Two-Chip 32k in the TI-99/4A Console – by Mike Brent

Updated: 27 Jul 2016

The purpose of this modification is to provide a simpler, faster to install, and more reliable 32k
mod for the TI-99/4A than the conventional 16-bit mods. While this mod does not provide the
performance enhancement of the 16-bit versions, it requires far fewer connections and does
not require any cut traces – it can be removed simply by removing the two chips and the
wires.

The mod consists of a single 32k x 8 static RAM chip, in my case I used the CY7C199-35PC.
This is a 35nS part – slower parts should also work fine. It also uses a 74LS21 Dual 4-Input
AND gate. Both of these parts are available at Jameco, as of Nov 7, 2014, with these part
numbers:

CY7C199 – Part number 242376 - $1.95 each -

https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_242376_-1

74LS21 – Part number 47108 - $0.59 each -

https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_47108_-1

Also make sure you have some fine wire, soldering iron, and solder. This will take 1-2 hours
for most people. You can see that the cost will come in under $3 – that's a far cry from 30
years ago!!

Two “piggyback”s are used to attach the ICs to the console and to reduce the number of wires
needed. Unfortunately not as many lines match up as I would like, in part because most of the
chips inside the console are on the wrong side of the multiplexer. In that respect the 16-bit
mod was almost easier to layout! But never fear, we still don't have too far to go. Now,
regarding finding the chips – I have a photo at the end you can reference. Also, when I say
'beside' in this document, I am only talking about next to the long end of an IC, never the short
ends!

First we'll hook up the 74LS21. Bend out all the pins except pins 12 and 14 (use the diagram
above if you need help mapping them). I find it helpful to trim the bent pins as well, so that
only the fat part remains. Don't trim the un-bent pins!

First we need to connect some of the pins on this chip together. Run a short wire connecting
pins 2 and 12 (note this pin is not bent out!). Run a second short wire connecting pins 5 and
10. Finally, we need a third run connecting pins 1, 4, and 14 (note this pin is not bent out!)

Next we need to find a 74LS138 on the TI motherboard. If you look near the edge connector,
there are two of them side-by-side. We want the one closest to the edge connector, and it's
right between a 74LS04 and a 74LS244.

We need to connect some wires to the 74LS138 on the board before we piggy back onto it
(it'll be harder if we wait!) Attach short wires to the following pins (leave them floating, don't
connect them together): 7, 8, 9, 10 (the four pins at the end farthest from pin 1).

Now take your 74LS21, and line it up with the top of the 74LS138. Pin 1 goes the same
direction on both chips! Pin 14, which is sticking down, should overlap pin 16 of the 74LS138,
and there should be one extra row of pins sticking out at the far end of the 74LS138 (where
you attached the wires). Solder pins 14 and 12 to the 74LS138 below (they will end up at pins
16 and 14).

Now, working around the 74LS21, we'll hook up the rest of the wires.

Pin 1 should already be connected to pins 4 and 14.

Pin 2 should already be connected to pin 12.

Pin 3 does not get connected.

Pin 4 should already be connected to pins 1 and 14.

Pin 5 should already be connected to pin 10.

Pin 6 needs a long wire attached – long enough to reach halfway across the 9900. Don't hook
up the other end right now.

Pin 7 should be attached to the wire coming from the 74LS138's pin 8.

Now up the other side:

Pin 8 needs a long wire attached – long enough to reach halfway across the 9900. Don't hook
up the other end right now.

Pin 9 should be attached to the wire coming from the 74LS138's pin 7.

Pin 10 should already be attached to pin 5, HOWEVER, you must also attach it to the wire
coming from the 74LS138's pin 9.

Pin 11 does not get connected.

Pin 12 should already be connected to pin 2 (and 12 is soldered to the 74LS138 directly
below).

Pin 13 is attached to the wire coming from the 74LS138's pin 10.

Pin 14 should already be connected to pins 1 and 4.

That completes the 74LS21.

Technical Explanation
This chip provides the address decoding and selection logic for the RAM chip. The 74LS138
underneath is called a 1-of-8 decoder – it takes the 3 top address lines in the TI's address
bus, and outputs a single line signal indicating which area of memory is being accessed,
divided into 8k blocks. 8K x 8 = 64k, so this covers the entire memory space. The address bits
are entered on pins 1-3, with the following table showing which pin goes active (low) for the
corresponding address:

7 >E000
9 >C000
10 >A000
11 >8000
12 >6000
13 >4000
14 >2000
15 >0000

In the TI console, the lines corresponding to RAM addresses, specifically

>2000,>A000,>C000 and >E000, are not connected. The 32k card in the PEB uses it's own
decode logic to decide when to respond. This lets us lift the signals for our own use. Of the
32k, the range >2000->3FFF represents the “low” 8k of RAM, and >A000->FFFF is the “high”
24k of RAM. So we need to respond to all of these signals.

The 4-input AND gate makes this quite easy. To select the RAM chip, we need a 'low' signal,
and the 74LS138 outputs 'low' on the active range. An AND gate outputs 'high' if all of its
inputs are 'high', and 'low' otherwise, so, all we do is feed the inputs for each of the four areas
we are interested in. That gives us this truth table:

>2000 >A000 >C000 >E000 Output

1 1 1 1 1
0 1 1 1 0
1 0 1 1 0
1 1 0 1 0
1 1 1 0 0

Since any other memory area will result in the four lines we care about being high, this is
enough to select when our 32k chip should respond.

The second problem we have is making sure all 4 areas select a different 8k block in the 32k
chip. In the 16-bit console mod, this problem is ignored by using 64k chips and just wasting
half the space. I admit it took some head scratching to work it out, but it turns out that the
second half of the AND gate was just what we needed!

The address lines A0, A1 and A2 select one of eight blocks of memory. For the four banks we
are interested in, A1 gives us the cleanest division. It is 0 for banks >2000 and >A000, and it
is 1 for banks >C000 and >E000. In order to generate the other bank divisor, we only need to
differentiate these two areas. By ANDing the selects of >2000 and >C000, we get that result,
getting 0 for banks >2000 and >C000, and 1 for banks >A000 and >E000. This is confusing in
text, but hopefully this table makes it more clear:

Address A1 >2000 Select >C000 Select 2000 & C000 Result (A1/&)
>2000 0 0 1 0 00
>A000 0 1 1 1 01
>C000 1 1 0 0 10
>E000 1 1 1 1 11

We feed the selects for >2000 and >C000 into the inputs of the other side of the dual-AND
gate, and tie the two extra inputs high so that they always read as '1'. The two result pins will
be used to select the 8k block in the 32k chip to be used for each area. (Note that since the
'select' will not be active for other addresses, it doesn't matter in the above table what their
results would be).

Back to work!

Next we need to install the RAM chip, the CY7C199. Due to its size, and the need to go after
the multiplexer on the 8-bit bus, there are not many places to piggyback the chip and reduce
the number of wires. Ultimately I decided to take the address bus from the 9900, since we got
one extra unbent pin versus mounting it on the data bus directly.

Bend out pins 9, 11-14, and all pins on the second side of the chip (15-28). 9 pins will be left
down. Clip the thin parts off of the bent legs, but not the unbent ones!

Locate the 9900. It should be pretty easy – it is the most prominent chip on the board! We are
going to attach the RAM along the same side as pin one (that is, if you are looking at it so that
the part number is readable, it will go along the bottom.

You will have to count carefully, there is no simple alignment here. Pin 1 of the CY7C199 will
face the same direction as the 9900, but it will attach at pin 14 (which is A10 of the 9900).
Solder the 9 straight pins from the CY7C199 to the 9900 pins below. Double-check your
counting before you solder, it's a pain to remove!

Now we can walk around the CY7C199 and do the rest of the pins:

Pin 1 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 2 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 3 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 4 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 5 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 6 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 7 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 8 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

Pin 9 should be attached to the long wire you ran from the 74LS21 pin 6.

Pin 10 should already be connected to the 9900 below.

For the next part, find the 74LS245. If the 9900 is facing you so that you can read the text on
it, it is right above the top left corner of the 9900, with a 74LS373 right next to it. We will be
attaching the data bus here, plus one extra signal, for an eventual total of 9 wires. Once you
have located it, we can proceed with the CY7C199 pins.

Pin 11 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 18.

Pin 12 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 17.

Pin 13 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 16.

Pin 14 should be connected to the 9900 pin 40 (this is a ground).

Now up the other side:

Pin 15 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 15.

Pin 16 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 14.

Pin 17 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 13.

Pin 18 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 12.

Pin 19 should be connected to the 74LS245 pin 11.

Pin 20 goes to the long wire connected to the 74LS21 pin 8.

For the next pin, we need to find a 74LS00. Again, if the 9900 is facing you so that you can
read the text, it is below the left edge of the 9900, next to a 74LS74. This is a confusing area
of the board, if you look to the left of the correct chip, after a small gap there are two more
74LS00... we want the one right beside the 74LS74. Once you have found it, we have one
wire to attach to it.

Pin 21 goes to the 74LS00, pin 11.

Pin 22 goes to the 74LS245 pin 10.

Pin 23 goes to the 9900 pin 10.

Pin 24 goes to the 9900 pin 11.

Pin 25 goes to the 9900 pin 12.

Pin 26 goes to the 9900 pin 13.

For the next pin, look back near the edge connector for the 74LS244. It is right beside the
edge connector and has no chips immediately beside it.

Pin 27 goes to the 74LS244 pin 11.

Pin 28, finally, goes to the 9900 pin 59.

Technical Explanation

This is mostly a pretty direct wiring of the RAM chip to the appropriate pins. Except for the fact
that TI numbers their bits backwards (ie: they consider bit 0 to be the MSB while everyone
else considers bit 0 to be the LSB), it's largely a direct mapping.

On the address bus, address lines A1 through A12 map to the TI's A3 through A14 – this
represents 4k of direct mapping. The least significant bit, A0/TI-A15, doesn't exist on the
9900. TI-A15 is generated by the multiplexer circuit, so we take it from the 74LS00 as a
convenient point to tap it. A14, the most significant bit on the RAM chip, is taken from the TI's
A1 (the second most significant bit), and the RAM's A13 is generated from the AND gate we
added by ANDing the >2000 and >A000 selects, as described above. Thus, these two bits
select an 8k range in the RAM, while the remaining address bits directly address inside that
range.

The data bits D0 through D7 are directly connected to the TI's D7 through D0, matching the
bit reversal. This is not really important for RAM, but it maintains consistency. We pull them
from the 74LS245, which is a buffer chip attached to the multiplexer, making sure we are on
the 8-bit side of the data bus.

Chip Enable is generated from the 4-input AND gate as described above, and is low any time
any RAM expansion address is addressed. Output Enable is permanently tied to ground so is
always active.

Finally, Write Enable is taken from the 74LS244 as a convenient place to tap it. We must use
this derived value and not the bit from the 9900, as the multiplexer generates two pulses for a
single 9900 memory cycle.

AND THAT'S ALL!

Double and triple check your pin counting, wiring, good solder joints, etc. Take a breath,
power up the system, and try SIZE in Extended BASIC to see if the RAM shows up! For best
results, run a memory tester like the Corcomp Peripheral Test cartridge, if you have access to
it. Have fun with your 32k console!
Pinouts of various chips:

Figure 1 - 74LS244

Figure 2 - 74LS138

Figure 3 - 74LS21
Figure 4 - 74LS245

Figure 5- 74LS00

Figure 6 - CY7C199
Figure 7- TMS9900NL