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I made a cart for my TI-99/4a (and other things)

tinsmith

Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2022
Messages
28
Location
Michigan
I never had a TI-99/4a growing up, but I'm a proud owner of a boring beige one now! I decided mine needed a good home instead of stuffed under our single tv, and found an old microwave caddy that I converted to a "game cart thing," housing a Windows 7 PC and formerly my PS4 (has since been sold). There's a bucket in the cabinet that has a bunch of those plug and play retro-cade games like a PacMan joystick and Atari collection, too. If you're interested in reading more about fixing up the cart, you can head to my little corner of the Internet.

PS: Sorry for the bad photo quality. The camera on my phone is all I have to work with at the moment, but I want to get something to take better pictures so I can get a bit more serious with my project write-ups.
 

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Love the way that came out. Has me thinking movable carts for everything .... Very cool! Where to find enough microwave carts xD. I'll keep my eyes out for laminate big enough and wheels. 👍
 
Did you paint it or use vinyl wrap? Guess im buying a router now lol. Where to source that edging cheap... Want at least 10 of them but wide enough for an XT. Love the idea. :)

Would be a great way to display stuff, and slide away what you dont need at that time.
 
Did you paint it or use vinyl wrap? Guess im buying a router now lol. Where to source that edging cheap... Want at least 10 of them but wide enough for an XT. Love the idea. :)

Would be a great way to display stuff, and slide away what you dont need at that time.
I did paint it white (black inside) and used an enamel to give things a little extra strength against scuffs and whatnot, since it would be moved around the house. My wife thought it looked a bit boring, so used her Cricut to make some vinyl graphics, which came out pretty nice (see photos). I have a little chair I pull up to play with it, but it can be wheeled to the couch to play with the Windows computer inside.

As for the edgebanding, I purchased a roll from Amazon. If you find a cart, you want to pay attention to the different sizes. This cart was made with 5/8" pressboard, so I had to get 5/8" edgebanding. Also, the pressboard doesn't router well at the edges, in my experience, so I didn't even try with this. I just used a sharp blade to easily slice off the part of the edgebanding that typically gets inserted in a groove, and used some quick setting epoxy to glue it on. Worked like a charm.

I should take a photo of it all opened up, since the inside houses a Windows 7 computer, and two bins full of cd-rom games from the era, plus a bunch of cartridges for the TI-99/4a. There's also a few of those plug-and-play systems that had Atari games built into the controller and whatnot, and just plugged in via composite cables.
 

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