TI-99/4A and PEB Questions
Carey Christenson
I recently was able to purchase a TI-99/4A and PEB system from Ebay.
It came complete with a Disk Manager 2 cartridge. But apparently it
is not functional or am doing something incorrectly. First off what it has:
1) PEB has installed inside of it the following boards.
a. TI Flex cable board that connects the computer to the PEB
b. Myarc Disk Controller. Connected is 2 5 1/4 Disk Drives.
c. CorComp RS232 board
d. TI 32K expansion board.
When I power it up a light shows up on the flex board area. But nothing
else lights up. Fan is running. Computer boots and allows me to go
into the disk manager 2 cart. But it wont format or do anything. It
just gives me a DISK ERROR 0 I believe was the error. TI-99/4A was my
first computer and have enjoyed using it again playing some of the games
such as parsec, TI Invaders and munchman. But wish to do a lot more.
Anyone's experience with the PEB and how to use it to its fullest
capabilities would be greatly appreciated. I am even thinking if at all
possible of hooking this computer into my home network via serial lines
, I would imagine that would be all the faster that this computer would
need. I have 2 Atari Falcon030's upgraded with a 100 mhz 68060 CT60
board, and an Atari 1040STf and 2 PC's and 3 MAC's. I also have an
Atari 8 bit 130XE that is hooked to my 1040STf to transfer programs over
the internet. If anyone has any information on how to first off get the
PEB to work fully or test it fully then programs needed to get it
communicating with other computers via serial line I would be most
appreciative. I also notice that this forum is not very active. Any
information on an active TI forum I would appreciate that information as
well.
Thanks,
Carey
winston19842005
On 6/22/08 4:16 PM, in article 485eb2f6$0$31756$4c36...@roadrunner.com,
"Carey Christenson" <falc...@roadrunner.com> wrote:
Good system!
Start here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/
VERY ACTIVE!
I/O error 0, cannot remember. Bet you aren't connected right.
For the PEB, only the flex cable card will light up until you try accessing
a card.
Go into TI BASIC and type OLD DSK1.TEST
(does the disk controller card light up? Does DSK1 light up?)
In TI BASIC, try OLD RS232
(your RS232 card should light up, and stay lit, and your cursor will
disappear. Hit FCTN-4 to exit this).
For the memory expansion, unless you have more, you are out of luck. TI
BASIC cannot access the 32k. You'd need an Editor/Assembler or Extended
Basic cartridge.
Carey Christenson
Hello,
Thanks for the reply. I will try your tests either later tonight or
tomorrow and let you know how it goes. I do have a TI Extended Basic
Cart. Only issue is I need a DOS to be able to run the operations of
the Disk correct?? The only DOS I have is that Disk Manager 2 cart. On
my old 8-bit Atari (130XE) DOS is on either my Hard Drive or on a
floppy. This seems the better route unless your able to piggyback
multiple carts (The Atari allow this) but I have never seen this done on
a TI system. I will let you know about the tests and see how it goes.
Does it matter what slots the cars are installed into??? What other
cards are available? I had the disk drives out and cannot remember the
number seems like it was PHP1250. Could have been 1240 or 1260 though
as well. I can tell you it has two disk drives and that they are 5 1/4
inch in size. Has anyone made a HD system that works with this
computer? What other DOS systems are available?? Preferable free of
course.
Thanks for any and all sites or information that you can provide.
Carey
winston19842005
On 6/22/08 7:16 PM, in article 485edd3e$0$5711$4c36...@roadrunner.com,
"Carey Christenson" <falc...@roadrunner.com> wrote:
...
> Hello,
> Thanks for the reply. I will try your tests either later tonight or
> tomorrow and let you know how it goes. I do have a TI Extended Basic
> Cart. Only issue is I need a DOS to be able to run the operations of
> the Disk correct?? The only DOS I have is that Disk Manager 2 cart. On
> my old 8-bit Atari (130XE) DOS is on either my Hard Drive or on a
> floppy. This seems the better route unless your able to piggyback
> multiple carts (The Atari allow this) but I have never seen this done on
> a TI system. I will let you know about the tests and see how it goes.
> Does it matter what slots the cars are installed into??? What other
> cards are available? I had the disk drives out and cannot remember the
> number seems like it was PHP1250. Could have been 1240 or 1260 though
> as well. I can tell you it has two disk drives and that they are 5 1/4
> inch in size. Has anyone made a HD system that works with this
> computer? What other DOS systems are available?? Preferable free of
> course.
>
> Thanks for any and all sites or information that you can provide.
Ok, to test the 32k, go into Extended Basic and type SIZE and hit enter.
You should see a number returned for STACK and another for PROGRAM (I cannot
remember the exact numbers, but they are around 11000 for STACK and 24488
for PROGRAM).
If you get 13928 (or something close) then the disk controller isn't
allocating space from the stack (not good). And if you get only program
space (of 11000 something of 13928) then your 32k card isn't working. The
32k card adds 24k to XB program space, and the old program space becomes
"STACK" for strings, mostly. The other 8k of the 32k card is for assembly
programs.
No DOS is necessary - all disk operations are resident in the disk
controller card. The disk manager is actually just a program to call the
routines in the disk controller. You cannot access all of them from Basic,
but you will find better disk managers (DM1000, DM2K). Funnelweb is
sometimes considered a "DOS", but really it is a text-based multi-loader
environment with built-in editor, disk manager, and customizable to load
anything you need.
Card order really doesn't matter. Usually, slot 1 is the flex-cable
interface card, 8 for the disk drive.
For software, try ftp.whtech.com.
www.99er.net - look for the Basic user's reference guide and Extended Basic
guide, if you don't have them. Also, look for the disk controller manual for
the disk manager documentation and a short program on how to access the
directory from Basic.
www.ti99er.org is the online users group web site.
Some supported operations for the disk in Basic include:
SAVE/OLD - save or load a program from disk
OPEN/CLOSE/INPUT/PRINT/CLOSE - standard file I/O
DELETE - deletes disk files
Other cards that are/were available (not complete list):
HFDC - Hard and Floppy disk controller - MFM hard drives - up to 3 hard
drives.
SCSI - WHT and ASCSI SCSI controller card - up to 250mb support.
Memory cards - such as the 32k, Myarc 128k/512k (ramdisk), SAMS card (up to
1mb)
Display cards - Dijit 80 column card (9938), Mechatronics side-car (9938),
TIM (9958) (internal), Foundation 80 column
Ramdisks - Horizon Ramdisk (1.5mb?) and others
P-code card - to run UCSD power-system (Pascal, TI Pilot)
Forti card (rare) - music card with 3 TI sound processors
CPM cards (rare) - Morningstar and Foundation
various RS232 cards, similar to yours
various disk controller cards, similar to yours
GRAM cards - Gram Kracker (actually plugs in modules port), P-Gram, HSGPL -
these cards allow you to load modules from disk. HSGPL supports multiple
banks of cartridges.
Compact Flash adapter - emulates up to 3 TI disk drives, but not currently
compatible with a PEB. Newer models have 32k and parallel port support.
Most of these are not produced anymore. The compact flash adapter is the
only one I know of that is currently being produced. A run of SAMS cards was
recently made.
Here is a TI web store:
http://texintreasures.com/