TI-99/4A FAQ: Transfer Files to my TI from my PC

How can I transfer files from my PC to my TI?

Cartridge ROM/GROM:

- - FlashROM99 can run up to 32k ROM files from a fat32 formatted SDcard that you can load rom images on your PC.THIS IS FOR ROM BINARY IMAGES ONLY, NOT DISK FILES.
  - FinalGROM99 can run up to 1mb ROM files and additionally GROM files from SDcard that you can load these images on your PC. THIS IS FOR ROM AND GROM BINARY IMAGES ONLY NOT DISK FILES.

DISK files:

TIPI is the easiest way to share files with your TI/Geneve. TIPI can be accessed from your PC on it’s built in SAMBA/Windows file share as TIPI it also can be accessed by it’s internal webserver at http://tipi:9900 and files can be uploaded to the TIPI disk folder from this interface.

Ti99Hdx is a PC program which is capable to communicate with a TI99/4A or Geneve computer via a serial connection (TI RS232/2 interface or own build) or a parallel connection (Cf7a+ interface). or UBERGrom

- - - Modified TI RS232 card (Must be TI brand, no 3rd party cards) using the HDX daughter-board (sold here: https://www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/?page_id=11#!/RS232-mods-cables/c/16275022/offset=0&sort=nameAsc ) and a straight-through serial cable hooked to TI RS232/2 (splitters for rs232 also sold there)
    - Standard TI or Corcomp serial card using HDXS software that is downloadable here: https://hexbus.com/ti99geek/Projects/ti99hdx/ti99hdx_ti_std_rs232.html2 (also this tool is included in XB27 suite cartridge) and a straight through serial cable hooked to TI RS232/1 I wrote up a detailed walkthrough here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/248292-pc-to-ti-transfers-with-stock-rs232nanopeb-and-hdx-server/page-12
    - NanoPEB sidecar serial port, with a NULL modem cable https://hexbus.com/ti99geek/Projects/ti99hdx/ti99hdx_nanopeb.html
    - UberGROM cartridge board with a serial device and cable. https://hexbus.com/ti99geek/Projects/ti99hdx/ti99hdx_ubergrom.html

Terminal programs: TI,Corcomp,Myarc RS232, terminal software on both sides and a PC with serial port. Straight through cable. Requires programs on both sides that support Xmodem CRC, for term programs see TERMINAL PROGRAMS FAQ

MagicFM – Magic file manager will allow you to use the above serial set up and copy files to/from the TI using your PC’s terminal program:

PC Drives: If your PC has a compatible disk controller and drive you can read/write disks with this tool: ftp://ftp.whtech.com/pc%20utilities/TI99-PC%203.2.1.%20Password%20’TI99′.rar

Disk Emulator: GOTEK or HXC Disk emulation, you can copy disk images to the sdcard/usb thumb drive and access them on your TI tirectly this way. Assuming you have one of these drives connected to your TI.

NANOPEB/CF7: These use a cf card to store data, the card can be accessed via your PC using the included tools, TI-Dir by Fred Kaal and also Tiimagetool

GREASEWEAZEL: This is a usb device for your PC that allows you to connect up a 5.25″ or 3.5″ disk drive to your PC and write disk images to it.
Issues:
– You need a DS/DD drive to make viable 5.25″ disks for the TI
– You will need to convert from v9t9/pc99 disk format to HFE format to make the disks using the tool here: http://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_drive_emulator/HxCFloppyEmulator_soft.zip

TI-99/4A FAQ: Ramdisks

RAM Disks

Corcomp’s 128k and 512k memory cards are basically only usable as RAMDISK these had no battery backup so power off=blank

Myarc’s 128k and 512k memory cards contain a DSR routine for RAMDISK, these had no battery backup etc..

Horizion RAMDISK is a dedicated ramdisk of battery-backed memory. It will survive a reboot/power down as long as your batteries are good. Various sizes were released getting bigger as ram prices dropped.

Fetzner Horizon RAMDISK is available now with all the redesigns and updates

TI-99/4A FAQ: Hard Drives

Hard drives

TIPI provides a hierarchical file system (essentially a hard disk as far as the TI is concerned) for more information see the TIPI description here or http://ti994a.cwfk.net/TIPI.html

Myarc produced a Winchester Personality Card that allowed you to connect a WDS-100 SASI controller to your TI and then some MFM hard drives to the controller. This supported up to two 20meg drives. There are only three I know of in collectors hands.. Good luck on finding one!

Myarc produced a HFDC controller that in addition to disk drives supported up to 2 MFM hard drives as well, I have a 40mb one on my Geneve, not sure the max limit.. (rare)

S.N.U.G produced an excellent SCSI controller card that is compatible with the TI and Geneve. These are difficult and expensive to find for sale. http://www.s-n-u-g.de/home/index_e.php

WHSCSI card (Western Horizon SCSI card) Handles 7 SCSI drives and with a HP SCSI port splitter box could handle 6 more SCSI drives for a total of 13 SCSI drives (rare)

Therry designed a IDE controller for the 99/4a and some have been built as part of a group project among TI enthusiasts. These were recently produced by shift838 and available below, they are open source so you can build your own if you like surface mount soldering.

TI-99/4A FAQ: Printers

Can I hook up a printer to my TI?

Sure with the following cards/addons you can hook up a printer.

- - TI RS232 PEB card has two serial ports and one parallel port.
  - TI RS232 sidecar has two serial ports
  - Boxcar made a side port serial/parallel interface that was the same as TI’s but much smaller
  - NanoPEB has a single serial port that is the same as a PC serial port. 9 pin
  - CF7 has a single parallel port that is the same as a PC parallel port 25 pin
  - There was a cartridge based program that included a cartridge based parallel port, these are relatively rare.
  - Axiom made a printer interface that plugs into the side port, one for sale here:

If you don’t have a printer, you can use the program TI PRINT from Fred Kaal to use your PC’s printer with your TI. You just need a serial port (same as the HDX set up) and this software: http://www.ti99-geek.nl/Projects/ti99print/ti99print.html

ALSO TIPI includes color epson printer emulation you just print to the device PI.PIO as you would a normal printer and it will generate a PDF automatically of your print job. files are found at \\TIPI\PDF

You can order a TI parallel cable here:

http://www.cabledepot.com/05MCOlderTI.html or

Printers and supplies

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printing supplies and hardware

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Retro-Printer Centronics Printer module V3 (raspberry pi or equivalent required)

$100.00

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Texas instruments parallel cable

$28.00

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thermal printer paper 6 Rolls 3-1/8" x 230'

$6.00

TI-99/4A FAQ: Disk Drives

Using Disk Drives on a TI-99/4a

Disk drives on the TI are used similar to other storage and output devices. They are addressed like any other device by their device name.

The 3 drives supported with the Texas Instruments disk controller are

DEVICE NAME – disk drive number
DSK1. – Drive 1
DSK2. – Drive 2
DSK3. – Drive 3

Other 3rd party controllers supported an additional DSK4. device – Drive 4.

To access devices in basic, you use these commands.

Loading files: OLD DEVICENAME.FILENAME
- Example: OLD DSK1.FILENAME would load a file named FILENAME off DSK1.
Saving files: SAVE DEVICENAME.FILENAME
- Example: SAVE DSK1.FILENAME would save a file named FILENAME on DSK1.

REMINDER: all DEVICE NAMES ARE IN UPPERCASE, make sure you are using uppercase, you can easily assume the lowercase font is upper case as it looks simular to the upper case font (just smaller) so be sure .. filenames can be case sensitive so I find it’s best to make them all uppercase as well.

See also: https://www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/ti-99-4a-faq-loading-assembly-language-programs/

Disk Catalog

In TI Basic you can enter this program:

100 CALL CLEAR
110 COUNT=0
120 DIM TYPE$(6)
130 TYPE$(1)="DIS/FIX"
140 TYPE$(2)="DIS/VAR"
150 TYPE$(3)="INT/FIX"
160 TYPE$(4)="INT/VAR"
170 TYPE$(5)="PROGRAM"
175 TYPE$(6)=" <DIR> "
180 INPUT "DEVICE:":DEV$
190 IF SEG$(DEV$,LEN(DEV$),1)="." THEN 210
200 DEV$=DEV$&"."
210 REM  THIS OPENS AS IF/0 - WHICH BECOMES IF/38 
220 OPEN #1:DEV$,INPUT ,RELATIVE,INTERNAL
230 REM  'ZERO' IS ALWAYS 0 
240 INPUT #1:DISKNAME$,ZERO,DISKSECTORS,FREESECTORS
250 DISPLAY "DSK0 -  DISKNAME= ";DISKNAME$:"AVAILABLE= ";FREESECTORS;" USED= ";DISKSECTORS-FREESECTORS
260 DISPLAY :"FILENAME   SIZE    TYPE    P":"---------- ---- ---------- -";
270 REM  A FILETYPE OF 0 ALSO MEANS END OF DIRECTORY 
280 REM  FILETYPE IS NEGATIVE FOR A PROTECTED FILE 
290 INPUT #1:FILENAME$,FILETYPE,FILESECTORS,RECORDLENGTH
300 IF LEN(FILENAME$)=0 THEN 400
310 COUNT=COUNT+1
320 DISPLAY :COUNT;FILENAME$;TAB(12);FILESECTORS;TAB(17);TYPE$(ABS(FILETYPE));
330 REM  PROGRAM FILES DON'T HAVE A RECORD LENGTH 
340 IF ABS(FILETYPE)>=5 THEN 370
350 B$=" "&STR$(RECORDLENGTH)
360 DISPLAY SEG$(B$,LEN(B$)-2,3);
370 IF FILETYPE>0 THEN 290
380 DISPLAY TAB(28);"Y";
390 GOTO 290
400 CLOSE #1

Also you can get a catalog in a number of other ways.

Disk manager software
- TI’s Disk Manager, Disk manager 2 and Disk manager 3 will all produce catalogs of disks
- DM1000
- DM2000
- other disk manager programs
Extended Basic 2.7
- CALL CAT(“DSK1.”) will show a catalog of DSK1.
Miller’s graphics ROMs in a corcomp controller
- CALL CAT(“DSK1.”) will show a catalog of DSK1.

Disk formatting

Disks on the TI use a proprietary format that is unreadable by other computer systems without special tools. For more information on disk formats check out this page. https://www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/ti-99-4a-faq-floppy-disk-drives-and-formats/

To format a disk on your TI you need a DISK MANAGER program. This contains the software to format new disks, copy files, make backups etc. There are 3 versions of disk manager from Texas Instruments and many 3rd party/shareware disk managers.

Texas Instruments Disk managers:

Disk Manager – Formats SS/SD disks
Disk Manager 2 – Formats SS/SD and DS/SD disks
Disk Manager 3 (rare) – Formats SS/SD, DS/SD, SS/DD and DS/DD disks.

The best disk manager currently available (in my opinion) is Disk Manager 2000 from Fred Kaal. It is available at his website here: https://www.ti99-geek.nl/ under projects and DM2K.

Common Drive issues

Floppy disks and drives are all very old at this point and are experiencing failures related to old capacitors, broken/burned out optical sensors and LEDs etc.

Troubleshooting steps:

clean the drive heads, rails and lubricate with white lithium grease
inspect drive for broken parts or burned out LEDS
replace the cable with a new one, NO TWISTS

Drive options

TI made a stand alone disk controller and a PEB card that supported up to DS/SD diskettes. There is an 80 track modification available from hummingbird eproms to add 80 track drives to this controller.

Corcomp made a PEB disk controller and a sidecar “9900 Micro” that supported up to DS/DD diskettes. http://mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/9900_micro/9900_micro.html

Myarc made a PEB disk controller that supported up to DS/DD diskettes.

Myarc also made a HFDC (hard, floppy disk controller) for the PEB that will support up to 80 track DS/DD disks on a 4/a and fully format 1.44mb HD disks on a Geneve (with the appropriate drive).

Drive Emulation

You can hook up a GOTEK drive emulator with 3rd party firmware (I recommend flashfloppy.com) and use it as a SS/SD-DS/DD 5.25″ drive 40 or 80 track, DS/DD and DS/DD 3.5″ drive 40 or 80 track. Obviously you need a disk controller that supports the format you are trying to use. Flashfloppy will use v9t9 format disk images as well as HXC format.

The Lotherek HXC also works well, however it is more expensive and less feature rich than the GOTEK. To use this you must convert all your disk images to their HXC format. https://lotharek.pl/

TIPI provides drive emulation for level 1 and level 2 access through the map function. Allowing you to point DSK1. DSK2. DSK3. and/or DSK4. to whatever folder you want on the TIPI. drive. DSK0. always points to the root of the drive.

Disk Drives cables and Disk emulators

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13" 34pin floppy cable, no twist Card edge and pin connectors

$25.00

28" 34pin floppy cable, no twist card edge on one end 2 pin connectors for drives

$27.00

28" 34pin floppy cable, no twist card edge on one end and 2 each of both card edge and pin connectors for drives

$32.00

28" 34pin floppy cable, no twist pin connectors only

$25.00

3.5" head cleaning disk NEW

$10.00

32" multi connector floppy cable

$28.00

3D Printed 5.25" drive bay blank face plate with 3.5" mounting brackets

$12.00

3D printed 5.25" disk cleaning jig

$20.00

3D printed full height 5.25" drive bay adapter for 1 3.5" drive (gotek or floppy)

$35.00

3D printed full height 5.25" drive bay adapter for 2 3.5" drive (goteks or floppys)

$37.00

3d Printed Compact External Gotek drive case

$25.00

3d printed Tandon TM-100-x 5.25" floppy door hinge

$5.00

3d printed Tandon TM-100-x 5.25" floppy door replacement

$5.00

3d printed full height 5.25" drive enclosure

$30.00

5.25 drive bay adapter for 3.5" drives

$8.00

5.25" head cleaning disk NEW

$12.00

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Compact External Gotek drive with power supply and cable

$125.00

Dual drive mounting plates

$8.00

Floppy cable m/m connector

$10.00

GOTEK usb floppy disk emulator, oled display flashfloppy firmware installed AGED BEIGE w/oled and rotary encoder

$70.00

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GOTEK usb floppy disk emulator, oled display flashfloppy firmware installed BEIGE w/oled and rotary encoder

$70.00

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GOTEK usb floppy disk emulator, oled display flashfloppy firmware installed BLACK w/oled and rotary encoder

$70.00

GOTEK usb floppy disk emulator, oled display flashfloppy firmware installed GRAY w/oled and rotary encoder

$70.00

Gotek 3D printed case for oled display

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Gotek stock empty case

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IDC to card edge adapter

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PANASONIC 3.5" drive JU-256 Beige Bezel

$50.00

Power adapter for 3.5" drive

$8.00

Power adapter for 3.5" drives

$8.00

Power adapter for dual drive in pbox

$8.00

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SCSI to IDE Adaptor

$115.00

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Sony 3.5" drive Black Bezel

$50.00

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Teac fd-54A half hight floppy drives

$50.00

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Texas Instruments full height floppy drive used as-is

$50.00

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dual drive kit for pbox

$15.00

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shift838 drive select board

$22.00

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universal 5v power supply with 3.5" floppy connector for gotek drives

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TI-99/4A FAQ: Hooking up a Modem

To hook up a modem you need a RS232 serial port

with a PEB and a RS232 card
with a sidecar RS232
with a NanoPEB
with a UberGROM board with the serial interface)

What is the pinout of the TI RS232 serial port?

Here is the manual: http://ftp.whtech.com/datasheets%20and%20manuals/Hardware/Texas%20Instruments/PHP1220%20RS232%20Card/ti%20rs232%20card%20manual.pdf

1 Ground
2 RXD
3 TXD
5 CTS
6 DSR
7 Ground
8 DCD
20 DTR

What is the pinout of the NanoPEB?

Manuals are available here: http://webpages.charter.net/nanopeb/

2 RXD
3 TXD
4 DTR
5 Ground
7 RTS
8 CTS

See Terminal Software for software

TI-99/4A FAQ: NanoPEB and CF7

NanoPEBs are available periodically on ebay and arcadeshopper.com a limited quantity is produced and sold without any regular schedule.
CF7+ - 32k, Parallel port and Floppy Emulation

Includes 32k ram expansion, floppy disk emulation off a proprietorially formatted CF card and a single DTE 9pin RS232 port. This port is not software compatible with most original serial programs

- - - TIMXT
    - TI Web Browser
    - TELCO has been patched
    - MassXfer has been patched
    - TE2 works out of the box
    - Any program that uses DSR access to RS232 should also work as long as it enables the port.

CF7’s are also available on Ebay and arcadeshopper.com randomly..
CF7+ - 32k, Parallel port and Floppy Emulation

Includes 32k ram expansion, floppy disk emulation the same as the NanoPEB and a single IBM PC cable compatible Parallel port on a 25 pin connector.

- - The parallel port is not software compatible with programs that do not make DSR calls. Using the PIO device works fine in basic and other utilities that use that DSR.

Both the NanoPEB and CF7 file system on the CF card can only be read and written using the software on the author’s site, TIDIR from Fred Kaal or the java application TIImageTool.

- - http://nanopeb.com/
  - http://www.ti99-geek.nl/Projects/ti99dir/ti99dir.html
  - https://www.mizapf.de/en/ti99/timt

Both the NanoPEB and CF7 are unable to easily have their 32k disabled to coexist with other cards that provide 32k. So If you wanted to use one in conjunction with say a TIPI card, you’d need a way to plug both into the side port and only have one enabled 32k card.

TI-99/4A FAQ: Joysticks and controllers

What Joysticks and controllers are available for my TI?

NOTE: the #1 reported issue with joysticks is the up direction doesn’t work, if you have a original TI-99/4A the alpha-lock key interferes with this direction. You must have alpha-lock UP to use the joystick.

TI Handheld controllers are very common in the black plastic model.

Less common in the beige color.

These are nicknamed “hand wreckers” as they use a poorly designed lever and membrane method with foam pads under the membrane that tend to go bad over time.

Jgrisssom created this post on updating the hand wreckers with some modern switches and 3d printed parts: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/338357-revisiting-the-original-ti-99-joysticks/

there were also these babies that were released with the 99/4 that were even worse!

Since the TI-99/4 and 4A both use the same joystick port pinout they are interchangeable.

Atari compatible joysticks can be used using an adapter, there were various models made from Wico and other manufacturers. (all discontinued)

A compact “Atari” joystick adapter is currently available here:

Joysticks and adapters

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TI gamepad controller

$18.00

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Texas Instruments TI-99 Joystick Controller Coupler + Thumb Comfort

$25.00

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Texas instruments Wired remote controlers cib

$50.00

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Texas instruments Wired remote controllers used condition

$28.00

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Wico Command Control joystick New Old Stock

$45.00

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used mbx system complete tested no microphone

$300.00

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wico joystick used works

$30.00

Out of stock

If you are handy you can make your own: http://mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/cables/joystick.html

Wico made a very nice Trackball they are available on Ebay now and then

Milton Bradley released a MBX expansion system for the TI in 1983 that contained an enhanced speech synth, speech recognition, a “touchpad” interface and enhanced controllers

More info: http://mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/mbx/mbx.html

Mechatronics made a TI mouse that was basically a generic xy mouse with TI drivers and a 5v power supply, there is also a DSR for TI-artist

Asgard software had a serial mouse driver. <if someone has a link lmk>

Here’s another serial mouse driver: http://www.stuartconner.me.uk/ti/ti.htm#connecting_serial_mouse

SuperSketch was available for the TI and had it’s own paint program built in. Also a TI-artist DSR was available. These were difficult to use due to the linear axis of the system.

http://mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/super_sketch.html

TI-99/4A FAQ: Keyboard upgrades

Hooking a PC keyboard to my TI?USB: http://ti994a.cwfk.net/TiUsbKeys.html – boards and assembled units are available here:

PS/2: http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=adapter

Rave99 XT keyboard interface (no longer made..) http://mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/rave/keyboard.html

TI-99/4A FAQ: Peripheral Expansion Box and boards

Peripheral Expansion Box

TI released two versions of the PEB (Peripheral Expansion Box)

- - Original 99/4 model that has a push button switch
    99/4 PEB
  - Later model that has a rocker switch
    99/4 PEB

mythical Beige system with unreleased beige monitor/exp box and hexbus sidecar

There was a beige colored box in advertisements for the QI models but it was never manufactured or released to the public.

The older PEB (top) has much taller card holders. Also notice that the older PEB has an external fuse which is easy to replace. To see where they hid the fuse on the newer models go here: http://mainbyte.com/ti99/peb_pow/peb_pow.html

Though there were a few small differences both the PEB’s can be used interchangeably.

The expansion box connected to the 99/4 and 99/4a with the Flex Cable
Interface card installed in slot 1 which included a large black ribbon cable and a large connector that connects to the expansion port on the right side of the console. This was dubbed the “fire hose” by TI owners.

Yes the fan is very loud, here’s instructions to put in a quieter fan: http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/peb/peb_box_project.html

Great write up with photos here: http://mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/peb/perf_box.html

What cards are available for the PEB?

Many cards were made available for the PEB including Memory expansion, RAMdisks, CPM coprocessor boards, Pcode Pascal system, Western Digital Hard disk Controller interfaces, SCSI controller, IDE controller, Video controller, Floppy disk controllers, SID99, Speech synth adapter (to hide the speech board in the PEB) and much more.

TI Cards: http://mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/peb/ti_cards.html

Memory Expansion Model No. PHP1260