TI-99/4A Comments

From: BNICALEK_at_aol.com <(BNICALEK_at_aol.com)>
Date: Tue Jun 10 14:08:46 1997

To clarify some statements that have already been made on the TI-99/4A, I'd
like to comment:

<< True, that's bizarre... they appear to be especially common in the
 northwest. But just try to find a PEB! >>

There were approximately 1+ million consoles manufactured by Texas
Instruments from 1981 through early 1984. There were also approximately
250,000 Peripheral Expansion Systems also manufactured. So, while it's true
there were more consoles, PEB's are not hard to find.

<< What I need is the Speech Editor cartridge! >>

To Jeff Hellige - these are little rare to find, but are still available. I
got mine for around $20 from someone in California. But, you can call up any
vendor and get them from around $25-30, due to their rarity.

<< Personally, my opinion of the TI-99/4a varies from stupid piece of shit
to semi-decent machine. Today I feel like stupid piece of shit. It was
almost completely closed, it's BASIC sucked and was slow, it's keyboard
sucked, and if it wasn't for the hordes of TI-99 faithfuls it would've
been just a footnote. I don't understand what the big attraction was,
but then, I came from the world of Apple ][, to which nothing could
compare (uh oh, here come the holy wars). >>

To Sam -- The TI-99/4A, in my opinion, is at the very least a semi-decent
machine. The BASIC interpreter is what slowed things down a bit, but you
have to look at it from a different perspective - no PEEKs or POKEs just to
program graphics and/or sound, like some other machines (no, I'm good enough
not to mention any names). The keyboard did "suck" compared to that of a PC,
but it was very simple - especially suited towards children. From my own
experience, I found the keyboard easy to use compared to a Commodore 64 - the
touch response was better. The big attraction came from the fact that it was
16-bit, had full color, sprites (smoothly-moving objects), excellent speech
synthesis, easy to use cartridges, and expandability. Some of the games were
amazing (like Parsec and Alpiner) - way ahead of its time. And you can do
word processing and spreadsheets with it as well.

<< Even the original PC was really bad, mostly closed design. They
were all noteable as it told marketers what would fly and what had to be
there. Amusingly the ti has what every P5 box has today, graphics, sound,
games so they weren't that far off <in a perverse sort of way>. >>

Allison -- I couldn't agree with you more. The TI-99/4A was an amazing
machine when you look back at all the components and features it had. It's
still easier than my P120 I'm using to type this message - as there's no
icons to click, no finagling around to get where you need to go or to do
this. Just press 2 keys and you're in the program with the TI. Now that I
call ease-of-use!

<< EVERYONE knows that MY COMMODORE 64 is WAY better than YOUR APPLE! >>

To Les -- Yes, the Commodore 64 IS better than the Apple - I must admit!

---------------------
And to Bill and others -- So you can begin to see with all these replies that
people at least knew about the TI-99/4A and its positives/negatives. But
that's to go with any machine. It's about what you learned on, and what you
grew up with. In my case, this is the computer I learned on, and I'll stick
with it forever because once you get used to one thing, it's hard to change
sometimes. Same goes I'm sure for everyone else on this list server.

The TI-99/4A was one of the most popular computers ever made back in the
early 80's. Again, 1 million consoles gives you a hint. And, I'll tell you
why they're like roaches sitting around -- most people bought them for around
$50-100 when TI was going out of business (late 1983 into early 1984), played
a few games on them, and then said, "I'm done!". Instead of throwing them in
the garbage, they thought they were worth something, and now you see them all
around in thrift stores. I even went to a local fair around town last year
and picked one up for $5! But remember, for these people, that's all they
wanted to do with this computer. But for those that were serious, you could
do much, much more with it!

Bryan Nicalek
bnicalek_at_aol.com
Received on Tue Jun 10 1997 - 14:08:46 BST