.IF DSK5.C6 .CE 4 TI'S "VIDEO CONTROLLER": YEARS AHEAD OF ITS TIME (and still "Pending FCC Certification") described by Charles Good Lima Ohio User Group HISTORICAL BACKROUND: "MULTIMEDIA" is the hot concept described today in many computer magazines. Today the term usually refers to combining CD ROM text and graphics and digitized sound files and graphic images from various other sources in a managed sight/sound presentation all under computer control. In 1981 CD ROM did not exist, but VCR's and video disk players playing sight/sound disks the size of LP phonographic records did. At the May 1881 Consumer Electronics Show TI exhibited a side car peripheral called the VIDEO CONTROLLER designed to mix VCR and video disk sound and audio with 99/4A sound speech and screen displays, all under the control of a running TI BASIC or Extended Basic program. This first showing of the VIDEO CONTROLLER is described in words and photos in 99er Magazine v1 #2 (July/Aug 1981). The "Video Controller" Bill Cosby video tape we have available in the Lima UG library came from this 1981 show. This video shows a cigar smoking Bill asking people to press the number 1,2, or 3 key on the computer next to him in order to see specific video demos of TI software located at specific places on the video tape. The November 30 and December 7, 1981 issues of INFOWORLD contain announcements about the release of the Video Controller side car peripheral and associated Course Designer software. This side car VIDEO CONTROLLER peripheral was at the Jan 1982 Las Vegas CES show, the same show that TI used to introduce the Peripheral Expansion Box to the world. Vol.1 #4 of 99er MAGAZINE has a good photo and article about the VIDEO CONTROLLER at this show. List price in 1982 was $699.95 with one set of cables, plus $99.95 if you needed another set of cables to hook the VIDEO CONTROLLER to a different kind of VCR or video disk player, plus $199.95 for the "Course Designer Authoring Package". Thats a whopping $1000! The Course Designer Authoring Package is a two disk Extended Basic package which includes TI's Text-To-Speech It is designed to aid in using the VIDEO CONTROLLER for Computer Aided Instruction but can also be used to develope CAI lessons that don't use the VIDEO CONTROLLER. CDAP was reviewed in 99er MAGAZINE v1 #6. I have this very rare software and may review it in a future article. The CDAP subprograms are dated in REM statements as late as 5/12/82, so the CDAP could not have been available in late 1981 as TI's publicity states. Thanks to Bill Gaskill, I also have a copy of an official TI bruchure dated 1982 showing the VIDEO CONTROLLER side car and a fancy looking video disk player. The bruchure suggests business training applications for the VIDEO CONTROLLER. TI listed the side car peripheral as PHP2300 in its Jan-June and June-Dec 1982 retail price lists, stating "The Video Controller is intended for industrial and commercial use, it is not intended for use in the home". This statement means that the peripheral DIDN'T have FCC Class B (home use) certification. Some dealers in 1982 advertised the side car VIDEO CONTROLLER (at below list). The earliest example I can find of this is a $539.95 price quoted in an ad on the inside front cover of 99er MAGAZINE v1#4 (early 1982). Later TI developed the VIDEO CONTROLLER as a PE Box card, PHP1290. This card is listed for "$399.95 (Pending FCC Certification)" in TI's last official 99/4A price list dated June-Dec 1983. And yet-- in spite of the press releases, the displays at those computer shows, the listings in official TI price lists over a period of several years, and dealer ads as if the dealer had the item in stock-- TI sold few or no side car video controllers and definately didn't sell any video controller cards. The card and probably also the side car peripheral are, I believe, "Never Released Peripherals". Also, in spite of being listed as PHD5068 ($199.95) in TI's last official price list, TI apparently never sold its Course Designer Authoring Package software. CDAP is another "Never Released" product. Why was the VIDEO CONTROLLER and associated software never released? I suspect the answer has something to do with price, and the initials "FCC". The peripheral was (after the impact printer) the second most expensive 99/4A item in TI's price lists, and connected to VCR's or video disk players costing (in 1982/83) $1000+. That's a lot of money for the typical "Home" computer owner. Since TI specifically states in my June-Dec 1982 price list that the VIDEO CONTROLLER is for "industrial and commercial use", and since TI's last catalog says "pending FCC certification", I suspect that because of radio frequency interference TI never did obtain FCC permission to sell the VIDEO CONTROLLER. Evidence discussed below supports this hypothesis. DESCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO CONTROLLER PE BOX CARD: Thanks to the generosity of Charles Stringer and Mike Wright I have an actual VIDEO CONTROLLER card, its 1982 user guide, and a circuit diagram of the card sitting in front of me as I write this. The card comes in a TI clam shell with an official looking printed label that says "Video Controller Model No. PHP1290". The serial number space on the label is blank and hand written are the words "Qual Unit Not for sale". Sticking out the back of the card is a 26 pin edge flat edge connector and a female mini phono jack like those on a TI cassette program recorder. Once removed from the clam shell you can see lots of chips that say El Salvador, Malaysia, and Korea. Most of these chips have the TI logo, but none say U.S.A. I can see why many TI products are labeled "Assembled in USA with domestic and foreign parts"! The important chips seem to be a PAL12l6CN/8237 and an AMI8145CDZ/1501392-19. My circuit diagram identifies the AMI chip as a "TMS4732 4k x 8". My circuit board has "VIDEO CONT. 1050217-2" engraved on it, apparently a TI part number. My schematics indicate that the "Formal Release" product number would have been 1050218. These schematics from TI's consumer products group have several signatures dated between June and August 1982. Of great significance is the "1-3-84" date of the signature immediately below the words "Final Release" (over two months AFTER TI left the Home Computer market), and the fact that the "FCC APVD" box lacks a date or signature. My unpublished preliminary PHP1290 doc says the card has FCC class A (commercial, not home use) certification, but the lack of a signature on the schematic suggests that even this low level certification was not achieved. In addition to the RF modulator or video cable we normally use, 5 other cables are needed to hook the VIDEO CONTROLLER to a VCR. One cable goes from the card's edge connector to the VCR's remote control. Other cables go from the VCR, the monitor, and the console's audio/video out jack to a "relay box". This box, under control of the VIDEO CONTROLLER, switch the monitor back and forth between computer audio/video and VCR or video disk audio/video. Unfortunately I don't have a set of cables or the relay box, so I can't make my VIDEO CONTROLLER card do its tricks. When I put the card into my PE box, the Horizon Ramdisk config program tells me that the card has a CRU address of 1C00. From BASIC command mode I can enter OPEN #1:"VC.H",INTERNAL without getting an error message. The docs say this means my card is installed properly. CAPABILITIES OF THE VIDEO CONTROLLER: Although I can't test my VIDEO CONTROLLER because I lack the proper cables, my documentation tells me what I should be able to do. What follows is based largely on this documentation. The VIDEO CONTROLLER hooks up to some 1/2 inch (VHS or Beta) or 3/4 inch ("professional" size) VCRs or a Pioneer video disk player. TI provides a list of 1983 machines known to be compatible, but some other VCRs of that era, not on TI's list, are probably compatible. Even if I had a proper cable set I can't today go out and buy a VCR to use with my VIDEO CONTROLLER card. You need a VCR with a WIRED remote control jack and an audio dub input jack. This is not the same as the "audio in" on the back of most VCR's. Audio dub allows you to add audio to prerecorded video without erasing the video. Such VCRs were sold in retail stores in the early 80's for about $1000. Most were top loaders. I once owned one and now wish I still had it. The OSU Lima Campus still has a couple of these machines. Few modern VCRs sold for home use have audio dub, and WIRED remotes are unheard of these days. The VIDEO CONTROLLER allows you to use a VCR as a mass storage device, almost exactly as one would use CS1. "SAVE VC" saves a BASIC (either BASIC) program to video tape starting at the beginning of the tape. "SAVE VCA" saves a program starting at the current tape position. "OLD VC" automatically moves the video tape to the beginning and OLDs a program from there. "OLD VCA" attempts to load a program starting from the current tape position. You can also store data files on video tape by first OPEN #2:"VC",INTERNAL and PRINT #2:"DUB" to open the VCR dub channel, and then PRINT #1:"DATANAME",FIXED to send computer data to a previously OPENed data file stored on video tape. Just as with cassette tapes, record length must be fixed at 64, 128, or 192, and APPEND, VARIABLE, and RELATIVE are not allowed. You can PRINT, INPUT, and LINPUT to and from such video tape files. Of course you can't use a video disk as mass storage since video disks (like CD ROMs) are read only media. Another type of OPENed file allows the 99/4A to control the video unit. First you OPEN #1:"VC",INTERNAL and then you PRINT #1 the commands that control the VCR. The following comands are available: PRINT #1:"ONRL" sends video tape (or video disk) audio and video to the monitor. PRINT #1:"OFFRL" turns off the relay box and sends computer audio and video to the monitor. PRINT #1:"INIT" marks the start of the tape. I don't know if this means the current tape position as "start" or whether the tape rewinds to its beginning. PRINT #1:"GOTO",LOCATION-NUMBER forewards or reverses the tape to a specific location. Each number is 16/30 of a second of tape time on VHS systems. The following PRINT #1:"COMMAND"'s do the same thing as pushing buttons on the front control panel of the VCR: STOP, PLAY, FWD, REW, REC, and PAUSE. With a video disk player, commands are available to display specific still image frames or chapters. A chapter is a large group of frames. Viewing a chapter is similar to playing a specific track on a modern audio CD. The VIDEO CONTROLLER's capabilities were all designed to allow interactive computer/video training. These lessons could consist of computer segments with computer text/speech/graphics, video segments, test questions (multiple choice or T/F), and branch points depending on the answers to the questions. Multimedia! A modern example- at Michigan's interstate highway tourist information centers just across the Indiana border you can walk up to a computer terminal displaying a multi color Michigan map with numbers on the map, press a number on the keyboard, and see a short computer AND VIDEO TAPE segment showing the neat tourist stuff at that location. You are then returned to the Michigan map where you can press another location number. Michigan could have done this in 1982 if the 99/4A VIDEO CONTROLLER had been available. This device really was years ahead of its time. .PL 1