ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MICROPENDIUM P.O. Box 1343 Round Rock TX 78680 Phone 512-255-1512 Internet jkoloen@io.com MICROREVIEWS for August 1994 by Charles Good There is nothing very "micro" about this month's column. I am devoting the entire review to a single piece of very important software. If you want your important software reviewed, send it to me at P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894. My evening phone is 419-667-3131 and my internet address is now cgood@lima.ohio-state.edu. Lets be honest with ourselves. The TI community no longer exists in its own isolated little world. Many TI computer users also use other types of computers. In particular, many TI users also have a DOS (ie. IBM comaptible) computer at home. In addition to myself, TI users who own a home DOS computer include the late Jim Peterson, Berry Traver, Tony McGovern, Bruce Harrison, Bill Gaskill, and the vast majority of TI user group officers attending the most recent Lima MUG Conference. Let us also recognize the fact that many previous TI users have sold their TIs and replaed them with DOS computers. Well, it is now possible to have your cake and eat it too. At least two software products exist which allow you to run 99/4A software on DOS computers. I am reviewing one this month and hope to review the other in the near future. These TI emulators represent a whole new category of software only dreamed of a few years ago. A DOS computer can now be made to behave exactly like a 99/4A. Why would one want to do this? The answer is that some TI software is really good or offer unique features, such as the Funnelweb word processor whose multilingual capabilities are unknown to me in any DOS word processor. Like policemen, you can't always find an expanded TI system when and where you need one. These days DOS systems are much more common than 99/4A systems. I feel that emulators will enhance, rather than decrease, interest in the 99/4A. My father in law, for example, learned computing on a 99/4A but left the TI community 7 years ago when he got his first 8088 DOS computer. He now has a 486 something or other on which he occasionally plays his favorite TI games and uses label printing software written in TI extended basic. Due to an emulator, my father in law has returned this year to the TI community. ---------- PC99 by CaDD Electronics This commercial 99/4A emulator is technically very close to perfect. Minimum recommended requirements are a 386 computer with VGA graphics, 640K memory, and a hard drive. You can also special order a version that will run on a 286 DOS computer with the above configuration. Almost all features of a 99/4A system are emulated and all 99/4A software and modules, apparently without exception, will run correctly. The emulated system includes three DSSD "drives", PIO, RS232, joystick(s), and 1 channel sound through the PC speaker. If you don't have joysticks on your DOS computer, joystick movement can be simulated from the keyboard. Speech is not emulated. Applications programmed for speech or more than one sound channel run normally but without speaking or enhanced sound. I am reviewing PC99 release 2A. Full 3 channel TI sound emulation with a DOS sound card is being worked on for a future release. The PC99 package includes the emulator itself, the extended basic editor/assembler and tombstone city modules, 99/4A <-->PC transfer software, and an amazingly complete set of utilities. You can purchase at a modest extra cost DOS files to emulate any module TI ever made for the 99/4A as well as files to make PC99 emulate a 99/4 (without the "A"). TI is paid a royalty on each console operating system and module sold. Software allows you to transfer whole TI disks to PC99 format either using a TI system directly cabled to the DOS machine, or indirectly without cabling by using PC Transfer. PC Transfer (not included when you purchase PC99) is software that runs on a TI system with a double sided disk controller and allows you to move TI files from one TI drive to a 360K DOS disk you put in a second TI drive. You then take the DOS disk from the TI, put it in your DOS computer, and convert the files on this disk to PC99 format. I have done so successfully and find the procedure lengthy and confusing, requiring lots of user intervention. Using a cable to link the two computer systems makes the procedure much easier! Transferring a DSSD disk between cabled computers takes just a few minutes and requires almost no user intervention once the transfer starts. In addition to whole TI disks you can also transfer gram files over to PC99 to run as emulated modules. To do this you need a gram device to make gram files of your TI module collection. If you don't have a gram device or a particular module, module files runable from PC99 can be purchased from Cadd. File transfers can go in both directions. Any TI software created on PC99 can be sent over to a real TI system, either cabled or not cabled. PC99 emulates whole TI disks, not individual TI disk files. You have 3 "drives" on line when running the PC99, each with either a SSSD or DSSD TI disk represented by a single DOS file. The large size of these DOS files that emulate TI disks makes it difficult to fit PC99 onto one 3.5 inch disk and run it directly from the disk, but this can be done if you include only one module on the disk and leave out the docs and PC99's configuration utility. Normally you would install PC99 onto a hard disk. OLD, SAVE, and other disk operations from within PC99 just modify these TI "disk" PC files. Because these files exactly emulate TI disks, emulated TI software correctly reads TI "disk" directories. A large assortment of DOS utilities are provided to manipulate the emulated TI disks. You can get a TI type directory from DOS, extract modify and reinsert single TI files to and from the emulated disks, etc. The method PC99 uses to emulate TI disks works very well. All 40 column 99/4A software and transferred modules I have tried work perfectly running under PC99 release 2a. I know of no exceptions except for the lack of speech and full TI sound. Because only 16K of VDP is emulated you can't run 80 column or Geneve specific software from PC99. There is, unfortunately, one potentially very big problem with PC99's software emulation. Execution speed of TI software running from PC99 is extremely slow. I guess this the price to be paid for "perfect" emulation. On my 386DX/40 TI software running under PC99 seems to just crawl along. When running the Funnelweb v5.01 editor, maximum typing speed is about 60 characters (not words) per second. As with a real 99/4A there is no keyboard buffer, so you can't type faster than the speed your letters appear on screen. Using a TI word processor running from PC99 just isn't practical on my DOS machine, at least not yet. I have been given a beta version of release 2b to play with and it is perhaps 20% faster than 2a because of speeded up CPU operations. This speed increase still isn't enough to allow me to use Funnelweb's word processor on my 386. The speec of PC99 is in part determined by the DOS computer's central processor, and I am told that on a 486DX2/66 PC99 release 2a will drive the Funnelweb word processor at acceptable speed. I can't personally verify this. If you have a fast 486 or pentium DOS computer then PC99 release 2a's speed may not now be a problem. From what I have seen, future releases of PC99 will certainly be faster than 2a. The only advantage of PC99's slow speed is with games. Because I can react quickly and the game can't, I get fantastic scores. I have no trouble leaving the Tombstone City town and killing all the bad guys with PC99. On a real TI I always get zapped soon after I try to leave town. PC99 has an excellent assembly language memory debugger. Any kind of 99/4A memory manipulation is possible. Because the PC99 debugger doesn't occupy any part of the memory reserved for the TI, the debugger can do tricks that are not possible with any debugger operating from a real 99/4A. An even more enhanced debugger screen display is in the works for a future PC99 release. An appropriate feature of any professional software product for which you pay a professional price is a comprehensive (on disk) manual backed up by technical support. You get this support with PC99, either by phone or US mail. Registered owners can phone (not a toll free number) CaDD evenings and weekends and speak to one of the PC99 authors. If the phone line is not attended you can leave a message on the answering machine and your call will be returned. You might need this sort of help the first time you try transferring your TI software to PC99, particularly if you are using computers that aren't cabled together. CaDD also offers to convert TI software to PC99 format for you if cabling a DOS and 99/4A computer is not practical. You send them your TI disks and you get your software back in the mail in PC99 format. There is a nominal charge for conversion, starting at $1 for a single disk. The more disks you send the cheaper per disk it gets. The most important question that should be asked by those considering purchasing PC99 is, "Will 99/4A software emulation be too slow on MY particular DOS computer?" You can get the answer for free. Send CaDD a high density 3.5 inch disk and a postage paid return mailer. They will return your disk with a full speed but limited feature "cripple ware" version of PC99 and some 99/4A software in PC99 format for you to speed check on your machine. PC99 release 2A costs $147 to new purchasers. If you have already purchased an earlier release, the cost to upgrade is the difference between what you originally paid and the current price. It costs $7 to upgrade from release 2 to release 2a. CaDD's address is at 81 Prescott Rd., Raymond NH 03077. ----------------- Additional comments about emulators: Get a TI-DOS serial cable! Without the ability to transfer your own important TI software to a DOS computer 99/4A emulators are little more than expensive toys that allow you to play around with the few pieces of TI software that come with the emulator. File transfers via cable are easy. You can't just run out to WalMart and buy a serial cable. You have to make one or have somebody make one for you. That's because the TI RS232 port is wired a bit differently than every body else's RS232, and there are two different sized connectors for COM ports on DOS computers. The PC99 documentation gives pin in/out data for the needed cable. I had a cable made to my specification (specified cable length and DOS COM port) and tested on an emulator by L.L. Conner Enterprise, 1521 Ferry St., Lafayette IN 47904. You can phone voice at 317-742-8146 for a price quote. The question of distribution of copyrighted TI products needs to be discussed. The PC99 people have a license from TI to sell the code of the 99/4A operating system and all official TI 99/4A modules. TI is paid a royalty on such sales. Such a license is probably not difficult to get these days, since O.P.A. (Gary Bowser) also has licensed the 99/4A operating system. As of this writing (mid July) the other TI emulator some of you have heard about does not have a license from TI to distribute code contained within 99/4A consoles. TI complained, and the other emulator has been temporarily withdrawn from the marketplace. As I understand things, software and computer code patent and copyright protection boils down to this-- Software owners can make make for themselves or pay someone else to make as many backup copies of their software as they want. BUT, each legally owned piece of software or computer operating system code can only be run on one machine at a time. If you own two 99/4A consoles (even a broken console) then you have the right to run two copies of the console operating system simultaneously, and one of these can be on a DOS computer. If you own an extended basic module, then you have the right to run XB on a DOS computer. For members of the TI community, making a DOS computer behave like a 99/4A and run 99/4A software is probably not a violation of TI's patent and copyright protection.