bartle@gondolin.endor.cs.psu.edu (Aron Bartle) (02/12/91)
Well, now that we have established that the TI is not completely dead yet :-)
I'm looking for a P-Code card (&documentation) for my Peripheral Expansion Tank.
Anybody seen such a beast lately? Did MYARC make a replacement for these? What
exactly is under the hood of that thing?
Historical note... Does anybody remember those little junk things you could hook
up to the speech synthesizer (via expansion train) to increase the words it
could say directly (w/o TE II)? Anybody got any of these? (I may be interested
in these also...) How about the peripherals TI sold before the Expansion Mansion
(rs232, parallel, disk drive, etc.). What about the "Wafer drive" that used
silicon as permanent storage? Or how about the "New" TI's (99/8 ???) ?
Oh well, back to work. Thanks & buenos nachos,
Aron
"Sometimes I wish I didn't know now, the things I did know then...
...And give me something to believe in."bartle@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Aron Bartle) (02/14/91)
Mabye I've gone completely nutz, but I could swear there were add on speech synthesizer units. I remember a t.i. panphlet that listed them and the new words they could let the synthesizer say (there were several). I also remember someone telling me they weren't going to be sold anymore because of FCC violations. Then again, mabye it was just a dream. O.K. , make that nightmare, but I used to love that stuff. "Sometimes I wish I didn't know now the things I did know then... ...And give me something to believe in."
ego@itsgw.rpi.edu (Erik G Olson) (02/16/91)
On the existence of speech add-ons:
Yes, I've seen literature, too. (It was in with the TI-Writer
source code which a former TI employee wanted to get rid of. Anyone
want copies? Is TI eavesdropping?) It definitely said that there
would be add-on speech expanders for the new speech synthesizer.
Notice also that the speech board, at least the one I have, says
"Rev J". Maybe they designed the plug out, that would have accepted
add-ons. Look at the layout: two roms in front, piggybacked, just
under that Pac-man hatch. Then there's that smooth plastic shelf
that ends just above the last remaining piece of unetched PCB
real estate. Suppose they could have altered the PCB design to
efface the original endowment?
Since the die molds for the plastic cases are among the most
outrageously expensive items to be found in computer
manufacturing lines, of course they would have preferred to
just leave the useless Pac-man hatch on the device. Besides,
it matches the decor of the console. And it gives you something to do
while the assembler is executing.
--
=======================+=========================================
Erik G Olson "There was virtue in the world before
there was orthodoxy in it."
ego@pawl.rpi.edu --The Independent Whig hht@filbert.sarnoff.com (Herbert H. Taylor x2733) (02/22/91)
The plug in port on the speech module was intended to expand the number of permanent words of vocabulary as in Speak-n-spell. When TE-II worked better then expected TI lost interest in expansion modules. It is possible that only the first few thousand speech modules have the "hooks" for those modules. I own several vintage speech modules and they all have the hooks but I never got any plug in modules and I designed the interface... (please, no questions, its been eleven years...) Another historical note... the first few thousand original 99/4's had a hidden plug-in slot on the top flat surface (under the metal overlay) for an IR remote control transmitter/receiver about the size of a Kodack Instamatic. This supported a number of never introduced wireless peripherals - including a wireless "super" keyboard and joystick. These peripherals were never introduced because TI thought they were too expensive for a Home Computer with an intended 1979 price under $100 (when Apple was $2000.00). When the price "skyrocketed" to $1000 it was supposedly "too late" to bring out the wireless peripherals. ( BTW the price increase was due to the complete failure of the cheap TMS9985 microprocessor originally designed into the 99/4. This resulted in the use of a very expensive goldlead ceramic packaged TMS9900, a TTL clock driver, a 256 byte static ram and a ton of TTL glue logic. The true story of how the 9900 ended up in the 99/4 would rival General Hospital... ) The wireless peripherals were supported on the systems shown at the June 1979 CES show in Chicago. Ten minutes before the intro press conference we were told, "not to show the peripherals..." In any event I am fairly certain the software support for these peripherals was left in GROM at least until the switch to 99/4A which included the new (actually the "original") keyboard. Also the first few hundred units had the "hooks" to bring in external video and genlock the TMS9918 - a capability which even today is not generally found in personal computers. This was removed from the connector (despite its < $1.00 in parts) because at the time of the 99/4 introduction the interface had not been tested sufficiently and there was still too much uncertainty about the FCC implications of genlocking a class 1 TV device. Remember at that time (1979) any TV game or Computer that had an RF modulator had to pass very strict FCC testing. The 99/4 originally had a built-in RF modulator which was removed shortly before the June 79 introduction when the decision was made to package the 99/4 with the Zenith color monitor... In 1978 we built 200 prototype 99/4's with builtin RF modulators and a 9900 "emulation" of the 9985 on a 9" x 4" board sandwiched onto the original PWB and crammed into the original 99/4 tooled case. These 200 units were givin to TI executives and board members to play with for six months. I have a wire-wrapped prototype with one of the very few 9985's ever produced but I would be interested in acquiring any of the 200 prototypes which might be extant. If anyone knows where any are I would appreciate it... Everyone was actually quite shocked when the FCC ruled in TI's favor - that ruling distinguished personal computers from video games. ( I have been told, however, that the cost of compliance to the new set of rules for the mini-computer industry (HP, DEC, etc) was in the 100's of millions of dollars...) Incidently, one final historical note: the decision to remove the RF modulator from the console was initiated when the FCC agreed to test a fiber optic interface we had developed which optically coupled the computer console with a standalone RF modulator. This interface was dubbed the "video light pipe". After the system was sent to the FCC they returned it UNTESTED - stating that they could not accept it afterall but would accept petitions for rule making to modify the existing rules. The rest was history...
alex@micro-ix.UUCP (Alex Romanof) (02/23/91)
Summary: TI DS 300 References: <k27Gwjil@cs.psu.edu> <*A+&HM*@rpi.edu> <4x2G_6rm@cs.psu.edu> <30252@mimsy.umd.edu> We need to save data from old(1982) TI system it has "WD 800" on the front panel. It is equipped with hard drive and cartrige tape. Does any body have manuals: DX10, RMS for sale. Does anybody have any experience with this system. Does anybody know tape format or have experience with data retrieving. Any help will be appreciated. A.Romanov Micro/ix (508)443-1370
Tony.Dalfonso@f518.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Tony Dalfonso) (03/05/91)
* In a message originally to All, Erik G Olson said:
EO> On the existence of speech add-ons:
EO>
EO> Yes, I've seen literature, too. (It was in with the
EO> TI-Writer
EO> source code which a former TI employee wanted to get rid of.
EO> want copies? Is TI eavesdropping?) It definitely said that
Interested...
By the way, your name sounds familiar... Were you or are you on the TI
ECHO?
____
/ o n y.