Dragon's Lair Cartridge for the TI-99/4A Home Computer (RARE): FULL play-through on a Stock TI-99!

In this video, we'll un-box and PLAY #59 of around 150ish original Dragon's Lair games, by HarmlessLion, for the TI-99/4A Home Computer! There are a small number of released cartridges that were officially licensed by Digital Leisure and we will play the full game that you may remember from the 1983 laser disc classic -in cartridge form.
To assist me in completing the game, we'll take advantage of the practice mode where no lives can be lost. Keep in mind, any pause you see during the game-play is only the game waiting on me to press the correct move while in practice mode. There is no lag during an actual game.
*Note: Intro news report from 1983 credit goes to Rick Dyer, Don Bluth and Digital Leisure. Remaster from an old dvd by memphiselle1 (Source: • Dragon's Lair (1983 Ne... .
SUBSCRIBE for the latest TechTalk: www.youtube.co...
You can read more about the history on this project from the author blog, Tursi:
tursilion.blog...
For a fascinating exploration of how he pulled this off, please see this: docs.google.co...
AtariAge thread announcing the game's imminent availability:
atariage.com/fo...
Dragon's Lair for the TI-99/4a was announced/released on Jan 31st 2019. My copy was #59 and was received on March 14th 2019.

[@CardiacCat]

WOW. I still have my TI-99/4A to this day (and picked up another one along the way as a spare). I would have never dreamed that this would be possible on that system. And the fact that he got it all packed into a cart as well.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It still amazes me to this day, thanks for watching!

[@fitfogey]

I read how the guy made this. He’s a friggin genius. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we can get it any longer. I have a 3DO and have it for that but still would have paid the 75 bucks to get it for the TI just to witness the awesomeness. I wish he still had it for sale but it had something to do with licensing. Unbelievable stuff.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

He is definitely a genius and has a tremendous passion for the TI. He only had a license for a short time to sell the cartridges and made a limited run of around 150 or so. Towards the end, he did sell some carts-only (no box, manual, etc.) If interested, you might put a running search in ebay (forget what they call it, but monitors for keywords) and see if it ever pops up. If so, it would likely go for crazy prices. There is a link in the video description to his powerpoint that goes into detail about how he pulled it off. It was very interesting to me to see how he did it.

[@briantw]

I'm normally quite nit-picky, but this is an amazing work, in 2019! Well done to the creator!

[@jasonvoorhees895]

Wow. I had a TI-994A, and I have to be honest, I would not have thought it was capable of that. TI Invaders has always been my favorite version of the Space Invaders game.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

I also was amazed and had no idea nearly 40 years in the future I'd be playing Dragon's Lair on a TI-99/4A. Love TI Invaders, spent so many hours playing that game :) Thanks for watching!

[@darinandrade]

Thanks for showing this product. I am happy I got to see the whole thing since I may never get my hands on the cartridge. I thought it was a fake at first but its real.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

I get that a lot lately :) Folks thinking it's fake but it's real. I can guarantee, if I spend the time making a video about something that it will always be a real thing. It may be obscure, difficult to find or some custom project -but real. I too thought this game was fake, I couldn't imagine how it was possible. The more I learned about it, then got a copy of it, I knew it was all real and on a stock TI! Tursi worked some magic on this game. I think it will go down in history as the most impressive game ever created for the TI-99/4A.

[@deathstrike]

I knew the TI 99/4A was capable in its time but damn!! I have the Commodore 64, Coleco Adam, and (don't laugh) the Philips CD-i and PC. And with the exception of the PC, this blows all the 80s versions away despite better specs!!! Just wow and we thought it was a miracle Custodio Malilong made the NanoPEB, now this. Gives a whole new perspective on the power of the TI, and the 80s machines as a whole. Thank you for the video on this rare and amazing retromodern cart !!

[@Miler97487]

At the end of 1981 my father bought a TI-99/4a when I was a child (I was 9 then). I very much remember TI Invaders, Car Wars, and Blasto being the first games he bought for it. I could have never imagined this computer doing anything remotely resembling Dragon's Lair, to think this computer could have done stuff like that blows my mind. Of course there was obviously no technical know-how in the '80s to create anything remotely resembling that but in 2019, a totally different story. I'm also blown away it's loyal to the original arcade, unlike the NES port.

[@GameInterest]

This is amazing! I have a few beige TI 99/4A computers and it's always great to see new things like this.

[@magnusdiridian]

things like this make you realize anything is possible.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Yes it does! I was blown away myself

[@magnusdiridian]

@@WagnersTechTalk Now where's SPACE ACE??

[@WagnersTechTalk]

I'd love that myself, but from what I've read the developer, Tursi, said it's not in his sights.

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

very cool. the color palette just makes this more charming

[@mylessonsradio9793]

Thank you for the memories; both dragons lair and the ti-994a. I used to be on the chicago-based BBS back in the day. God. I was 10 years old, and went to school with bags under my eyes from all the hours in the middle of the night pulling down text files. Would not trade it for the world.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Glad you enjoyed it, hoping to add some additional TI content in the coming months. I remember those BBS days, they were definitely good times! Kids these days just wouldn't understand what we went through 😃

[@mylessonsradio9793]

@@WagnersTechTalk truth.

[@worldofretrogameplay6963]

What is this sorcery?!

[@jhoughjr1]

I had a TI and this is AMAZING

[@UltimateTechHub]

Man I would have loved to play this game back in 1983. I had the Ti/994a with the tape recorder for storage and the joystick. My favorite games were munch-man, Popeye and Parsec. I always thought the Ti/99ra didn't get the respect it deserved. Moonpatrol , Jungle Hunt and QBert were fun too.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

You named all my favorites right there! The Attack had some sucky music, but the games was actually fun/challenging.

[@UltimateTechHub]

@@WagnersTechTalk Yep, munch man was soooo much fun. And parsec was fun and trying to refuel was incredibly difficult to do. For some reason Popeye just played well on that system.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Yes Popeye did play well and was a really close adaptation of the Arcade version. On Parsec, I think you could press 1 or 2 to speed/slow down the ship. At full speed, it was nearly impossible to dock.

[@UltimateTechHub]

@@WagnersTechTalk Yep I could probably dock 1 out of 5 attempts. That game was ahead of its time.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

You've got a great channel, just checked it out. For some reason, YT decided to mark one of your messages, I approved it but it disappeared. Oh well, read it before it did :) Great job on your channel!

[@5HlNOBI]

Mind blown. If only we had this back in the day...... I never would have left the house. Thanks!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It is pretty awesome isn't it :)

[@ldisc66]

I'm no TI99/4A guy but holy cow this just blew my mind! The packaging, the game, simply amazing!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It truly is amazing! Tursi did an incredible job with the game, packaging and everything. I never would have thought it was possible on the TI unless I had seen it for myself. You may / may not be interested in this, but there was a new device I recently reviewed for the TI-99/4A as well called a TIPI (technically, released 2 years ago, but updated to fit into a speech synthesizer housing). What's amazing is that it allows the TI-99 to leverage a Raspberry Pi to access the internet, emulate 3 drives and provides a 32k memory expansion and a lot more. If interested, you can check it out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXiWn2iBfNB8o7c It's about 15 min. long and something you may find interesting. I just think it's impressive that after nearly 40 years we're seeing some incredible tech for such an old system that was orphaned soon after it was released by Texas Instruments .

[@pjcnet]

That is incredible to see, what a stunning achievement and it's so smooth and playable too, amazing.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

He did an amazing job on this, I would never have believed it was possible.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

The graphics are actually quite good for a home computer of this age and really should have been more successful than the all the other 8bit micros that were out there and if it had 512GB of RAM and a TMS99105A might have given access to fast math processing that would have appealed to the business market also.

[@pauldaniel9199]

Astounding accomplishment. As a lifelong Atari 8-bit computer fan, I have to give a huge amount of respect to this platform being able to pull this off and at a quality that is very reasonable by any measure.

[@ThePierrezx]

The TI99 was a 16 bits (TMS9900 processor).

[@mccallosone4903]

The TI was an underestimated machine with some great games. it was also 16 bit i believe. cant believe this looks so good though

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

McCallos One The GPU of the TI was a 16-bit blazingly fast processor. Look for videos of people doing fractals on it.

[@shiroshine7227]

How in the world. Looks about as good as when I ran the CD version of Space Ace on my 386 O.o

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Nuts isn't it? I couldn't believe it the first time I played it and the hardware was sitting right in front of me.

[@shiroshine7227]

@@WagnersTechTalk Hell I would be picking it up looking under it, around it, outside for aliens XD

[@JonesDylan874]

Gotta admit. This is actually impressive to see this on a very old computer with FMV! Good job to whoever made this.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Mr. Brent did, there are some links in the video description if you want to learn more about how he pulled this off.

[@johnchase7667]

Incredible

[@FrankZambaras]

OMG what did I just watch?!?!?! Simply awesome.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Amazing ain't it!

[@djb0110]

I would really wanted that back in '83.

[@jmp01a24]

I do not think the technology at that time would give you cartridges with that much memory :D

[@HereIsTheSmackDown]

imagine if this came out in 1983?

[@magnusdiridian]

if this came out in 1983 texas instruments would have stopped the video game crash (lol no, but who knows)

[@Kattywampus]

I was just trying to imagine the same thing. Me and my dad woulda played the hell out of it!

[@HereIsTheSmackDown]

@@magnusdiridian they had the tech but not the know how...

[@nifftbatuff676]

I don't think it was possible or economically viable to produce a cartridge with 128 MB data memory.

[@deathstrike]

Actually, there was a company that came VERY close to coming out with an advanced arcade module that plays high end games. That company was Coleco and the Super Games Module. But one stupid and misguided decision (thinking everyone wanted to turn their game console into a computer) created the ill fated Coleco Adam instead. What a shame, if they had only released the SGM, the playing field might look different now and gaming might even be more advanced than even now.

[@sjmeola]

pretty impressive I must say. I am really enjoying the channel. So helpful compared to so many other gaming channels.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Thank you very much! I appreciate your kind comment and for watching 👍😎

[@JohnnyProctor9]

AMAZING! I wish that thus was still available...

[@chef_boi_r_c]

This is incredible! I loved our Ti-994a as a kid. It bit the dust unexpectedly and I was dead in the water until I won a horse race at Churchill Downs and bought half my first NES. Munch-Man and Parsec were my games. Alpiner was always good for a laugh with the speech synthesizer, and all the cassette games other people would give us were fun to discover. But if I'd seen this game (DL) back then, I would have been floored. Dragon's Lair was the coolest thing to hit the arcades for a long time. It was a disappointment for me to play though. I was too young for that style game play and that many quarters. If I'd had this cartridge, I'd have been the king of the playground. I still can't get over the graphics and sound they got out of this computer.

[@johneygd]

Now that’s what i call a 16bit powerhouse game😁

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

Mind blown! This looks awesome :D

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It is pretty amazing, thanks for watching!

[@prodos8]

They must have a huge amount of rom on that cart to store all that full motion video. Very cool though.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It does have a huge amount of ROM, likely the largest ever seen on a TI. I think it's 128MB but uses closer to around 100MB for the game. Pretty amazing stuff!

[@jason.martin]

@@WagnersTechTalk What did these cartridges have when they came out? what was the max ROM available at the time? great video !

[@WagnersTechTalk]

@@jason.martin Dragon's Lair came out in 2019, previously "I think" the carts were limited to 32k - may be wrong about this. This one is pure magic, the developer did an impressive job!

[@jason.martin]

@@WagnersTechTalk It was so incredible how they could run things on such limited storage back in the day. So cool!

[@alerey4363]

and digitized audio!

[@GlensRetroShow]

It really is amazing

[@c64walkabout40]

Wow impressive. Much better than the iffy 8-bit adaptations from back in the day

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It is pretty amazing what the TI is capable of. Crazy that it's been nearly 40 years and just now seeing something like this.

[@kevismi1]

I’m more impressed by the brick on your wrist!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Funny you should mention that, I have a new brick on my wrist that I've been testing for the past month. It will be in an upcoming review video 😎 Spoiler alert: I love it! It's a stand-alone phone, 128GB of storage, 6GB of RAM, x2 cameras, WiFi, BT, etc.

[@jeffhyche9839]

My first computer was a Ti-99 4/A. This morning I would have told you there is nothing impressive about that computer. This is impressive.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Amazing isn't it? A bit more here wagnerstechtalk.com/retro-computing/

[@jeffhyche9839]

​@@WagnersTechTalk I'll check the link. But yeah, that is Amazing. ​

[@WagnersTechTalk]

TIPI in the Speech Synthesizer and FinalGrom99 are two particularly that you may enjoy. It's the kind of tech we wish we had back in the day.

[@tron3entertainment]

Since this is Dragon's Lair, I presume the use of sorcery in creating the cartridge. I know the resolution, colors and "two color limit per character" of this machine. At least, when using either version of BASIC. This clearly is bit map graphics which I believe only Assembly supports. I programmed still graphic images all the time on my TI. Due to the capabilities, friends agreed my graphics were superior to anything created on the Atari 2600. I even did the Pac Man maze, squashed to fit a 4:3 screen. It was arcade perfect. I tried to program it to play in Extended Basic, but the TI was too slow and my programming abilities too limited to figure out how to keep the ghosts in the lines. However, Pac Man did die if a coincidence was detected between sprites. He could also plod along and eat dots at about 1 every two seconds.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

That's awesome, thank you for sharing your experience programming the TI! I also created a TI game back in 1987ish called 'Tunnels of Zod'. It was a platform game, created an ad in Computer Shopper magazine and sold 1 copy. My original copy is long gone. So it may very well be the rarest game for the TI ever released :) Tursi did an incredible job with Dragon's Lair. I was totally blown away when I saw it, I wound up buying one more un-boxed copy just in case my original fails in the future. I never would have thought this would be possible on the TI.

[@tron3entertainment]

@@WagnersTechTalk - I googled it, and all I found was you talking about it on the AtariAge forum. There is a way to break the extended Basic protection feature. I remember reading about it. You could probably find it somewhere. I also spent about 6 or 7 years on and off programming "Future Finder". It was an AI program where you ask "yes or no" type questions. It may sound simple, but I kept improving the algorithm to do things like remember previous questions, even if worded a little different" or refusing to answer if you swore or swore at it. Been a number years since I dug up the program listing just to see what I wrote. I have no clue how I wrote that code, nor what half of it does any more.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

@@tron3entertainment you and I are a lot alike! Back in '87ish I was attempting to write a natural language processor similar to Eliza that would perform pattern matching and save what was learned to a cc9900 DS/DD floppy. It never got too sophisticated, you could teach it simple things and it would be able to recall what it had learned (saved to disk). But the number of patterns it understood were limited. It was still exciting for the time, at least to me. The problem with the game I wrote is that I no longer have the original copy. Years later I recorded over my master with music lol So, the only copy out there was the one I sold and I have no record of who I sold it to.

[@tron3entertainment]

@@WagnersTechTalk- More alike than you think. Before Future Finder I wrote "Common Sense Computer" which attempted a natural conversation with a "on the rails" line of questioning. What is your name, how are you, etc. I had no clue how make it more natural, especially with 16K of RAM. It was then I realized "Future Finder" would be easier. Many of the answers came from the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner getting answers with pennies from that "Mystic Seer" napkin holder. I watched it regularly, so when I saw that episode come on I wrote down the answers. Not to mention adding my own answers.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

I don't think I've seen that episode, I'll definitely check it out! It sounds like the approach you took was much better suiting for the limited resources we had at the time. I never built a pattern recognition language around what I had done, would have been possible to improve the design if I had (read the patterns from disk, process accordingly). Although, it would have slowed down processing a bit I guess. About 5 years ago I revived that concept and began creating a new NLP in .NET. It was going pretty good, I was able to ask the computer (obviously, not on the TI) simple questions, check the weather and turn lights on/off in the house using Insteon products. This worked pretty good, but I had the problem of having decent speakers to make it useful. It was around this time that Amazon released the 1st generation Echo. I scrapped my project and opted for one with far more resources than I could implement.

[@PodcastOGRU]

This looks amazing! Are there any co-processors in the cartridge or is this done using purely stock TI-99/4a?

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It is amazing! The TI used in this video is a stock TI, no VDP upgrade, no memory expansion nothing. Check out Tursi's blog here: tursilion.blogspot.com/ He goes into a lot of detail about the obstacles and how he overcame them. Be sure to see his post on Oct. 27, 2018. It's a really informative read.

[@alerey4363]

dont forget the TI-99 4A was the first 16 bit home computer! I doubt in its time the cpu was used to its full extent; this cartridge certainly is squeezing every bit of that TI 16 bit cpu!

[@sdrape4964]

I would love to get ahold of one of these! Too bad I am just now finding out about it.

[@devonwilliams5738]

This is not far behind the Sega CD version, and this was for hardware a decade older than it. I love stuff like this.

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

When that round platform drops, you don't have to jump off at the first stop.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

old habits are hard to break :)

[@trishfillet4991]

Awwe.. RIP Celebrity Sports Center.

[@craftsman123456]

Oh Celebrity sports center I miss that place probably played that very game there.

[@jwades77]

amazing, to the xtreme. back then in 84 though, some of the main 99 programmers/converters were producing below par stuff and not even trying to achieve the computers potential. such as ti-99's pole position so the texas never sold well. i mean at least they could have matched the atari 2600 version. few games excelled, only parsec as i remember.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Dragon's Lair for the TI truly is amazing and I hear what you're saying. There were some good and bad ports for the TI, though, as you mention, Pole Position did appear to be a bit rushed. Parsec was one of my favorites as well, excellent game-play and one of the best TI games from the 80's.

[@stevefrancis6898]

Imagine if this game was available for the ti when it came out. It would've changed history

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Think you're right Steve! Things previously thought impossible with these retro machines can be proven to be possible. The TI-99/4A was my first computer, I have a lot of interest in keeping up with more recent tech available it. I have a bit more here that you may find interesting as well (TIPI/FinalGrom99): wagnerstechtalk.com/retro-computing

[@greggv8]

@@WagnersTechTalk if TI programmers circa 1981 had access to the "Don't Mess With Texas" megademo and its source code...

[@PeBoVision]

According to the Sept '83 issue of BYTE, you could pick up 256 MB of ram for a measly $500 in 1983. Since prices don't scale exactly (cost per MB usually are higher for smaller total memory sizes) the ram alone would have probably have run you about $300-400. Then add your other components and standard retail mark-ups, and you might have had this cartridge for about $1000 in 1983 dollars (about $2600 in 2019 dollars) Of course 128MB of ram in 1983 would never have fit into the small form factor of a cartridge What blows me away is that this cartridge contains 500 times (!!!) more ram than the amount directly accessible to the 64 bit 9900 CPU of the stock 1980's TI (which was only 256 BYTES.) Easily the #1 "show-off" title on my Ti shelf. Although we now have games like Alex Kidd, Bump n Jump and playable Super Mario Bros level thanks to brilliant modern-day retro-system programmers, this one will remain a technical marvel for years to come.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Agreed, it's AMAZING what these talented developer's come up with. This cartridge is an absolute work of art from packaging to game-play. It's also likely one of the most rare TI cartridge available, I think only 150 were produced in the end. If you haven't seen it already, there is a link in the show notes that points to a powerpoint which Tursi created. He steps through all the details of how he made the game and obstacles he had to overcome. Definitely worth a read.

[@billyb4790]

As a huge fan of dragons lair I would have absolutely loved to have this for my TI. Such a shame they didn’t release it. I wonder why they didn’t? He graphics are amazing considering it’s off a simple cartridge.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Back in the 80's, this wasn't possible without costing tons of $. This is a cart created a few years ago, we have the luxury of cheap memory that we didn't have back then. These carts were a very limited run.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

just fyi - if you enjoy emulation, you can play DL via emulation (original arcade). Here's a video which has a few segments showing DL in RetroBat: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aom5qIKPnpWCZ7c

[@fitfogey]

Was thinking this would obviously resemble the NES port and then seeing it was like WHAT.

[@mspeter97]

How the....

[@NerdyRodent]

Wow! 😀

[@WagnersTechTalk]

The developer, Tursi, did an incredible job on this game. Amazing work on his part!

[@loganjorgensen]

Usually I'm quite critical of low production runs but yeah that is quite a niche product. ^_^ Prompts are okay by me, helps you get a feel for what the timing is, think it should have been part of DL's settings from the start. ;)

[@WagnersTechTalk]

lol, that's the only way I would have ever been able to show the whole game 😃 Any real-skill would have made it impossible.

[@Metalkorpse]

How could Nintendo not recreate the actual dragons quest but a TI 994a!!!!!!! Crazy!!!!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Pretty amazing stuff, there is a powerpoint in the description where the developer explains in detail how he accomplished it.

[@big0bad0brad]

Short answer is the cartridge would have been bigger than the console back then. It's got a 128MB chip in it, whereas I'm not sure if even 128KB chips existed at the time.

[@tomy.1846]

This is incredible! I'm astounded. What other games could this programmer get out of a Ti-994A? It was my very first computer, loved it and used to get Compute magazine for programable games, but they were usually lame and took forever to type in, lol!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It is amazing work! There is another channel, Rasmus Moustgaad (here: kzbin.infovideos ), they have done some amazing things that I honestly didn't think the TI was capable of. Same here, I remember only a few games from the TI Home Computer Magazine that I typed in and were played frequently. One of them was Camelot, it was a lot of fun. But yes, had many Compute! magazines too.

[@brianstockwell5938]

Great video! 🙂 What type of connection are you using to hook your TI AV cable to your monitor? Thanks.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Thanks! Using a composite cable+adapter instead of RF to a MiGica capture device (don't recommend the MiGica). In this video I go into the cables for the TI a bit more: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYjSfGuPfqZsmaM but it's going to a VCR in this video. The exact cable I used from the TI was this: www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/store/#!/NTSC-composite-video-cable/p/74389896/category=36152016

[@dbryan1688]

I was impressed the TI could render digitized video and audio. Will this work without the voice synthesizer?

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Yes, all that is needed is the console itself + the cartridge.

[@dbryan1688]

@@WagnersTechTalk So I guess such a cartridge has a lot greater capacity than the old school cartridges.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Definitely, this cartridge had some really impressive tech inside. Check out the guide in the video description if you want to see how the developer pulled it off, pretty amazing to go through the presentation of all the hurdles he had to go through to make it possible.

[@dbryan1688]

@@WagnersTechTalk Thanks for that suggestion. That was an impressive project.

[@dbryan1688]

@@WagnersTechTalk Are you aware of any other impressive software ports to other old computers (TI or otherwise)? Thanks

[@Kattywampus]

holy carp !!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Just a note if you're interested in picking up a rare copy of this game, the developer is selling a copy on ebay here: www.ebay.com/itm/123908004594?ul_noapp=true My assumption is that there will not be any further copies sold, but I don't know that for sure.

[@mgabrysSF]

I'm trying to figure out how the hell the TI could even address that much memory. 128mb? We're talking computers that still thought 128kb was big.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Check out the video description, I linked to a presentation from the developer that went into impressive detail about how this was done. You may find it very interesting.

[@mgabrysSF]

@@WagnersTechTalk yup - found it in the comments too. That rode a fine line between labor of love and technological masochism.

[@ilmediosu]

wow

[@larkefedifero]

What's the graphic resolution of just the part of the screen with the actual video part of the game playing? Very curious!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Check out the show notes below, there is a power point that goes into a lot more detail. If I recall correctly, it's about half the display resolution of the TI-99/4A.

[@markcooper6382]

Dude...could your watch be any larger?

[@WagnersTechTalk]

What, this one kzbin.info/www/bejne/gIelqYRmnKuahtU I'm getting old, my eyesight isn't what it used to be haha.But yeah, it's pretty big and I love it :)

[@plateshutoverlock]

Are they using a Raspberry Pi or simaler in the cartridge as the actual computer, and just using the TI for input/output?* I've seen amazing things done with vintage computers, but I find it very hard to believe this is the TI doing this all on it's own with nothing but a very large ROM cartridge. *This would be rather easy as they could just put a ram framebuffer on the cart that the TI continuously reads from as if it were rom. A simple program would be loaded in the TI's memory to copy this to the TI's video buffer as well as to pass input to the embedded computer inside the cart.

[@plateshutoverlock]

"as to pass input to the embedded computer inside the cart." This would be done as interpreting rom memory access requests at certain addresses as input for the cart's embedded computer. This has the side benefit of being able to have multiple 'serial ports' (TI to cart embedded processor) but with the downside of one port can be used at a time. They can be multiplexed, but this would slow the transfer rate down as more 'ports' are being actively used simultaniously.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

No Sir, this is a STOCK TI-99/4A running a custom ROM cartridge created by Tursi ( See this for details, he explains the entire process here : docs.google.com/presentation/d/1u7SOusjQDInq95GrEH2tmIphUAjRg-9YbhR_X25D62A/ ). No Pi, no smoke and no mirrors. I too didn't believe it at first, but since I recorded this video I can assure you it's 100% legit! It was the same stock console that you might have bought in the early 80's.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

There is an expansion system called the TIPI which does use a Raspberry Pi, I did a review on this a few weeks ago if interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXiWn2iBfNB8o7c It's also quite impressive.

[@richysradioroom]

Does this need the speech cartridge attached?

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Nope, not at all. It is amazing that not only was the video possible but the audio as well!

[@richardlamer3910]

Might be a silly question, but can this game still be had?

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Not a silly question, but unfortunately no. Only around 150 were made and they sold out really fast. I have seen 1-2 on ebay, but they go for quite a bit. Hope that helps!

[@raccoonstarsmember]

How is this possible???!!!

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Crazy isn't it? Check out the Video Description for a link with a Power Point from the developer. There he goes into all the detail on how he pulled it off. Interesting read (imo).

[@rustymixer2886]

Can I get a rom dump of this?

[@WagnersTechTalk]

I don't recall there being a rom dump for it, there is a demo of the first level that you can run on an emulator that was publicly released sometime ago. You might try the TI 99 forums on Atariage.

[@rustymixer2886]

@@WagnersTechTalk thx 🙏 a demo is good enough for my xbox ti99 emu ;)

[@kneel1]

i dont see how this works on a "stock" TI. thought it required more

[@WagnersTechTalk]

See the video description for a power point from the author. He explains it very well.

[@tomz500]

I thought TI99/4A was 16 bit

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Technically it is a 16-bit processor, but it's limited by an 8-bit multiplexer and only 256bytes of scratch pad RAM available to the processor.

[@quincy1048]

THis was never a fav of mine at the arcade. I thought game play there was too slow too canned...but this is a awesome port...really makes those who did sad pacman ports look bad.

[@joshi_6887]

Does this work at full speed in a PAL machine or the audio/gameplay is slowed down?

[@WagnersTechTalk]

I honestly don't know, I don't own a PAL machine. AFAIK - should run fine, but they are very rare. I think Tursi wound up making ~150 of them.

[@tursilion]

I'm not sure if anyone tested it, but as I understand it the CPU clock is the same on both PAL and NTSC. The VDP clock is detached from the CPU in the TI hardware, and Dragon's Lair doesn't use the VDP blanking interval for anything. My expectation is it should run the same speed.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

@@tursilion Thank you for your clarification Sir! Amazing work my friend.

[@joshi_6887]

Wagner's TechTalk I’m sorry but they are common enough not to cost 300+

[@petitvalerie4094]

I love TI 99 games. But, i have one of the best version of Dragon’s lair, the CD-i version. And it is NOT a good game. It is more a graphic demonstration, the game play is impossible. If you want this game, buy a cd-i player and the cd-i version.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Appreciate your feedback!

[@mrkirk4944]

While this is impressive, $75 for 12 minutes of grainy entertainment, when you can play the original arcade roms on a Raspberry Pi costing around $35.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

It's a matter of perception. From a TI-99 standpoint, it's incredible to know what it's capable of. Sure, quality is much better on the actual hardware or on a RPi but it is a great demonstration of what could have been almost 40 years ago. For someone who grew up learning to code on the TI, it's absolutely worth it. Only around 150 carts are in existence too, which makes it a very rare item. You'd have to have a love for the machine and experience with the type of games that were released back in the day to see the value of this though.

[@mrkirk4944]

@@WagnersTechTalk I own a UK Ti99/4a, mini PEB, Flashrom 99, and Finalgrom 99, plus a few original tapes and carts. Even though this is a impressive achievement, it's not worth anywhere near $75, and that is the purchased price for those who got one, the price these go on ebay is seriously mental. I can understand collecting them, but for the money you can get a arcade-perfect experience for much less, especially if you connect a Pi to a CRT.

[@WagnersTechTalk]

Got all that. I know a little about Pi's: wagnerstechtalk.com/rpi4/ and a bit about Emulation: wagnerstechtalk.com/rg350tips/ and have setup DL on the Pi as well. BUT, agreed- I would not pay the outrageous scalper prices on ebay for one, even if I didn't own two copies already. Very happy to have a copy, something that will be even more rare when I pass it on to my kids someday. Plus, I enjoy supporting the Retro Computing community. The TIPI is another great example of an amazing community-created device for the TI-99/4a and of course uses a RPi. See if you find this more to your liking: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3-zioqbeN1gos0