About the link.. I constructed it the other day. I had tried it before and I soldered in the diodes backwards :) But, this time it works great sending to and from my 85 and 92!!! It is really awsome.. first of all... I know zip about electronics and still was able to make it, and my soldering iron was nothing more than a glorified hot nail that plugged into the wall... reeeaaaallllllly old one :) What I bought at Radio Shack in my local mall: 1. 50V, 1A Micromini Silicon diodes (2) Cat. number: 276-1101 price: $0.49 2. 25-Postition D-Subminiature Solder-type connector Cat. number: 276-1547b proce: $1.49 3. Shielded Metalized Hood for 25-position D-subminiature connectors Cat. number: 276-1536a price: $1.99 4. Hook-Up Wire 22Awg stranded, size:22.8m (There were 3 25ft rolls) Cat. Number: 278-1224 proce: $4.49 The only reason I bought the wire was because I had none at my house. If you have something that will fit into the holes on the back of the connector, just use it so without the wire, it ended up costing me right at 4 dollars Pretty good deal when you look at Ti's that costs $50 :) other materials that I already had: 1. The soldering iron and soldering stuff 2. electrical tape 3. My Ti Calc-Calc link that came with my 85 4. Scissors 5. An upside down paper plate that I could work on while I was watching TV :) 6. And of course... Mentos: The Freshmaker! :) Ok here is detailed info about what I did: First I went ahead and cut the ti-ti cable about 3/4 away from one end. On the long piece, I stripped the ends of the read and white wires, and then I "twirled" the ends of each so that the strands were not going every where... I just basically made each exposed wire look like one solid wire instead of a ton of little ones I then cut some of the wire that I purchased: one I cut anout 7 inches, and the other two I cut about 5 inches I then stripped both ends of each of the wires to expose the copper. I then "twirled" the ends of each so they the each looked like a solid wire on the end. Then I took my soldering iron, and plugged it in. ( I popped in a Mentos about this time, cuz I was getting ready to really start some serious work :) I took some of the soldering iron and heated it up and applied it VERY lighlty to the ends of each wire over the copper. Now they looked silver instead of Copper. Next thing I did was bend the diodes.. I"ll try to explain this the best that I can. Since the wires must come out of the back of the shield in the middle I had to bend them like this Before: | (top really long also) after: | | | | | ------- ------- | | | | | | | | | | | | |-----| |-----| |/////| |/////| ------- ------- | | | | | | | ------------ | | | | | | | | | | The /////'s are the grey marks on the end of the diodes I used. The grey mark just desgnates the cathode. so... basically I bent them so that they did this: |diode | | | shield| | | / ||| \ / ||| \ | |___ | | || ----------- (I laid the interface on on side of the shield to make sure that the diode bent out of the hole properly, then I reomoved that half of the shield again.) I did this with both of them and made sure that they bent out of the hole ok Then I put some soldering iron on the cathode end(grey mark end) of the diodes like I did with the wires... not all the way up, just about a centimeter Next: I soldered each of the wires into the proper pin hole, the 7 inch one in pin number 22, the other 2 in pin numbers 12 and 13 then I soldered in the dioides, grey mark down, into pin numbers 2 and 3. the end soldered in was the end that was bent.. so that it bent its way out of the back of the shield. I then moved wire 12 next to the other end of the diode from pin 2 and stripped the wire a little bit below where the end of the diode met the wire. I then circled the exposed wire (pin 12) around the end of the diode(pin 2), and then soldered them together. Then I put electrical tape around that part of the wire where the met. Now mark this combination wire in some way so that you know which pin the wire and the diode came from. This is really important later. Well call the combined diode-wire the "White diode-wire". Then, I took the other wire (pin 13) and di the same thing as above, except this time with the other diode (pin 3). Make sure you have this diode-wire combination marked to. We'll call this one the "Red diode-wire". then I put electrical tape around the end of the diodes that were soldered in and at the ends of the wires soldered in. This was very hard to do since you are working with a REALLY small place. You HAVE GOT TO make sure that now metal is exposed. If the metal from one wire touches another, the link will not work. I then took the whole contraption and placed it into the shield and screwed the shield on. I then put more tape around all 3 wires emerging from the back of the shield (The redi diode wire, the white diode wire, and the wire from pin number 22) just to make sure that they were stable. I then took the ti-ti link that I prepared earlier out. I wrapped the exposed wire from the link (the one with no shielding at all... the just copper one) aroung the end of the wire that came from pin 22. I soldered this together, then put some electrical tape around this to make sure it stayed together ok. Then I took the "Red-diode" wire from the parrallel inter face and wrapped the exposed end around the exposed end of the read wire in the ti-ti cable. I soldered this together and put some electrical tape around it. I then took the "white-diode" wire and wrapped it around the exposed white wire of the ti-ti link, then soldered them together, then put tape around it. I then taped the three wires emerging from the link together to make sure everything was stable. Then I stood back and began to pray that this thing would work :) I plugged it into my parrallel port, then rand the linktest.exe that I got from the unofficial calc-ti page and everything read like it was supposed to be!! (http://dnclab.Berkeley.EDU/~smack/ti/getlink.html#link) Then for the 92 I started up link92xp, then entered setup and changed my lpt port to lpt1. Start with lpt1 and try to send stuff, and if it doesn't worke, tyr a different one, but it should work ok on lpt1. You can only send 92@ files to your 92, so I downloaded the converter and it worked perfectly. Then for my 85: first you have to rename the .85p files and .85s files, and whatever else to .85g. The only things that you do not have to rename are the .85g's and the .85b's I started link85xp, then chose the utils menu, then system set up. I set it to the lpt port that mine was at (lpt1). Start with lpt1 and move up until you find the one that yours is at by trying to send a program to the software from your calc. (You must choose receive on the menu, then choose a group file if you are just sending a variable or a program, or a backup if your are gonna send a back up.) Once you get it configured correctly, have fun! I first back up my calc, then I cleared the memory. Then I downloaded Zshell and sent it to my 85 :) It is AWSOME!!! tetris rocks, and the Link to link Zpong is awsome! The talk program is really cool too. I suggest just downloading the archive from the ZShell page at the Unofficial Ti page that has all Zshell programs in it, then test em out :) the x10c(whatever) is awsome too, but it caused my calc to crash (I have ROM 9.0) If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask There are probably a ton of spelling errors in here... I hope you got the gist of it tho :) BTW: I used courier new font while writing this message, so if the ASCII pics look a little messed up, switch over to courier new