Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Hey, sorry for the double post but I remembered I had a better calculator that wasn't 7 years old and dysfunctional. This one seems to be recording much better. While I'm not sure if the ringing is 100% gone, as it still sounds a bit better to me with headphones directly going into the calculator, the audio is nowhere near as off as before.

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Hi, this makes me think, since you're not the first to report this "ringing" problem. I think what might be happening is that there could be an unhealthy clash between HT's sample rate and the sample rate of the recording device. Though I see you already recorded at 48 KHz, which in theory should be enough to mitigate such issues. Still, try to record at 44.1 KHz just to see what happens.
Also, the usual advice - a fresh set of batteries will improve the sound. Furthermore, it appears that some mixers/recording devices are too "noisy" (ie. they leak too much phantom voltage) whichwill cause slowdown on some calcs. Does your calc appear to play faster with headphones plugged in vs. your line-in?

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

guess who found a working ti83 in the local charity shop for £10 tongue   ht2.30 works like a dream on it - think that's my commute to work activity sorted for a good couple of weeks at least! just wanted to say thanks once again for a great piece of software and for showing me how to make tunes on it last year. hopefully i'll have something made in time for winter chip that's currently on (if they add wildchip category, that is)

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

I guess my previous post didn't go through. I have a TI-82 and a TI-GRAPH LINK USB and am trying to get HT2 running. I keep getting errors about the computer not being able to find the device. Anyone run into that?

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Hi, I need some more info. Which transferrer software are you using and what OS are you on?
Also, plug a sound cable into your calc and confirm that you are getting a low humming noise on both stereo channels.

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

utz wrote:

Hi, I need some more info. Which transferrer software are you using and what OS are you on?
Also, plug a sound cable into your calc and confirm that you are getting a low humming noise on both stereo channels.

Hey utz, thanks for replying. I'm on Windows 10, running TiLP (and have GTK 2.24). I don't have a 2.5mm headset, but I can confirm that when I plug in the USB cable, Windows does identify it as "TI-GRAPH LINK USB" but also says "the drivers for this device are not installed."

I do have an olllld Linux netbook. I thought maybe if I can't get this working on the Windows machine, I'll try on Linux.

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

You need to force USB driver installation with Zadig. See the TiLP Windows readme for details. If that doesn't work, then yeah maybe it's easier to use that Linux netbook. Anyway, let me know if you have any success with the Zadig thing, so I can perhaps add a note to the HT manual about this.

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

utz wrote:

You need to force USB driver installation with Zadig. See the TiLP Windows readme for details. If that doesn't work, then yeah maybe it's easier to use that Linux netbook. Anyway, let me know if you have any success with the Zadig thing, so I can perhaps add a note to the HT manual about this.

Damn, I skipped over that part of the Readme. I had read the part about what to do if you have installed the official TI software and stopped. Whoops!

I installed Zadig, installed the driver they mentioned in the TiLP readme, and my laptop now says that the calculator has a driver installed. However, now when I run TiLP, I can't figure out how to have it bring up my TI-82. I've done their scan and tried changing through all the ports but it's not coming up. This process is making me feel super stupid hahaha

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Just hard-set everything in the "Change Device" dialogue. So cable = SilverLink, port is #1 (usually), calc is TI-82, of course. I think TiLP doesn't auto-detect the 82. Or do everything via command line
tilp ti82 SilverLink CRASH.82B
which usually gives more useful error messages anyway.

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

utz wrote:

Just hard-set everything in the "Change Device" dialogue. So cable = SilverLink, port is #1 (usually), calc is TI-82, of course. I think TiLP doesn't auto-detect the 82. Or do everything via command line
tilp ti82 SilverLink CRASH.82B
which usually gives more useful error messages anyway.

Thanks for your patience on this - I'm in! I kept getting weird errors along the way (command prompt was saying another driver wasn't installed) and TiLP would either just stare back at me or give me "null" errors. But I just had to keep reading and re-reading. Thanks again for walking me through!

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Glad to hear that. Could you tell me what exactly you had to do to get it working in the end? Generally TiLP+Win10 seems to be rather wonkey, so it might be a good idea to document user's findings in the manual.

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Hey utz,

definitely need a little troubleshooting help! Im using windows 10 and i can force my TiLP to recognize my TI84+ through zadig, but following the manual my TiLP doesnt have a File option to then send my shell and files to my calculator. When I go to the shell program (dcs7) and directly run it through TiLP is says  "failed to open the USB device.
Cause: Check that the USB cable is plugged in and that the calculator is turned ON! Also, check libusb and usbfs for valid permissions.
System: (1971734128) The system cannot find the file specified."

Im not sure if im close or not to getting this all to run smoothly. I've tried resetting my calculator, and im using a black cable with a "P" imprinted on cable that connects directly into my TI84+. Any help would be appreciated, hope everyones safe and well!

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

That's odd, that File send option should be there even if the calc is not recognized.
Can you post a screenshot, perhaps?

114 (edited by kc4595 2020-04-19 17:07:26)

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Of course, lemme know if this screenshot suffices

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Huh, no menu at all. Something's definitely borked here. Which version of TiLP are you using, and which version of the GTK2 runtime is installed?

Also, could you try this in a command prompt:

tilp ti84+ DirectLink path\to\DoorsCS7.8xk

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

In command prompt the response was "tilp is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file"

Gtk says 2.12.9-2

For the TiLP i downloaded the TiLP II Win32 version

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

You need to qualifiy the path where tilp2 is installed, then. You can use the Tab key to auto-expand names. So, if your tilp installation is in C:\My Programs\tilp\, you do something like

My<Tab>\ti<Tab>\tilp ti84+ ...<Enter>

I think you have the very old version of TiLP from http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilp/. (Unfortunately they haven't updated the site in like, a decade.)
Might be better to get a more recent one from https://github.com/debrouxl/tilp_and_gfm/releases. first uninstall the old version and the Gtk runtime. Second, you will probably need to install the required version 2.24 of Gtk manually. You can get the installer here. After installing the new TiLP, you may or may not need to run Zadig again, as described in https://github.com/debrouxl/tilp_and_gf … DME.win32.

118 (edited by kc4595 2020-04-20 23:58:47)

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Update: was able to get it up and running 100%! Much much appreciated! Currently have HT2 on my TI-84+ and I'm very excited!

So on my windows 10 pro this is the link for the TiLP that worked for my computer https://sourceforge.net/projects/tilp/ and after using zadig 2.5 exe and following the manual the TiLP was up and running with the "File" and other options there. This is also the link that successfully worked for me for the Gtk

https://sourceforge.net/projects/gtk-wi … autoselect

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Quick question: wrote a sequence on my ti84+ and after saving it all i hear is a drone of the first note in the sequence and I can't seem to make it stop. The only way to restore HT2 is to crash my calculator and reinstall the program. Reloading the save file doesnt change anything. Anyone share a similar experience?

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Ok, 2 wild guesses:

1. You are in Hold mode (can be toggled with [CLEAR])
2. Your speed is set to 0 for some reason. Do you have all columns filled in the sequence?

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Houston Tracker 2 is mentioned in this article about the history of trackers:
https://www.musictech.net/guides/essent … -trackers/

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Ha, neat. Good timing, too: Recently a new developer started contributing. He fixed the play icon (didn't even remember there was one lol) and, to my utter amazement, managed to squeeze some more bytes from the compressed font.

Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Yo! I guess I'm the "new developer" referenced above smile I was (and still am) just amazed about HT2 and what it can do! When trying to learn all the features of it I made this cover a classic C64 song. Also made a visualizer to let the tracker come to life in the video. Could be good to see the inner workings of a track.
I listened to each voice of the original and tried to replicate as close as possible. To make it fit I needed to use arpeggios and several fx per step, so the "extended fx" (macro) feature was used a lot. For the snare drum I converted two percussion sounds from the original C64 song into the two user sample locations, and then used the D fx to make them a bit varied.
YouTube video

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

wow! is this achievable on the ordinary zx spectrum?

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Re: HoustonTracker 2 (TI-82/83/83+/84+)

Well. TI is 6 MHz, vs Spectrum's 3.5 MHz. So it's not possible to port this engine as such. On the other hand, the rra/out/rra/out... trick I'm using in many newer ZX engines is not possible on TI (because bits must be set in a specific way when writing to the "beeper" port - so before each OUT there must be an AND+OR). So Spectrum can do some funky tricks that TI can't.

Also welcome aboard @tuesockor, great to have you around and thanks again for the awesome video!