by a company made all those wondrous toys was a no-brainer acquisition.

 

After getting one when it cheap, I couldn't figure out anything to do with it besides plugging in cartridges. My head was already overloaded and seriously clogged with Atari 400/800 and C-64, after filling up with Apple II stuff. No hope of learning yet another compy. And even less hope for getting disk drives and more memory - too expensive and too hard to find. Not enough time either.

 

As Microsoft says, hook them early, get them to buy into your ecosphere from day one. My TI experience was opposite way around of that. At the back end and way too late.

 

Apple II and WinTel were the only machines I learned in-depth.

[sometimes99er]

On 10/27/2022 at 9:01 PM, Tuxon86 said:

But to the residing 99/4a expert here: I just read that the max RAM the 99/4a could have (without 3rd party or mods) is 52k.

Yes, and that was about what Texas Instruments said BITD.
 

On 10/27/2022 at 9:01 PM, Tuxon86 said:

Does that mean that you can use both the 32k and the mini memory module at the same time (16k base +32k +4k)?

Yes, and I did just that BITD. The 16K base is available thru a port. You could even say 52.25K including the onboard CPU RAM (256 bytes).
 

[HOME AUTOMATION]

You mean... besides the E/Z-VAC...🚁

...The backbeat, when I turn the volume way up...🔊

eeeeeeeeeeeeee...tingtingtingtingtingting...eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh...zdszdszdszdszdszdszdszds...😵

...What was I typing anyway! Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!

[digdugnate]

Wow, folks feel very strongly about the ol' 4A.

 

I think the only thing that really bugs me (that I haven't taken the time to remedy yet) is the fire hose cable going from the PEB to the computer.  If you have it 'stock', there's just not a heck of a lot you can do with it.  I don't do enough programming to kvetch about the speed of the interpreters, though I vaguely remember Dad complaining.

[Tuxon86]

Having coded in basic on A8, Commodore(s), Coco (and mc-10) in the 80’s, slow was pretty much universal when you used Basic. This is why most magazines were pushing ML one way or another. 
 

Yes I get that the TI basic was the slowest, but that’s not really saying much about the machine. This is like comparing the speed of a ford model T to its contemporary competition… They all didn’t make an interesting race to watch in the end…

[jrhodes]

On 10/27/2022 at 1:56 PM, RXB said:

Actually, the solution is easy, but you are going to have to give up a ton of more memory to keep track of where.

Is the error that important? 

And you have a easy tool to see the problem called TRACE.

Come to think of it, that also kind of annoys me.

I wish trace did not dump out to the screen. I wish it could just log the path of the program into some sort of array, and when the progam is stopped, you could look into the array to see the sequence of steps.

I don't suppose you could some how store this trace log in unused SAMS memory, and peek at it as wanted, maybe?

That would be a pretty nice feature.

[RXB]

3 hours ago, jrhodes said:

Come to think of it, that also kind of annoys me.

I wish trace did not dump out to the screen. I wish it could just log the path of the program into some sort of array, and when the progam is stopped, you could look into the array to see the sequence of steps.

I don't suppose you could some how store this trace log in unused SAMS memory, and peek at it as wanted, maybe?

That would be a pretty nice feature.

Oddly making a TRACE "DSK#.FILENAME" would be a great idea, but question is where would you get the memory to pull this off after you start a XB program?

[oddemann]

I have only one thing that I struggle with, IF that was lifted I would be so happy... 16kb!!!

[Tuxon86]

Reading up and watching video on how the 99/4a came to be, I understand the architecture decisions they had to make. But on the software side they’ve done f***’d up… Double interpreted Basic… Dictatorial licensing for 3rd party…

 

 

[RXB]

17 hours ago, Tuxon86 said:

Reading up and watching video on how the 99/4a came to be, I understand the architecture decisions they had to make. But on the software side they’ve done f***’d up… Double interpreted Basic… Dictatorial licensing for 3rd party…

 

 

They fixed most of this in Extended Basic, but even Pascal is double interpreted to be honest.

Pascal code interpreted, then there is GPL as part of Pascal is interpreted, then Assembly is used finally.

Basic code interpreted, then there is GPL as part of Basic is interpreted, then Assembly is used finally.

Forth code interpreted, then Assembly is used finally.

 

Honestly Compiled is interpreted to be compiled into Assembly.

But that takes time, and you have to re-Compile each time you make a change.

 

Agree TI did like Apple and controlled what 3rd parties could do...

[Tursi]

On 10/29/2022 at 5:14 AM, HOME AUTOMATION said:

...The backbeat, when I turn the volume way up...🔊

eeeeeeeeeeeeee...tingtingtingtingtingting...eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh...zdszdszdszdszdszdszdszds...😵

 

...What was I typing anyway! Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Set your playback frequency to 44100Hz, it'll sound a /lot/ cleaner.

 

[apersson850]

On 10/30/2022 at 6:58 PM, RXB said:

They fixed most of this in Extended Basic, but even Pascal is double interpreted to be honest.

Pascal code interpreted, then there is GPL as part of Pascal is interpreted, then Assembly is used finally.

There's no GPL involved in the implementation of UCSD Pascal. Neither on the 99/4A nor on any other machine that supported it.

Pascal source code is compiled into p-code. No interpretation (as a translation done at runtime) there. It's done by the compiler prior to execution, separate from execution.

Then, at runtime, the p-code is interpreted, by an assembly program. So only one level of interpretation.

 

Compilation and interpretation are two different things. Compilation is a translation done once, prior to running the program. Interpretation is done when the program is executed, over and over again. Thus Pascal is not double interpreted, but first compiled, then interpreted.

The work involved in compilation doesn't cost time during execution. Rather it saves time, since some of the work is already done by the compiler.

Interpretation does cost time during execution, as it involves overhead to determine which generic instructions to execute.

 

I've earlier posted quite a lot of details about how the Pascal compiler generates code and how that code is interpreted.

Edited October 31, 2022 by apersson850

[RXB]

5 hours ago, apersson850 said:

There's no GPL involved in the implementation of UCSD Pascal. Neither on the 99/4A nor on any other machine that supported it.

Pascal source code is compiled into p-code. No interpretation (as a translation done at runtime) there. It's done by the compiler prior to execution, separate from execution.

Then, at runtime, the p-code is interpreted, by an assembly program. So only one level of interpretation.

 

Compilation and interpretation are two different things. Compilation is a translation done once, prior to running the program. Interpretation is done when the program is executed, over and over again. Thus Pascal is not double interpreted, but first compiled, then interpreted.

The work involved in compilation doesn't cost time during execution. Rather it saves time, since some of the work is already done by the compiler.

Interpretation does cost time during execution, as it involves overhead to determine which generic instructions to execute.

 

I've earlier posted quite a lot of details about how the Pascal compiler generates code and how that code is interpreted.

But that's true for most languages.

Language   First Pass     Optimized
GCC           15 sec         5 sec
Assembly      17 sec         5 sec
TurboForth    48 sec        29 sec
Compiled XB   51 sec        37 sec
FbForth       70 sec        26 sec
GPL           80 sec       none yet
ABASIC       490 sec       none yet
XB          2000 sec       none yet
UCSD Pascal 7300 sec       273 sec

[apersson850]

4 hours ago, RXB said:

But that's true for most languages.

Yes, I wanted to make sure the difference between compilation and interpretation was understood. It wasn't obvious that it was.

And remove the idea that there's GPL involved in the Pascal system. Some people think so just because there are GROM chips on the p-code card. But they have misunderstood the chips' purpose.

Is there any particular connection with this and the execution times? Or is it just general speed information?

Edited November 1, 2022 by apersson850

[SkyPilot]

Disappointment, having to buy a separate coffee cup warmer because the rumored one in the 4A didn't keep my coffee warm.

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, SkyPilot said:

Disappointment, having to buy a separate coffee cup warmer because the rumored one in the 4A didn't keep my coffee warm.

Same with the coffee cup holder in a PC.  We were over-sold, yet no salesman will be held accountable.

[Retrospect]

There's one more thing that annoys me about the 99/4a  ... well not the 99 specifically, but it's users.

 

Seems we can't have new side-scrolling shoot em up's without people saying "oh look, it's Parsec without the speech" ... more than once that type of comment was presented to me by people in the community when they saw videos of "Anubis" my new side scrolling shooter project.  It's been cancelled as a result because my understand is now this; we can't HAVE a new side-scrolling shoot em up , because ... well, Parsec, right????

 

Fuck my life.

 

 

 

[RXB]

6 hours ago, apersson850 said:

Yes, I wanted to make sure the difference between compilation and interpretation was understood. It wasn't obvious that it was.

And remove the idea that there's GPL involved in the Pascal system. Some people think so just because there are GROM chips on the p-code card. But they have misunderstood the chips' purpose.

Is there any particular connection with this and the execution times? Or is it just general speed information?

Do you know exactly what the GROM chips do?

[+OLD CS1]

33 minutes ago, Retrospect said:

Fuck my life.

On the one hand, if someone compares your game to Parsec, that is almost a flattering take as it is, after all, the seminal space game for the TI.  On the other hand, it could also be just a simple and ignorant comment, that all games are Parsec because, well, because.  In any case, you should not let that douse your fun and enjoyment, and while it is nice that people appreciate your work -- which they do -- anyone who does not probably would not get sitting around a beer with you, either.

 

Likely the same people who say "Babylon 5" is essentially "Star Trek," or "Lethal Weapon" is "48 Hours," or "GoBots" are "Transformers."  These people live sad lives.

[fabrice montupet]

Time as passed, now nothing in the TI-99/4A annoys me, I ended to like its lacks and failures. However, if I had to mention one annoying point it should be the VDP 4 sprites per line limitation.

[Retrospect]

9 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

On the one hand, if someone compares your game to Parsec, that is almost a flattering take as it is, after all, the seminal space game for the TI.  On the other hand, it could also be just a simple and ignorant comment, that all games are Parsec because, well, because.  In any case, you should not let that douse your fun and enjoyment, and while it is nice that people appreciate your work -- which they do -- anyone who does not probably would not get sitting around a beer with you, either.

 

Likely the same people who say "Babylon 5" is essentially "Star Trek," or "Lethal Weapon" is "48 Hours," or "GoBots" are "Transformers."  These people live sad lives.

Thanks mate.  It is just a massive burden on my time , for something to end up being "like parsec without speech" ... the mentality of some , not all, of the TI community seems self destructive at best.  I aren't going to spend my time creating something that finishes up being compared negatively to a game that came out 40 years ago.  

They ALL got it wrong though - it was never gonna be Parsec, it was actually much much closer to Gradius.  Not that some of these eejits would know it.  

[Retrospect]

1 minute ago, fabrice montupet said:

VDP 4 sprites per line limitation.

THIS !  ^^^

The hell were they thinking?  32 sprites addressable and that limitation!!!