[TI-99/4A] Rediscovery of the TI99/4A
- From: "nonya damnbizness" <nonya@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 16:56:43 -0400
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Bray" <ewbray2000@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ti99-4a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 3:24 PM
Rediscovery of the TI99/4A Using RXB [Rich Extended Basic] and
FUNLWEB [Funnel Web] together is as close as one can get to having a
"DOS" like operating system for the TI99/4A Computer along with its
Emulators & Simulators*. Since I no longer have my physical TI99/4A
computer set up, I imagine this must be the same situation for those
users that have the ability to use this physical set up of their
computer. Now with these programs the only thing really missing, and
probably will be for a little while longer, from the TI99/4A Computer
along with its Emulators & Simulators* is a Graphical User Interface
(GUI) [visit this site] http://www.sics.se/~adam/contiki/. The GUI was
just beginning its development by Xerox when the TI99/4A was being
produced by Texas Instruments and no one has yet to port over this open
source, highly portable, networked, multi-tasking operating system for
memory-constrained systems. Again this example just shows anyone that
is willing to investigate how the potential of this computer was not
developed by its parent company in a corporate decision to not have this
consumer computer compete with its business computer. RXB was
developed by Richard Gilbertson and FUNLWEB was developed by Tony & Will
McGovern, these two groups of gentlemen were thousands of miles apart
and probably developed their programs out of a necessity because the
'operating system' that was offered by the parent computer company was
so inferior. Sometimes the small group can really out perform the big
company. Now maybe the TI99/4A Computer along with its Emulators &
Simulators* users with the RXB & FUNLWEB programs could start a mild
rediscovery of this computer type if they each made a concerted effort
to publicize the availability of this material worldwide over the
Internet *AN EXCELLENT SIMULATOR
Win99/4A version 3.007
For those of you that packed your TI 99/4A & GENEVE 9640 away long ago,
recently Cory Burr wrote Win99/4A version 3.007, an EXCELLENT simulator
of the TI 99/4A with full speech capabilities, sound capabilities,
cassette tape simulation, 3 resident disk drives, 3 resident hard disks,
and very good module compatibility. You can now get back to writing
programs with the TI Extended Basic Cartridge(s) and writing programs in
Basic using the Super Cartridge and the Mini Memory Cartridge; using the
'Funnel Web' quasi operating system and using the good educational &
game modules for your nieces, nephews, and other children; all this on
the PC.
WIN99/4A Disk Manager & Text-to-Basic Program Conversion This new
feature is a programmer's dream!
Now you can write or edit a basic or extended basic program to error
check or modify at the drop of a hat.
This is something that should have been around twenty-two years ago! If
it was, then it would have made this computer [TI99/4A] the EASIEST one
to program.
Now:
A. From Book or Magazine
1. Scan the entire sections of document with your OCR
2. Copy and paste the program lines you want into a WordPad text file
3. Save the WordPad text file
4. Load the WordPad file into the WIN99/4A Disk Mgr
B. From PDF Text file
1. Copy and paste the program lines you want into a WordPad text file
with Adobe Reader
2. Save the WordPad text file
3. Load the WordPad file into the WIN99/4A Disk Mgr
C. Typing the file yourself
1. Type the program into a WordPad file
2. Save the WordPad text file
3. Load the WordPad file into the WIN99/4A Disk Mgr
D. From the TIDir Utility Program
1. Highlight program to be displayed from a Win99/4a or V9T9 disk
2. Save the displayed program listing as a text file
3. Load the text file into the WIN99/4A Disk Mgr
THIS IS A SUPERIOR FEATURE!!!
Just go to one the http addresses below. It will take you directly to
where the file is located and can be downloaded.
http://www.99er.net/download/files.php?cat=15
<http://www.99er.net/download/files.php?cat=15>
Over 200 Cartridges (Modules) in file format are available for download
for Win994a. Just go to on the http address below. It will take you
directly to where the files are located and can be downloaded.
http://www.99er.net/download/files.php?cat=15
<http://www.99er.net/download/files.php?cat=15>
Download and uncompress the cartridge(s) item. This may take a little
while since the file is roughly 27meg. Uncompress the contents of this
file into the "carts" directory under the "Win994a" folder of your hard
disk. This will make all 200+ carts available to Win994a next time you
start it up. Enjoy.
Try it!
An excellent website for a great many useful *.V9 files that can be
renamed *.TIDisk [the Win994a file format suffix] files from the command
prompt in DOS. (C:\Temp RENAME *.V9 *.TIDisk)
http://mitglied.lycos.de/Bromosel/Ti99/99down.htm
<http://mitglied.lycos.de/Bromosel/Ti99/99down.htm>
The site listed below has PC archives of "almost" every PC99
version [a commercial emulator] of all the good TI99/4A programs known
to mankind!
Just download the archives and run them at your leisure.
You can then convert the .DSK to V9 [standard freeware format] files
with the PC992V9 program available at:
ftp://ftp.whtech.com/v9t9/Convert%2...ks%20to%20V9T9/
<ftp://ftp.whtech.com/v9t9/Convert%2...ks%20to%20V9T9/>
then rename *.V9 files to *.TIDisk [the Win994a file format suffix]
files from the command prompt in DOS. (C:\Temp RENAME *.V9 *.TIDisk)
ftp://ftp.whtech.com/pc99/archives/
<ftp://ftp.whtech.com/pc99/archives/>
The Company's Shortsightedness TI responded to competition in the home
computer market by dropping its price on the TI99/4A, but it made
critical mistakes in strategy and evaluation of the consumer computer
market.
As the TI99/4A began to sell, the company still refused to release the
secrets of how it worked, making it impossible for third-party vendors
to support the machine with software and peripherals. Instead, TI chose
to protect its secrets and gluttonously to keep the software and
peripheral business to itself [Complete Vertical Control]. (A lesson
later learned by IBM and exploited by Microsoft) But the Peripheral
Expansion System TI offered was not priced in line with its
reduced-price TI99/4A. The expansion system was difficult to understand,
confusing to many retailers and consumers, and deemed too expensive.
In the hard-fought sales battle, TI suffered and serious grievous damage
and gave up on home computers.
Just as TI was leaving the home computer market the company stated that
its TI99/4A home computer could not and would never be able to run a BBS
system, have a mouse as a system interface, and connect to and control a
MIDI device. Of course the hardware `Hackers' out there proved
the company to be very wrong by developing all of those very things.
Independent parties later developed a MFM hard drive controller, a SCSI
interface, and an IDE interface along with memory expansion systems, ram
disks systems, and a sound card that had the ability to play 12
different channels at once.
The software developers proved to be just as resourceful by developing
programs like several BBS system software packages, software to use with
the mouse interface, MIDI software, a standard for archiving file
storage and transmitting programs over a BBS, and several, superior to
TI's own modules, disk management systems. Later, there was software
developed to allow the machine to used digitalized sound files in its
programming.
One of the `best' software packages that prolonged the use of
the TI99/4A was the "Funnel Web" program that integrated all the
significant software into a single program that allowed the machine to
have a quasi operating system instead of a computer that could only
utilize one category of program at a time.
Texas Instruments NEVER realized the full potential of their little home
computer!
For users/owners of TI-99/4A Geneve 9640 computers everywhere!
Visit the TI99'ers Hall of Fame at http://www.ti99hof.org.
Check out the TI99ers On-Line User Group at http://www.ti99ers.org/home/.
Send abuse reports to abuse@xxxxxxxxxxx
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ti99-4a-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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