Moving my Collection?

From: Ward Griffiths and/or Lisa Rogers <gram_at_cnct.com>
Date: Wed Jun 4 09:37:40 1997

On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, Sam Ismail wrote:

> On a scarcely related note, has anyone ever seen (or does anyone have) a
> TI-99/4 (no "a")? I was reading an old issue of Creative Computing and

I played with one briefly at a computer store in Las Vegas back about
1980. As I recall, it has little rectangular chicklet keys. When I
typed in a simple loop to count and display the numbers from one to
one hundred and I was able to get there first by counting out loud I
gave up on the machine and never looked at one again until I moved in
with a TI-99/5A fan five years ago -- and I still don't look at them
much, they're Lisa's machines.

> they mentioned the 99/4 in an article about the 4a. They also mentioned
> a system called the 99/8 (I think it was that) that was built but never

There's a description and some pictures of the 99/8 on:
<http://w3.gwis.com/~polivka/998.html>

> released because TI decided to get out of the home computer market. It

TI didn't exactly "decide" to do this. There's a semi-accurate
article in the current (June '97) Computer Shopper on the history of
the TI-99. I have my own memories of what effect had on the stock
prices of companies in the small computer business back when the word
got out that TI was losing money on every machine sold hoping to make
up the difference in overpriced peripherals (which of course, third
parties were able to provide cheaper).

> was a great article about the price wars between TI and Commodore. It
> talked about how the TI 99/4a started at $1395 and eventually wound its
> way down to $49 over the course of 2 years in competition with the
> VIC-20. I'm amazed the 99/4a still has such a following. It was like
> the Hyundai of the 80s home computer market.

That last year or so, it was more like the Yugo.
--
Ward Griffiths
"America is at that awkward stage.  It's too late to work within 
the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe
Received on Wed Jun 04 1997 - 09:37:40 BST

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