Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

General No-Intro related discussions.
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stevetb
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Joined: 13 Jun 2016 08:24

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by stevetb »

No-Intro Team,

How would I go about starting a No-Intro Set for TI-99/4A?

I have compiled a list of what I believe is a definitive set of titles and have most of these titles collected and am ready to share this with No-Intro as a set. Working with the team would also help me vet out the collection I have and truly perfect it beyond what I personally am capable of.

Thoughts on this?

Thank you,
Stevetb
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Connie
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Joined: 20 Jun 2008 12:15

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by Connie »

Are you planning on collecting/redumping?

Otherwise, I think TOSEC already have a dat if you want to check your collection against it.
No-Intro is more about accurate dumps/preservation rather than just collections. :)
stevetb
Posts: 7
Joined: 13 Jun 2016 08:24

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by stevetb »

There are several sets missing from No-Intro:

1. Atari 2600
2. Mattel - Intellivision
3. Texas Instruments - TI99/4A

My hope was to begin working on these one at a time to complete the holes I see in the No-Intro set. I do not personally have all of the above but wanted to put in the hard work to bring together what I currently have, pare it down to the best dump possible per title, and then work with the No-Intro Team to perfect with other users. I do not want 20 dumps per title, which other sets do, I prefer the single best dump as the ROM standard to use. Exactly how No-Intro does their sets.

I have no idea where to start a No-Intro .DAT so please forgive me for being naive on the subject.

Thank you for your assistance,
Stevetb
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Connie
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Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by Connie »

This is why I asked whether ot not you were collecting and re-dumping.

There isn't a 'best dump', there is either a good dump, or a bad dump. Therefore, the only way to verify an existing dump (floating around the net), is to redump it.

As an example using Atari 2600, you could start with a collection matching Cowerings Good2600_314 set of files, filter out anything that wasn't a genuine cart release, then start to search for and redump what is left in your list. If you know of sites that are redumping, then as long as you've proof of a good redump, then you could add these to your dat as verified. Otherwise, every initial dump added, would have to be tagged as bad.

Counting Cowerings good dump flags [!], you are currently looking at over 900 carts to be found :sdrop:

IIRC, myself or another member created an unofficial 2600 dat many years ago. Maybe a search or request can find it to give you an idea or what to start with. Learning how to use the dir2dat feature of clrmamepro, is a good start to making your own dats.
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C. V. Reynolds
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Joined: 17 Jun 2009 04:42

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by C. V. Reynolds »

On the bright side, Intellivison only had around 125 retail carts. It could be relatively cheap and easy to collect and dump all of those. I'd consider doing it myself if I weren't poor.
stevetb
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Joined: 13 Jun 2016 08:24

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by stevetb »

Here is a community of individuals who have been redumping TI-99/4A for several years from their physical collections:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/253095 ... 016/page-1

Could I use this as a source for beginning to compile a collection of known good redumps?

-Steve
stevetb
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Joined: 13 Jun 2016 08:24

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by stevetb »

For Atari 2600:

You mentioned the Cowerings Good2600_314 Romset. If pared down to only legitimate 2600 titles (!) we still would need 900+ titles to locate. What about beginning the No-Intro collection with the known good romset dumps from this set and then the community can all help contribute these remaining 900 roms to help restore this collection?

I was not around when previous sets were constructed but I am sure roms were added to the sets throughout the years. I think the entire community would rather have a set of Atari 2600, with missing roms, which are built up over 1-2 years to a complete collection.

Thoughts?
stevetb
Posts: 7
Joined: 13 Jun 2016 08:24

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by stevetb »

Keeping the focus on TI-99/4A:

I have gone through all the redumped titles from the Atariage source listed above. Of these I have downloaded / renamed / and documented all of the titles available against a set list which I believe to be a complete TI-99/4A romset.

Here is a Sheet of my current progress:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e9a4d ... C2UUWC8n9o

Currently for the set I have 129/235 which have been been redumped. I can likely work with the community to have the remaining, or most of them, redumped as well.

Please review and let me know if I am on a good track or if I'm wasting my time in doing this.

Thank you,
Steve
hydr0x
Dumper
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Joined: 25 May 2008 15:31

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by hydr0x »

Your list does not contain checksums for the files, so how do you know/track which redump matches which actual file?!
stevetb
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Joined: 13 Jun 2016 08:24

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by stevetb »

This list is not the DAT, obviously. I will use ClrMamePro to generate the DAT from the redump collection I have. The DAT will contain all checksums needed.
Densetsu
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Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by Densetsu »

I don't know anything about the TI-99/4A, so my question might be "obsolete"...

What about region and language tags?
stevetb
Posts: 7
Joined: 13 Jun 2016 08:24

Re: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A = How to begin No-Intro Set?

Post by stevetb »

They are all USA that I know of. I am sure there are some custom cartridges out there though that are not USA.

For other No-Intro sets that I have seen, they still name the titles with (USA) even if the whole set is USA.
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