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Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

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Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#11

Post by joakleaf »

Olivier26 wrote: post #9
joakleaf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it is an Amiga demo?

The boucing ball, and Wolf3D/Doom wasn't yet a big thing in the 1981-1984 years... And the quality of graphics and sounds, the number of colors, the speech synthesis: the TI99 was more shhhh shhhh... The real 99/4A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UxJM7AhZvw Not the same world!

The demo was credited as 2017, so I don't think you can really use the bouncing ball or Wolf3D as reasons.

You could actually buy a speech synthesizer for the TI.

Yes, the demo is impressive compared to what else was available on the machine, but it actually had a (underutilized) 3 Mhz CPU and pretty advanced graphics system.

The TIs biggest problem was that it came with very little RAM, so you generally had to store application data in video memory or expansion cards, which made the machine incredibly slow.

More info about the demo here: http://hackaday.com/2017/01/30/dont-mess-with-texas-the-ti-9...

Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#13

Post by Olivier26 »

joakleaf wrote: post #11
Olivier26 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boucing ball, and Wolf3D/Doom wasn't yet a big thing in the 1981-1984 years... And the quality of graphics and sounds, the number of colors, the speech synthesis: the TI99 was more shhhh shhhh... The real 99/4A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UxJM7AhZvw Not the same world!

The demo was credited as 2017, so I don't think you can really use the bouncing ball or Wolf3D as reasons. You could actually buy a speech synthesizer for the TI. Yes, the demo is impressive compared to what else was available on the machine, but it actually had a (underutilized) 3 Mhz CPU and pretty advanced graphics system. The TIs biggest problem was that it came with very little RAM, so you generally had to store…

OK for the 2017 demo, but the TMS9900 was slower than the Z80/6502 of the same time, because it was a 16-bit microprocessor with a 8-bit bus, and registers were mapped to the RAM. This demo required power, and is very far from all other TI99/4A games, and most of them were written in assembly (the basic was too slow). So I still think it's a fake, or it is running on a deeply modified emulator, or with hardware extensions listed in the wikipedia page * ) but it's not a "vanilla" TI/994A.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A

Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#14

Post by Flow »

Olivier26 wrote: post #13
joakleaf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demo was credited as 2017, so I don't think you can really use the bouncing ball or Wolf3D as reasons. You could actually buy a speech synthesizer for the TI. Yes, the demo is impressive compared to what else was available on the machine, but it actually had a (underutilized) 3 Mhz CPU and pretty advanced graphics system. The TIs biggest problem was that it came with very little RAM, so you generally had to store…

OK for the 2017 demo, but the TMS9900 was slower than the Z80/6502 of the same time, because it was a 16-bit microprocessor with a 8-bit bus, and registers were mapped to the RAM. This demo required power, and is very far from all other TI99/4A games, and most of them were written in assembly (the basic was too slow). So I still think it's a fake, or it is running on a deeply modified emulator, or with hardware exten…

Download it and see for yourself.

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=68783

Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#15

Post by arundelo »

(Not relevant to this demo in particular, just a piece of trivia I only learned in the past few years:) It makes sense to think of the TI-99 as part of the 8-bit microcomputer boom of the 1980s (Commodore 64, Apple II, TRS-80), but it actually had a 16-bit processor! (Which communicated with most of the rest of the computer through an 8-bit bus.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A#Fir...

Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#16

Post by pm215 »

joakleaf wrote: post #7

I grew up and learned basic on a TI-99/4a. It was a wonderful and simple time... but TI Basic was so incredibly slow. At least Extended Basic allowed you to use sprites and overall felt a bit faster. In TI Basic, you accessed the more interesting parts of the machine "Call" functions (e.g. "Call Color", "Call Char", "Call hchar", etc.), and I always found Commodores peek/poke mess very primitive and a bit more inacce…

The slow BASIC was due to the completely insane doubly-interpreted implementation. The BASIC interpreter was written in GPL (Graphics Programming Language; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A#VDP...), which was itself interpreted at runtime.

Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#18

Post by cmrdporcupine »

arundelo wrote: post #15

(Not relevant to this demo in particular, just a piece of trivia I only learned in the past few years:) It makes sense to think of the TI-99 as part of the 8-bit microcomputer boom of the 1980s (Commodore 64, Apple II, TRS-80), but it actually had a 16-bit processor! (Which communicated with most of the rest of the computer through an 8-bit bus.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A#Fir...

Yeah, 16-bit data bus but only 16-bit address bus. So still has the limitation of 64k memory which was really the chief defect of machines of that era.

Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#19

Post by joakleaf »

Olivier26 wrote: post #13
joakleaf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demo was credited as 2017, so I don't think you can really use the bouncing ball or Wolf3D as reasons. You could actually buy a speech synthesizer for the TI. Yes, the demo is impressive compared to what else was available on the machine, but it actually had a (underutilized) 3 Mhz CPU and pretty advanced graphics system. The TIs biggest problem was that it came with very little RAM, so you generally had to store…

OK for the 2017 demo, but the TMS9900 was slower than the Z80/6502 of the same time, because it was a 16-bit microprocessor with a 8-bit bus, and registers were mapped to the RAM. This demo required power, and is very far from all other TI99/4A games, and most of them were written in assembly (the basic was too slow). So I still think it's a fake, or it is running on a deeply modified emulator, or with hardware exten…

I hear you regarding the speed... I had a TI and I learned to program on it, so I know how amazingly slow it was!

They do mention that they used extra RAM from the floppy drive controller which would help!

I don't see anything that makes me think it is completely impossible. Lots of the more complicated full screen effects could probably be made by altering character bitmaps (which was pretty fast). Parsec managed smooth horizontal scrolling back in the day, but I must admit some of the scrolling stuff definitely looked challenging to do on that machine. I still think, you can get far by manipulating character bitmaps, and clever use of sprites.

I still think calling it "fake" may be a bit harsh on the coders if it isn't.

Anyone tried it on one of the emulators?

Re: Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]

#20

Post by Narishma »

arundelo wrote: post #15

(Not relevant to this demo in particular, just a piece of trivia I only learned in the past few years:) It makes sense to think of the TI-99 as part of the 8-bit microcomputer boom of the 1980s (Commodore 64, Apple II, TRS-80), but it actually had a 16-bit processor! (Which communicated with most of the rest of the computer through an 8-bit bus.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A#Fir...

The contemporary of the Apple II and TRS-80 was the Commodore PET. The C64 came much later.
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