oracle_jedi

Having lived through the 80s micro-computer revolution gives us a unique perspective on technical things.

Back in the 80s people laughed at the Sinclair's rubber-mat keyboards, slow loading times and the small and blurry images on a Sinclair TV.

Now I type this post on the rubber mat keyboard of my laptop, wait for Windows to load components of the desktop and apply all of its patches, and watch small, blurry and jittery videos delivered from Youtube.

The seller's Ebay handle is schmutzig1952.

The biggest difference between the CF7A+ and the NanoPEB is that the CF7 has a RS232 interface on it, whereas the NanoPEB has a parallel port.

They are much more than "just floppy emulators". The expansions include a 32K RAM expansion, a disk controller and emulate up to three floppy drives from disk images on the CF card. The unit allows the user to mount and unmount disk images via BASIC extensions.

As for the need for Extended BASIC or the EA cartridge, that depends on the software being loaded, not the CF7A+/NanoPEB difference. Some programs need Extended BASIC, others need E/A. Of course some will run under TI BASIC.

I have two of the CF7s and find them to be excellent units. I strongly recommend them.

A word of caution.

I have not had the same luck with LCD monitors being able to sync on the NTSC/50 signal that results from a Nir Dary upgrade.

The older CRT Commodore monitors can handle the signal just fine, but the LCD monitors I have tried have not been able to display the colour at all. I tried a few Samsung models and got miserable results every time.

I hope the Sony LCD does better and I hope you will share the result.

There's alot of people in the TI community who take their systems very very seriously.

I had the same trouble joining the Yahoo group, and I think in the end it took intervention from Hal in the Chicago TI group to get the application accepted.

It's worth joining, especially if you are active with your TI, which I am not due to time constraints and my Atari being my primary retro system. There is alot of good information in there. But I have to say that the bickering and sniping is appauling. I am told that Jaime Mailong quit the group after the release of his CF7 adapter because of the number of people who complained about the things it didn't do.

I have witnessed several flame wars from people angry that someone wants to burn fresh copies of obscure cartridges because such copies will "devalue their investment". I own the original Sparta DOS X but I havn't seen anyone here angry at the folks making new copies for everyone to enjoy, and original cartridges still seem to fetch good prices on Ebay.

Still don't let these negatives discourage you, the TI community still centers on the Yahoo group and it is worth the effort to sign up.

Count me in for at least one, probably two.

@Gunstar - a true PAL machine should run pretty much all NTSC software. Switching from the NTSC/50 you have now to a true PAL signal will change the following:

Output signal will be true PAL, and require a PAL compatible monitor. Many North American colour monitors could handle a 50Hz signal as long as it was still NTSC colour encoding. The updated machine will now be transmitting PAL colour signals. Your 110V Commodore 1701/1702/1084 will only show black and white.

Artefacted colours wont work anymore.

Software that inspects the PAL/NTSC personality of the GTIA will now see PAL, not NTSC.

I have a PAL 800XL, an NTSC 1200XL and a quasi-PAL 1200XL. I cant think of any software that runs on the quasi-PAL 1200XL that wont run on the 800XL.