Comment by 🚀 stack
Re: "Confession: I bought three TI99/4A's"
Yeah it was a 16-bit computer they introduced in 1979. The CPU was more like a mini -- no registers but you can set a part of RAM to be registers. You can change that on a per-user basis creating a multi-user system. But it only had 256 bytes of 16-bit RAM, the rest (16K?) was 8-bit ram addressed via the graphics chip, making it kind of slow for no good reason.
It also supported a daisy-chained expansion bus where you could plug in many peripherals (some people built chains several feet long) -- or a giant peripheral expansion cage that needed two people to lift.
Jan 10 · 4 months ago
5 Later Comments ↓
👻 darkghost · Jan 10 at 02:40:
The predecessor was the TI 99/4 which was taken off the market for the RF modulator emitting too much RFI. The 4a is much improved. There was a TI 99/2 which is a low cost low spec BASIC machine intended to complete with the Timex Sinclair, but it came out after. Also later is the portable CC40 which bears some resemblance to the much more common Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 but worse.
I'll add I really wanted one of these based on what I saw. I ended up with a Tandy Color Computer (better CPU but worse graphics and sound). It did change my life though.
👻 darkghost · Jan 11 at 11:32:
I wound up with an Atari 65XE. Being a snot nosed kid, I played games on it. My uncle had the TI 99/4a and I did practice what little BASIC I knew on it. I don't recall using any of the storage options so it never got too involved.
🚀 stack [OP] · Jan 11 at 17:50:
@darkghost: I worked all summer to save up for an Atari 400, bought from Hassids in Brooklyn. After 20 minutes or so something inside got hot and created a lot of screen noise. They would only exchange it if I paid a bit more for an 800, which was well worth it for the keyboard.
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Original Post
— spell.mywire.org:1960/~stack/0256.gmi
Confession: I bought three TI99/4A's — Any TI99/4A fans out there?