Subject: PC to TI file transfers

From: "Matthew" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:55:10 -0000

Okay, here we go again... :-)

I spent 6 hours last night trying to get a file transferred between my PC and real TI.  I *almost* succeeded by 5:30am, but ended up with a weird file on the TI.  Here is my setup:

Stock silver 99/4A, PEB, TI FDC, SSSD 5.25", DSSD 3.5" (real 720K Teac drive), TI serial card, TI 32K card, Speech synth.

PC running XP with hyper terminal.

First I tried using TEII and hyper terminal to transfer the file.  It quickly became obvious that TEII is very lacking (I had never used it before).  I could connect and have a conversation with myself between the computers, but trying to do a file transfer either way was useless.  Can someone please explain to me how on earth did anyone use TEII on a BBS??  I could not even figure out how to screen capture a document by sending as text and saving on the TI as a dis/var 80 file or something.  Is that even possible?

So now I was in the position of trying to get something like MagicFM onto the TI via a floppy.  So after trying everything else possible, I dug out my two 386sx computers (of which one of them had died on the shelf), and started trying to find a floppy disk that would format without errors.  It is amazing how a 720k 3.5" floppy will report a ton of sector errors when you try to format less than 720k.  Since I only have a stock FDC in my PEB, I can only format 40/DS/SD which is 360k I think.  After 2.5 hours and 30 floppy disks later I finally got MagicFM on a floppy the TI could read.

What I'm ultimately trying to do is get Tursi's asm code onto the TI in a dis/var 80 format so I can compile with the E/A on the real hardware.  I really want to get this process working smoothly so I can code on the PC, transfer to the TI, compile and run.  If that starts working okay, I might even try a compile on the PC, transfer the binary, and just run on the TI (am I too hopeful?)

So, I copied the asm text from Tursi's post and saved to a text file, then I used TIdir to convert to a TI dis/var 80 format.  In TIdir it views just fine, but when I use MagicFM to transfer to the TI, the file is always converted to a dis/var 128 format...  What is up with that??  It was a very frustrating end to a very long night (morning).

Can anyone please give me some insight as to how I can get a text source file onto the TI in a format that I can use?  Right now I'm interested in assembly code, but it would also be nice to write XB programs on the PC and get them over to the real TI somehow too.

Tips, suggestions, and insight would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Matthew

---

From: "Tursi" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 14:15:13 -0500

> First I tried using TEII and hyper terminal to transfer the file.  It 
> quickly became obvious that TEII is very lacking (I had never used it 
> before).  I could connect and have a conversation with myself between 
> the computers, but trying to do a file transfer either way was 
> useless.  Can someone please explain to me how on earth did anyone use 
> TEII on a BBS??  I could not even figure out how to screen capture a 
> document by sending as text and saving on the TI as a dis/var 80 file 
> or something.  Is that even possible?
>

TEII used it's own file transfer protocol, so there were very, very, 
very, very few places you could use it to get files. Not sure if it had 
capture capability. The manuals are online, but it's not really worth 
pursuing any further.

> So, I copied the asm text from Tursi's post and saved to a text file, 
> then I used TIdir to convert to a TI dis/var 80 format.  In TIdir it 
> views just fine, but when I use MagicFM to transfer to the TI, the 
> file is always converted to a dis/var 128 format...  What is up with 
> that??  It was a very frustrating end to a very long night (morning).
>

By default, TIDIR writes V9T9 format files, which are meaningless to 
XMODEM, so they are saved in the default format. Use the TIDIR option 
Tools->Convert V9T9 File to TIFILES File. Some people still like the 
V9T9 file format because of the filename munging it supports, but it's 
completely useless for interworking with a real TI.

---

From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 14:44:27 -0500

I do transfers all the time.  It was how I wad able to do Lemonade  
Stand on the road and put it on the TI for final testing and  
duplication...  Transferring back and forth to make sure the game ran  
well in both environments.  I use MFM in the TI and QModemPro on the  
PC...  Greg McGill sent me this program via email.  It runs flawlessly  
every time.  I use Classic99 to set up my PC side because it actually  
uses an individual file system versus .dsk or .DSK.  I just do an  
XModem transfer every time from DSK1 of Classic99 to DSK1 of the TI.   
It's seamless.  I have a video of the process on YouTube.  Crappy  
video quality though.  Good luck

Owen Brand
**Oprysoft**
Opry99er.com

On Nov 7, 2009, at 1:55 PM, "Matthew" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I spent 6 hours last night trying to get a file transferred between  
> my PC and real TI. I *almost* succeeded by 5:30am, but ended up with  
> a weird file on the TI. Here is my setup:
>
> Stock silver 99/4A, PEB, TI FDC, SSSD 5.25", DSSD 3.5" (real 720K  
> Teac drive), TI serial card, TI 32K card, Speech synth.
>
> quickly became obvious that TEII is very lacking (I had never used  
> it before). I could connect and have a conversation with myself  
> between the computers, but trying to do a file transfer either way  
> was useless. Can someone please explain to me how on earth did  
> anyone use TEII on a BBS?? I could not even figure out how to screen  
> capture a document by sending as text and saving on the TI as a dis/ 
> var 80 file or something. Is that even possible?
>
> So now I was in the position of trying to get something like MagicFM  
> onto the TI via a floppy. So after trying everything else possible,  
> I dug out my two 386sx computers (of which one of them had died on  
> the shelf), and started trying to find a floppy disk that would  
> format without errors. It is amazing how a 720k 3.5" floppy will  
> report a ton of sector errors when you try to format less than 720k.  
> Since I only have a stock FDC in my PEB, I can only format 40/DS/SD  
> which is 360k I think. After 2.5 hours and 30 floppy disks later I  
> finally got MagicFM on a floppy the TI could read.
>
> What I'm ultimately trying to do is get Tursi's asm code onto the TI  
> in a dis/var 80 format so I can compile with the E/A on the real  
> hardware. I really want to get this process working smoothly so I  
> can code on the PC, transfer to the TI, compile and run. If that  
> starts working okay, I might even try a compile on the PC, transfer  
> the binary, and just run on the TI (am I too hopeful?)
>
> So, I copied the asm text from Tursi's post and saved to a text  
> file, then I used TIdir to convert to a TI dis/var 80 format. In  
> TIdir it views just fine, but when I use MagicFM to transfer to the  
> TI, the file is always converted to a dis/var 128 format... What is  
> up with that?? It was a very frustrating end to a very long night  
> (morning).
>
> Can anyone please give me some insight as to how I can get a text  
> source file onto the TI in a format that I can use? Right now I'm  
> interested in assembly code, but it would also be nice to write XB  
> programs on the PC and get them over to the real TI somehow too.
>

---

From: "Matthew" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:50:06 -0000

> completely useless for interworking with a real TI.

Got it, I'll give it a shot and see what happens.  In the mean time, is there any place that describes all these file formats, how they came about, what they exist for, their binary formats, etc. (can you tell I didn't look very hard before asking? ;-) )  All the formats and extensions make my head hurt, I guess because I was not *there* in the beginning when all these formats were created.  I also think there are some synonyms out there too, like V9T9 - doesn't it have another name?  I also really have no idea what format I should be using for whatever.

Thanks,
Matthew

---

From: "Tursi" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:10:49 -0500

> Got it, I'll give it a shot and see what happens.  In the mean time, 
> is there any place that describes all these file formats, how they 
> came about, what they exist for, their binary formats, etc. (can you 
> tell I didn't look very hard before asking? ;-) )  All the formats and 
> extensions make my head hurt, I guess because I was not *there* in the 
> beginning when all these formats were created.  I also think there are 
> some synonyms out there too, like V9T9 - doesn't it have another name? 
> I also really have no idea what format I should be using for whatever.
>

Don't think so.. but so far as files on the disk go, that's it, two 
formats.

TIFILES/Xmodem format came first, and was used for file transfers to 
allow non-TI systems to store the file type information, for BBSs and 
the like. Thus, these files contain the header information for the file 
and are meant for relaying to non-TI systems.

V9T9 format was created with the V9T9 emulator. It overcomes the one 
limitation of TIFILES -- the filename. Because many legal TI characters 
were not legal in DOS, the author created a mapping scheme of 
high-bit-ascii characters to TI characters, and stored the real original 
filename inside the header. Because of V9T9's popularity, this became 
the dominant file format for TI Emulation where files are used (disk 
images are more popular.)

When I did Classic99, I came from the V9T9 background, but I wanted to 
do development with files intended for the real TI. Development is more 
convenient when not limited to the size of a floppy disk, so I used the 
files on a disk approach, but the conversion step for V9T9 files grated 
on me, so I accepted the limits of the Windows file system (which by 
then was far less restrictive than DOS) and chose to prefer TIFILES 
directly. However, I've had a lot of trouble getting people to accept 
this approach, and people still want to store the TI filename inside the 
file, which introduces numerous complications. (A recent thread talked 
about how to extend TIFILES to include the filename, for instance. For 
my part, I will not support that because I believe it causes more 
problems than it solves.)

There are also disk image formats. So far as I can tell, there are 
three, but I haven't dug deep into it yet:

V9T9 - stores disk images as a dump of sectors. However, on double sided 
disks, the second side is stored backwards in the file. I'm not sure 
why.

PC99 - stores disk images in more detail, including intra-sector 
information. I don't have the low level details of this.

Raw dumps - like V9T9, a raw sector dump, however, sectors are stored 
sequentially. I believe these are very rare. Not sure if it is possible 
to tell these apart from a V9T9 dump!

And more recently, MESS gave us hard drive images, apparently in several 
formats, the CF7 gave us CF images, and there's probably more that I've 
never personally worked with. :)

---

From: mark wills <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 20:11:13 -0800 (PST)

Looking forward into the future, I reckon it would be a nice idea to include file import/export directly into classic99. It would be nice to have classic99 squirt the files down a serial cable to a real TI. It could be in any format/protocol, as a companion program could be used on the real TI to receive/send.

Just a thought...

Mark

________________________________
From: Owen Brand <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sat, 7 November, 2009 20:44:27
Subject: Re: [TI994A] PC to TI file transfers

I do transfers all the time.  It was how I wad able to do Lemonade Stand on the road and put it on the TI for final testing and duplication. ..  Transferring back and forth to make sure the game ran well in both environments.  I use MFM in the TI and QModemPro on the PC...  Greg McGill sent me this program via email.  It runs flawlessly every time.  I use Classic99 to set up my PC side because it actually uses an individual file system versus .dsk or .DSK.  I just do an XModem transfer every time from DSK1 of Classic99 to DSK1 of the TI.  It's seamless.  I have a video of the process on YouTube.  Crappy video quality though.  Good luck

Owen Brand
**Oprysoft**
Opry99er.com

---

From: "Tursi" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 00:44:22 -0500

>Looking forward into the future, I reckon it would be a nice idea to 
>include file import/export directly into classic99. It >would be nice 
>to have classic99 squirt the files down a serial cable to a real TI. It 
>could be in any format/protocol, as a >companion program could be used 
>on the real TI to receive/send.

One of the goals is to get Classic99 working with the serial and 
parallel ports (not this update, sorry, I'm already overdue on it thanks 
to the new sound engine).. at that point you can load whatever transfer 
program you like, even good old "SAVE RS232".

The interface device I want to build connects the TI directly to the PC 
(similar to Fred's device in concept), and would take care of the 
transfer issues, I hope, but as always I don't know when it will happen. 
It's been on the back burner for about 8 years now, and I've got at 
least 3 different versions of it designed so far (though the newest one 
looks like the easiest yet!)

That'll be my stretch goal for next year's TI Faire, since Owen wants 
something to bug me about. hehe ;)

---

From: mark wills <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 22:14:04 -0800 (PST)

<SNIP>
</SNIP>

Ooh. That's a man-hug, right there ;-)

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