> 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.
True enough - but of the four I've come accross only 1 had a fex cable
still attached to the interface. Ak.
> 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.
I'll agree here. While I'll probably never do any serious hacking on the
TI, playing Miner 2049er is what it's all about ;)
> << EVERYONE knows that MY COMMODORE 64 is WAY better than YOUR APPLE! >>
It's hard to have holy wars like the old days when you now own all the
machines you used to make fun of.
> 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!
I'd say a million machines pretty much explains everything. I must say that
a TI99/4A hooked up with a PEB is overall a pretty neat little machine.
It's really kind of sad - the average 99 I see is really beat up and missing
all it's accessories. I used to pick them up here and there to use for
spares but I think most of them are probably destined for the trash.
Bill
----------------------------------------------------
Bill Whitson - Classic Computers ListOp
bill_at_booster.u.washinton.edu or bcw_at_u.washington.edu
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~bcw/ccl.html
Received on Tue Jun 10 1997 - 15:59:49 BST