Things you consider obsolete and no longer use for your TI

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Did you have a piece of hardware for your TI that you once considered the best thing ever, but now it's been YEARS since you've used it and now collects dust on the shelf?

Decades ago, and as little as seven years ago, I used to use my "Super Cartridge", but then the FlashROM 99 was released, and I never had a reason to use the Super Cartridge even again, a year or so after that, the FinalGROM 99 was released and now my FlashROM 99 is only a dust collector as well.  It's been so long since I've use the old Super Cart that I've actually forgotten how to use it!

[RobertLM78]

Before getting a PEB i had a parallel port that plugged right into the side bus expansion.  Getting the PEB made that obsolete- and now the PEB is sort of obsolete since i have the nanoPEB.  And the nanoPEB will probably become obsolete whenever i get around to finally putting a TIPI together.

[RickR]

I have a similar situation for Atari 8-bit computers.  Several ways to load ROMS, with each iteration making the older stuff obsolete.  I consider them "backups" in case the newest one ever goes bad.

 

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13 hours ago, RobertLM78 said:

Before getting a PEB i had a parallel port that plugged right into the side bus expansion.  Getting the PEB made that obsolete- and now the PEB is sort of obsolete since i have the nanoPEB.  And the nanoPEB will probably become obsolete whenever i get around to finally putting a TIPI together.

Actually you can get a TIPI board to go inside the PEB, which will still let you use all the peripherals you already own, assuming you have any peripheral cards you cannot live without.  If you want a small format TIPI (limited to 32K RAM) for the storage, PDF and Internet/Network aspects, the TIPI/32K sidecar version that fits in a speech synthesizer case is the least expensive way to go, although it limits future growth unlike the PEB.

 

 

[OniDensetsu]

I use to use a Composite cable for my TI but ever since i RGB modded it i use a Scart cable making the Composite cable obsolete.

[RobertLM78]

12 hours ago, - Ω - said:

assuming you have any peripheral cards you cannot live without.  If you want a small format TIPI (limited to 32K RAM) for the storage, PDF and Internet/Network aspects, the TIPI/32K sidecar version that fits in a speech synthesizer case is the least expensive way to go, although it limits future growth unlike the PEB

Naw, there's nothing in my PEB that can't be "modernized" with the TIPI.  You bring up an interesting point, speaking of the 32k - do you suggest that TIPIs can 'emulate' more than that?  Can a TIPI 'emulate' something like say, the SAMS card?  My 32k card is acting squirrelly and probably has some bad RAM chips.  Other than the memory expansion, there's nothing much else in there besides an RS232 and disk controller.  Didn't you have a few extra toys in yours like a realtime clock?  I could definitely see the advantage to an internal TIPI with such extra goodies.

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9 hours ago, RobertLM78 said:

Naw, there's nothing in my PEB that can't be "modernized" with the TIPI.  You bring up an interesting point, speaking of the 32k - do you suggest that TIPIs can 'emulate' more than that?  Can a TIPI 'emulate' something like say, the SAMS card?  My 32k card is acting squirrelly and probably has some bad RAM chips.  Other than the memory expansion, there's nothing much else in there besides an RS232 and disk controller.  Didn't you have a few extra toys in yours like a realtime clock?  I could definitely see the advantage to an internal TIPI with such extra goodies.

Sadly no, the TIPI cannot emulate memory.  When it came to the cards, I removed both the RS-232's, one with the HDX mod, as they were no longer necessary with the WiFi capabilities of the TIPI/RPi.  Yes, I do have a few specialty cards that keep me tied to the P-Box, but honestly for what little use I get from them, 95% of the time, when I actually use my TI, I could get along just fine with the TIPI/32K sidecar setup.

If I were to make suggestions to people just entering the TI world, my suggestions would be, in order of purchase...

1) FinalGROM cartridge

2) TIPI/32K Sidecar

3) F18A VGA video upgrade

... then later ...

4) Speech Synthesizer

[RobertLM78]

23 hours ago, - Ω - said:

If I were to make suggestions to people just entering the TI world, my suggestions would be, in order of purchase...

1) FinalGROM cartridge

2) TIPI/32K Sidecar

3) F18A VGA video upgrade

... then later ...

4) Speech Synthesizer

Yeah, those are probably all you need, really to get the most out of the system.

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3 hours ago, RobertLM78 said:

Yeah, those are probably all you need, really to get the most out of the system.

I'll also say something here that would get me into trouble on another site...

If you don't already have an F18A, don't put off buying one in a unknown wait for the Mark II, as lord knows if or when it'll ever be released.  It's been quite literally years since it was announced.  Now the current F18A, when last I polled people years ago, showed that more people (at the time) used an F18A over the other display methods, and now it's available from multiple sources, and seems to have saturated the market, so I wonder if/when the Mark II is ever released, how well it would even sell, let alone have things written for it.  If I remember correctly, it took more than a couple of years to get more than a few specialty items written for it's capability, I can only assume the same would be the same for the new device... and I don't know if I'll even live that long... or if the programmers will.  So in short,  DON'T DENY YOURSELF THE PLEASURE OF GOOD GRAPHICS TODAY, FOR THE UNKNOWN AND YET UNFULFILLED PROMISES OF TOMORROW.

[RobertLM78]

10 hours ago, - Ω - said:

DON'T DENY YOURSELF THE PLEASURE OF GOOD GRAPHICS TODAY, FOR THE UNKNOWN AND YET UNFULFILLED PROMISES OF TOMORROW.

True.... i've enjoyed having an F18A .... over 10 years now i think.