What is the Holy Grail of the TI99 4/A World?

[+arcadeshopper]

20 hours ago, Atari_Bill said:

Is the software for the MBX especially hard to find?   I’ve had a nice boxed MBX for some time now that I was lucky enough to acquire, but still haven’t found any software.  Granted I haven’t completely focused on it,  it it seems hard to come by.  

I have the carts if they aren't in my store lmk what you are interested in 

[Atari_Bill]

Pretty much any of them, but I’m looking for the overlay as well.  

[+arcadeshopper]

1 hour ago, Atari_Bill said:

Pretty much any of them, but I’m looking for the overlay as well.  

Ok I've got overlays for some .. will dig them out and inventory

[Atari_Bill]

23 minutes ago, arcadeshopper said:

Ok I've got overlays for some .. will dig them out and inventory

Sweet!  Let me know. 

[pixelpedant]

High-quality retouched scans of all MBX overlays are also available in my MBX resources thread, so even if you acquire a cart without overlay, you can print one (and laminate, if you're being thorough). 

[+hloberg]

On 6/3/2023 at 12:21 PM, Tornadoboy said:

Yeah but emulation just doesn't feel the same , real hardware just seems more authentic. Maybe someone can cook up an FPGA for it someday? I really don't have a dog in that fight though as I'm holding out for something like a Geneve 2020, but I just like seeing rare stuff get repro'd, especially canceled prototypes that deserved to make it to market. 

A thought on FPGA. personally I think even an FPGA is just another form of emulation. Don't get me wrong an FPGA of say the Geneve or 99/8 be cool but it still wouldn't work with floppies or tape drives or use real carts therefore just 'emulating' the experience.  now if you could hook up a disk drive and insert and cart that be different. 

in fact remaking a 99/8 or such in 2023 would still be just emulating it as it wouldn't be the real thing and would be just a emulated copy of the real thing with 2023 parts.

take a step further aren't u just emulating a TI99 if u use a NanoPEB, TiPi or SD or USB drives (I say this having my only TI99 running off a NanoPEB)?

truth is in this day and time unless u have a stock TI99 with PEB and era cards u are running some form of emulation.

of course this is just me opinion.

 

[Tornadoboy]

Don't quote me on this but I think people can hook up original external hardware like floppies and such on a MISTer if the core is designed to handle it, it seems to me I've seen people connect C64 drives and printers. 

 

I get your point though, and it could be said FPGAs are just another form of emulation, though I think the difference is regular emulation like in MAME merely emulates the results by whatever software means are convenient and relatively accurate to get the job done, but the process to produce those results may be nothing like the original processes. While on the other hand an FPGA simulates the original process right from the very beginning using virtual hardware that copies the original circuits right down to the resistors, transistors, TTL chips, processors etc and the actual electrical connections between all of them, thus in theory being much more accurate than emulation. I think an analogy might be that it's sort of like one person doing their own artistic interpretation of someone else's work trying to capture the spirit and meaning of it verses someone doing a sketch of the original as accurately as possible.

Either way we're going to ultimately be left with both of those, the original hardware is all going to wear out eventually. 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Tornadoboy

[+arcadeshopper]

1 hour ago, Tornadoboy said:

Don't quote me on this but I think people can hook up original external hardware like floppies and such on a MISTer if the core is designed to handle it, it seems to me I've seen people connect C64 drives and printers. 

 

I get your point though, and it could be said FPGAs are just another form of emulation, though I think the difference is regular emulation like in MAME merely emulates the results by whatever software means are convenient and relatively accurate to get the job done, but the process to produce those results may be nothing like the original processes. While on the other hand an FPGA simulates the original process right from the very beginning using virtual hardware that copies the original circuits right down to the resistors, transistors, TTL chips, processors etc and the actual electrical connections between all of them, thus in theory being much more accurate than emulation. I think an analogy might be that it's sort of like one person doing their own artistic interpretation of someone else's work trying to capture the spirit and meaning of it verses someone doing a sketch of the original as accurately as possible.

Either way we're going to ultimately be left with both of those, the original hardware is all going to wear out eventually. 

 

I have a raspberry pi running TIPI on mine..  

 

As far as FPGA = emu its not .. it's not emulating hardware, it's replicating it in programmable logic.   It's not the same chips and resistors but it's the same RESULT (hopefully) 

the biggest problem I have with say the mister is the inept user interface for controlling the core that was obviously designed by someone who spent little time using the real thing

 

 

[Bill Loguidice]

11 minutes ago, arcadeshopper said:

 

As far as FPGA = emu its not .. it's not emulating hardware, it's replicating it in programmable logic.   It's not the same chips and resistors but it's the same RESULT (hopefully) 

the biggest problem I have with say the mister is the inept user interface for controlling the core that was obviously designed by someone who spent little time using the real thing

 

 

Yeah, it's my understanding FPGA is supposed to simulate at the electron level so it performs identically to the original hardware. That's not always the case, of course, but it tends to be more accurate and authentic than purely software-based emulation. With that said, depending upon the platform, software-based emulation can be quite good and even provide benefits over both FPGA and original hardware in some use cases. 

[+hloberg]

MAME has gotten very close to simulating the various chips in software not just emulating the results. the problem with emulation as it has the overhead of whatever OS it sits on.

still, emulators have it over FPGA in cost and flexibility.

 

[+mizapf]

The general problem with all software emulations is that you cannot achieve the inherent parallelism of hardware. Where you connect some circuits in parallel to a bus, you have a for loop in software.

[+hloberg]

8 minutes ago, mizapf said:

The general problem with all software emulations is that you cannot achieve the inherent parallelism of hardware. Where you connect some circuits in parallel to a bus, you have a for loop in software.

but if the processing is fast enough it's almost invisible

also, does FPGA suffer the same issue

[kl99-interims]

For me one holy grail, yet to surface, would be one TI-990 disk or tape full of all the TI-99 related files and docs from inside the Labs of Texas Instruments Lubbock & Co.

It isn't really important to who from the community it is passed on, as long as we can preserve everything.

 

Imagine being able to read and compile the ROM and GROMs directly from its original, commented, sources for all our Home Computers.

Imagine withdrawn drafts, prototypes and older versions of system software, application software and games.

Imagine reading all the specification we have not heard of, or we only knew about their existance, but they haven't seen the light of day outside TI.

 

I really am thankful for what we have preserved so far, and it gives a good picture, some important pieces are still missing though.

One example of a missing chapter is whether there was an agreement between Tomy and TI, not a single TI employee we talked to knew about such a thing, even though the operating system clearly originates from the TI Extended Basic Source Files.

[Tornadoboy]

Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking emulation or MAME, far from it, but as said I think FPGA tends to be far more accurate. There's room enough for both in the world.

 

My big complaint with MISTer right now is the price of the main board, though I realize that's not under the control of those involved or whom write the cores. There is an offshoot of the project (name escapes me at the moment) where people are trying to adapt to cores to work on multiple styles of FPGA chips so hopefully that'll give everyone cheaper options, especially for guys like me whom are more interested in vintage arcade and consoles that don't need a very powerful chip unlike the newer cores such as the Nintendo 64, etc.

 

I'd love someone to do repro boards of the insanely rare 99/4B too, you get increased speed and memory on a board I think fits in the 4/A case. 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Tornadoboy

[jrhodes]

I'm still waiting on a MBX replacement ala TIPI, ie a device like a Pi with a keypad attached that could be hooked up to the TI and used as a replacement for the MBX. Oh, and full MBX emulation under Classic99 / some other emu.

[+hloberg]

1 hour ago, Tornadoboy said:

Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking emulation or MAME, far from it, but as said I think FPGA tends to be far more accurate. There's room enough for both in the world.

 

My big complaint with MISTer right now is the price of the main board, though I realize that's not under the control of those involved or whom write the cores. There is an offshoot of the project (name escapes me at the moment) where people are trying to adapt to cores to work on multiple styles of FPGA chips so hopefully that'll give everyone cheaper options, especially for guys like me whom are more interested in vintage arcade and consoles that don't need a very powerful chip unlike the newer cores such as the Nintendo 64, etc.

 

I'd love someone to do repro boards of the insanely rare 99/4B too, you get increased speed and memory on a board I think fits in the 4/A case. 

 

price is what's kept me from it. I would want it to boot straight to 1 computer and look as like that computer as possible. I can't justify  paying as much as they want for it for just that.

[WhataKowinkydink]

2 hours ago, kl99-interims said:

For me one holy grail, yet to surface, would be one TI-990 disk or tape full of all the TI-99 related files and docs from inside the Labs of Texas Instruments Lubbock & Co.

It isn't really important to who from the community it is passed on, as long as we can preserve everything.

One of the coolest suggestions I've seen yet in this thread - but I'd bet that even if TI still had that stuff, it seems doubtful there'd be anyone there who would even know where to look.

[+hloberg]

35 minutes ago, WhataKowinkydink said:

One of the coolest suggestions I've seen yet in this thread - but I'd bet that even if TI still had that stuff, it seems doubtful there'd be anyone there who would even know where to look.

well they released a ton of stuff already; notes, specs, pre-production docs for the 99-8, 99-2, lots of stuff for the 9900 family line. check out https://ti99resources.wordpress.com/documents/ the hardware section and even more docs spread over https://ftp.whtech.com/

 

[+Ksarul]

2 hours ago, hloberg said:

well they released a ton of stuff already; notes, specs, pre-production docs for the 99-8, 99-2, lots of stuff for the 9900 family line. check out https://ti99resources.wordpress.com/documents/ the hardware section and even more docs spread over https://ftp.whtech.com/

 

The majority of those documents were not directly released by TI. Several of us over the years have tracked down documentation collections held by the various engineers and management personnel for the various home computing division product lines. We've pretty much scanned everything we've found and put it online. Some parts of it were a serious expense--but it was worth it to us from a preservation standpoint. With luck, someone will find yet another trove of unexpected documents that fills the remaining holes in the currently available document set. The documents from C. B. Wilson were one such unexpected documentation trove, but I suspect there are still a few others out there that we haven't found yet.

[+hloberg]

30 minutes ago, Ksarul said:

The majority of those documents were not directly released by TI. Several of us over the years have tracked down documentation collections held by the various engineers and management personnel for the various home computing division product lines. We've pretty much scanned everything we've found and put it online. Some parts of it were a serious expense--but it was worth it to us from a preservation standpoint. With luck, someone will find yet another trove of unexpected documents that fills the remaining holes in the currently available document set. The documents from C. B. Wilson were one such unexpected documentation trove, but I suspect there are still a few others out there that we haven't found yet.

a a big thanks to being so diligent. 👍👍👍

[Geoff Oltmans]

On 7/7/2023 at 12:58 PM, arcadeshopper said:

I have a raspberry pi running TIPI on mine..  

 

As far as FPGA = emu its not .. it's not emulating hardware, it's replicating it in programmable logic.   It's not the same chips and resistors but it's the same RESULT (hopefully) 

the biggest problem I have with say the mister is the inept user interface for controlling the core that was obviously designed by someone who spent little time using the real thing

 

 

To me it's a bit like the "is firmware software?" arguments. FPGA implementations of hardware are behavioral models and as such are approximations of the original article unless they are constructed as gate-level reproductions (which wouldn't truly be possible in FPGAs anyway. So, in essence they are emulating the original device.

[+OLD CS1]

Whole bunch of fighting words getting slung around here 😆

[unhuman]

CorComp MES.