Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs

[jbdigriz]

On Sat, 03 Jan 2015 10:31:24 -0800
Al  Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:

> On 1/3/15 9:25 AM, Sean Caron wrote:
> > I've never seen a TI
> > 990 system in the wild, and only a few folks are displaying 990
> > architecture SBCs or actual TI-990 systems so the obscurity factor
> > is there a little bit.
> 
> I have at least 6 990s (/4 /10 /12) and several truckloads of
> boards/documentation/software that no one here has expressed any
> interest in after talking about them a couple of times over the
> years. Dave Pitts has several and has written an emulator that runs
> most of the OSes for them http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ti990.html
> 

Too bad they are 3000 miles away from me; shipping would be a
killer :^(. Can't count the times I had 990 stuff lined up to get, and,
well, stuff happened. C'est la vie, etc. Still have my /10 and BS1500,
though, incredibly, and most of my 4A and Geneve stuff, although not
all in the best condition, now. Hanging on to it all through a lot of
trials, trauma, and general BS turned me into a bit of an antisocial
jerk for a while, but I'm still glad that I did. 

For  Caron: I followed this thread with interest, because
lately I've been considering some 9900/9995/99000-based projects,
and/or add-on cards for 990's and even 4a's, or maybe a homebrew, so
the chipsets on Ebay look promising. Look like some kind of 9900 and
9995-based MSX2+ SBC's, like a souped-up Tomy Tutor or something. Those
Altera chips would be the key to system, but I don't see any mention of
documentation, schematics, etc. Presumably these are hot hobbyist items
in Japan or the MSX community, and are well-documented somewhere, but
I'm not familiar with them. 
  
The 9902 is not present in the 99/4A console. You need an RS/232
peripheral or card for that. Readily available from any of sources,
though, like Al says.