I’ve got a TI 99/4A with a speech synth and Parsec with a lot of other games. That’s really all I need. Love the expansion box though and all of the new hardware still being developed for the system. Great video. Long live the TI.
Forgot to mention of course with the speech synth I have terminal emulator II. Also own a C64 and Panasonic 3DO but I tend to gravitate back to the TI on a regular basis. It was my first computer at 10 years old so it has a nostalgia feeling I just can’t escape lol.
I'm still a "REAL IRON" person...PEB with Ti-Disk-Controller (card)...and, until recently...a 32k-Memory-Card (for backup now) replaced with a SAMS 1MEG...and yes...a "clunky" FH-Floppy Disk Drive...sitting just underneath my GOTEK! I really liked this episode of PixelPendant! :-) It is nice to see ALL the "stock cards" still! And, intrigued by the "new" ones. Thanks for this video! !!
I'm looking at my setup with flashrom99 and 32k memory card while working far from home, somewhere overseas. Yes, TI 99/4a is just that important or fun rather. I bought a "new" console to take with me on this trip. Thanks again for your videos. I look forward to playing your new game as soon as I return.
Thank You PixelPedant. I actually like the sound of the TI Peripheral Expansion Box while it's operating which can be used as a white noise, actually cancels out the tinnitus in my left ear. Also picked up the TIPI-PEB and The Raspberry Pi. But I like to keep The Speech Synthesizer Right Where It Is Plugged In To The Side Of My TI99 4/A. 😀😀😀😀😀
The first thing I did with my PEB was replace the case fan to a DC 5 volt. Shocking reduction in noise, I don’t have to talk so loud now to be heard over the old fan, ha. I moved the speech card internal along with internal TIPI and SAMS cards. Realms of Antiquity is very fun. I haven’t replaced the “fire hose” because I actually like the thin “look” of it rather than the tall card replacement. Just a personal preference for sure.
That's the one thing I find "WEIRD" about the Shift838 I/O board. There may be a technical reason for this which I just don't understand, but I'm unclear as to why it's necessary to have any "board" at the console side in the first place. Why can't all the translation hardware be at the in-PEB PCBA side, instead? In other words... why not just have a cable which plugs into the side of the console, and goes to the PEB card, without anything but the connector at the Console end. And ideally, have that cable plug be "aft facing" rather than straight, so that the cable just goes back behind the console. I can't imagine anything that HAS to be done, electronically, at the immediate-console end, which couldn't be done just as easily at the PEB PCBA end. But maybe there's some reason I'm not seeing?
I like mine unmolested, all original hardware. The only thing I have done extra was get a FinalGrom99 so I can have access to more software. I had the basic system in 1983 (Extended BASIC, Speech Synth, Cassette) and learned BASIC. By 1989, I had a lot of computer classes in school and learned about the Apple IIe with BASIC and Pascal. Up until then, I didn't really know about assembly language. Over the years since 1989, I learned a lot about computers and assembly languages (I ended up with a Masters in Computer Science). So, feeling nostalgic, I bought a TI off eBay a couple of years ago as well as a book I had when I was a kid in 1983. Fast forward to today, about 3 years later, I have recently started playing with a TI and PEB and learning TMS9900 assembly language. I want to see what I am capable of doing with what I could have had back in 1983, but didn't have, so no gadgets or software that wasn't available prior to about 1989. I really wish I had known about assembly language and the PEB in 1983, I think that would have advanced my knowledge at a much faster pace. Instead, I had to wait until 1990 when I 19 years old in the Air Force to learn what assembly language was (I started on 8086 Assembler). Since then, I have does AVR assembler for the Arduino and MIPS Assembly when I was taking college courses. Now I am learning TMS9900 and almost done with a clone of Apple's SnakeByte. I need to just finish it, but I keep learning about new things and wanting to redo it. I want a version that can run on the minimum amount of hardware, like I had when I was a kid.
Thanks for reviewing these options, new and old. I have a PEB, two actually, and enjoy them immensely. However, the new possibilities the new technology offers is certainly cause for great optimism for the TI future.
I didn't know TI sold a rebranded version of an Epson dot matrix printer. Too bad they didn't paint the whole thing silver to match the 99/4(A). And to think, the TI-99 series almost lasted long enough to get a third expansion system, the Hex-Bus!
Yeah, I think sometimes people underestimate the lifespan of the TI-99. For all that it was an abject *financial* failure for TI, its commercial lifespan was more or less the same as that of the VIC-20. Just short of five years. And especially in that era (when the notion of a computer was evolving so rapidly), five years feels like a very long time indeed.
This is really cool 😎! It’s even right with the timeline on everything. I never had a disk or cassette drive or any other accessories other than the speech synthesizer and joysticks. With disk drives there are so many more possibilities. I’m astonished with the mod and homebrew community. Saw a good number of games including arcade ports that never came to TI.
I'm mainly a C64 user, and the C64 situation was and remains ... weird compared to other systems, like the TI-99. The basic C64 configuration was severe in its ... adequateness. 64K was perhaps the minimum RAM baseline which was good enough that RAM expansions would be doomed to failure. And Commodore wasted time with non-compatible systems rather than trying to market C64 expansions or upgraded newer models. By the time they came out with the C128, they purposefully made its specs ... eh ... unambitious ... in order to avoid competing with their upcoming Amiga. The result? The C64 scene is remarkable in the way it really only has one dominant configuration (per video standard). The biggest alternate configuration, the C128, was and remains hampered by the adequateness of the C64. It's just hard to justify even learning to do C128 development when the software has only a fraction of the potential users and the C64's base configuration is probably already adequate for whatever software you'll want to develop.
I don't recall the c128 involved guys saying it was on purposely limited other than cost and 64 compatibility that the z80 also kinda ties into, they kinda put more stuff than they were going to if anything and marketing hyped it up higher than targeted as more expandable on top of that not down. Not that they even had much of a roadmap or coherent plan with the management then
I am enjoying your TI 99 4/A content. Thank you. Could you do a deep dive on Dot Matrix printers? Like the technical aspects of RS233 serial port printer connections and EPSON 9-Pin printers like the newish LX-350 Impact Dot Matrix Printer. The LX-350 is affordable and can be bought new. Ink ribbons and paper are available it seems. Is it compatible like my old and dead Epson MX80 printer? I really want the option of printing out my code to make editing easier and play with old printing programs from back in the day. Others might find this helpful as well. If it’s too big of an ask, I apologize in advance. Once again, thank you.
Approaching the subject from a different angle (i.e., the practical uses for having a printer), a video on Desktop Publishing on the TI-99 is something I've had bouncing around in the back of my mind for some while. But it's a pretty huge subject, so I'll have to land on a specific approach I think is manageable.
Thanks. I actually hope to use it to write notes and script ideas off-line. Also, I’d like to revive my programming hobby. But I understand your dilemma with such a large subject. I suppose I’ll just have to buy a new dot matrix printer and hope the escape codes and such are close enough to be used. I am glad someone is still poking the embers of our nice little computer. I had such high hopes for it when I first bought it. I still enjoy it.
Hi there! I’m glad I came across this channel! I’m curious if there are any differences between the two PEB styles (push button vs. flip switch power switch)?
There are a few design distinctions between different models of PEB, but none of them fundamentally change its functionality in any really significant way. Differences include: 1) "99/4 Peripheral Expansion System" label or "Texas Instruments Expansion System" label, 2) Half-height "fingers" separating cards on the rear face or full-height "fingers", 3) externally accessible fuse by the AC connector, or absence thereof, 4) Push-button power switch or Rocker power switch. And users have also observed that the internal switch mechanisms toggled by the rocker switch have multiple variants. But as I say, none of this is actually important to everyday PEB functionality. And while they largely sort themselves into two major PEB variants, TI did not market these as separate models, and there is no guarantee either one will represent all characteristics typical of that variant. In the same way that most but not all beige TI-99s have the QI (second gen) motherboard, and most but not all machines with a QI motherboard have the 2.2 operating system.
@@PixelPedant thanks for this detail! I now have 2 PEBs, one with each switch type. I’ll have to check them out in more detail to decide which I will keep. Merry Christmas!
First of all thank you for your great informative videos! I need your help in finding a PHP-1270 P-Code card. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
The hope is we can get a clear answer on what components typically fail and by what mechanism, so that repairs of failed cards become straightforward, and there are plenty of them out there once that happens. The trouble is at present, most of them just don't function.
does anyone have a bead on where to find a quieter replacement fan for the PEB? i'm not technically minded enough to know which fan will or won't work.
Nope. Nor can a larger expansion (even hypothetically) be directly addressed by the CPU. The TI-99's address space is (16-bit, and hence) 64K. So while paging can give you more memory than that (just not all at once), the address space is what it is.
I came across the post in atari age for the PEB PCB about a week after preorders were closed. So bummed :( Living in Australia, finding and then getting a PEB shipped over is not cheap or easy :( Currently living with my 32k expansion and finalgrom.
Yeah, living outside North America definitely makes things trickier. But at least with the FinalGROM and 32K, you've got what you need for 90% of the library.
Yeah add the speech and monster cable that's over a foot of desk space. I would like a disk side car which would be all I need to run my edit assembliet and extended basic I already have the memory expansion side car. 73
They're also just *very* big and heavy. 30lbs. So I think they don't get all that much traffic on auction sites just due to the difficulty and cost of shipping them.
So true. The weight and bulk also makes me suspect many were unfortunately disposed of long ago. Like a huge old CRT television, they may not have made it through multiple moves after they had (apparently) outlived their usefulness. I hope I am very wrong though and there are thousands stuffed away in basements and aftics.
@@andymandyjohnson-green5160 you're probably right but chances are those abandoned PEBs got all rusted to death by now. Besides that, many users now live in small apartments where space and power consumption is critical, so sadly all that chunky and watt-hungry accesories are a no-no.
You’re good with what you have. Beat up PEBs on EBAY are bringing 300 bucks and up now. We’ll just keep rocking the base setups and go from there. TI life forever.
@@PixelPedant you are right I had one but with the room it took up and no one was making software anymore. I only kept the computer and the Milton Bradley game console which the controller needs a major overhaul. I mainly liked the baseball game. It was a two player game but I could play both pitching and hitting so I had fun with it. Voice recognition made it more fun. 73
I’ve got a TI 99/4A with a speech synth and Parsec with a lot of other games. That’s really all I need. Love the expansion box though and all of the new hardware still being developed for the system. Great video. Long live the TI.
Forgot to mention of course with the speech synth I have terminal emulator II. Also own a C64 and Panasonic 3DO but I tend to gravitate back to the TI on a regular basis. It was my first computer at 10 years old so it has a nostalgia feeling I just can’t escape lol.
I'm still a "REAL IRON" person...PEB with Ti-Disk-Controller (card)...and, until recently...a 32k-Memory-Card (for backup now) replaced with a SAMS 1MEG...and yes...a "clunky" FH-Floppy Disk Drive...sitting just underneath my GOTEK! I really liked this episode of PixelPendant! :-) It is nice to see ALL the "stock cards" still! And, intrigued by the "new" ones. Thanks for this video! !!
I'm looking at my setup with flashrom99 and 32k memory card while working far from home, somewhere overseas. Yes, TI 99/4a is just that important or fun rather. I bought a "new" console to take with me on this trip. Thanks again for your videos. I look forward to playing your new game as soon as I return.
Thank You PixelPedant. I actually like the sound of the TI Peripheral Expansion Box while it's operating which can be used as a white noise, actually cancels out the tinnitus in my left ear. Also picked up the TIPI-PEB and The Raspberry Pi. But I like to keep The Speech Synthesizer Right Where It Is Plugged In To The Side Of My TI99 4/A. 😀😀😀😀😀
The first thing I did with my PEB was replace the case fan to a DC 5 volt. Shocking reduction in noise, I don’t have to talk so loud now to be heard over the old fan, ha. I moved the speech card internal along with internal TIPI and SAMS cards. Realms of Antiquity is very fun. I haven’t replaced the “fire hose” because I actually like the thin “look” of it rather than the tall card replacement. Just a personal preference for sure.
That's the one thing I find "WEIRD" about the Shift838 I/O board. There may be a technical reason for this which I just don't understand, but I'm unclear as to why it's necessary to have any "board" at the console side in the first place. Why can't all the translation hardware be at the in-PEB PCBA side, instead?
In other words... why not just have a cable which plugs into the side of the console, and goes to the PEB card, without anything but the connector at the Console end.
And ideally, have that cable plug be "aft facing" rather than straight, so that the cable just goes back behind the console.
I can't imagine anything that HAS to be done, electronically, at the immediate-console end, which couldn't be done just as easily at the PEB PCBA end.
But maybe there's some reason I'm not seeing?
I like mine unmolested, all original hardware. The only thing I have done extra was get a FinalGrom99 so I can have access to more software. I had the basic system in 1983 (Extended BASIC, Speech Synth, Cassette) and learned BASIC. By 1989, I had a lot of computer classes in school and learned about the Apple IIe with BASIC and Pascal. Up until then, I didn't really know about assembly language. Over the years since 1989, I learned a lot about computers and assembly languages (I ended up with a Masters in Computer Science). So, feeling nostalgic, I bought a TI off eBay a couple of years ago as well as a book I had when I was a kid in 1983. Fast forward to today, about 3 years later, I have recently started playing with a TI and PEB and learning TMS9900 assembly language. I want to see what I am capable of doing with what I could have had back in 1983, but didn't have, so no gadgets or software that wasn't available prior to about 1989. I really wish I had known about assembly language and the PEB in 1983, I think that would have advanced my knowledge at a much faster pace. Instead, I had to wait until 1990 when I 19 years old in the Air Force to learn what assembly language was (I started on 8086 Assembler). Since then, I have does AVR assembler for the Arduino and MIPS Assembly when I was taking college courses. Now I am learning TMS9900 and almost done with a clone of Apple's SnakeByte. I need to just finish it, but I keep learning about new things and wanting to redo it. I want a version that can run on the minimum amount of hardware, like I had when I was a kid.
Thanks for reviewing these options, new and old. I have a PEB, two actually, and enjoy them immensely. However, the new possibilities the new technology offers is certainly cause for great optimism for the TI future.
i love the peb...even though i dont own a texas insturments...but i sure do want one with the peb and the cards!!!
I didn't know TI sold a rebranded version of an Epson dot matrix printer. Too bad they didn't paint the whole thing silver to match the 99/4(A). And to think, the TI-99 series almost lasted long enough to get a third expansion system, the Hex-Bus!
Yeah, I think sometimes people underestimate the lifespan of the TI-99. For all that it was an abject *financial* failure for TI, its commercial lifespan was more or less the same as that of the VIC-20. Just short of five years. And especially in that era (when the notion of a computer was evolving so rapidly), five years feels like a very long time indeed.
This is really cool 😎! It’s even right with the timeline on everything. I never had a disk or cassette drive or any other accessories other than the speech synthesizer and joysticks.
With disk drives there are so many more possibilities. I’m astonished with the mod and homebrew community. Saw a good number of games including arcade ports that never came to TI.
I'm mainly a C64 user, and the C64 situation was and remains ... weird compared to other systems, like the TI-99. The basic C64 configuration was severe in its ... adequateness. 64K was perhaps the minimum RAM baseline which was good enough that RAM expansions would be doomed to failure.
And Commodore wasted time with non-compatible systems rather than trying to market C64 expansions or upgraded newer models. By the time they came out with the C128, they purposefully made its specs ... eh ... unambitious ... in order to avoid competing with their upcoming Amiga.
The result? The C64 scene is remarkable in the way it really only has one dominant configuration (per video standard). The biggest alternate configuration, the C128, was and remains hampered by the adequateness of the C64. It's just hard to justify even learning to do C128 development when the software has only a fraction of the potential users and the C64's base configuration is probably already adequate for whatever software you'll want to develop.
I don't recall the c128 involved guys saying it was on purposely limited other than cost and 64 compatibility that the z80 also kinda ties into, they kinda put more stuff than they were going to if anything and marketing hyped it up higher than targeted as more expandable on top of that not down. Not that they even had much of a roadmap or coherent plan with the management then
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Step 2: Automatic LIKE
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I am enjoying your TI 99 4/A content. Thank you.
Could you do a deep dive on Dot Matrix printers?
Like the technical aspects of RS233 serial port printer connections and EPSON 9-Pin printers like the newish LX-350 Impact Dot Matrix Printer. The LX-350 is affordable and can be bought new. Ink ribbons and paper are available it seems.
Is it compatible like my old and dead Epson MX80 printer?
I really want the option of printing out my code to make editing easier and play with old printing programs from back in the day.
Others might find this helpful as well. If it’s too big of an ask, I apologize in advance. Once again, thank you.
Approaching the subject from a different angle (i.e., the practical uses for having a printer), a video on Desktop Publishing on the TI-99 is something I've had bouncing around in the back of my mind for some while. But it's a pretty huge subject, so I'll have to land on a specific approach I think is manageable.
Thanks.
I actually hope to use it to write notes and script ideas off-line. Also, I’d like to revive my programming hobby. But I understand your dilemma with such a large subject. I suppose I’ll just have to buy a new dot matrix printer and hope the escape codes and such are close enough to be used.
I am glad someone is still poking the embers of our nice little computer. I had such high hopes for it when I first bought it. I still enjoy it.
Hi there! I’m glad I came across this channel! I’m curious if there are any differences between the two PEB styles (push button vs. flip switch power switch)?
There are a few design distinctions between different models of PEB, but none of them fundamentally change its functionality in any really significant way.
Differences include: 1) "99/4 Peripheral Expansion System" label or "Texas Instruments Expansion System" label, 2) Half-height "fingers" separating cards on the rear face or full-height "fingers", 3) externally accessible fuse by the AC connector, or absence thereof, 4) Push-button power switch or Rocker power switch. And users have also observed that the internal switch mechanisms toggled by the rocker switch have multiple variants.
But as I say, none of this is actually important to everyday PEB functionality. And while they largely sort themselves into two major PEB variants, TI did not market these as separate models, and there is no guarantee either one will represent all characteristics typical of that variant. In the same way that most but not all beige TI-99s have the QI (second gen) motherboard, and most but not all machines with a QI motherboard have the 2.2 operating system.
@@PixelPedant thanks for this detail! I now have 2 PEBs, one with each switch type. I’ll have to check them out in more detail to decide which I will keep. Merry Christmas!
Awsome video! I enjoyed.
Okay, one more question, lol. Did TI Manufacture a P-Code 4.0 sidecar?
Oh, one more question....
Can you install a hard drive in the PEB?
I'd like to have every single item! Of course I broke the bank by doing that with an Apple II so I think I'll chill out on the buys for a while.
You could get a different peb cable back in the day as i recall. I just never did it.
First of all thank you for your great informative videos! I need your help in finding a PHP-1270 P-Code card. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
All my PEB is missing is the PCode card... someday... someday...
The hope is we can get a clear answer on what components typically fail and by what mechanism, so that repairs of failed cards become straightforward, and there are plenty of them out there once that happens. The trouble is at present, most of them just don't function.
does anyone have a bead on where to find a quieter replacement fan for the PEB? i'm not technically minded enough to know which fan will or won't work.
Will two 32k expansions or more work in the PEB equalling >=64k?
Nope. Nor can a larger expansion (even hypothetically) be directly addressed by the CPU. The TI-99's address space is (16-bit, and hence) 64K. So while paging can give you more memory than that (just not all at once), the address space is what it is.
But it can use two RS-232 interface cards right?
I came across the post in atari age for the PEB PCB about a week after preorders were closed. So bummed :( Living in Australia, finding and then getting a PEB shipped over is not cheap or easy :( Currently living with my 32k expansion and finalgrom.
Yeah, living outside North America definitely makes things trickier. But at least with the FinalGROM and 32K, you've got what you need for 90% of the library.
Yeah add the speech and monster cable that's over a foot of desk space. I would like a disk side car which would be all I need to run my edit assembliet and extended basic I already have the memory expansion side car. 73
I remember the speech box sounding so funny if you made it say QQQQQQQQQ
No PEB here. Just a voice synth and 32K expansion so far. I looked for a PEB for a while but they seem relatively rare - at least where I live.
They're also just *very* big and heavy. 30lbs. So I think they don't get all that much traffic on auction sites just due to the difficulty and cost of shipping them.
So true. The weight and bulk also makes me suspect many were unfortunately disposed of long ago. Like a huge old CRT television, they may not have made it through multiple moves after they had (apparently) outlived their usefulness. I hope I am very wrong though and there are thousands stuffed away in basements and aftics.
@@andymandyjohnson-green5160 you're probably right but chances are those abandoned PEBs got all rusted to death by now.
Besides that, many users now live in small apartments where space and power consumption is critical, so sadly all that chunky and watt-hungry accesories are a no-no.
You’re good with what you have. Beat up PEBs on EBAY are bringing 300 bucks and up now. We’ll just keep rocking the base setups and go from there. TI life forever.
@@PixelPedant you are right I had one but with the room it took up and no one was making software anymore. I only kept the computer and the Milton Bradley game console which the controller needs a major overhaul. I mainly liked the baseball game. It was a two player game but I could play both pitching and hitting so I had fun with it. Voice recognition made it more fun. 73