Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 I was googling around and came across this blog talking about a engineering sample of the TI-99 Viditel Cartridge with some pictures and a dump of the cartridge. https://perhof.wordpress.com/2020/04/13/ti-99-viditel-cartridge/ In the comments on the blog someone mentions they have the host software for it, but there no links, doesn't seem to been shared. Did anyone ever find it for this cartridge? Also there mention of the TMS3556 does anyone have the datasheet for this chip? Thanks. viditel1.2_c.bin 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 Interseting back story about it futher down in the comments: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 34 minutes ago, Gary from OPA said: Also there mention of the TMS3556 does anyone have the datasheet for this chip?. On the bottom of the same website is a link more information about the probable indivdual that may have once had possession of this cartridge. On that website it gives the datasheet for then IC you're asking about. The may be some more useful information there too. https://www.blunham.com/Radar/Teletext/PDFs/TMS3556DataSheet.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 14 minutes ago, RickyDean said: Interseting back story about it futher down in the comments: Yeah the comments are the best part and one of the replies the poster mentions he has the backend host software and willing to share it to the author of the blog post but it never seems to be linked or shared, after a few comments and replies by blog author the story dies cold with no updates 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 4 minutes ago, RickyDean said: On the bottom of the same website is a link more information about the probable indivdual that may have once had possession of this cartridge. On that website it gives the datasheet for then IC you're asking about. The may be some more useful information there too. https://www.blunham.com/Radar/Teletext/PDFs/TMS3556DataSheet.pdf Thanks I didn't notice that when browsing. Going to have to print it out later on mobile too much to read on a small screen right now. TMS3556DataSheet.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 1 minute ago, Gary from OPA said: Thanks I didn't notice that when browsing. Going to have to print it out later on mobile too much to read on a small screen right now. TMS3556DataSheet.pdf 4.17 MB · 0 downloads The site linked to is https://www.blunham.com/Radar/Teletext/index.html and has some good info as well as someting that almost resembles a Geneve or TI99/8 motherboard. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 (edited) 10 minutes ago, RickyDean said: The site linked to is https://www.blunham.com/Radar/Teletext/index.html and has some good info as well as someting that almost resembles a Geneve or TI99/8 motherboard. That one of the early teletext boards for the video display using the tms9995 cpus I like also how there mention of the sbj9989, I myself used the sbj68689 the last version of the 9900 series of CPU's and I found it so much faster than the 9995 or 99105. Edited March 15 by Gary from OPA 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 8 minutes ago, Gary from OPA said: That one of the early teletext boards for the video display using the tms9995 cpus I like also how there mention of the sbj9989, I myself used the sbj68689 the last version of the 9900 series of CPU's and I found it so much faster than the 9995 or 99105. Yeh, here's another of a more updated version on that site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 @acadiel needs to get hold of Viditel host and client software for a demo setup at VCF. Give those Nabu people what-for. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 2 hours ago, RickyDean said: Looks like a little video cable headed towards J2. Is J2 a SCART connector? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 24 minutes ago, HOME AUTOMATION said: Looks like a little video cable headed towards J2. Is J2 a SCART connector? I think it is. This board has to do with video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said: @acadiel needs to get hold of Viditel host and client software for a demo setup at VCF. Give those Nabu people what-for. We have half of it the client side to display the incoming text and graphics from our rs232 card using that dumped cartridge. We just need the host software to generate the outbound data which the commentary mentions on that blog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 2 hours ago, RickyDean said: Yeh, here's another of a more updated version on that site. This updated version looks like it uses static ram instead of the tms4500 and the dram but allows for that option as well, you can see the empty 40 pin socket for the dram controller and the empty ram sockets, I doubt you could use both. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrax27407 Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 Interestingly, the EPROM used in the Viditel cartridge is an 8K TMS2564 (matches with my notes on the cart) according to the picture. Luckily, it is one of the 28-pin versions which are easier to find than the 24-pin version. Programming the code could be done using an adapter and substituting a 2764 for the TMS2564. It might also involve an adapter for the socket in the cartridge as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 46 minutes ago, atrax27407 said: Interestingly, the EPROM used in the Viditel cartridge is an 8K TMS2564 (matches with my notes on the cart) according to the picture. Luckily, it is one of the 28-pin versions which are easier to find than the 24-pin version. Programming the code could be done using an adapter and substituting a 2764 for the TMS2564. It might also involve an adapter for the socket in the cartridge as well. Well if you had the original cartridge board to use, there seems to be jumper on the board as well to control one of the eprom pins. But the dumped code runs fine on flashrom99 and burned into a 2764 on 64k cartridge board. It wants of course an original ti rs232 card at 1300 to run. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elia Spallanzani fdt Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 16 minutes ago, Elia Spallanzani fdt said: Thanks for that, I wish the search worked better on AtariAge I always get timeouts or crashes since they switched to using the cloud version of this forum software. This post has the host software shared by LukeD back in 2020 that mentioned in the original blog. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hofster Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 Yes, the discussion was kind of moved from the blog to that AtariAge thread. Maybe I should have updated the blog post with a link to the thread but I forgot about the whole thing. I still have the original cartridge though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 Just now, hofster said: Yes, the discussion was kind of moved from the blog to that AtariAge thread. Maybe I should have updated the blog post with a link to the thread but I forgot about the whole thing. I still have the original cartridge though. Thanks for the original post and good info. Sorry I been catching up on things I missed everything that occurred during the years 2020/2021/2022 and first half of 2023. So I got large void in my memory banks, but quickly filling it in. I like the whole original idea of the teletext system, long time ago I used to run a small community news channel which displayed weather, news headlines, and I spent a lot of time recreating it on the ti99 in extended back with assembly. And I also like that the TEII cartridge has its own protocol that allowed transmission of graphics and even speech, so would be interesting project to get this all working again and even updating it a bit as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hofster Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 Let me know if you do anything with the software or get a setup running. Would be cool to update that blog with some links. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 I first thought that "Bildschirmtext" was a wrong translation, but "PRESTEL" and "Viditel" seem to prove that it was correct - this is not Teletext (what you get from TV) but a phone line-based communication system. (If it were Teletext, the proper translation would have been "Videotext".) Interesting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humeur Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 databook that I had scanned. http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ti/_dataBooks/TMS3556_Mar84.pdf 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 16 minutes ago, humeur said: databook that I had scanned. http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ti/_dataBooks/TMS3556_Mar84.pdf Thanks for the full data book. Reading up on this chip it was used along with the TMS7020 and the TMS5220 for speech to produce the EXL 100 in France. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXL_100 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elia Spallanzani fdt Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humeur Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 1 hour ago, Elia Spallanzani fdt said: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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