TI-99/4A Comments

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Tue Jun 10 15:30:09 1997

Hi,

I should qualify myself as comming from when personal computer meant you
owned a computer be it a minuteman-1 missle guidence computer(all
transistor), mark-8 or a PDP-8!

The TI99/4a was 81 technology and should be compared to that not a P1000000!
This seems to occur often.

It compared to the PCjr with the chicklet keyboard or COCO1 with same at
a time when the osborne-1 totable was new and neat. Apple/III had bombed on
the market.

It compared to z80 based system at 4mhz and a few emerging at 6mhz or the
other non-IBM-PC 8088/6 based s100 systems. There were even 68000 based
system but 8mhz were fast ones.

It was color! At a time when that capability was uncommon.

It didn't require an engineer to hook it up or make it do
something/anything. At that time S100 systems, apples, and the like were
rarely packaged systems. The trs80 and others started something with ready
to run boxes that were also slow and cranky.

Can I say it better as...back then a lot of things were starting to shake
out, emerge and outright happen. The TI99/4a was one of those and it was
far cheaper than a PC even at it introduction price. 1980 to 1984 was an
interesting time. Who knows, if IBM and intel didn't hook up we could be
running unix on a fifth generation z8000.

Allison
Received on Tue Jun 10 1997 - 15:30:09 BST