0047 I almost threw out my back moving this thing around!

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#tt99 #peb
On Today's SMMC, we're taking a look at the TI99/4A Peripheral Expansion Box or PEB. It's a shockingly heavy device but it turns what is a pretty mundane home computer into something quite a bit more powerful.
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29 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 478

@DocNo27 Год назад

Aha! I'm glad it got there in one piece! Sorry for the duct tape - but it's original from when I got it from the original owner. They used the duct tape to tape the cable to the top. When I packaged it to ship, I ended up just removing the interface and wrapping it separately - I didn't want that cable to get flexed/compressed in shipping. The whole thing is so ridiculously overbuilt (as you noted) the cable probably would have been fine, but why chance it? Would have been stupid to have it survive this long then get messed up in shipping! I meant to include more backstory but didn't get around to it; not that it's overly exciting. I briefly had a computer store in the early 90's and one of my customers was going to jettison the system and asked if I wanted it - and of course I said yes! And I've had that thing every since and never did anything with it - other than move it across the country and back(!) I hate seeing hardware go unused (hopefully it works!) so you seemed like a way better home for it than it continuing to sit on my shelf. I'm looking forward to you discovering what the cards are. I think I looked up the Triple Tech and it was supposed to be a CPM emulator?!?

@DocNo27 Год назад

Huh! I'll have to see if I can find the extended basic or disk cartridges. If I can find the rest of the TI stuff 😛 EDIT: Well I lucked out and found the box of extra TI stuff - but none of those cartridges :( There is a tan cart with no label, but the other two cartridges I have are just games and I'm pretty sure the extended basic was black. I could have sworn I had more cartridges so I may have some more squirreled away in yet another box; I'll keep digging.

@reedyd Год назад

@@DocNo27 TIXB cart also came in tan as well as black. That may well be one.

@DocNo27 Год назад

@@reedyd Guess I'll have have to fire up one of my TI's to see then! EDIT: LMAO - I don't have a TV to hook the composite up to. Guess I need that gizmo Adrian has to let me go composite to HDMI if I ever want to fire these things up again.

@andyb1221 Год назад

@@DocNo27 The computer orignally came with a video modulator to output analog video to channel 3 or 4. You could buy a monitor cable to connect to the composite video and audio input connections of a monitor or TV. That would work with most televisions in use now. It makes a better picture than the modulator. I remember I modified an Atari 800 monitor cable to use with my TI computer. Some wires on the DIN connector had to be moved to other pins.

@DocNo27 Год назад

@@andyb1221 Yeah, I found someone who had a reasonably priced pre-made cable and ordered it. Thanks!

@herrbonk3635 Год назад

10:00 The Z80 was used for all sorts of special or "embedded" purposes, well into the 1990s. Running CP/M would usually be the least probable task if you see a Z80 on a card made after 1979 :)

@Drew-Dastardly Год назад

CP/M was definitely popular in the early half of the 1980's. It did require 80 column video though.

@herrbonk3635 Год назад

@@Drew-Dastardly Sure, but for every CP/M computer design, there were literally hundreds of embedded designs using the Z80. That was its primary market, from the start, and what it was designed for (according to Faggin, Shima and Ungermann, that started Zilog). The Z80 sat in hard drives as well as in hard disk controllers and network cards. It was used in analog and digital synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, calculators, flipper games, arcade games, medical equipment, laboratory instrumentation, industrial robots, telephone exchanges, terminal multiplexers, alarm systems, light automation, mobile phones, cameras, music players, and so on.

@Drew-Dastardly Год назад

@@herrbonk3635 Hey I'm just telling it how it was back then when I was there. All that shit you are going on about didn't exist to an ordinary boy like me, or many thousands of us. Just because the designers fantasized it would be all those things didn't make it so.

@herrbonk3635 Год назад

@@Drew-Dastardly And I'm telling you how it really was, but with a slightly wider and deeper perspective than the "ordinary boy" with a personal computer centric view. I'm talkin actual real products from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Even later in a few cases. (Me myself still used the Z80 for new desings in 2005, and the chip is still manufactured today.) If you don't belive me, just look inside an old ST-506 diskdrive, a Prophet 5 synthesizer, a Pacman arcade, etc. Or read up about it.

@itzcaseykc Год назад

Haven't heard the name WordStar in a LOOONG time. Used it briefly while in SoCal at a medical R/D company for infusion units.

@dhpbear2 Год назад

When I saw the thumbnail, it appeared to be a 'PC Tower' (not yet a standard) on its side!

@charlesjmouse Год назад

Cool, but no wonder Ti lost the home computer war in the US. The Ti 99/4a: Awesome components for the time botched together by buffoons. What a shame.

@richardkelsch3640 Год назад

Goo-b-gone or WD40 (yeah, WD40) a combination of both (separately) helps too. IPA to finish it up

@edwardjoyner9344 Год назад

I had a PEB. but don't recall the toggle switches

@retrozmachine1189 Год назад

So the Z80 more or less just runs the print buffer? The print buffer card is probably faster in all respects than the TI itself with it's hobbled memory access requiring it to run programs using its inbuilt interpreted graphic language and even that interpreter had to do backflips to access the VRAM. The TI is a fascinating computer, not least due to the choice of CPU but the overall weirdness of the computer.

@a4000t Год назад

I started on the TI and still have love for it, BUT it was the perfect example of how not to build a computer :)

@NeedGamesNow Год назад

"Goo Gone" to remove the residue.

@williamsquires3070 Год назад

The problem is that even if you could load CP/M on that card, it doesn’t connect to the video memory, so it would have to do I/O through the TI 99/4, and you already pointed out that accessing the video RAM is slow, so CP/M would go about as fast as a 110 baud dial-up modem… if that. I don’t even know if that TI 99/4(a) even has (text) video modes compatible with CP/M.

@frozendude707 Год назад

Need to get rid of glue residue? There are specific products for it, but lab grade hexane solvent should work wonders, looks like you can get it from amazon. P.S. it is somewhat aggressive (in between ethanol/methanol and acetone I would say) and can damage some types of plastics, so try it out on a hidden spot first. P.P.S. I noticed someone recommending Zippo lighter fluid, hexane is basically the pure solvent version of that.

@m.k.8158 Год назад

I'm pretty sure that Hexane is more aggressive than Naphtha(which is what is in Zippo lighter fluid). However, likely either one would be ok in many cases.

@frozendude707 Год назад

@@m.k.8158 I was thinking in terms of cleaning solvent that light naphtha and hexane has roughly the same properties and dos/donts except for the strength, I called it more "pure" in my comment, but aggressive works too.

@fumthings Год назад

I know Adrian doesn't beg for stuff but it seems to me that as soon as he points out that he doesn't have something that would allow further testing, one of the generous fans will send it in pretty quickly. and i think most of us are glad that it works this way.

@Caroline_Tyler Год назад

I used to have a TI-99/4A with the speech synth, the big old expansion unit which I put in dual 1/2 height floopy drives and also made myself a centronics adapter to run a daisywheel printer. Result was a useful word processor which actually produced beautiful printed letters with proportional output. It was great! Gutted my late father's roll-top oak desk and it all fitted inside. :)

@projectartichoke Год назад

I had the speech synth, but I sure wanted all that other stuff back in the 80s! I finally got a C128 with a printer and used that in school for all my papers.

@madcrowmaxwell Год назад

The 99/4A shares a lot of its architecture with TI 990 minicomputer. I'm guessing that the PEB has ancestry in the minicomputer world as well, which could explain it's massive size.

@billesposito3482 Год назад

I really appreciate that you share with us tours of hardware like this that I've never heard of before.

@kdietz65 Год назад

The computer itself looks like a toy. This thing looks like it goes in a missile silo or something.

@EmperorKonstantine01 Год назад

Agree it was an educational and inexpensive learning tool, which was practically basic and affordable. At the time I had an Apple 2 and saw the Ti as an Experimental lab computer.

@DiverCTH Год назад

I used to work at a repair depot for a retail photofinishing company, so we got unidentified substances and duct tape residue all the time. NEVER use Goo-Gone on ABS (or virtually any plastic). It will melt or dissolve. For tape residue, start with WD-40 and a nylon brush, then move onto Mean Green or 409 general-purpose cleaner. If there are any ink stains, Mötsenbökers will remove them.

@adriansdigitalbasement2 Год назад

Isn't that the similarly named "Goof-Off" what will melt the plastic?

@DiverCTH Год назад

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Both will. I forget which chemical it is (probably acetone), but Goof Off has more of it. Leave a puddle of either on a piece of plastic overnight, one will barely eat the texture (unless you rub it) the other leaves a melt/burn mark. Goo Gone makes an automotive version that's advertised as plastic safe.

@JE-wd4lu Год назад

I've also tried WD-40 on an old PC case that had duct tape residue on it. It did work but, had to give it a couple of passes. IPA should then help to clean the final bit.

@Drew-Dastardly Год назад

When WD-40 and IPA fail I like to just go old school and dunk my hand with an old rag into a bucket of dimethylmercury and polish the crud away. ;)

@samuelcolvin4994 Год назад

Goo GONE is fine but goof OFF will melt plastic into gross gunk and ruin whatever you sprayed it on. Ditto for PB blaster and oven cleaner (ask me how I know!)

@PatricKerr Год назад

This was are family computer. I have so many memories. My father ran the local ti99 user group in north east PA on lake erie. He held several large events in the early 80s. There was a card call the monarch i think. Which added some sort of dos like comman prompt it could have been cpm this replaced the ti99 it self and used an xt keyboard. I don't remember much about as I never really used it and my father was only borrowed it from some one. The cart you also want is the ti assembly language cart. That's where all the best games were. I still have our family's orginal system. We had a ti brand serial printer. Ti writer cart was for word processing and typed up many report in school instead of hand written. Also have a 300 baud modem so this was how I first experienced getting online in the early 80. You are correct that there was an after market dual disc drive. Double sided double density. I have that as well my father put the orginal drive in an external case and connected via the back edge connector on the card. So many memories. Thanks to those who read this far to this old man's childhood memories.

@alsnow3582 Год назад

My first computer was the 99/4, chiclet keys and all (predecessor to the 99/4a)! It was really hard to justify the cost at that time in my life but it helped my career get started. I'm about to retire in a few weeks with a lifetime in IT and seeing this sure brought back a lot of memories.

@BEdmonson85 Год назад

Goo-Gone or Zippo Lighter Fluid usually works incredibly well on those stubborn glue residues that isopropyl alcohol won't cut.

@pragmax Год назад

+1 for Goo-Gone. I think it is citrus based which makes it safe to use around plastics.

@pipschannel1222 Год назад

@@pragmax Yeah, Goo-Gone contains orange terpenes and it smells like oranges. I use it all the time to get old glue residue off of old machines. It's safe around plastics and paint and it always gets the job done.. I guess that thick black ribbon cable should be able to handle it as well as it looks like it was built to survive a nuclear war 🙂 As long as you don't use acetone or thinner you're totally fine 👍

@SpiritualHearts1 Год назад

WD40 works well too but doesn't have that nice citrusy smell

@PixelPipes Год назад

If you've never used Goo Gone, your life will change afterwards. Sooo many sticky things you could never quite clean off are finally conquerable!

@tropicalretro Год назад

If you have access to lab chemicals, ethyl or methyl ether are great for removing adesive goo.

@SenileOtaku Год назад

2:45 Yes, there were alternate Dymo disks that could emboss vertical. I looked in my dad's old "deluxe" Dymo kit, and found a disk marked "vertical". Only thing is, I couldn't figure how to swap character disks. I'll need to hunt down a manual for that now.

@greggv8 Год назад

There's a square bit of plastic on the bottom under the letter disk. Pull that down to remove the disk.

@Potts1966 Год назад

You need the extended Basic cartridge or the Disk Manager cartridge and definitely a quieter fan :) I do like these longer videos with an in-depth look at things I've never had the chance to play with, but lusted after back in the early 80's

@StaffordGreen Год назад

I too lusted for her in the 1980s. That and Farrah Fawcett

@annareismith6843 Год назад

IPA or Goo Be Gone would work. I would like to see more on this as the TI99/4A was the first computer I own personally. I learned how to program basics on it. I remember the first time I saw one was at the old Sears building in Bremerton, WA. I played Missle command on it. Then I found one at a garage sale later that was like new in the box with games and expansion units. I always wanted the Peripheral Expansion Box. I could not afford or find it used at the time. I know and talk with one of the design engineers of the TI99/4A online on a forum. He told me a lot about it. And things they planned that never happened.

@GregoryLindsey1979 Год назад

Seconding Goo-Gone. Let it stand for a while, rub it off with a soft cloth, repeat until it’s all gone 🙂

@Renville80 Год назад

Soak a shop towel with IPA and cover the adhesive with it and leave it for a few minutes. That should soften the glue enough to make it easier to clean off.

@xredhead7135x Год назад

Plus a good IPA while cleaning makes cleaning more fun 😋

@EinGamer22 Год назад

IPA will help. I had to clean up a decayed sticky tape once. Was not nice. After that my hands where sticking on everything. IPA helped me getting rid of the glue.

@andyjdhurley Год назад

Yeah, I use IPA to get rid of duct tape glue - can take a bit of work but it does remove it. Didn't work so well on capet tape on a white board though.

@racecar_spelled_backwards868 Год назад

18:40 There was a "Disk Manager" "command module" (cartridge) that came with the floppy controller. It is pretty much essential for testing the drive and associated floppy media. You CAN access the drive for loading and saving of files from BASIC and Extended BASIC (which was itself a separate command module). The memory expansion also allowed you to use the Logo language software which could also interface with the disk. EDIT: Also this Disk Manager command module had the programme several languages on it.

@jaredwright5917 Год назад

There's an interesting PEB board called the Geneve 9640. It turns the PEB into a standalone computer system that also uses an XT keyboard.

@greggv8 Год назад

Yup, PC or PC/XT. Not an AT keyboard unless it has a switch for PC/XT mode.

@stuartcastle2814 Год назад

The scary thing is, someone implemented pretty much all the functionality of multiple PEB cards into one Raspberry Pi. The project, called TiPi is a circuit board that connects your PEB to a Pi, which then emulates the cards.

@bitdigital8052 Год назад

My OCD dislikes those switches and labels, but damn that thing is decked out! Sweet!

@AttemptingAstro Год назад

Love the ribbon cable/fire hose, for when you need to keep the expansion box across the room...or something?

@adriansdigitalbasement2 Год назад

HAHAH!!!!!!!!! Basically -- I have no idea why it's so long. It's super unwieldy too. Clearly heavily shielded....

@dminalba Год назад

Before TI pulled out of the computer market in 1983 they were planning the TI99/4A’s replacement the TI99/8A with the TI speech synthesiser built in 64k memory and TI Extended Basic II as standard, I think that would’ve been healthy competition against Commodore, Atari & Apple

@KAPTKipper Год назад

WD-40 removes duct tape residue. The TI99-4/A PEB now is a single board that plugs into the side. 11:25 It's a CorComp Triple Tech card w 64K printer buffer. The Switches on the front are for it.

@AndyHullMcPenguin Год назад

Olive oil is also a good residue remover. Has to be olive oil, not sunflower or whatever, but you can use the cheap (non Extra virgin) stuff. Scrub the olive oil or WD40 in with an old toothbrush, let it "melt' the glue for a bit, scrub it off, repeat as necessary, remove the remaining oil with washing up liquid or a wet wipe/kitchen wipe. You can also rub the oil with some kitchen towel, which will fall apart and bind to the glue and make it easier to remove.

@ct92404 Год назад

I've always just used alcohol to remove sticky residue from labels, tape, etc.

@ronb6182 Год назад

You can use duct tape to remove duct tape residue. I done it at work. Also the Brady printer labels will remove label residue. I done that also. Harsh chemicals like lighter fluid, w d 40 and acid tone would remove the finish from the plastic we used. So the label method and duct tape method worked great. 73

@lindoran Год назад

Adrian, so first great find! 2nd ... the z80 print buffer. running CPM. Here's a list of challenges (not saying its impossible) but looking at that card and what it has access to. 1) needs a new bios / Bdos minimum. (to support the display and keyboard.) interestingly enough. the cartridge slot for the speech module means at the very minimum there's access to the system via that path. 2) some way to load CPM to the memory on the Z80 card (disk controller possibly?) the expansion bay is a system on an island with a arbitration bus that operates over that cable, I suppose that's possible but would depend on what signals are available all the way to the CPU. 3) it might almost be better to have a stand alone single board computer, that interfaces with the system (as apposed to the the print buffer). I think its a really great Idea, just in looking through the challenges it might be a large rabbit hole towards accessing 40Col CPM... which will limit the software you could run, you'd almost be better trying to hook a remote terminal to the serial port and ruining CPM that way (after again jumping all the hurdles previously discussed )

@brianlhughes Год назад

I think it's time you setup a crane on ceiling tracks in your basement! My dad bought the peb a couple months after the 994a, I had fun with them for sure. The assembler cartridge was my favorite, I had a blast figuring out hexadecimal and boolean ops. I had a 60 x 40 or so version of Conway's Life cycling about once every 1/2 second. I ended up getting job programming assembler on a Honeywell Main Frame a couple years later all because of the TI. Oh, did you try mineral oil to remove the residue?

@tarzankom Год назад

Goo Gone has always worked for me to remove duct tape residue. There's another product called Goof Off which also works. I would be cautious though, since that cable looked rubberized, and I'm not sure if the solvents would damage it.

@ralphshoop8822 Год назад

Goof off have melted everything I tried using it on. Goo Gone has never messed up anything. I own a computer store that refurbishes computers and Goo Gone is great for getting random stickers off of machines.

@johnkemas7344 Год назад

Believe it or not, I worked for a K-Mart in the early 1980s as an applaiance dept manager while going to college and they sold these things and their accessories. They couldn't give them away! My store manager put them on a "Blue Light Special" (I got them for less than scrap price!!) and I bought all the stock. I resold the stuff to my computer science friends at college and actually made money. They also sold Commodore VIC 20's and 64's, Timex Sinclaires (Ithink we sold 3 or4) and Atari's computers and video games. The district manager dumped the stuff pretty quickly cause except for the Atari games, we sold very little of the other stuff. Loved those Blue Light Specials!!

@W4TRI Год назад

13:45 Amateur Radio operators worldwide wasted Z80s in most of the Packet radio controllers of the time. It's a great CPU when you have one job. I have 2 such TNCs still and they both work great! Feed them a new CR2032 every few years and clean them.

@tex-hogger4974 Год назад

The TI was our first computer in my family. It started my fascination with computers. We got the console for Christmas about 2 years before TI got out of the computer market. My dad got us a loaded PEB when they did. It had a flex interface card (comes with the PEB) in slot 1, 32k card, RS-232 card, TI Disk Controller card in slot 8, and a SS/SD 5 1/4" floppy. Right after that we went to Kmart and got the TI Extended Basic cart. That opened up the world to me on what you can do with the system. I joined a local TI club and met so many great people. I still have my system and all the pieces to it. I know you have been looking on the Net for stuff about this system and like all of the 80s gen computers there are so many resources out there for this system. The Facebook group is very active, and there are still many things being made for this system. It's another rabbit hole, and can be a fun adventure.

@ItsMrAssholeToYou Год назад

You really shouldn't throw out your back, Adrian...you never know when you might need it. Even if you get a newer, better one, it's still a good idea to keep the old one around as a spare, just in case.

@bradleystach6275 Год назад

I threw mine out about 17 years ago. Have missed it ever since. :)

@mikafoxx2717 Год назад

Almost throws out a 1975 MOS 6502, and then almost throws out his back. Hopefully Adrian has learned a thing or two about being careful about what to throw out.

@TyphinHoofbun Год назад

Exactly! At least preserve it so retro back enthusiasts later can make videos on it.

@maccamcdermott5528 Год назад

In to the dead parts bin!

@clok1966 Год назад

Owned a TI994a myself, went to buy an Atari 400 and they were out, as was the C-64 my second choice, but they had lots of the TI and the salesman told me how much better a machine it was. 14-year-old me believed him and instead of waiting or the others to come into stock I bought one. I won't badmouth this machine, but I will say I bought the others later and used both much more, guess I have to credit it as my first pc and am still doing work I mostly enjoy in that field today. Still have mine and the suitcase-sized addon, and many carts. Can not remember what I had for cards anymore. Great piece of history.

@robinbrowne5419 Год назад

Interesting review, thanks. But Holy Cow. What was TI thinking making and selling a monstrosity such as this. Clearly they were much more successful making calculators and ICs 👍

@adamboggs4745 Год назад

I've used IPA (or goo gone) and flour to get gooey stuff off. Sometimes just the solvent doesn't work and just pushed it around. The flour will cause it to ball up and you can rub it off. Loved the TI 99/4A. It was also my first computer that I learned to program on in elementary school before I got an Apple //c.

@jwhite5008 Год назад

perhaps baking soda would also work. Sometimes you need to let it soak for a few minutes and/or do multiple rounds

@adamboggs4745 Год назад

It could help break down the glue maybe but baking soda is soluble in water and may not provide the "balling" feature that flour does to help get the glue off the surface.

@TekMeister Год назад

For adhesive removal, I use mineral spirits and a paper towel. Lightly rub keeping towel moist and the adhesive will dissolve. Finish up with Windex to remove gloss. Safe on plastics and paint.

@jeromekentz6616 Год назад

The TI99-4/A was my very first computer. Taught myself BASIC as a 12 year old. Great memories! I always wanted a PEB with a disk drive, but that was way out of my price range back then. I was stuck with a cassette player. A couple of years later the Commodore 64 came out and I ended up getting one with a disk drive.

@craigavonvideo Год назад

I was the same (although at 14). Didn't get into computing properly though until the mid 1990s with an old x386 PC and Windows 3.11 😀

@soteful9949 Год назад

I am a type one diabetic, and I think I am experiencing frozen shoulder too. My right arm has half the range than my left. Hopefully it will eventually go away. I learned of this from you. I could not figure out when I hurt myself.

@markpitts5194 Год назад

Hope you get it sorted :)

@CheshireNoir Год назад

As someone who has had it in both shoulders, if you can afford it, go see a licensed Physiotherapist. They'll help you cut down the time it takes to recover, and make sure you get back most, if not all your mobility. It's a really horrible thing but you can get through it.

@fogvarious2478 Год назад

i've had FS in *BOTH* shoulders for well over a year, it's getting less now, but at it's peak it was worse.. it will go eventually, but maybe also affect your mobility . so though painful better to keep doing excerises to keep it from locking up too much

@soteful9949 Год назад

@@CheshireNoir appreciated

@soteful9949 Год назад

@@fogvarious2478 appreciated and I'm still working out in spite of it.

@pauldunecat Год назад

So the 32kb expansion in the PEB gives the same as the sidecar version, max is 32k of expansions, can't double up. There was an article I think in 99er magazine where it showed you could stack memory chips right on the main board for the 32k expansion as well. I have a PEB, Speech Synth and potentially the side car 32k in a box. Also have a Myarc 490k RAM disk which has its own external power supply to keep the ram state, which allowed me to copy every single floppy I had onto it. Dsk99 for that card. The TI RS232 also had the cast case for the PEB, I used with an Okidata serial printer back in the day, though I should have bought an epson, they were much more compatible. Another fun thing was going onto BBS's where they were all 80 column, when you would connect (name of the software is escaping me right now), you had to toggle right by 20 cols with a FCTN number key to see the rest of the screen. You got used to it after a while, so I would be flipping so fast other people couldn't read over my shoulder. lmao. Yes, you need a TI extended basic cart and manual, it's pretty useless without one. :-)

@racecar_spelled_backwards868 Год назад

6:15 Back in the early 80's they were between $350 and $600 new, depending on how they were configured. They were VERY robust and a lot better than the typical TI-99/4A "sidecar" expansion method. The big data bus cable plugged into the very end of the sidecar daisy chain.

@johndododoe1411 Год назад

And in my country, the only peripheral available without this monstrosity was the speech synth, which made any expansion beyond the speech module essentially unaffordable.

@ches74 Год назад

Just did a find to see how many [comments suggest trying WD40 on the duct tape residue, they might be on to something! :)

@peterkuti95 Год назад

I had a friend in College who had a TI-99/4a with the speech synthesis module. If you typed random words, it was pretty standard speech synthesis. If you typed in "Texas Instruments TI-99/4a Home Computer", however, it would play an obviously recorded mans voice saying the phrase.

@reedyd Год назад

I'm a new Patreon and this is the first ][chan video I've been able to see. I have a PEB, a box of "consoles" (both white and aluminum) and a ton of carts somewhere in the basement. I actually stored the PEB in a custom case I had made to house my expensive LinnDrum LM2 (80s drum machine used by Prince, etc) so I know where to look. I'll see if I have dupes.

@tonylewis4661 Год назад

Check your email for a PDF on interfacing between the /4a and the PEB.

@irinotecanhcl Год назад

That heavy duty shielding reminds me of the tank-like cases of the Atari 400/800. I wonder if this thing was built around the same time, pre-FCC relaxing their RFI shielding requirements for home computers and peripherals?

@troyquigg4411 Год назад

This was my thinking too... Over engineered RFI shielding.

@BreakingPintMedia Год назад

The TI-99/4a is what I began my computing journey in. Fond memories. Ours was the later beige/plastic case model, but I always loved the OG black and silver units. My childhood one is long gone but I got another beige one off eBay some years ago that has either bad memory or some other chip as it will occasionally display a bunch of random characters on screen. I may get around to fixing it some time. Your videos definitely inspire giving vintage tech a second life.

@markissboi3583 Год назад

whats the end game in keeping old pcs ? waiting to become an Anchor - taking up space

@papafrank7094 Год назад

To remove the sticky ick that was left by duct tape, get makeup remover wipes. Grab a travel sized container of them and go to town. This also removes the sticky exterior of rubberized items.

@StevenOBrien Год назад

Jeez, first you nearly throw a rare 6502 out, and now you nearly throw your back out?

@Darxide23 Год назад

Goo Gone. Always the answer for sticker/tape residue.

@ovalwingnut Год назад

That is one "muscle bound" TI-99.... I'd take a closer look but I don't want sand kicked in my face! Thanks for the walk-through.

@jeffreyphipps1507 Год назад

This is a HEAVILY modded PEB. No PEB had toggle switches. The original PEB drive was a SSSD drive full height. They never came with half height drives from TI.

@andyb1221 Год назад

I think somebody added the switches to connect to the Triple Tech card. Some people removed the full height single sided disk drive and replaced it with two double sided half height drives. The power for disk drives was limited so a voltage regulator needed to be upgraded to use two drives. Another solution was to connect them to an external power supply. If you wanted to use double density disks, you had to replace the TI disk controller card with a new one from Corcomp or Myarc.

@RyeOnHam Год назад

To get duct tape off, spray it with WD-40 and then let it sit. Rubbing will usually dissolve all of the adhesive. You can follow that up with windex or just regular cleaners to get the WD-40 off.

@dminalba Год назад

The TI99/4A was my family's 1st computer which we got cheap when TI pulled out of the computer market. IMHO I think the TI99/4A had the potential to be the USA's BBC Micro as TI was focussing on education like Acorn did with the BBC Micro, it's just a shame TI never pulled it off and the use of proprietary hardware such the non standard 9-pin joystick D port which wasn't Atari compatible didn't help either.

@Leightym Год назад

A common hack to the PEB in the 90's was to replace the linear supply (which is a lot of the weight and noise) with an off the shelf AT supply. All you needed to do was bypass the voltage regulators on the cards and bam - a much better power supply.

@greggv8 Год назад

Don't need to bypass or remove the card regulators! If the incoming voltage is at the voltage they output (5V and 12V) they simply do nothing.

@macrohard007 Год назад

If you have the FinalGrom cartridge, you can put some 32k games on it to see if the 32k RAM expansion in s working.

@macrohard007 Год назад

FinalGROM. Not flashgrom. With FinalGROM, you can put the extended Basic on it. Like I said earlier, you can also put 32K games on there too to see if the RAM expansion is working.

@SuperVorticon Год назад

The switches on the front are connected under the backplane to the triple tech card slot directly.

@williamchow1624 Год назад

I use Ronson Lighter fluid. Does not damage plastic and is fairly gentle.

@frankowalker4662 Год назад

It's so cool. It also looks better with the black floppy drive. :)

@simonweel7971 Год назад

Yes, WD40 for glue residu. Let it soak a while and wipe it off.

@Jimbaloidatron Год назад

Back then, the fan noise would have made me feel like a boss! :-)

@desktorp Год назад

We had a TI99 when I was a kid and I think my parents sold it at a garage sale.. still breaks my heart a bit. It has such a perfect aesthetic.

@RomeoG39 Год назад

I can't wait to see more videos with this equipment. This is one of the most fascinating vintage setups. I had the beige 99/4a, speech synth, and cassette cable, but never any of the advanced stuff. I always wanted a PEB back in the day.

@jeffreyphipps1507 Год назад

The original PEB had no labels.

@horusfalcon Год назад

Use a little Squadron Green modeling putty. It will cure to hard surface that can be lightly sanded to fill the scratch, and then the area can be touched up with a matching spray paint. (Hmm... looks like Squadron Green has been a victim of supply chain woes... Tamiya also makes a good modeling putty, and Bondo lightweight body filler can also be used. For duct tape, I use lighter fluid (naptha), mineral spirits, or WD-40. The WD-40 is the least "hot" of the solutions, and will work best for plastic parts. Always test on an inconspicuous area.

@RudysRetroIntel Год назад

Hello sir! I've used WD40 and then Windex to clean up the oil. Work great on my Kaypro II. Thanks for sharing!

@coldstone6134 Год назад

Ding ding ding, I second this WD-40 should make quick work of it, and shine it up with the windex.

@kylewilson4097 Год назад

Seems as if the Z80 with 64K of local DRAM would be more capable than the main CPU and memory in the machine. I suspect they used a Z80 because the CPU has a built-in DRAM refresh function and by the era of the card the Z80 itself would be pretty cheap. Lets them use cheap DRAM for the buffer and code up the data management in a pretty nice CPU.

@tobiastofft5907 Год назад

This is one silly computer.

@G7VFY Год назад

The ti-99/4a has 256 bytes of user ram and 16kb of video ram. It is slow because the TI-BASIC is double interpreted (Complicated) and it has 16bit CPU which has a memory bus which is 8bits wide.

@a4000t Год назад

The TI peb cable was nicknamed "The Firehose"

@awilliamwest Год назад

L/I might be a load-interrupt switch. I made one for my console, once, and debounced it by starting my machine-code procedure with a BLWP instruction to change the register area (workspace pointer) so as not to overwrite the return address. (I thought that was a fairly creative software-only method to debounce the switch, if I may say so myself!) Not sure about the 1000 vs 1400 but they might be CRU addresses for one of the PEB slots. The total CPU RAM included with the TI-99 is 128 words, or 256 bytes, located at >8300 to >83FF. (The workspace pointer or "registers" normally points to >83E0, as I recall.) (My father had a PEB, but my sister gave it away when he died. :( ... As well as the MyArc 9640, which is extremely rare, and a couple of ramdisks.) Could Copy/Clear be for copying a cartridge to RAM (typically at >6000), and then for clearing the cartridge RAM area? p.s. I used the load-interrupt switch to reverse-engineer the data created by the Music Maker cartridge. I think I had to load my code into the 32k memory expansion using "Mini Memory"... not sure. I did all that without a PEB, because Dad or I found an aftermarket disk controller and 32KB memory expansion that daisy-chained into the console's side port. (Peter Hoddie appreciated my assembly coding, at the time qomph.com/aaron/MusicMakerCracked_bcsmeeting8905.pdf )

@axiometal Год назад

an important card is missing.... ASSEMBLEUR or TurboPascal... ah wow! you're freaking me out!!!! lol

@Tuxon86 Год назад

The shielding is there for the same reason the Atari 800 was made from a solid block of aluminium… FTC radio interference rules in place at the time it was designed. Also TI built the thing like they built their mini and mainframe computers.

@trancedude330 2 месяца назад

You can use eucalyptus oil to remove glue residue. Almost just wipes off with minimal rubbing. Oil residue can then be cleaned off with isopropyl or soapy water.

@Leightym Год назад

TI Writer was pretty much like Word Star and Microsoft produced a version of Multiplan for the TI so you could have a word processor and spreadsheet. Also, you need to get the ramdisk working as this will really speed things up. Floppies are so slow compared to a ramdisk.

@TheSudsy Год назад

Adrian has several items on his Xmas list now.....TI Extended basic, TI Disk Manager, TI games that use speech.

@davideddy6821 Год назад

My brain hurts from all those memories :) I had a TI-99/4A. The ole "Trash 80" with 8" SD FD. Then moved on to the IBM PC Jr - WOW COLOR! 8K dial-up baud LOL That color CRT replaced an AmberChrome 12"-14" monitor. That Amberchrome (amber because the screen was orange) monitor had very fine cloth glued to the CRT face. If you scratched it, the content behind it could become unreadable. Does anyone remember the IBM 360? It had a big red knob in the front which did a semi-controlled shutdown, if you pulled it out, not too funny. (The room-size computer of the day) We called it the "Red Beast" Well, I thought it was funny until Dad started screaming! It shut down the disk drives that were about 4 feet high, with disk packs you dropped in from the top. If have seen the inside of a modern mech drive today, this disk pack was like a stack of brown disks - about the size of an old record album only stacked 10 levels or so high. We had those things all over the house. 2 IBM 29 Card punch machines in the garage. Probably all of them sitting in a govt warehouse somewhere? That was the early 70's I think for the 360? I would give anything to have some of that sitting in the back of my home theatre these days!

@arthurhazboun2992 Год назад

Thanks for the video, still have the PEB, bunch of cartridges, speech synthesizer, even the TI tape recorder, speech syntheszer module, manuals, all brought me years of educational, fun, and learning experience in my "younger" days. I started and ran the first TI 99/4A BBS bulletin board as a sysop (system operator) for the gen Z viewers reading this, which I named TEXSUBIN which stood for: TEX = Texas S= system U= users B= Bulletin board system In = Instruments for years and years. The switches on the front of the case are NOT ORIGINAL but someone must have added those on for whatever reason later. To remove the duct tape residue try Isopropyl alcohol, WD 40, or goof off (or similar) Keep those old memories of legacy computer products coming and thanks again. P.S. You tuber Tony359 from Germany had a recent video on the TI/994a

@rapidfiringneurons Год назад

I suspect that it would be not terribly useful to be able to run CP/M using that Z80. To actually load CP/M software, the disk drives would have to be able to read CP/M format. For example, even though the Commodore 128 was capable of booting CP/M using the internal Z80, Commodore drives could not read CP/M software, which made the feature effectively useless.

@CTCTraining1 Год назад

Radio shielding ... or radioactivity shielding? Incredible. Thx for sharing. 😀👍

@robertlock5501 Год назад

That's looking like a 3/4 height drive there, you were right, two 1/2 height drives will fit in there. I'm highly intrigued by the CorComp card without the "clamshell" - my RS232 is also from CorComp, and that smaller bottom connection is parallel (PIO), and the serial port can be "doubled" with a Y serial splitter.

@jimmy_jamesjams_a_lot4171 Год назад

Uhm, if I cut my programming teeth on Borland Turbo Pascal, does that make me ‘retro’ enough? I’m guessing no, since the first PC I bought was in 1997, a Pentium2 300MHz. I bought it the same week that I discovered the existence of the ‘CD-rom burner’. If it wasn’t for my naive brain and that CD burner (when I thought that BatMan was the only other person who owned one- his was in his car), I would have likely never learned a thing about Programming, EE, and some number of very important skills, or possibly also never would have gone to college! THANKS AGAIN, for your valuable uploads, as this is likely the one and only encounter that I am bound to have with that Texas Instruments Expander box thing, TI99, and all that hardware in general from those good ol’ golden days of technology!!

@greggv8 Год назад

Why the PEB is built with so much thick steel is because in the late 1970's (this was originally made for the 99/4 in 1977, not the 99/4A) the FCC was being *very picky* about RFI and EMI emissions from microcomputers being sold for home and business use. So TI solved that by throwing many pounds of steel at the problem, along with encasing the expansion cards in die cast housings. The PEB might survive a nuclear bomb, but the rest of it probably would not. ;) RFI and EMI is why the board inside the TI console is fully enclosed inside a steel cover. This is a later PEB sold for the 99/4A, identified by the rocker switch instead of a smaller, square, push toggle. Also the vertical 'fingers' between the cards on the back are short. On the early PEB they go all the way up. There's a bit of droll humor in the TI disk controller manual. As you're reading along about connecting external drives it says "... you can break off this tab, then you can throw away the card." at least it was in the original copy of the manual I had. I remember literally laughing out loud as I imagined someone carefully following the assembly instructions one step at a time, snapping off the rear connector tab, then reading the next part.

@LambertZero Год назад

You can get one of those dollies, but with an elevating mechanism, so you won't have to lift the contents off of the floor by hand. I'm sure harbor freight is full of them. On another note. I remember you have a Toshiba Satellite 325CDS or a similar model. It's a grey chunky laptop from the late 90s. The question I have is, does yours support 128MB ram sticks? The manual says it does, but I already bought 2 and they don't work. The socket is fine, a 32MB module works fine in it. Mine is 315CDT, and that last T is a very important T. It means it has a TFT active matrix display.

@MartinBogomolni Год назад

Still have this FULL setup.. but I did have to repair the TI-99/4A to replace the old capacitors. Full expansion bay, floppy drive, speech synth, and *drum roll* a hard disk. ( also an HP plotter, but it’s long dead )

@stuartcastle2814 Год назад

I was always fascinated by the Ti-99/4A, but never really used one beyond mucking around with one in shops. The amount of expansions possible was staggering, but had slight problem that it had sidecars by detault. Sidecars were a useful (and seemingly trendy in the 80s) method for expansion that had the slight hitch that if you plugged enough devices in (assuming you had power), you could end up with your computer taking up a ridiculous amount of space.. Sure I read somewhere a fully expanded Ti-99/4A was nearly 2 meters wide, although I can't find a link to back that up. I know that a fully expanded IBM Convertible was nearly 18 inches deep. Bit big considering it's an early laptop. The PEB seems a good compromise, essentially giving the TI the same form factor as a Desktop PC, just a large one with a huge keyboard, but they seem rare (and therefore expensive) now. Not that it bothers me. Beyond being fascinated by Retro computers in general, I don't have a Ti-99/4A and have no intention of getting one, so am not interested in getting either the sidecars or PEB.

@hypnotised-clover Год назад

You can use lighter fluid to get the tape glue off without damaging anything. It even works on paper and cardboard, so it's great for old boxes with tape on them.

@jasonknight1085 Год назад

Two-thirds height drive actually. On my Model 3 back in the early '80's I cut out the place where the badge goes between the two drives, bent some copper plate for a custom mount, and was able to squeeze three of them in the space of the two half-height. The ones I had were 80 track single sided double density, around 320k usable space once LDOS formatted them. Had a full height normal 40 track for a model 1 on the external connector.... or was that a 35? I lose track. They were never very common, but Jameco carried them for a few years. And for the duct tape residue? Pine sol. You might have to soak a few minutes, but it tends to dissolve glue and paint without touching rubber or plastic.

@rsauve123 Год назад

Good old WD40 to the rescue! Spray WD40 over the cable and case glue residue, wait for 10-15 minutes, scrub with a toothbrush should loosen and remove the residue. Keep us in the loop with the cleaning process.

@stevehorne5536 Год назад

I've used Everbuild PVCu cleaner (solvent cleaner for PVC window and door frames, garden furniture etc, probably the same thing as many other PVC cleaner brands) to remove glue/tape residue and other gunk from lots of plastic items (not necessarily PVC). Not quite as good for lungs as it is for plastics, though, based on the warnings.

@johndododoe1411 Год назад

There's a nerdy alternative to extended basic. It's the "Mini Memory" cartridge, which puts a few K of battery backed RAM in the cartridge address range and comes with the PEEK and POKE extensions for the built in BASIC. With neither of those 2 cartridges, the built in BASIC intentionally lacks any commands for reading the contents of game ROMs, which combines with the forced reset upon card insertion to provide a pretty neat copy protection. The Mini Memory included a tape with fun examples like an assembler program that put the video chip in full bitmap mode, and a code editor that ran in 40 column mode.

@bobbytheitguy4289 Год назад

I had a TI-99-4/A when I was a kid, back in the days when Bill Cosby was a good guy and slinging these thing with a $100 rebate. It was the first computer that I owned. It was what got me into writing my own BASIC programs, and saving them to cassette tapes. I guess it was the computer that is responsible for my current IT career. Anyways, I remember seeing the PEB in various magazine at the time and always wanting one for its ability to house a proper disk drive. However, I was a bit puzzled by the toggle switches on your PEB, because I don't remember the PEB coming with toggle switches installed. Was this installed by the previous owner? I look forward to seeing more of this and I hope that you can located an Extended Basic cartridge (also something I always wanted).

@pseudotasuki Год назад

My brother-in-law gifted me all of his old TI99-4/A equipment, which included an expansion chassis. I can confirm that it is, indeed, a chonky boi.

@DanBowkley Год назад

For duct tape residue, anything with d-limonene will make it disappear pretty quickly. Bonus points if you can find pure limonene without any of the petroleum distillates that are found in products like goof off or goo gone. There used to be a typewriter platen cleaner product that was straight limonene as well as a cleaner and restorer for car weatherstripping which I believe was the pure stuff.