99er Forums

The 32K card and 32K expansion unit both map to the same memory space (>2000 to >3FFF and >A000 to >FFFF).
If you have two on the bus, you still only have 32K. And both will be accessed. And damage *can* occur. I've not had damage with both a 32K card in the box along with 32K on the 16-bit bus (0 wait states) in the console.

But one was faster than the other. Your two are about the same speed, if not exactly the same speed. Use one or the other...

As for the TI disk controller card, where are you located?

Ben,

Thanks for the info. I'm in Port Arthur, Texas.

Thanks to Ben Yates I now have a disk controller card. I also acquired a NIB 99/4a unit that works perfectly so I should be set.

Ok, I've run across what might be the cause of the keyboard issue in my original post. Today I was playing around with the system after installing the disk drive connector cable that Ben Yates sent to me. I was using the NIB TI 99/4A that I bought last month and it was doing the same keyboard thing that I posted about at first. I unplugged it and tried another unit that had been working - same thing. I Turned off the PEB and unplugged the flex cable and speech synthesizer, still the same thing. I unplugged the TI cassette data recorder, also NIB, and .....PROBLEM SOLVED!!

I plugged everything back up except the cassette drive and everything works with all of my TI 99/4A units (I have four) except the very first one I bought - getting some double hits with some keys on it, might just be corrosion.

It has been about 30 years since I fooled around with a TI 99/4A. Is there a problem with my data recorder, or am I supposed to have a disk or module plugged in when it is hooked up? Funny that simply having it plugged in screws up the keyboard.

You have the cassette plugged in the back of the console, not the left side, right?

Well, that would be the problem. For some reason I didn't catch that when I looked at the manual that came with the recorder. As a kid, we had the recorder sitting on the left, I guess since the plug fit, I assumed it plugged in there.

That would do it--the one on the side is for the joysticks. . .

Yep, got everything hooked up correctly now, just played a game of Star Trek. Everything seems to work just fine, although I don't have an older phone to use to test out the modem, not that I will be using it. I'm going to put it back into its box and store it away.

Excellent news. Note on the modem: you'll need either the Terminal Emulator II cartridge or one of the disk based terminal emulators to use it (TELCO was one of the most common ones there, though there are about a dozen others--and each of them works well within the feature set the programmer implemented for it).

Thanks ksarul,

I do have the Terminal Emulator II cartridge.