ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER MARCH 1989 MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE DIJIT SYSTEMS AVPC CARD ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group INTRODUCTION: Lets be honest with ourselves. Probably the biggest single technical limitation of the TI99/4A, besides limited CPU memory, is its lack of an 80 column text display. With only 256 pixels of screen width to play with, there is absolutely no way you can get 80 columns. Each letter would be only 3 pixels wide with no space between letters! Perhaps some of you have seen the 64 column TI Forth editor or the 64 column DV80 text scroll program that is in many user group libraries. These 64 column displays are just awful. Yes, I know you can simulate 80 columns with left/right windowing as in the TI-Writer or Funnelweb text editors. But actually reading an 80 column page on the 99/4A's 40 column screen with these text editors is a big pain. You have to keep pushing FCTN/5 as you scan left/right on each line, and it is sometimes hard to move your eyes from the end of one line (right margin) to the beginning of the next line (left margin). You can also view 80 column text on the 99/4A's 40 column screen without windowing by using T(ype) with DM1000 or V(iew) with DSKU or the Funnelweb 40 column editor, but the resulting text display on the screen is less than satisfactory. Each actual text line wraps on the screen to become two screen lines. You do not get a "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWIG) display and words get cut into two parts at the point of line wrap. The lack of an 80 column display with the 99/4A is a major reason cited by previous TI users who have sold their TI systems and purchased IBM clones for home use. This is based on conversations I have had with several ex-TI users, including two past TI user group presidents, who have abandoned the TI for IBM land. Hardware and software that permit an 80 column text display is really needed to make our 99/4As technically comparable to the competition and to maintain user interest. THE 80 COLUMN CHOICES: Currently there are only two hardware choices if you want to upgrade your TI to 80 columns, the Myarc Geneve computer-on-a-card or the DIJIT Systems AVPC card, both of which use the TI PE box. Both use exactly the same video chip and thus both have exactly the same capability to produce 80 column text using a screen width of 512 pixels. You can also display up to 512 colors at a time, if you have the right color monitor. This color diaplay is said to be comparable to or better than the display of any other currently available personal computer. The Geneve currently costs about $500-$520 new and gives you a nice 101 key keyboard and lots of CPU memory. There is, however, very little software that takes advantage of all this CPU memory. Most of the commercial and PD software available for the Geneve is also designed to run on the 99/4A and thus doesn't use vast quantities of memory. Based upon conversations with Geneve owners present at the Nov 88 Chicago faire, the answer to the question "What can your Geneve do that the 99/4A can't do?" is usually "Not much other than 80 columns and better graphics." These same Geneve users also complained about what their computers would NOT do. This and that software which runs fine on the 99/4A has problems when run on a Geneve. I suspect that the full potential of the Geneve, with all its CPU memory, may never be utilized. Because of the small user base (estimated in exchange newsletters to be much less than 2000), there is no financial incentive for the few existing TI assembly language programmers to write really massive programs that utilize the Geneve's large CPU memroy. Such software would be too big to work from a 99/4A. The main subject of this review article, the DIJIT AVPC (advanced video processor card), costs $220. To date, discounts are not available. Functionally it appears to me to be the equivalent of the Geneve without the fancy keyboard and without the extra CPU memory. With tha AVPC and a 99/4A system you can run some of the software that is designed specifically for the Geneve in GPL mode. The AVPC is the only currently available alternative to the Geneve for 80 column work using a system built around the TI peripheral expansion box. Until recently a third choice existed for 80 column work. Mechatronic, of West Germany, manufactured a circuit board that pluged into the side expansion port of the 99/4A console and used the same video chip as the Geneve and the AVPC. This product is, however, no longer available. On Feb 15, 1989 I gave TAPE Ltd of Ontario CA a telephone call and talked to the owner Franz Wagenbach. TAPE is the only North American importer of Mechatronic products. Mr. Wagenbach told me that he is completely sold out of all Mechatronics hardware, and with the exception of the TI mouse he does not expect Mechatronics to manufacture any more TI hardware products in the future. Mr.^Wagenbach did say, however, that if he had in hand 100 prepaid orders he beleived he could convince Mechatronics to resume production of its 80 column peripheral. Uh huh! Don't hold your breath waiting for this to happen. TAPE's phone number is 714-989-9906. Mr.^Wagenbach stated that he DOES intend to stay in the TI market and offers products not available from other sources, including Mechnatronic XBII Plus (a module I think), the 99/4A intern book, and the TI Mouse (used instead of a joystick from the joystick port). AN OVERVIEW OF THE AVPC CARD: As currently sold the $220 AVPC card comes with 128K of VDP RAM governed by the Yamaha V9938 video chip. The AVPC card requires the use of a composite monochrome 80 column monitor ($75-100) or an Amiga compatible RGB analog color monitor ($275-$500). See the discussion of monitors elsewhere in this newsletter. YOU CANNOT USE A TV OR A COMPOSITE COLOR MONITOR OR A TTL MONITOR WITH THE AVPC CARD FOR 80 COLUMN WORK. There are sockets on the AVPC card for an additional 64K of VDP RAM which can be directly accessed by the V9938. However, to date no software has been written to take advantage of this extra 64K, so to keep costs down the AVPC leaves this memory for future expansion. The Geneve also has 128K of VDP RAM and the V9938 chip, but with the Geneve there is no provision for adding the additional 64K. You plug the card into any empty slot in the PE box and make a slight modification to your console, as described below. A DIN 6 video port and a 9 pin DB-9 light pen/mouse port are at the back of the card and stick out the back of the PE box. You run a cable directly from the video port of the AVPC to the monitor video input. For sound, you need a separate cable between the console and the monitor audio input. You have to make these cables or have your dealer make them for you. They are easy to make using the "typical monitor connections" section of the AVPC docs and parts from Radio Shack. NECESSARY CONSOLE MODIFICATION: "What? Modify the console! Not me," you may be saying. I understand the fear many have of taking your favorite computer apart. Believe me, you can do it. No soldering is required, and the job is only a little more complex than taking the console apart to clean out the cartridge port. The documentation that came with my AVPC is labeled "Preliminary Copy" and contains excellent step by step written directions and detailed diagrams relating to the console modification. Working very slowly while carefully reading the instructions the console modification took me about 1 hour from start to finish. If the job had been at all difficult I wouldn't have attempted the modification. DIJIT SYSTEMS will do the work for you for $25. if you ship them your console. After completely disassembling the console and exposing the mother board the first thing you do is sever one of the printed traces on the circuit board. You need a good hand lens and an xacto knife for this job. I used a 10X microscope eyepiece removed from the microscope and turned upside down for my hand lens. You use the hand lens to make sure that absolutely no metal remains at the point where you are severing the trace. You then remove the console's VDP chip from its socket, bend out one of the pins, hook a wiring harness to some of the chip's pins, and reinsert the chip in its socket. The wiring harness has very tiny insulated spring loaded clip hooks resembling the sort of clip hook one finds on the end of a dog leash. I have seen these tiny insulated clips at several area Radio Shack stores. The use of these clip hooks eliminates the need for soldering, and they are quite reliable according to the AVPC documentation. WHAT CAN YOUR COMPUTER DO WITH THE AVPC? In my opinion 80 column word processing is the most important useful application of the AVPC. The card comes with a public domain 80 column version of TI-Writer and is also distributed with Funnelweb v4.13 in 80 columns. Charles Earl told me at the Nov 88 Chicago faire that PRESS will work in 80 columns with the AVPC (if and whan PRESS is ever released). I am writing this article using 80 column Funnelweb v4.13. I can't imagine ever wanting to go back to a 40 column text editor. I really like the 80 column Funnelweb! One of the nice features is the ease with which you can V(iew) a file that is listed in the ShowDirectory display. You don't have to load the whole file into memory to V(iew) it, and this is nice because loading a large file into memory can seem very time consuming. Just mark one of the 20 displayed files and (if it is a DV80 or DF80 file) press V. The first screen full of text from the marked file appears in 80 columns. The first and last file line numbers of the screen display are also indicated. If you want to look at the next screen full of text from the file press any key. If you want to abort viewing the file, press BACK and you are returned to the ShowDirectory display. From there you can view another file. If you want to check the contents of another disk while the ShowDirectory is on the screen, just insert the disk, press REDO, and the new disk directory appears on the screen. All of these features of Funnelweb's 80 column ShowDirectory make it real easy to quickly scan a disk full of text files, such as Central Westchester's "newsletter on a disk", and then read specific files on the screen. Another thing you get with the AVPC is the ability to display high resolution graphics in up to 512 colors. The card comes with a utility that allows you to view any graphic that is in MYART format. You need a Geneve to create new pictures with MYART or to convert other graphic fomats over to MYART format. Once these graphics have been created, however, they can be viewed using a 99/4A system that includes the AVPC card. The results are sometimes spectacular. Several nice MYART pictures are included on disk with the AVPC. A number of graphics demonstration programs and fractal programs originally written on the Geneve work just fine with the AVPC. Some of these are distributed with the AVPC and others are available from the DIJIT Systems BBS. These "gee whiz" demos are fun to look at but don't do anything really useful. In the area of Terminal Emulation software, there is an experimental version of Fast Term that works, with a few bugs, in 80 columns on the AVPC. TELCO versions greater than 2.0 use the extra VDP memory of the AVPC as a sort of RAM disk to store TELCO modules. Using the AVPC, TELCO executes much faster than it does using a 99/4A without an AVPC card. I understand that there is a MULTIPLAN patch available that allows the AVPC to display MULTIPLAN in 80 columns. I don't have this software yet. You are supposed to be able to use mice and trackballs with the AVPC, but I am not sure for what. There is a "mouse/light pen port" on the AVPC. Assembly language mouse routines have been written for mouse use in assembly language software and from XBASIC. DIJIT systems provides these mouse routines as well as detailed instructions on how to make cables to properly hook just about any of the currently marketed mice to the AVPC. To date, no software that actually does anything has been written to take advantage of these mice. As this article is being written, DIJIT Systems is demonstrating a video digitizer (the DIJIT-EYE-ZER) at the Feb 89 TI FEST WEST. This device is said to include Gemlocking and "real time frame grabbing". It is a peripheral that attaches to the AVPC card. The digitizer will be able to create a computer image in 1/25 of a second of anything seen by a video camera, a video tape, or off the air and seen by a TV. I have no information on price or other specifications. This sounds like a very serious, and expensive, piece of equipment. Software not specifically written for the AVPC runs normally in 28, 32, or 40 columns just as it would without the AVPC. Because you are using a better monitor with better resulution the screen display with this software is much sharper. You can easily see every individual pixel of the 256 pixel wide normal screen display. WHAT YOUR COMPUTER CANNOT DO WITH THE AVPC CARD: It seems that whenever a new peripheral comes out it turns out that this or that softrware won't work with the new peripheral. This is true for the AVPC, although I suspect that the list of 99/4A software that won't work with the AVPC is much smaller than the list of 99/4A software that won't work with the Geneve. Any terminal emulator software that uses interrupts will have problems with the AVPC. TELCO works ok, most of th others don't. The problem is with the ROM based software that is part of the various RS232 cards. DIJIT has solved this problem by selling EPROMS for the TI, CorComp, and Myarc RS232 cards that make these cards fully compatible with the AVPC. Most versions of the Horizon Ramdisk software based ramdisk operating system (ROS) are partially incompatible with the AVPC. The problem shows up in software that is designed to use 80 columns of text. With FUNNELWEB for example, you can boot the 80 column FWB editor from a Horizon just fine, and you can without difficulty exit the 80 column editor and go back to other parts of FWB that are stored on a Horizon. However from within the 80 column FWB editor you can only load or save text files with LF and SF to and from a floppy. You can't LF and SF to and from a Horizon if you use FWB's 80 column editor or the public domain 80 column version of TI Writer that comes with the AVPC. Using the FWB 40 column editor causes no problems with LF or SF in 99/4A systems equipped with an AVPC. The solution is simple. Load a corrected ROS into the Horizon's RAM. Such an ROS is available from Bud Mills Services (manufacturer of the Horizon and owner of the Horizon ROS copyright) and from DIJIT. This special ROS makes the Horizon fully compatible with the AVPC. Unfortunately, the ROM based Horizon operating system sold by Genial Computerware cannot be corrected, because it is in ROM. The AVPV card is not compatible in 80 column mode with Geneal Computerware's Horizon EPROM operating system, which exhibits the problems with LF and SF described above. The following 99/4A software is known by me not to work properly on systems equipped with an AVPC card. There is probably other incompatible software that I don't know about. ---BOOT v4, by John Johnson, will not boot programs from its menu. You can, however, bring up a disk directory with BOOT, mark a program, and then boot the marked program from LOAD A PROGRAM. ---EZ-KEYS PLUS appears to load properly, and the macros appear to work. However, if you load (or type in) XBASIC code after loading EZ-KEYS PLUS, the XBASIC code will not work properly. On systems equipped with an AVPC, EZ-KEYS PLUS does not properly print out 28 column lists of XBASIC code with checksums added. ---QUCIK RUN doesn't work at all. XBASIC programs that have been modified on another 99/4A computer to run quicker won't run at all on systems that have an AVPC. MANUFACTURER SUPPORT FOR THE AVPC CARD: DIJIT systems has a free BBS to support its products. The BBS is available to anyone, not just registered AVPC owners, and the only cost is your telephone charge. The BBS contains text files, software, and MYART picture files in its download section. This BBS was the first in the country to have Funnelweb v4.13 in 80 columns available for download. Any new software that is found to be compatible with the AVPC is put on the BBS. There is also an upload section and an E mail section that allows you to leave and receive messages for DIJIT's owner Tom Spillane. You can also talk to DIJIT over the phone using plain old fashoned voice communication. I have DIJIT's voice line a call and almost immediately the phone was answered by Tom Spillane, DIJIT's owner. Tom gave me direct answers to some questions I had about the AVPC, and provided some of the information used in this article. I really appreciate this kind of manufacturer support. The AVPC is apparently a completely open system. Unlike Myarc, which is keeping to itself important information about its Geneve computer, DIJIT will provide any and all technical information about the AVPC to anyone who asks. In its promotional literature DIJIT mentions a "programming package" that they will send out to those who wish to try their hand at programming for the AVPC. Personal communications I have had with Tony McGovern (author of FUNNELWEB) and Charles Earl (author of TELCO and PRESS) indicate that DIJIT Systems has been very generous in providing all needed technical details about the AVPC for programming purposes. To date, DIJIT has not marketed any of its own software and has relied on others to write software for the AVPC. If DIJIT does stay out of the software marketing business there is no reason for DIJIT to keep any details of its hardware a secret. DIJIT apparently does not want to make the same mistakes that TI made when TI tried to corner the market for 99/4A software. THE FUTURE OF THE AVPC CARD: The AVPC is like the Geneve in that it is a piece of hardware in need of really good assembly language software. There are relatively few really good assembly programmers left in the TI community. Besides the software already available, there is the definite promise of Charles Earl that PRESS will work with the AVPC in 80 columns, and a vague suggestion by Tony McGovern (in the doc file that accompanies the 80 column Funnelweb editor) that he may do further programming specifically designed for the AVPC. DIJIT's "open system" policy may very well encourage other software programmers to create software for the AVPC. Nevertheless, I think it would be unwise for 99/4A users thinking of "upgrading" to purchase the AVPC and wait for desired software to appear later. There are disappointed Geneve owners who are still waiting for software. Take a look at the software and hardware peripherals described above that are currently available for use with the AVPC and make a purchase decision accordingly. Don't assume that any fantastic new stuff will come along in the future. Maybe it will and maybe it won't. If you don't like what is available now, wait for the future to arrive if it ever does. Personally I find the ability to do word processing in 80 columns with high quality software (Funnelweb, maybe later PRESS) fully justifies the $220 I paid for my AVPC. My AVPC will help maintain my interest in my 99/4A system and postpone, perhaps indefinately, the need to "upgrade" to an IBM clone system. DIJIT Systems ^3540 Adams Avenue Suite B ^San Diego CA 92116 ^Voice phone 619-281-2667 or 619-295-3301 ^BBS phone 619-278-8155 .PL 1