PC99

PC99 is a DOS based emulator which can run with most older Windows, or under dosbox or dosemu. It emulates TI hardware and software.

A new package for Windows pc99w was made available to existing owners from November 2016, and to new users from January 2017. This article is about the DOS version, which is now supplied with pc99w.

PC99 is a commercial program, containing legal copies of TI roms and groms, licensed by Texas Instruments, available from CaDD Electronics.

Owners of PC99 also have access to a vast array of equally legal software (all TI modules), book, magazine and documentation collections of high quality reproduction, fully indexed, in a product called the Cyc, supplied on DVD-R by CaDD Electronics.

Choosing a module from an on screen list

Use the shareware utility menu.bat from George Shaw- refer to PC99 Menu. This uses the PC99 module listing and therefore can use appropriate disks with modules when required (eg for Editor Assembler etc).

Changing disk (eg dsk1) whilst PC99 is running

Go to the command prompt with ESC and key in cd 1. Now key in the path from where PC99 is to the disk using dos format

eg \pc99\dsk\dosgames.dsk

Note the dos style backslashes.

Printing to a printer with PC99

PC99 allows you to talk to your PC's serial and parallel ports. This means you can actually connect a printer to your PC and print to it.

You may connect a dot matrix printer to Parallel port on the PC and print to it from PC99. The PC99 manual goes into detail about how to configure/map your ports. This is one of the examples of why PC99 is such a good emulator for the TI.

Converting PC99 disk files to and from a real TI console

PC99 comes with two programs called RSECTOR and WSECTOR. WSECTOR (write) listens for data coming from RSECTOR(read) and then writes it to a disk. If you want to transfer from PC99 to the TI you would run RSECTOR in PC99 and WSECTOR on the TI. If you want to go the other way you would switch.

RSECTOR and WSECTOR communicate via a serial connection. You will need a serial cable that goes from your PC with PC99 to the TI with some kind of RS232 expansion.

Converting TI files to and from TI disk files to work with dos/windows programs

A number of utility programs are supplied with PC99 to give access to TI disks which have been converted to the PC file format (for example basprog.dsk) and to PC format files (eg .txt).

• PC Text files to TI-Writer D/V80 format. First add a TI File Descriptor Record using ASC2DV80.EXE and then import the amended file to a TI disk using DSKIN.EXE and finally ensure a clean disk bit map by copying with a TI disk manager (file copy).
• V9T9 File to PC99 format using VF2PC99.EXE
• V9T9 Disk to PC99 Disk format using VD2PC99.EXE
• Taking a BAS/XB program and producing a PC text format LIST using BAS2ASC.EXE
• Taking a TI D/V 80 file and converting it to PC Txt format using DV802ASC.EXE

and others.

Transferring between TI emulator formats (eg v9t9 disk or file to PC99?)

PC99 has two utilities to transfer V9T9 files and disks into PC99 format. VF2PC99.EXE is used to convert a V9T9 file image into PC99 format. VD2PC99.EXE is used to convert a V9T9 disk image into PC99 format.

There is also a separate Windows program available called TIDIR

Running PC99 with the Linux Operating System

see article PC99 and Linux

TI Writer and Funnelweb

PC99 uses keyboard mapping to allow the vast majority of TI99/4a programs to be used easily. There is a small set of keys which is not readily available and just a few not available. Note that PC99 allows you to change the keyboard mapping yourself. Programs which take input from left and right hand sides of the keyboard using the TI's split keyboard coding may cause problems.

The heading above indicates a particular difficulty with TI Writer (and Funnelweb).

Using CTRL and a key that is not an alphabetical key is not passed by PC99 to the program.

The work around if you need to type CTRL and a number is to use the ALT key as follows.

To pass CTRL 1 to Funnwelweb editor, hold down the ALT key and then press numeric keypad numbers 1 then 3 then 0 and release ALT.

Thence 
CTRL 2=ALT 131;  CTRL 3=ALT 132; CTRL 4=ALT 133; CTRL 5=ALT 134
CTRL 6=ALT 135;  CTRL 7=ALT 136; CTRL 8=ALT 137; CTRL 9=ALT 138
CTRL 0=ALT 139

and finally to change from upper case to lower case which requires CTRL . use ALT 129.

There does not seem to be a way to key in CTRL ; when using PC99 without changing pc99 keyboard mapping.