On January 31, Ross Archer wrote:
> Am I the only one who thinks mechanical design cost-cutting has
> finally gone too far? I almost forgot that stuff was once
> this well put-together.
I'm with you there. Fairly recently I was moving stuff around in
the basement; I stood on a PC chassis to reach over some stuff. It
was a recent chassis, maybe a year old.
It collapsed under my weight. The "sheet metal" was like foil. Now,
I'm not a small guy, but I'm not hugely fat either.
-Dave McGuire
I always thought the TMS9900 was a neat chip (having a PDP-10
background may have influenced me :-) Having the register set
show up in memory gave me a nice warm nostalgic feeling. I
wouldn't blame the poor performance of the 99/4A on the CPU. The
architecture had a lot of nifty things in it. Most of the blame
for the poor performance of the 99/4A falls on the low-end
save-every-penny-you-can design criteria for the machine. I
ordered the technical manual on the 99/4A from TI... What
I saw in the manual made me gag... aside from a very small amount
of memory actually on the system bus, any add-on RAM was
accessed _serially_ (i.e. 1 bit at a time) via what TI called
a "CRU" interface (basically a high speed serial port) I
believe we can all appreciate the crippling effect on any
machine's performance when the bulk of it's memory is only
available through a 1-bit serial interface.
BTW, I also had the technico board... a really neat product that
never quite took off. :-(
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ajp166 [mailto:ajp166@bellatlantic.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 8:30 AM
> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: TI-99/4A
>
>
> From: Ross Archer <archer(a)topnow.com>
> >
> >Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard the 99/4A suffered
> something of
> >an unfair rap for being slow due to the fact that its TI BASIC was
> >dreadfully inefficient and sloppy, and that little or no
> blame for its
> >slowness rested on the actual CPU or hardware. (Windoze
> >users may spot a parallel here.) >;)
>
> Partially correct. there were many issues. One the 9900 is
> 16bit wide
> data bus demuxed to 8bit (costs a lot of cycles!, penalty 1),
> it's run at
> less than maximum speed for the time and BASIC {internal} was
> interpreted as an end language {penalty 2} and the BASIC interpreter
> was interpreted {penalty 3}.
>
> Those things really hurt speed. The other side was it did have one of
> the better from a capability standpoint Basics in the
> standard console.
>
> >The TMS 9900 CPU actually used a "window" in RAM as its
> register space,
> >with an internal pointer register to locate its base
> address. This was
> >actually a great idea at the time, because CPU cycles were
> long enough
> >back then it made no difference whether you stored temporary
> values in
> >internal registers or external RAM, as either could get you
> your data in
> >the 1 cycle time available.
>
>
> Actually many of the older DEC hardware also used part fo ram to
> implement the registers including early PDP11, DEC-10s and previous
> machines. The idea was not new and was to save logic in the CPU
> as FlipFlops (memory) were costly in hardware back then and even in
> late 70s were costly on silicon. The other factor is the 9900 was
> a single chip recreation of the TI990 mini (not unlike like the
> 6100{pdp-8}, LSI-11 and DG MicroNova).
>
> >(And interrupt latency can be really short if you can make a "fresh"
> >register bank with one register load!)
>
> The ability to context switch fast was one of the strong points.
> Compared
> to Z80 or 8086 it was a nicer cpu to program save for the 32KW memory
> limitation. In many respects it was more similar to the minis like
> PDP-11
> or Nova than the micros of the time. It was rich in general
> registers,
> Addressing modes and IO.
>
> I have a Technico Super starter board and it runs the TI9900 at 4mhz
> with 16bit wide memeory and rom really fast compared to the Z80
> (comparison made on both machines I still have from 1979!).
> I picked up
> the TI99/4a and was sadly disappointed save for the bundle of
> really good and inexpensive software for it. Still, it plays
> a mean game
> of
> Parsec!!!
>
> Allison
>
Manual transfer of data was the only way to go in the "old days".
There was bike-net also. I used to take my 800 bpi tapes over to the
computer room and knock on the back door, they would sneak them in. The
official way was they logged in tapes twice a day, slow turn around. There
was a slight risk of bike accident especially if I was not looking, perhaps
distracted by scenery :)
The risk with Beetle-Net was that if you left the top down some wacko would
walk off with your tape. One of my fellow students came back to his car to
find the tape unspooled down the hill, somebody stood on one end and rolled
the reel down the hill. We tried manually re-rolling the tape and decided
there was to much dirt and grime on it.
Later in the 80's I held the local record for awhile, I carried 10 LMSI 12"
2GB optical disks from one end of the hospital to the other, they had
planned on doing a network transfer via ftp. The sneaker was faster.
20GB/10 minutes = 2 GB/minute in 1985.
Mike
mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
> What kind of stuff do you run on it if not any of the TI stuff?
>
> Jeff
The stuff I have for the technico mostly. Save for I have a complete
99/4a
so I can run edtasm.
Allison
From: Ross Archer <archer(a)topnow.com>
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard the 99/4A suffered something of
>an unfair rap for being slow due to the fact that its TI BASIC was
>dreadfully inefficient and sloppy, and that little or no blame for its
>slowness rested on the actual CPU or hardware. (Windoze
>users may spot a parallel here.) >;)
Partially correct. there were many issues. One the 9900 is 16bit wide
data bus demuxed to 8bit (costs a lot of cycles!, penalty 1), it's run at
less than maximum speed for the time and BASIC {internal} was
interpreted as an end language {penalty 2} and the BASIC interpreter
was interpreted {penalty 3}.
Those things really hurt speed. The other side was it did have one of
the better from a capability standpoint Basics in the standard console.
>The TMS 9900 CPU actually used a "window" in RAM as its register space,
>with an internal pointer register to locate its base address. This was
>actually a great idea at the time, because CPU cycles were long enough
>back then it made no difference whether you stored temporary values in
>internal registers or external RAM, as either could get you your data in
>the 1 cycle time available.
Actually many of the older DEC hardware also used part fo ram to
implement the registers including early PDP11, DEC-10s and previous
machines. The idea was not new and was to save logic in the CPU
as FlipFlops (memory) were costly in hardware back then and even in
late 70s were costly on silicon. The other factor is the 9900 was
a single chip recreation of the TI990 mini (not unlike like the
6100{pdp-8}, LSI-11 and DG MicroNova).
>(And interrupt latency can be really short if you can make a "fresh"
>register bank with one register load!)
The ability to context switch fast was one of the strong points.
Compared
to Z80 or 8086 it was a nicer cpu to program save for the 32KW memory
limitation. In many respects it was more similar to the minis like
PDP-11
or Nova than the micros of the time. It was rich in general registers,
Addressing modes and IO.
I have a Technico Super starter board and it runs the TI9900 at 4mhz
with 16bit wide memeory and rom really fast compared to the Z80
(comparison made on both machines I still have from 1979!). I picked up
the TI99/4a and was sadly disappointed save for the bundle of
really good and inexpensive software for it. Still, it plays a mean game
of
Parsec!!!
Allison
From: Corda Albert J DLVA <CordaAJ(a)nswc.navy.mil>
>I saw in the manual made me gag... aside from a very small amount
>of memory actually on the system bus, any add-on RAM was
>accessed _serially_ (i.e. 1 bit at a time) via what TI called
>a "CRU" interface (basically a high speed serial port) I
>believe we can all appreciate the crippling effect on any
>machine's performance when the bulk of it's memory is only
>available through a 1-bit serial interface.
???? I still have 4 of them. HAving hacked one rather severely the CRU
interface was IO only. Ram was either accessed as:
128 words on the 16bit bus (pair of 6810s) this was fast ram
relative to all other.
32KW in the Expansion box, this was slower due to the word to byte
wide conversion logic (adds at least 2 waits for every access!)
Grom, byte parallel, sequential access, you wrote to a register
in the GROM to set the starting address and every byte read
would increment an internal counter. This was slow at times
being both on the byte wide bus and the higher software
maintenance. Mostly used for internal Basic and the plug in
carts.
Vram.... 16k or 4116 Dram on the video refresh bus. This was also
used as general storage for the internal BASIC and was a byte wide
access via the 9918 VTAC and also CRU IO (setting a pointer).
Horribly slow, cool graphics for the time!
I have a severely hacked one with 32KW of 61256(32kx8) and 32KW
of Eprom both 16bits wide and clocked to 4mhz... it screams. Nothing
standard and doesnt run any of the TI stuff. Nice package though.
The CRU interface for IO was actually pretty fast in practice and had
flexibility that was not available on most of the 8bitters.
>BTW, I also had the technico board... a really neat product that
>never quite took off. :-(
IT's interesting that it was one of the first 16bit cpus and was not
well supported by TI at that time. Good programmers CPU.
Allison
Hey folks, who's got one of the above subject machines? I found one over
at the Salvation Army store.
Looks very clean and complete: has the Operator's manual in a slipcase,
MSDOS manual (DOS v.2.1), keyboard, printer, vinyl slipcover, cables, some
floppies of s/w. They want $50 for it which is probably a little high.
Maybe I can negotiate it down to something better.
Found several hits on a NorthernLight search. One good photo to help show
what I'm talking about is at:
http://home.plex.nl/~hwrsoft/11.htm
Some list members' collections show as hits too, but no descriptive info
was to be found in those links.
Anybody have any comments about this machine? How was the screen clarity?
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/
>Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 20:46:43 -0500
>From: Jeff Hellige <jhellige(a)earthlink.net>
>Subject: NeXT question
>
> Ok...I'm having a bit of trouble networking my NeXT with
>other machines, specifically my Mac-clone....
>Unfortunately, I can't get the NeXT and Mac to talk
>to each other over the 10base-T ethernet link, using a twisted patch
>cable so I don't have to have a hub installed. ...
>I'm also using a CD
>called 'NeXTstep Objectware, Summer 1995', which is full of 3rd party
>product demos, internet tools and drivers, which is where Omniweb
>came from. Does anyone have any ideas?
Jeff,
I've got a very similar setup. NeXT '040 cube, NS3.3 w/Y2k patches,
crossover ethernet cable to a Mac Powerbook 3400 running MacOS 8.1. The
NeXT will respond the Mac *if* the Mac is already connected and running
when the NeXT boots. Of course the Mac has to be set up for TCP/IP to the
ethernet port, etc. I usually hit the NeXT with Fetch 3.0.3 from the Mac
first, but I have also succeeded by firing up CAPer on the NeXT first then
looking in Chooser..Appleshare on the Mac.
The NeXT setup is the same as it was in my office, on an ethernet
internet hookup, so it's possible there are some settings in there not the
same as yours. For example, during the NeXT boot process, I get some
message about "not being able to find a server ... hit c to continue or see
my administrator" (or similar) and have to hit c to continue. If that's the
problem, email me direct and I'll post the NeXT Networking setup.
http://www.peak.org/next/apps/internet/www/OmniWeb/ for a more
recent version? But one step at a time, I guess.
>Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 05:33:53 -0500
>From: Jeff Hellige <jhellige(a)earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: Needed: 4 - 4meg 72pin non-parity SIMMs
>
>....
>The only NeXT I've seen listed as
>supporting more than 32meg is the '040 Cube. Otherwise, as far as I
>know, 8meg 72pin SIMMs will only work in the Turbo's.
True as far as I know. My 040 non-turbo Cube has 16 30-pin slots, all
currently stuffed with 4M simms for a total of 64M.
>Date: 29 Jan 01 03:21:04 +0100
>From: "Iggy Drougge" <optimus(a)canit.se>
>Subject: Re: Needed: 4 - 4meg 72pin non-parity SIMMs
>
>...OTOH, I'll gladly trade for 4 MB 30-pin SIMMs, parity or not.
http://www.sur-tech.com/cgi/page?menu,missim
I don't know if this is the best price, but I've dealt with
Christian before and it was a delight. "Will this drive work in my NeXT?"
"Probably, but hang on a second - I'll just pull another NeXT off the
shelf, open it up, plug in the drive, format it, write to and read from it
... yep, seems to work. You want it?" *That's* what I call service!
>Date: 29 Jan 01 03:26:47 +0100
>From: "Iggy Drougge" <optimus(a)canit.se>
>Subject: Re: Altaircomputers.org down??
>
>Okay, so now I'm thinking about a threesome between ChibiChibi,
>Jar-Jar and Pikachu. You bastard.
> A. Jones
How can one put a price on jewels like this?
- Mark
At 08:41 AM 1/30/01 -0500, Doug wrote:
>
>> Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Obviously you've never dealt with the IRS!!!!! They
>may
>> not "enter" your residence but they'll sure as hell padlock it shut until
>> they get what THEY want! As far as they're concerned you have about the
>> same rights that the Jews did in Nazi Germany!
>
>Actually, I have.
>
>In 1986, when I filed for Chapter 13, they sent me a letter saying
>I hadn't filed for 1985 and 1986 and owed an estimated $11,000 in
>back taxes.
>
>I wrote back saying, it was true, I hadn't filed for 1985, *yet*, but
>would do so now as I expected a refund. Additionally, I sent them
>photocopies of the 1986 filing & refund check they didn't seem to
>know about.
>
>And human engeineering has yet to create the lock
>that can keep me out of my house.
It's not the locks as much as it's the US Marshall's Service that backs
it up!
Joe
>
>
Hi,
On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 Jason McBrien wrote:
> I've seen these things around, a local advertising firm had stacks of them
> they were throwing away. These are basically Macintosh IIfx's clock chipped
> from 40MHz to 50MHz, in a gigantic metal tower case with power and frame key
> locks. An interesting machine, but remember before buying...
>
> 1 - The IIfx uses wacko 64-Bit (I think) SIMMs that aren't compatable with
> anything except a particular LaserWriter. These are VERY hard to find and
> expensive.
Some time ago, a seller on eBay mentioned in the item listing for some IIfx
SIMMs that they also work with Amiga accelerator cards made by GVP (Great
Valley Products).
Has anyone tried using IIfx SIMMs with a GVP card? (One which takes 64-pin
SIMMs, obviously.)
While the connector may be the same, I'm sceptical that they are compatible; a
few years ago I tried an AST 64-pin SIMM in my GVP card unsuccessfully.
-- Mark
