ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER JANUARY 1988 ^^^^^^EXPANDING YOUR EXPANSION SYSTEM CHEAPLY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good With the abundance of very cheap or free software for the TI Home Computer, there is a real financial incentive to expand your TI rather than put it in the closet and purchase an IBM clone for home use. The sound, graphics, and especially speech capabilities of the little old TI are usually better than those of the IBM clone at the office. With the $25 software package "PC Transfer" from Genial Computerware and a Myarc or CorComp disk contoller you can even take word processing ASCII files in IBM format home with you on a 5.5 inch disk, convert them from IBM format to D/V80 on your TI, and continue word processing at home with TI Writer or FUNNELWEB. You can then, still at home on your TI, convert these D/V80 files back to IBM format and take them to the office with you the next day. Sure, you can get cheap clones from ads in Computer Shopper, but you will spend a fortune on software. Usually for less money than the cheapest IBM clone you can expand your TI system so that it will do most things the big guys do. What follows are my personal recommendations for expanding your 99/4A into a powerful computer system for the least amount of money. Prices quoted were in effect in mid-December 1987. See also the aritcle "Hardware for the TI" by J.^Peter Hoddie reprinted in the Oct.^87 issue of BB&&P. Genial Computerware P.O. Box 183 Grafton MA 01519 THE FIRST STEP--A DISK SYSTEM: If you are still living in the dark ages with just a console, tape recorder, and maybe a sidecar 32K, now is a good time to acquire a good used basic disk system. If you are already a serious TI user, now may be the time to acquire a backup system. I recommend the TI peripheral expansion box over the CorComp expansion system because the PE box really is expandable. You can't hook the Geneve or Horizon Ramdisks to the CorComp "expansion" system because there are no expansion slots. I also recommend the TI disk controller over those by MYARC and CorComp. The TI card is compatable with almost all 99/4A software (with the important exception of the above mentioned "PC Transfer") and it is RELIABLE. I have not heard of any TI controllers going bad (I am sure that some have, I just havn't heard), whereas I do know of MYARC and CorComp controllers that have been sent back for repairs. With many former TI users moving on to IBM land there are alot of used systems available on the market, and prices are going DOWN. My preferred basic expansion system (PE box, 32K, TI controller, one SSSD drive) could be purchased for $275 at the Nov 1987 Chicago Faire. Locally, this equipment AND a TI RS232 card AND a Gemini 10X printer sold for $400 in September of 1987. Check the classified ads in Micropendium, Computer Shopper, and the newsletters for availability of used systems from private sales. Although the cost may be higher, there is an advantage to purchasing used systems from a dealer. Dealers offer 30 day guarantees and check their systems out prior to sale. You can reasonably expect to have everything in working order if you buy used from a dealer. I recently got a used TI system (PE box, 32K, TI controller, TI SSSD drive) from Comptetition Computer only to find that the drive would boot BASIC, but not assembly software. I knew it was the drive itself that was causing the problem because when I put another drive into the PE box everything worked fine. "No problem," said Competition Computer over the phone, just send the defective drive back. One week later I received via UPS an exchange used drive. The only thing I had to pay was postage to Competition. You can not expect this kind of service with a private sale. Here is a by no mean complete list of dealers who will sell you a used TI systems. Phone for prices and availability. Competition Computer 2629 W. National Ave. Milwaukee WI 53204 L.L. Conner Enterprise 1521 Ferry St. Lafayette IN 47904 317-742-8146 Queen Anne Computer Shoppe 6102 Roosevelt Way NE Seattle WA 98115 206-522-6558 Armadillo Bytes Box 1816622 Dallas TX 76218 214-328-9257 PRINTER AND PRINTER INTERFACE: Once you get your disk system you automatically become a serious TI user. Your next peripheral should be a printer and printer interface. You can get a printer interface with built in cable from Tenex for $45 that plugs into the side of the console. This is by far the cheapest printer interface, but I don't personally recommend it. You can use the PE box with this device, but it adds to the width of your console and will not accept a modem. A PE box RS232 card is more expensive but preferable because it looks neater, and because it allows you to hook up both a printer and a modem. Tenex will sell you a MYARC or CorComp RS232 card for $80, a very good price. Back in 1983 the STAR GEMINI 10X printer became the defacto standard printer for the 99/4A. This was because it was sold for less money than the TI impact printer and offered more features. I remember paying $310 for mine and thinking what a bargain it was. Many TI users still depend on this printer, including famous TI names like Jim Peterson. Almost all good TI software was, and still is, written to be compatable with the Gemini 10X. This includes graphics, word processing, and screen dump software. In selecting a printer, it is important to choose a dot matrix model that uses the same control codes as the Gemini 10X so that the printer is compatable with our software. Daisy wheel printers are not compatable with any of our graphics software. The very important question to ask when purchasing a printer is "Is the printer EPSON compatable?" This EPSON compatability standard is what was used in the now out of production Gemini 10X. I believe all EPSON and STAR dot matrix printers still have this compatability, as do some printers of other manufacturers. Printers designed for use with the Commodore 64/128 or IBM computers DO NOT have this Gemini 10X compatability. Based upon my own experience with STAR printers, and what I have seen at the recent Chicago TI Faire, the STAR NX10 looks like it deserves very serious consideration. It is totally compatable with Gemini 10X control codes and will also print a supurb Near Letter Quality type face that is good enough most business use. You need a good magnifying glass to prove that this NLQ was done with a dot matrix printer. With the NX10 you can select NLQ or other type fonts from buttons on the front panel. On many other printers you need to send software codes or manipulate tiny out of the way dip switches to do the same thing. Tenex sells the NX10 for $190 and the required cable (between the RS232 card and printer) for $25 (5 foot) or $35 (10 foot). Triton the 5 foot cable for $17. You need such a cable no matter where you buy your printer, unless you are using the above described $45 "plugs into the side of the console" interface with built in cable. Midwest Miro-Peripherals will sell you a STAR NX10 for $160. I have personally dealt with this dealer and was very impressed. Midwest is an authorized STAR service center. I know from personal experience that they will fix any STAR printer in or out of warranty, usually in just a few days. With many printers if they break you have to send them to the factory (in Japan?) for repair, and wait and wait and wait. If you do buy a printer from Midwest, you still need to get a parallel printer cable from a TI dealer such as Tenex or Competition. Tenex Computer Express P.O. Box 6578 South Bend IN 46660 219-259-7051 Triton P.O. Box 8123 San Francisco CA 94128 800-227-6900 MidWest Micro-Peripherals 6910 US Route 36 East Fletcher OH 45326 800-321-7731 (in Ohio) 800-423-8215 (outside Ohio) EXPANDING BEYOND JUST ONE SSSD DRIVE: You can do alot more with two drives than with just one and I recommend upgrading to a second drive as the next step in your system expansion after the printer. With two drives disk copying is automatic. You don't have to switch disks back and forth. When doing serious word processing or data base work you can leave your system disk in drive one and put a data disk in drive two. With FUNNELWEB, 2 drives allow you fast menu access to lots of user programs. Double sided is also nice. You can have immediate access to all the data on both sides of the disk (720 sectors in DSSD format) and you won't have to make any more flippies in order to use the back side of the disk. Flippies for the TI are a real pain to make because you have to punch out the index hole in addition to the write protect hole. For Apples and Commodores all you need for a flippy is a second write protect hole! You can almost always get away with using cheap SSSD rated disks with a double sided drive and the TI controller. This is because the TI controller only puts 90K of data on each disk side (IBM squeezes 360K) and is thus much more tolerant of disk imperfections. The fanciest way to expand, and the most expensive, is to install two half height double sided double density (DSDD) drives in the PE box. Lots of dealers will sell you half height drives, but it is important to also get the necessary cables for installation in the PE box. C && G Drives will sell you the drives and all needed cables to install in the PE box for about $240. TexComp has the same goodies for $190, the best price than I have seen anywhere . The cheap way to expand is to purchase a bare full height DSDD drive and slide it right into the PE box in place of your original TI SSSD drive. Its easy! No additional cables or modificatons are needed, but make sure the dealer configures your drive as DSK1. Such drives can be had for $75 from L.L. Conner or from C && G Drives, and for $60 from L && M Systems. Then buy an external drive power supply box AND A CABLE to connect this power supply to the edge connector of your disk controller. CorComp controllers require a different cable than the one that is used for TI and MYARC controllers. Power supply boxes are $40 from TexComp. Competition Computer has the cable for $20. TexComp and C && G Drives also probably sell this cable. Slide your original TI SSSD drive into the power supply (its easy!), and plug your cable to the back of the disk controller in your PE box. Another way to go is to purchase a stand alone DSDD drive with cables. TexComp has them for $119. The disadangage here is that it is more convenient to have your DS drive as drive 1 rather than drive 2, and you have to modify your original drive to make it work properly with a second drive. You now have, for an investment of about $120 plus shipping, a two drive system with one of these drives double sided. C && G Drives 1241 Landwehr Rd. Northbrook IL 60062 312-272-0468 Tex Comp P.O. Box 33064 Granada Hills CA 91344 818-366-6631 L && M Systems 2330 East Ave. J-8 #173 Lancaster CA 93535 805-948-1587 SUPER MEMORY EXPANSION: After upgrading to multiple drives, I next recommend obtaining more PE box memory for program and file storage. A disk system is required to use the various super memory cards. The way TI designed our computer, the largest memory expansion that is DIRECTLY accessable to the computer via the right side expansion port is 32K. Playing lots of tricks, this directly accessable memory can be stretched to 64K, but this requires hardware modifications. For most practical purposes, no software can access more than 32K of CPU RAM outside of the console. So what about the various 256K, 512K and even 1Meg memory expansions you have read about? These devices DO NOT expand your TI's RAM to the size of a fully expanded IBM PC. No matter what the size of your memory expansion, the 99/4A will not handle software larger than what it can handle with the plain old 32K memory expansion, and your TI cannot be made to utilize huge software of a size usable by an IBM clone. Large memory expansion devices for the TI allow you to use the extra memory as a RAM disk and/or as a print spooler. As RAM disks, these devices function somewhat like hard disks, only faster, allowing you to move software and data very rapidly into and out of the TI's rather limited active memory. With FUNNELWEB on a ramdisk, you can almost instantaneously boot FUNNELWEB, shift from a central menu to the editor, then edit and save your text to the ramdisk, load the formatter and print your text. Each time you move a block of memory takes only 1 or 2 seconds. This isn't quite as good as having the editor, formatter, and text buffer all in CPU RAM at the same time as you do with the GENEVE, but you will hardly notice the difference. The difference between instantaneous and 1 or 2 seconds isn't much. CorComp and MYARC both make 512K expansion cards that can be used as 32K CPU RAM with the rest (480K) available as ramdisk and/or print spooler. These are currently $240 at Tenex. Both require an AC adapter, similar to a pocket calculator AC adapter, if you want to keep data in the card after the computer is shut down. The CorComp card needs such an adapter to work even while the computer and PE box are turned on. If the mains power is interrupted, or if the adapter jack slips out of the back of the card or out of the AC wall outlet, you lose all your data. This dependency on mains power to keep data after the rest of the system is shut down is the main limitation of these two cards. You cannot count on them safely holding data or programs for a long time. I strongly recommend the Horizon Ramdisk in one of its several configurations. Horizon cards act EXACTLY like a floppy drive, but with lightning speed, and are backed up with rechargable batteries what automatically charge every time the PE box is turned on. With power off your data is safe for months and is not affected by a mains power failure. You can pull a Horizon card out of your PE box, put it in another PE box, and the data will still be there. Horizon cards are available as kits or already built in sizes ranging from 192K (emulating a DSSD drve) up to 1Meg. An assembled guaranteed 192K Horizon costs $195 from Horizon Computer. An assembled one megabyte card costs $450 from Midwest Engineering. Complete kits are available from Bud Mills Services. You can fill every vacant slot in your PE box with a Horizon card, giving you the potential of several Megs RAM program and data storage. With v7.1 of the Johnson-Ballman RAM based Horizon operating system (public domain, available from Miami User Group) a single Horizon card can emulate several floppy drives. With this operating system you can also get a menu, ON POWERUP, that will load programs from your ramdisk at the touch of a key. A similar, more secure Horizon ramdisk operating system is available as a ROM chip from Genial Computerware, and was reviewed in the Nov. 87 issue of BB&&P. More than any other single hardware device, the Horizon ramdisk can turn your 99/4A into a real power machine capable of doing anything you want at powerup without messing with floppy disks. I have FUNNELWEB and 15 frequently used programs on my Horizon ramdisks. I load and save my word processing text and financial data files directly to and from the Horizon cards quick as a wink. I back up my Horizon files to disk every couple of weeks, just to be sure, but have great confidence in the ability of my Horizon ramdisks to securely hold my programs and data files. Other products apparently similar to the Horizon ramdisk have been advertised by DataBioTics (the GrandRam) and Rave 99. As far as I know, neither of these products has been released. Neither was at the Chicago Faire. Horizon ramdisks have a proven track record of two years. I have not seen any bad newsletter comments about this product, and it exists NOW. Bud Mills Services 166 Dartmouth Dr. Toledo OH 43614 419-385-5846 Horizon Computer Ltd. P.O. Box 554 Walbridge OH 43465 419-666-6911 Midwest Engineering Consultants 203 Arcadia Dr. Vernon Hills IL 60061 AND ON AND ON AND ON: Other hardware upgrades are available for our computer, but for the most part they seem to me to be quite expensive for what you get. The exception is modems. Some are cheap, and some are expensive. You probably get what you pay for. Since I am not into telecommunications I can't comment personally except to say that they plug into your PE box RS232 serial port. Check out Micropendium and the newsletters for comments on modem features and quality. An IBM style keyboard is available from RAVE 99 for $200 complete. This keyboard allows single key entry of TI-Writer and Multiplan commands. How about an 80 column display with TI-Writer and Multiplan? The Mechatronic 80 column "card" (it plugs into the side of the console, no into the PE box) available from Tenex, or the DIGIT Systems AVPC PE box card will both do this for "only" $220. You need either a monochrome monitor ($100, maybe less) or an analog (not an IBM compatable TTL) RGB color monitor ($345 at L && M Systems) in order to see this 80 column display. A TV or composite color monitor just don't have the necessary resolution. Because of cost, I can't recommend the fancy keyboard or 80 column cards. Together with a new monitor their combined cost is at least $520. You can get an IBM clone complete with monochrome monitor, fancy keyboard, 80 column display, and 256K CPU memory for less than this from several dealers advertising in Computer Shopper. If you must have 80 columns and a fancy keyboard than go with a clone, but be prepared to pay big bucks for the software. Double density controllers by MYARC or CorComp are available from Tenex or L && M Systems for $150. These allow you to store twice as much data on a double sided disk as the old reliable TI controller and are needed to transfer IBM ASCII files to TI D/V80 format. A MYARC quadrouple density controller costs $190 from L && M, and requires special 80 track drives to work in quad density. I still prefer the old TI controller. How about a built in clock accessable with software. The CorComp Triple Tech card (provides calendar/clock, 64K printer buffer, speech synthesizer in the box connecter) costs $138 and the CorComp stand alone clock goes for $80, both at Tenex. If you have a Horizon Ramdisk, the MENU operating system can access these clocks with a single keypress from the BOOT menu. It's too bad there is no automatic way of dating files as they are saved to disk. Personally, I find that my $3 KMART cheapo quartz wrist watch is good enough for me. I just can't see paying $80 for a computer clock. Rave 99 112 Rambling Road Vernon CT 06066 203-871-7824 DIGIT Systems 4345 Hortensia St. San Diego CA 92103 619-295-3301 SUMMARY-MY PREFERRED EXPANSION HARDWARE: Console, extended basic, tape recorder--I assume you ^^^^already have these items. Used PE box, 32K, TI controller, SSSD drive-----$275 RS232 card for PE box, new------------ ---------$ 80 Star NX10 printer, new------------ -------------$160 Double sided drive and box for second drive-----$120 Assembled 192K (=DSSD drive) Horizon ramdisk----$195 TOTAL EXPANSION COST-------------- -------------$840 plus any tax and postage. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^**DONE** .PL 1