Wrong colours in Texas Instruments TI-99/4a games

[mr_lou]

So this past weekend I finally got to sit down and play with my Texas Instruments TI-99/4a.
I'd gotten my hands on some multicartridges a while back, with a lot of games.

But as I was going through the games, I noticed a rather weird choice of colours from the developers. Like e.g. a blue background in Star Wars and Parsec rather than a black background.
Later on I find out that those games were actually supposed to have a black background. In other words, the colours were wrong on my machine.

So I'm wondering whether I plugged in the component cable wrong, or if there's a difference between American and European version of the games.
So maybe the multicartridges just contain American versions of the games. After all, I did buy them from an American. Can anyone confirm or dismiss that American versions of the games will behave like this on a European TI-99/4a?

(@Bryce, this is unrelated to my G7000 issue, although kinda "funny" to experience colour issues with 2 different machines within the same week...  should probably keep my other machines far away from these two, just in case it's contagious).

[Skunkfish]

Can colour blindness come on suddenly? Has anything in real life changed colour recently? 

[mr_lou]

Can colour blindness come on suddenly? Has anything in real life changed colour recently? 

Probably. 
However, I sent pictures of various screens to a mate who used to own a TI-99/4a, and either he had become colour blind too, or else something is wrong.
...maybe it's an epidemic....

[||C|-|E||]

I have no idea of how colors are generated in that system, but maybe it is because there is something wrong with a component in the mainboard and some ic is affected by that? I do not know what could be the culprit, though, and maybe I am just wrong... 

[00WReX]

Hi mr_lou

I have both a PAL & NTSC TI-99/4A.
Parsec on either machine is the same black background.
As I understand it, there is no difference in any official games (i.e. The games are the same for any region).
The only difference is, on an NTSC machine they run slightly faster.

I'm not sure what multicart you have or the ROM dumps that are on them.
The only thing I can suggest if possible is to try a genuine PARSEC cartridge (it was a fairly common cartridge) to see how that looks.

I suppose it could be a strange VRAM issue...I had a VRAM chip die on me, but symptoms were different.
Mine was like the Mask 11011111 picture in the following link.

http://www.ninerpedia.org/index.php?title=Troubleshooting


Cheers,
Shane

[Skunkfish]

Worth trying a different cable and/or screen I would guess.

[mr_lou]

Worth trying a different cable and/or screen I would guess.

Haven't had time yet - but the same screen was used for other computers without problems. So pretty sure it's the TI-99/4a or the cable.

[mr_lou]

Well crap.
Hooked it up again to my living-room TV, and colours are still wrong.
They're wrong in the boot-screen too. It seems that all colours are just a bit too bright really.

So, optimistically I opened it up thinking maybe I could adjust something. But no, there's nothing to adjust inside.
Attempting to put it all back together, a flat-cable from one print to another broke off.
I know I should never mess around with electronics.

[Gryzor]

Ah bummer... did you fix it? I really like that machine - but purely for the looks of it.

[Bryce]

I think this is the machine that I now have.

Bryce.

[mr_lou]

I think this is the machine that I now have.

Yup

[VincentGR]

I think this is the machine that I now have.

Bryce.

Case solved...

[Bryce]

Not yet, I won't get to look at it until the Christmas break.

Bryce.