
  
     V9t9:  TI Emulator! v6.0 Documentation      (c) 1995 Edward Swartz
  
   CONTACT.TXT 
  

       NOTE:

       TI Emulators v4.0 and v5.01 are no longer supported.  Any orders or
  questions for them will be returned and ignored, respectively.

       NOTE:

       I no longer support V9t9 either.  


  Ŀ
                QUESTIONS/COMMENTS ABOUT THE PROGRAM 
  

       I recommend you contact me if you find any bugs in the program that
  aren't listed in PROBLEMS.TXT or BUGS.TXT.  I know that most users
  simply assume that a bug is a "feature" and will eventually disappear,
  but I honestly do not find out about most bugs unless someone tells me.
  (There was a review of TI Emulator! v5.01 in Micropendium, and I was
  distressed to see the author refer to problems with "incomplete
  emulation", when the problems were indeed bugs I hadn't been told
  about.)

       Some preliminary information:  This program started out as a purely
  personal project three years ago.  After I showed it to some friends and
  rewrote it in assembly, I was goaded to unleash it on the Internet.
  This I did.  Since then, I've received much praise, many bug reports,
  and lots of suggestions.  Unfortunately, some people don't understand
  what my purpose for writing this program is.  My intent is to have this
  program emulate a TI-99/4A computer, along with its memory expansion,
  disk drive, speech synthesis, joystick, and RS232/PIO units.  Beyond
  that I cannot emulate much more, since I do not own -- or intend to
  purchase -- the extra hardware and learn about it.  A base 99/4A system
  with the listed peripherals is all I ever intend to emulate.  One of the
  main reasons for not supporting more post-99/4A peripherals is the goal
  of keeping the size of emulator under 128k (small => fast).  It's now
  about 100k.

       If you're having few problems but are noticing a lack of features,
  make sure they're not in this list because I'll ignore them:

         "Will you make a Myarc Geneve emulator?"  Nope.  This computer
  is NOT a 99/4A, and is simply too complex for me to tackle.

         "What about the 80-column modes and higher resolutions of newer
  99/4A graphics cards?"  Nope again.  This wasn't a standard 99/4A
  peripheral.  Also, it's nice to stay in one PC graphics mode.

         "Can you emulate the 128k/512k/64meg memory expansion cards?"
  Don't have any of those either.  Also, there is no single standard for
  these, and I'd have to learn too many protocols to make it worth it.
  Standard 99/4A programs know nothing about such cards.

         "Make it support Gravis!!!  I want Gravis!!!"  Not yet, until I
  get such a card.  It WOULD make the sound very easy to implement.

         "...P-Code card?..."  No.  I don't have it.

         "I know another programmer... howzabout you and him/her get
  together and develop..."  Uh, no.  I'm pretty selfish about this
  project.  Also, the thing that you're asking me to develop is probably
  on this list already.  :)

         "Will you make it so it can read 99/4A disks in an IBM drive?"
  Well, hmm.  I've studied up on this.  It turns out that the 99/4A disk
  controller uses the "FM", or single-density, format to store data.
  Documentation for IBM drives, however, only covers "MFM", or double-
  density.  Apparently they think that anyone cares about single-density
  anymore.  I intend to dig up the information and have V9t9 support 99/4A
  disks in a PC drive sometime in the future.  (If you have such
  information, in the way of direct FDC commands, please contact me!)
  This emulation may be limited to a system of copying the 99/4A disk into
  a disk image, and then copying it back to the disk later.


  Ŀ
                    SOMEONE ALTERED THE ARCHIVE!!! 
  

       If you read DISTRIB.TXT and found that your archive isn't the
  vision I had when I originally released it, please tell me, especially
  if it includes any TI ROM files.  I have a legal obligation not to let
  unauthorized ROMs be distributed, especially in an archive that appears
  to have been created by me.

       The previous versions of the emulator (which included illegal ROMs,
  by the way -- delete them if you obtained one of those versions) have
  been undergoing quite creative changes unknown to me, which both goes
  against my wishes and makes me appear to have made them.  Although there
  are no laws about "the purity of fairware archives", I'd appreciate the
  archive not being changed around beyond the changes mentioned in
  DISTRIB.TXT.


  Ŀ
                            HOW TO CONTACT ME 
  

       I'd prefer that you send comments/questions/bug reports/fraud
  reports to one of my e-mail addresses:

       swartze@southwestern.edu           (college address)
       edswartz@io.com                    

       (Disclaimer:  This project has nothing to do with Southwestern
  University.  If only academic institutions were this thought-
  provoking...)

       Please tell me what version of V9t9 you're using so I can give you
  an accurate reply (this is v6.0).  And PLEASE refer to the emulator as
  "V9t9", so I don't mistake you for a TI Emulator v4.0 or v5.01 user.
  Note that I will not wholeheartedly support archives older than four
  months.  (See DISTRIB.TXT.)

       Feel free to use casual language with me.  I'm 20 and supposedly in
  the prime of life.  Call me Edward, Ed, Eddie, Eddo, whatever; anything
  but Ralph.

       Please don't use my home address to send questions about the
  emulator.  E-mail is infinitely preferable, and it won't take two months
  to get a reply.

  
