Confession: I bought three TI99/4A computers.
I don't know what came over me. I suppose TI machines had always intrigued me, just being so different and early (for 16-bit devices). And I've never seen one in operation.
And so, while on EBay (shopping for a ThinkPad), I lowballed a TI listing, and was rejected. I then further lowballed (even more than before) three other offers -- thinking that maybe one will go for it, and... But, they all agreed.
So now I am the owner of three TI boxes -- two metal-cased ones and one plastic, newer one. I suppose I should've studied the market more and looked at sold auctions in detail. But whatever, I will now have some spare parts, and somewhere in the back of my mind I kind of want to maybe build a homebrew TMS9900/TMS9918 computer, for no good reason...
The first one came in today - the plastic one. The keyboard feels pretty bad, but I think the earlier metal models had a better keyboard. I now have to clean up and make room to at least test the damn thing. My lab is in a dismal state -- I can barely walk in there, and I use a different room to work in because of the mess. I really need to clean up as I find myself unable to do anything when surrounded by clutter.