ftp.whtech.com/ftp.whtech.com.tar/ftp.whtech.com/Geneve/9640news/CAT22/9640RVW.ARK

Text File | 2006-10-19 | 15KB | 215 lines

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THE MYARC 9640-A LIMITED REVIEW
By - Richard A. Fleetwood
President-Forest Lane TI Users Group
          Dallas, Texas
@Is^it^really^worth^it?
Before I answer that question, let me tell you what I have done, what I have
had, and what I was able to accomplish. This story starts off with a message
left on the Genie information system by one of the frequent users there. This
particular message, if I remember correctly, was left around mid december of
1986. It specifically stated that Myarc was sending out DEMO units of the new
computer for users groups across the country to actually see, feel, and play
with. Until this time, the Myarc super computer had only been an idea, a hope,
a dream, a empty keyboard/housing at a TI Faire, or a nonworking wirewrapped
pcboard at another Faire. This user stated that Myarc had shipped him one of
the beta units to show to his users group, and that Myarc was offering to do it
for other users groups just for the asking. I agree that this could have been
one of Myarc's best possible methods of drawing free publicity for the 9640, if
only they culd have done a few more things.
I proceeded to call Myarc the next day, and with a few more phone calls, and a
letter or two, just to be on the safe side, I was able to get Myarc to send our
users group a 9640  to show at our meeting in February. All was well and good,
until the unit arrived. I got the package on a friday afternoon, with my wife
calling me at work to say it had arrived. I didn't get home from work til late
that evening, and the first thing I did was print out 300+ pages of the DOS and
Users manuals. Around Midnight Friday, I was finally able to get to the point
of actually setting up all the hardware, plugging the 9640 computer card into
my pbox, then plugging the IBM keyboard into the proper port. Now, all I had to
do to boot the computer was to turn on the pbox. At powerup, the 9640 goes
IMMEDIATELY to DSK1 looking for a file called BOOT. BOOT is the actual 9640
Disk Operating System. Well, upon powerup, the screen display showed some
strange characters then just sat there. I wondered if this was what it was
supposed to do, and decided it was not. I could tell that the system was
locking up without booting properly. I then began a long night (from 1 am til
5:30 am)of rebooting the pbox, trying to load the DOS. I think I was able get
the DOS to load maybe 15-20 times, out of about 200 boots. I had no idea what
the problem was. My personal system has a Myarc controller card, and two
YE-Data YD-580 half Hi ds/dd drives. I thought that the problem might have been
a bad disk sent, or that maybe my drives or controller may have been a little
touchy. Oh well, I thought, I'll do the best I can. Of the very few times the
DOS loaded, I tried using the demos that had been provided by Myarc. These
demos consisted of two graphics demos running at unbeleiveably fast speed, two
basic demo programs, Myarc XBII, version 2.11 running out of the 9640(instead
of 3.0), A mouse graphic drawing demo, 80 column TI writer, and Fastterm. The
only thing I got to run in those 5 hours was the Block demo, and basic(once!).
Nothing else would load up completely, if at all. I gave up thinking it was my
systems fault, and not the 9640.
After getting dressed at 5:30 am, and heading out to my monthly flea market
jaunt, I got back home at 12:00 to get ready for a 2:00 pm users group meeting.
I tried several more times, and was able to get the 80 Col. TIW to load once,
and Basic to load one again. I had a backup idea for the meeting--I had a copy
of the 86 Chicago TI faire on videotape, and brought that just in case the unit
never did run. Well, at the meeting, after doing the usual business, we
proceeded to try to boot the system. Unfortunately, right at the moment of
turning on the clubs TI moniter, the moniter decided to die right there. This
was no fault of the 9640, just bad luck for the club(and bad timing). To make a
long story short, all we saw of the 9640 demo that day was  what we saw on
videotape. A lot of people who had come to the meeting just to see the 9640 in
action were disappointed-others were quite disillusioned. It was not meeting up
to any real expectations. After the meeting, we tried the computer in another
system and it did the same thing. Later that evening I had to take my wife to
the hospital for the delivery of our third child, so needless to say, the 9640
saw no more action that weekend. I called Lou Monday morning to report the
happenings and to see what to do next. One of the things he asked me, after I
reported the symptoms, was to ask me if I had set the DIP switch on the Myarc
controller card to FASTER access. Well, I had not been told to do that at any
time previous to that, so of course I had not. Well, he figured that was the
problem. I spent a few more minutes that afternoon playing with the dip
switches, and tried several more times to load the DOS. Still no luck, so I
packed everything up and mailed it off to Myarc the next day.
Checking back with Lou a week or two later, I still had no idea of what was
goin on, and why it hadn't worked for me. Lou at that time said he would send
another unit, this one an ACTUAL production model, for me to demo at the other
users group meetings in the Dallas area. I of course jumped at the chance,
because I wasn't going to give up.  I heard thru the grapevine, and thru BBS's
across the country, that other users groups across the country were getting
units such as the one I had recieved, and several were reporting the same
difficulties. Strange....
Lou shipped another unit the last week of February, which looked to be a
different board, and in fact what we received could NOT have been a production
model. It had several dozen jumper wires spread around it, and several items
were missing, or not fully mounted. The most obvious item missing was the SOUND
CHIP. Also not on the card was the Clock circuit, containing the real time
clock and date function that is supposed to be part of the system. Lou had
called early friday, and wanted me to return his call so he could tell me about
this particular card. I called him and he was able to give a little more
insight about some of the peculuarities of this card. First and foremost, this
particular card had a PAL (Programmable Array Logic) chip RTVed to the top edge
of the card. There were several jumpers from this chip running to may other
circuits. The most obvious one went to the 9995 microprocessor. Lou said the
PAL chip had been installed to SLOW DOWN this card, due to it running TOO FAST!
There was some problem with the beta software that required these hardware mods
for the time being. He then went on to tell me about the latest software
additions and changes--he had sent an updated demo disk with the new programs.
Later that evening, I set the system up, and low and behold, it booted properly
the FIRST time! ( remember the dip switch? I left it OFF!). Lou had seen fit to
include a two page set of notes made by Lance Parr, of the Corpus Christi TI
Users Group, about how to operate(or at least load) some of the Demo software.
Well, that friday night turned out to be another sleepless night. I still had
loading problems with the DOS, but it was NOWHERE near as bad as the first
unit. I was able to load and use the BLOCK Demo, the LINES demo-both at
FANTASTIC speed-, two DIFFERENT drawing programs for the mouse,(one, called
DRAW, had three pictures that could be loaded and displayed. I only got one,
FOX1,to load and display..the other two would never load). In the regular
drawing mode, there was an awesome color palet of 256 colors displayed along
the bottom of the screen. With the mouse, and manipulations of the mouse left
and right buttons, in the proper order, you could change between the different
modes. Unfortunately, this is an area that caused some problems at all three
groups....none of the demo programs, except for the cartridge saver program by
Peter Hoddie, had any SPECIFIC documentation on how to get the most out of the
program. In an effort to give you an idea of what I was up against, try
thinking about giving a child the keys to the family car and telling him to go
get some groceries. He might have seen people drive him around, but he doesn't
know how to get the car into the proper gear, and its up to him to try to
figure it out while on the run, so to say. Unless the author of a program TELLS
you how to provide input, and what to expect when input is given, then how is a
new program for a brand new computer supposed to be learned, without much time
and effort on the poor soul who has to do the demo in a very short time frame?
I did the very best that I could with all the programs, but a few (mainly the
DRAW program, only the most visually appealing program they sent) were not up
to the level they could have been if much better documentation would have been
provided. Many of the people who attended the demos remarked about this very
thing, ad all I could tell them was 'Sorry'.
But enough about that....there WERE several programs that seemed to work to the
limits of the hardware. The 80 Column TI Writer , loaded from the DSK1> prompt
while in DOS by typing EDIT, seemed to work flawlessly. On my TI 10" color
moniter, I could make out the very small characters easily enough to use
this mode. The display was actually 80 columns by 26 lines, with the last two
lines being status lines. All functions that I tried worked, with a noticable
increase in speed. As a sidelight, when the 9640 finally makes it to the
consumer, it will come with a VERY enhanced TI Writer package, with the biggest
change being a 56k buffer. This may not seem like much, especially when you
have 512k of memory to play with. Myarc is going to release an even BETTER TIW
by this summer that will let you set your own buffer size. In fact, with the
extra memory, you now have both the EDITOR and FORMATTER in memory at the same
time.
Another program that worked as advertised was the 99/4A mode. In DOS, at the
DSK1> prompt, typing 99/4A proceeded to load the GPL Interpreter that has been
probably the biggest challenge to design for this new computer. In this mode,
you could load ANY cartridge dumped with either the GRAMCRACKER or the CSAVE
program provided, into the system and run it as if it was a real 99/4A. After
loading the interpreter, the screen displays the question "Which Cartridge do
you wish to load?". You simply type in DSK1.FILENAME, and it goes to town.
After the cartridge is loaded and drive activity has stopped, pressing enter
brings up the familiar TI COLOR BARS <press any key to begin>!! Pressing a key
then shows the menu listing the cartridge you just loaded.
Since this particular unit did not have a sound chip, and since practically ALL
TI modules had sound of SOME KIND, most of my programs I tried locked up at the
point where you would normally here some familiar tunes. I was not bothered as
much by lockups as I was that this unit was not COMPLETE. Oh well, ke sera!
I didn't get a chance to play with FASTTERM version 2, since I didn't try
putting a RS232 Card and modem in the system the short time I had to play with
it. I was assured that it worked though, with the only major change being the
addition of the 80 column display. Again, lack of documentation was a problem
in trying to examine this program when I did run it. To get into 80 column
mode, all it takes to toggle it on and off is CONTROL-Q.
Coming back to the Disk Operating system, this is where the 9640 is going to
shine. Built into the DOS are most of the E/A functions, the EDIT command to
enter TIWriter, all the disk and harddisk managing functions, the Date and Time
commands, and literally dozens of commands to do nearly everything possible
with MS-DOS, as used with IBM systems. The docs I have seen compare Myarc's DOS
to MS-DOS Version 2.1. The manual for the DOS is over 100 pages, and seems to
cover everything in great detail. Ditto for the portion of the manual for the
ADVANCED BASIC 3.0. 3.0 fully supports TI extended basic, all earliers versions
of Myarc XBII, and almost every command available in the GW Basic found in IBM
Computers.
The memory of the 9640 is very adaptable. You have 512k of CPU memory to play
with. This memory can be divided into RAMdisk, spooler, and actual program
space by a few simple commands in DOS, or by using a CONFIGSYS file at bootup.
The Yamaha 9938 Video processor chip has another 128k of VDP ram which should
be really useful for all those humongous arrays we can now play with. Then
there is the addition of the Myarc 512k card, to give you a grand total of over
1 MEG of available memory space!! To use the 512k, you will have to send it
back to Myarc for some simple modifications.
Getting back to the original question about the 9640 - " is it really worth
it?" -- all the whoopla, all the talk about a mesiah, of a new age of computing
for everyone, and so on and so forth? Only YOU can answer this question. As for
myself, I have decided I DO need a 9640. After running the FLUG TIBBS for over
a year and a half, and fighting MEMORY FULL errors everytime I add a line of
change an existing one, and just wanting to have more speed and power, I think
the 9640 will fit the bill. It will be like a breath of fresh air to do as much
programming as I want without having to delete something I just did to make
more room for a better idea. I will also make great use of the new TI Writer,
since that is the program I use over 50% of my computer time. I guess the
biggest change I am looking for is for all the barriars I've been facing for
the past year to be blown away, with a wide new horizon of possibilities just
waiting for me. The 99/4A is a fantastic computer and I love it dearly. I know
lots more then the average individual about the inner workings, and can
appreciate the time and care that TI put into the design of the machine. The
9640 greatly improves upon the ideas, while moving our system from that of an
orphan system to that of being state of the art.
Of course, you might also say that I want the 9640 for the same reason I got my
99/8 that I have on my desk here. I just like machines that are one off, yet
have power that you can't fully appreciate until you have actually had a chance
to use it. With many hundreds of disks, and lots of TI 99 hardware besides my
basic system, and all the time I've spent learning everything I can about the
99, I AM NOT about to waste it on another totally new computer system like many
have done in the past year or two. I'm doing what I enjoy, and I recommend that
you do too. If you think you can HANDLE the 9640, then get it. It'll only open
your eyes to REAL power, while losing nothing out of your present system. If
you prefer to limit yourself to a 99/4a console, pbox and drives, thats all
well and good. I'll still be right beside you when new software and ideas come
out. Of course, I will probably have a full 9640 system sitting right next to
my full blown TI 99 system sometime in the near future, but I'm going to enjoy
the best of both worlds!
So, to answer my question....."yes, it IS worth it!"

.CE 1
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