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[Rolan7]

Yaaaaaay.

We give this day our daily post, and forgive those who report against us. Lead us not into forumgames, but deliver us from griefers. For thine is the forum, the banhammer and the modlog, for ever and ever, Bay12.

PH-men.

[Yoink]

Weird, I knew it had been down since last night but I had no idea it'd been that long. Yikes.
I guess I've been spending too high a percentage of my every waking moment playing Red Dead Online...

[Mech#4]

Tinypics going. Had to reupload my avatar onto Imgur. If the forum doesn't like the link in your profile, try removing the s from https in the url when you're pasting it in.

[King Zultan]

and a small selection of carts including enhanced basic
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Terminal-Emulator-II-TI-99-4a-1980-Ti-Extended-Basic-Speech-Editor-Hustle/193074903679?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

I looked up the Speech Editor cartridge and apparently it needs the Speech Synthesizer Module to use it.

I picked up an ONN (walmart store brand) cassette player that looks like it might be a suitable stand-in for the program recorder.

I don't see why it wouldn't work, I saw some pictures of an TI program recorder and it looked like a regular cassette player.


And it looks like I'll also have to find a new host for my avatar, sense Tinypic is dying.

Also in other old computer news it turns out that I had a Coleco Adam computer when I was a kid, I got it from a family friend when he was moving and he was going to throw it out but I said I wanted it and he gave it to me, it looks like the picture on the wiki page I linked but with out the keyboard, and when I got it I carried it around like a suitcase because the top panel came off and I could put stuff inside it. I always wondered what it was but never looked it up, now I just need to figure out what I did with it.

[wierd]

The method used by the "remote" connector on the tape recorder potentially wont be compliant, meaning I might have to manually control the tape, rather than letting the computer control it.

The Mainbyte article on the program recorder has this to say:

A Remote Possibility

There is one additional problem that may crop up even with tape recorders that satisfy the above criteria: Almost all cassette recorders have a remote control jack which allows you to stop the recorder by pressing a button or switch located on the microphone. Unfortunately since this jack is meant to work with the manufacturer's own microphone, there is no guarantee that the jack is hooked up the same way in each tape recorder. In fact, there is a 50-50 chance that the tape recorder model you buy or already own will not be compatible with the system your Tl-99/4A is expecting. This means that the drive motor of your recorder might not be capable of being turned on and off automatically by the computer when the plug on the TI cable is inserted into the recorder’s control jack. Luckily, if this is true for your recorder, 99’er-ware sells an inexpensive adapter (called “TI-SETTE”) which is used between your recorder and the TI cable. If you don’t want to spend the money for this adapter, you can get by without, by manually starting and stopping the tape, except if you intend to use cassette files, in which case the auto- matic operation is necessary.

If it works properly, I will be sure to report the news.  I will see if I can find a diagram of this "TI-SETTE" adapter, just in case.

[dragdeler]

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[wierd]

2.5mm REM port jack.

REM port is literally just two wires, functioning as the terminal ends for a switch.

When shorted, it halts tape motor advancement.  Sounds to me like instead of a dead short, (such as via a relay switch, or a physical button), they use a transistor to bridge.  If the polarity of electricity in the port is wrong (Lead to tip, instead of tip to lead-- for instance), the transistor will not conduct (reverse bias!), and the sent signal will not be picked up by the player.

The fix is simple though, just reverse tip and lead.

[Grim Portent]

My first five bloody mary shrimp* arrived in the post today and are now settling into their tank. They're only about 8mm long and are a wonderful wine red sort of colour, I really hope I can get a self-sustaining colony established without the colour fading.

Despite being tiny they're showing up the three amano shrimp who were used to test the water quality. The clear boys can't match up to the little blood drops.

Hopefully I have a mix of males and females, but it's not really possible to tell yet.


*A strain of captive bred neocaridina dwarf shrimp, same species as the more famous cherry shrimp but with a different colour expression. Cherry shrimp have shells speckled with bright orangey red pigment and clear flesh, so they go a rather bright reddish colour, bloody marys have a red tint to their flesh and only slight tinting to their shell, so they go a deep rich colour.

[Naturegirl1999]

My first five bloody mary shrimp* arrived in the post today and are now settling into their tank. They're only about 8mm long and are a wonderful wine red sort of colour, I really hope I can get a self-sustaining colony established without the colour fading.

Despite being tiny they're showing up the three amano shrimp who were used to test the water quality. The clear boys can't match up to the little blood drops.

Hopefully I have a mix of males and females, but it's not really possible to tell yet.


*A strain of captive bred neocaridina dwarf shrimp, same species as the more famous cherry shrimp but with a different colour expression. Cherry shrimp have shells speckled with bright orangey red pigment and clear flesh, so they go a rather bright reddish colour, bloody marys have a red tint to their flesh and only slight tinting to their shell, so they go a deep rich colour.

This is cool

[wierd]

WOOT!  The TI came in the mail, as did the cassette cable.

I wont get extended basic until tomorrow, but I can test out that cassette system today! Be back later!


OK-- The RF modulator that came with the thing is grainy as shit--- but I can work with it. I will see about ordering a composite cable. But the good news:

That cheap walmart ONN brand pos cassette recorder? WORKS FLAWLESSLY.  Has proper tape control, no fudging.

[wierd]

OK. After spending several hours, I have figured out that there is a bit of a wiring faux-pas with how the official cassette cable is wired.

Specifically, it uses ground on the microphone lead.


This is important, if you want to use something like CS1er to send audio to the input of the TI 99/A4, when doing an OLD CS1 to load from "Cassette". (EG, you want to load a "cassette" you have downloaded from the internet, so that you can then save it to a real tape for later.) Otherwise, there is a low-level hum on the line, because it is not fully grounded.

You need to connect the left and right channel outputs together, then put them on the lead part of the earphone plug, then put the GND on the tip part of the microphone jack.  Works GREAT after that.

Successfully pulled Labyrinth off the net, and saved it to tape this way.

(pulled from this archive.)
http://tigameshelf.net/tibasic.htm

I had to play it through VLC so I could push the audio volume past 100%.

(The game itself plays rather chunky though. outputting text should not be that slow. When I get the extended basic, I will see if games written for it run better. I should get that in the mail tomorrow.)

[Reelya]

The best bit about Basic games is that you can get in there and change how the code works.

For the Amstrad CPC I used to have, I remember that the official magazine published some assembler code you could "Poke" in that gave you a function that would directly hack characters to the screen a lot faster than the built-in character drawing routine. So, you could probably do something similar and speed up that game immensely.

That game probably uses the default character-drawing routine, but that routine does a lot of extra things. For example, you first need to set the cursor position, and that code would have bounds checking to make sure you're not setting it outside the allowed area, then calling the "write character" function, which does stuff like checking the current pen and background color, converts some bitmap to the right colors then draws it pixel by pixel. Then, it advanced the cursor position and checks for whether you've exceeded the columns or drawn off the bottom of the screen, and scrolls if that's true. Instead of this you can store the pixel data in a buffer then blit just those pixels to the right location of the screen. Or, if it's only storing text then you hack the screen buffer directly to change which character is at the location.

[wierd]

OH, the Ti has something EVEN BETTER.

Meet the "Insabella" package.

It needs a 32k ram expander, AND the extended basic (at a minimum. the cartridge based version works best, and contains a customized extended basic.), but it contains a basic COMPILER.  yes. A compiler.  To turn basic routines into 3000% faster (30x!) assembler programs, with a loader stub attached to them so you can load them and start them exactly the same way you started the previously. (Caveat though, it needs an extended basic for the loader stub. The exploit they use to shovel the compiled program into ram only works in extended basic.)

It's really meant to be used with the Classic99 emulator, which has an option to super-turbo the emulated CPU, and which emulates a diskette system (needed for the compiler to function.)  The resulting assembler programs can be copied with CS1er to a .wav file, to be sent to the system using the hacky kludge I mentioned prior.

So-- Make your slow basic program, test, test, and test some more-- then compile.

[dragdeler]

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[wierd]

I know you have a DIY audio mixing table, but you are doing video compositing too?

What, are you planning on getting some friends together, and making shoestring scifi or something?