Jeffrey Brace wrote:
but my opinion is to do something soon that is a small gathering, then do something at Festivus to honor him.
I agree with Jeff, for reasons that I'm reluctant to discuss but I think should be considered. Memorials happen shortly after one's passing, as part of a period of mourning and grief. Festivus is more than two months from now, and Dan's family may be past their period of mourning. They should be consulted on the particular matters of a memorial event and its timing. But honoring someone at an event is a different matter. That's up to those gathered; it's a celebratory action, a time for reflection, but generally after a a period of mourning. There's generally more time to consider specific actions, and the focus is on that person's life and activities. I think Jeff suggested as much in his post. Also: Festivus has its own standing as an event for various purposes - which is not the subject right now. I don't wish to argue against use of Festivus for a memorial, it would make me appear to be unsympathetic. My discomfort about these two considerations, suggest to me WHY this is not a good idea. I think these are sufficient reasons to not delay a NJ/local memorial gathering, if one can be arranged; AND to plan some honors for Dan at the next VCFed-Midatlantic event, which happens to be the Festivus event. Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
I agree. Herb makes many great and appropriate points. On Sep 7, 2018, at 10:34 AM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: Jeffrey Brace wrote:
but my opinion is to do something soon that is a small gathering, then do something at Festivus to honor him.
I agree with Jeff, for reasons that I'm reluctant to discuss but I think should be considered. Memorials happen shortly after one's passing, as part of a period of mourning and grief. Festivus is more than two months from now, and Dan's family may be past their period of mourning. They should be consulted on the particular matters of a memorial event and its timing. But honoring someone at an event is a different matter. That's up to those gathered; it's a celebratory action, a time for reflection, but generally after a a period of mourning. There's generally more time to consider specific actions, and the focus is on that person's life and activities. I think Jeff suggested as much in his post. Also: Festivus has its own standing as an event for various purposes - which is not the subject right now. I don't wish to argue against use of Festivus for a memorial, it would make me appear to be unsympathetic. My discomfort about these two considerations, suggest to me WHY this is not a good idea. I think these are sufficient reasons to not delay a NJ/local memorial gathering, if one can be arranged; AND to plan some honors for Dan at the next VCFed-Midatlantic event, which happens to be the Festivus event. Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
I agree with Herb's point about doing something for Dan sooner, not later. How is the weekend of Sept. 29-30 for everyone? I'd like to meet up for a brunch or dinner someplace * not * at the museum. Everyone should wear one of the shirts VCF East shirts that Dan drew, if you have one. We could bring in Mindy/Katie via digitally and pass the phone/tablet around the table.
I don't know who is docent yet at the museum 9/29 and 9/30, so depending on whether I have to do that from 1pm to 5pm each day and I also volunteered for CEBOT (Camp Evans Base of Terror) 9/29 night from 7pm to 11pm. On Fri, Sep 7, 2018 at 1:04 PM Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I agree with Herb's point about doing something for Dan sooner, not later.
How is the weekend of Sept. 29-30 for everyone? I'd like to meet up for a brunch or dinner someplace * not * at the museum.
Everyone should wear one of the shirts VCF East shirts that Dan drew, if you have one.
We could bring in Mindy/Katie via digitally and pass the phone/tablet around the table.
-- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation
I picked up a TI99/4a with a PEB, it has the RS232 card, Floppy Controller Card, 32k card, and also there is a P-Code card in the original box. The owner had never installed the P-Code card. The most I’ve done with the TI99/4a was play cartridge based games, I’ve got no experience using the PEB. It did come with all the manuals, a number of cartridges, as well as about 50 miscellaneous Floppy disks. If someone wouldn’t mind giving me a brief rundown of using the System with the PEB, it would be greatly appreciated. -- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
The 32K card is pretty passive. You should now have up to 32K available to the machine when the PEB is plugged in. If I recall the command, you should be able to type the command: PRINT FRE(0) and see about 24K free if the 32K expander is working. Some of the memory above 24K is for overhead and for reserved use. For the RS-232 card, you can connect that to a modem, PC, or any other RS-232 serial based device as you would with other computers having an RS-232 port. I think there are two caveats: 1.) The port has RX/TX pins flipped compared to standard RS-232. You will need a null modem cable or adapter to connect it to a modem. You can use a straight through cable to connect to a PC. 2.) The port is a female gender, unlike standard RS-232 ports. You'll most likely need a gender changer if you use things like a Laplink serial cable to connect the TI-99 to a PC. As for the P-Code card, congratulations! They are not very common, but they are useful for those who want to tinker with writing programs in other languages on the TI-99. I do not have a P-Code card myself, so I don't know too many details about it... but I may consider buying yours if you don't want it and want to sell it. :) Some of the disks you have may contain P-Code related files. Now, the disk drive... The complete rat bastard bunkheads at TI thought it would be great to sell a disk drive WITHOUT any real functionality, just so they can make more money off the consumer for tools to make it easy to use the disk drive. For starters, you can't just do a DIR or anything to look at the disk contents in BASIC. You need a Disk Manager cartridge plugged in and running in order to simply view a disk directory. This is complete nonsense if you want to look at any disk and test the files you want to run. You can also use Disk Manager to copy files between disks. Disk Manager is menu driven and is pretty self explanatory. When you do a directory, you'll see filenames with extensions separated by a "/" Any file ending in /BAS is a BASIC program file. For example, if a file is called MYPROG/BAS, you can load those in BASIC with the command: OLD DSK1.MYPROG OLD is the TI BASIC load command. DSK1 is the disk drive device reference. MYPROG is the desired filename sans the /BAS attribute, although I think it's OK to add it if you wish. This should get you started. Feel free to ask more questions and look at my videos on the TI-99 PEB, both filmed as part of a RetroChallenge event where I was restoring a PEB. https://youtu.be/i_Vrx-NaUFA - PEB disassembly https://youtu.be/WNOu0UpVNGo - Contains some PEB usage, but other topics are covered. Jeff Salzman On Sat, Sep 8, 2018 at 11:13 PM Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I picked up a TI99/4a with a PEB, it has the RS232 card, Floppy Controller Card, 32k card, and also there is a P-Code card in the original box. The owner had never installed the P-Code card.
The most I’ve done with the TI99/4a was play cartridge based games, I’ve got no experience using the PEB.
It did come with all the manuals, a number of cartridges, as well as about 50 miscellaneous Floppy disks.
If someone wouldn’t mind giving me a brief rundown of using the System with the PEB, it would be greatly appreciated. -- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
Well, I have both the disk manager cartridge as well as the disk manager 2 cartridge. As well as terminal Emulator II, TI extended basic, editor/assembler, music maker, TI Logo, Microsoft Multiplan, Parsec as well as a number of other game cartridges as well. I just need to get either a composite video cable for it, or the 300ohm to 75ohm adapter. Probably the composite video cable would make for a much clearer picture. Not sure if s-video is an option for it. But until I can hook it to a monitor/tv, it’s a huge doorstop. Thanks for the info On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 11:13 AM Jeff Salzman via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
The 32K card is pretty passive. You should now have up to 32K available to the machine when the PEB is plugged in. If I recall the command, you should be able to type the command:
PRINT FRE(0)
and see about 24K free if the 32K expander is working. Some of the memory above 24K is for overhead and for reserved use.
For the RS-232 card, you can connect that to a modem, PC, or any other RS-232 serial based device as you would with other computers having an RS-232 port. I think there are two caveats:
1.) The port has RX/TX pins flipped compared to standard RS-232. You will need a null modem cable or adapter to connect it to a modem. You can use a straight through cable to connect to a PC.
2.) The port is a female gender, unlike standard RS-232 ports. You'll most likely need a gender changer if you use things like a Laplink serial cable to connect the TI-99 to a PC.
As for the P-Code card, congratulations! They are not very common, but they are useful for those who want to tinker with writing programs in other languages on the TI-99. I do not have a P-Code card myself, so I don't know too many details about it... but I may consider buying yours if you don't want it and want to sell it. :) Some of the disks you have may contain P-Code related files.
Now, the disk drive...
The complete rat bastard bunkheads at TI thought it would be great to sell a disk drive WITHOUT any real functionality, just so they can make more money off the consumer for tools to make it easy to use the disk drive. For starters, you can't just do a DIR or anything to look at the disk contents in BASIC. You need a Disk Manager cartridge plugged in and running in order to simply view a disk directory. This is complete nonsense if you want to look at any disk and test the files you want to run. You can also use Disk Manager to copy files between disks.
Disk Manager is menu driven and is pretty self explanatory. When you do a directory, you'll see filenames with extensions separated by a "/" Any file ending in /BAS is a BASIC program file. For example, if a file is called MYPROG/BAS, you can load those in BASIC with the command:
OLD DSK1.MYPROG
OLD is the TI BASIC load command. DSK1 is the disk drive device reference. MYPROG is the desired filename sans the /BAS attribute, although I think it's OK to add it if you wish.
This should get you started. Feel free to ask more questions and look at my videos on the TI-99 PEB, both filmed as part of a RetroChallenge event where I was restoring a PEB.
https://youtu.be/i_Vrx-NaUFA - PEB disassembly
https://youtu.be/WNOu0UpVNGo - Contains some PEB usage, but other topics are covered.
Jeff Salzman
On Sat, Sep 8, 2018 at 11:13 PM Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I picked up a TI99/4a with a PEB, it has the RS232 card, Floppy Controller Card, 32k card, and also there is a P-Code card in the original box. The owner had never installed the P-Code card.
The most I’ve done with the TI99/4a was play cartridge based games, I’ve got no experience using the PEB.
It did come with all the manuals, a number of cartridges, as well as about 50 miscellaneous Floppy disks.
If someone wouldn’t mind giving me a brief rundown of using the System with the PEB, it would be greatly appreciated. -- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
-- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
participants (6)
-
Chris Fala -
Evan Koblentz -
Herb Johnson -
Jeffrey Brace -
Joseph Oprysko -
jsalzman＠gmail.com