Anyone have TI99 cassette files as wav's?

[Cassidy Nolen]

Hi all,

 

REALLY want to play Adventureland and mission Imposible text games and don't have the cassettes (didn't need them on the VIC-20 versions). Can you email me the wav or heck, I'll pay you for a cassette copy?

 

Thanks,

Cassidy

[deathtrappomegranate]

If you can't get the TI-99 versions, there are always the Atari 8-bit versions...

Edited January 24, 2006 by deathtrappomegranate

[Cassidy Nolen]

What I really want is another VIC-20 RF modulator. Mine is cooked and I can't find the trim pot I need to fix it. If I had that I would not be so desperate to get this TI version going.

 

My wife grew up on the TI, so we got one all set up so she can play the old-school the way she remembers it. I dig the keyboard so I thought....next thing you know you are on newsgroups trying to get .wav files...

 

C

[+remowilliams]

Now you've done it, I've gone digging for cassettes!

 

I know there's a program to convert cassette .wav files to FIAD format - and then back again to .wavs. I'm going to try it out with the one cassette (Tunnels of Doom) I found so far.

 

Now, if I could find some archives of FIAD stuff...

[+remowilliams]

Hi all,

 

REALLY want to play Adventureland and mission Imposible text games and don't have the cassettes (didn't need them on the VIC-20 versions).  Can you email me the wav or heck, I'll pay you for a cassette copy?

 

Thanks,

Cassidy

1005930[/snapback]

Ok, get ready for this - Here's all of them Or at least all that I could find in my archives, but I think they're all there.

 

You can use the CS1er program to load the individual FIAD files and then write them out as .wavs.

 

Enjoy that full stroke TI keyboard adventure goodness

 

Now - I can't find my damn adventure cart Anyone have an extra?

 

SCOTADAM.FIAD._casette_.zip

CS1er_09bR1.zip

[supercat]

Any idea what format the TI uses for tapes?

[deathtrappomegranate]

Any idea what format the TI uses for tapes?

1006173[/snapback]

Don't know the details, but I do know that the TI99 guys have a utility similar to our own wav2cas, for converting audio files to an emulator-compatible format.

 

There's some stuff here, although I think that it might be rather old.

 

I think that the TI99 was a very interesting machine.

[supercat]

I think that the TI99 was a very interesting machine.

1006181[/snapback]

 

Both the TI and the Commodore suffer significantly from some unfortunate BIOS (kernel) design decisions, TI moreso than Commodore. Commodore really just had one big problem--the 1541--but it was a BIG one. Once games were loaded, though, the Commodore was fine.

 

The TI had some bigger problems. The processor itself was respectable, but had only a small amount of RAM it could deal with directly (I think 1K). The rest of the RAM had to be accessed through the video chip; this not only meant accessing it was slow--it also meant that such memory could not support code execution.

 

To make matters worse, most of TI's software, INCLUDING THE BASIC INTERPRETER, was written not in machine code but in an interpreted language called GPL. If GPL is more compact than machine code, there might be some advantages to using it for non-speed-critical parts of a program. But using it for everything makes TI BASIC the just about the slowest one out there (the only thing I can think of that's slower is 2600 "Basic", and I think Warren Robinett has a good excuse for that one).

[SteveW]

The processor itself was respectable, but had only a small amount of RAM it could deal with directly (I think 1K).  The rest of the RAM had to be accessed through the video chip

1006193[/snapback]

 

The TMS9900 processor had less than 1K, it only had 256 bytes, if I remember right. The reason for the memory having to be accessed through the video processor was an odd one. The TI-99/4 was originally slated to have a different processor in it, but it had too many problems, so the processor was scrapped. TI decided to use the TMS9900, but there was a problem; it wasn't capable of refreshing RAM. So they gave most of the system's memory to the video processor, which could refresh RAM.

 

The TI Home Computer was a good little machine, it just had some problems in development that weren't handled all that well. There's also the belief that the TI-99/4A was originally designed not to be a computer, but a videogame console. Milton Bradley was planning on getting into the market with it, called the Gamevision back then, but it didn't happen for some reason. All the earliest game cartridges were made by Milton Bradley, with the "Gamevision" logo on them. The GameVision was also slated to have wireless joysticks, but that never came out. But the commands are still in the TI, the 'CALL JOYST' command has two settings for them if I recall correctly.

Edited January 25, 2006 by SteveW

[LocalH]

The TMS9900 processor had less than 1K, it only had 256 bytes, if I remember right. The reason for the memory having to be accessed through the video processor was an odd one. The TI-99/4 was originally slated to have a different processor in it, but it had too many problems, so the processor was scrapped. TI decided to use the TMS9900, but there was a problem; it wasn't capable of refreshing RAM. So they gave most of the system's memory to the video processor, which could refresh RAM.

It's still bad design. The C64's 6510 also couldn't refresh RAM, so the VIC-II handles the refresh, but the 6510 still has a full 64K of directly accessible RAM.

[Cassidy Nolen]

Ok, get ready for this - Here's all of them Or at least all that I could find in my archives, but I think they're all there.

 

In a word, you ARE the man. Thank you so much. I will burn them to a CD and get playing tonight. Thank you VERY much. If you ever need any arcade assistance, I owe you one big time.

 

 

Thanks again.

 

Cassidy

[+remowilliams]

No problem

 

I tested a couple out with CS1er and my TI hooked directly to my PC's line out, and they loaded up nicely. There's just something oddly cool about that.

[SteveW]

It would be cooler if you loaded TI games off an iPod.

[jaybird3rd]

It would be cooler if you loaded TI games off an iPod. 

1007670[/snapback]

I've been thinking of trying this myself someday ... copying my TI cassettes to a WAV file, verifying they can be loaded by a real TI (through a CD player or line out), converting them to MP3s, and testing them again to see if the data survived the compression process. If it works, it would be a lot less space-consuming to build up an archive of cassette software, and it wouldn't even be necessary to burn CDs.

[+remowilliams]

OK. Now I guess I'm going to have to try the iPOD and wav/MP3 and see what happens

 

Seeing what I saw in the waveform capture, I'm thinking MP3 might do a nasty on the data signal. But we'll see.

[supercat]

It's still bad design. The C64's 6510 also couldn't refresh RAM, so the VIC-II handles the refresh, but the 6510 still has a full 64K of directly accessible RAM.

1006590[/snapback]

 

The Commodore 64 post-dates the TI 99/4a by a few years and uses a custom video controller chip while the TI uses an off-the-shelf part. The TI's design would actually not have been a bad one if it had a bit more RAM attached directly to the microprocessor. Sharing an area of memory between a processor and a video display is difficult; unless the processor has very predictable memory timing like the 6502 and the video timing is designed around that, there will be times when the processor and video want to access the bus simultaneously. If the processor is allowed to "win", it will cause "snow" or other video interference; if the display wins, it will show down the processor. Generally it's bad for a processor to share its primary memory bus with a video display unless either the timing can be coordinated nicely (as with the 6502) or there is more-than-ample bandwidth so slowdowns aren't too much of a problem. Neither of those criteria would have applied to the TI 99/4a.

[dphirschler]

Question about the files attached above. There is ADVENTUR_1, ADVENTUR_2, and ADVENTUR_E. Which one is the game? Guessing there were three versions of the game? I think there was a three-item demo, which might be one of them. And I would guess that ADVENTUR_E is the full game.

 

I fixed the SPIDEY, HULK, and BUCKY files too.

 

I am experimenting with mp3 now. I've encoded to 256k VBR (160 avg) and will test it out. I want to do this from my phone. This sort of thing is BEGGING for an Android app. The way I see it, it would "play" fiad, WAV (and possibly MP3, OGG, FLAC and other formats)... and also be ready to record your programs or saved game progress. And it would automatically trim off the silence.

 

Gonna try loading a game from the phone using mp3 tonight. I've compared the wav with the mp3 and there are extra jaggies in the mp3, but I am guessing it will load fine. I'll report back my progress.

 

 

Darryl

[Julie Lefler]

I have some cartriges. And cassettes i have mission impossible the golden voyage pirate andventure pytamid ofdoom and teach yourself basic in cassettes

[Julie Lefler]

On 1/24/2006 at 11:25 AM, Cassidy Nolen said:

Hi all,

 

REALLY want to play Adventureland and mission Imposible text games and don't have the cassettes (didn't need them on the VIC-20 versions). Can you email me the wav or heck, I'll pay you for a cassette copy?

 

Thanks,

Cassidy

 

[CatPix]

On 1/27/2006 at 4:31 AM, supercat said:

 

The Commodore 64 post-dates the TI 99/4a by a few years and uses a custom video controller chip while the TI uses an off-the-shelf part. The TI's design would actually not have been a bad one if it had a bit more RAM attached directly to the microprocessor. Sharing an area of memory between a processor and a video display is difficult; unless the processor has very predictable memory timing like the 6502 and the video timing is designed around that, there will be times when the processor and video want to access the bus simultaneously. If the processor is allowed to "win", it will cause "snow" or other video interference; if the display wins, it will show down the processor. Generally it's bad for a processor to share its primary memory bus with a video display unless either the timing can be coordinated nicely (as with the 6502) or there is more-than-ample bandwidth so slowdowns aren't too much of a problem. Neither of those criteria would have applied to the TI 99/4a.

That reminds me that the Radofin APVS 1292 also use that system, leading websites to have inconsistant RAM amounts (listing either the ROM, the processor RAM or the whole RAM available).

It's also (to my understanding) why the console doesn't load a game when booting and need to be reset.

 

That system is also used in the Colecovision, which have something like 1 ko of RAM for the CPU and 32 ko of VRAM.

 

And for that issue with accessing the RAM, Amstrad made a workaround by forcing the CPU to let the video chip access RAM 1 cycle every 4 cycles, reducing the CPU effective (useable) speed form 4 mhtz to 3 and so mhtz.

 

To see what the TI99/A could have done, you can try to look for the Exelvision computer. It was made by two French engineers at TI France and were enthusiast about the TI99/A, but regretted the computer's shortcomings. They designed a "better one" and when TI refused to sell it, they left TI and decided to make it.

 

And thus the Exelvision EXL100 was born.

Even if it corrected many issue with the TI99/A, it introduced a whole lot of his own, most notable was the lack of keyboard and joystick connectors, forcing people to use the IR keybaord and joysticks (both sold with the system, to be honest). Given the lack of sales for that system, no 3rd parties adapters were made, but under consumer/user pressure, Exelvision made a now extremely rare wired keyboard and mouse expansion module.

The sound chip was able of excelllent vocal synthesis but almost to the end of the computer's life, required people to send their voice samples to Exelvision to be converted in-house.

Like the TI99/4 tho, it have a small cute cartridge slot for programs, including BASIC.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by CatPix