On Sun, 8 Jun 1997, Allison J Parent wrote:
> What you missed was the ti9900 chip that was 3 years older and also 64 pins.
> FYI the ti9900 chips was a 16bit cpu!
Yes, I've since seen the guts of a TI-99/4A. I ignored it for many years,
since the time I first played with a TI-99/4 at the computer store in Las
Vegas, wrote a BASIC loop to count to a hundred and got there first
counting out loud. I've been shown since that the machine was reasonably
fast, as long as you avoided BASIC, but that was the only tool at the
time. My fiancee has three of them, one still in shrink-wrap -- she
credits a cassette-based algebra tutorial for the system is what got her
through the math requirement to get her nursing degree from Rutgers (a bit
of a joke for a guy who decided to major in math by the time he reached
4th grade in 1964, that tutorial covers material I had to know to get a
decent grade in 8th grade -- and I'd always been told that public schools
on the east coast were miles ahead of those I attended in Los Angeles, in
more than one case by one of my teachers in Los Angeles -- when I moved
from California to New Hampshire for my sophomore year of high school I
learned that Santa Claus and Jesus weren't the only things my mother lied
about when I was a kid -- but maybe the schools were better before the
federal government leveled the playing field and made them "equal" ala
Kurt Vonnegut's story "Harrison Bergeron".) All I know is that I can do a
damn sight more useful work with a TRS-80 Model 4 or Color Computer than
I've ever seen done with a TI-99 -- and I apologise for showing favoritism
in this mailing list where I know damned well I should not play such
favorites. (But I will continue to let others collect the machines with
those 6502 processors -- never had it, never will).
--
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 Sun Jun 08 1997 - 18:59:27 BST