Questions on today's acquisitions

From: Mark Gregory <gregorym_at_cadvision.com>
Date: Sat Jan 16 22:16:33 1999

At 06:23 PM 1/15/99 -0500, you wrote:
>> Texas Instruments Compact Computer 40. This is a lot like the TRS-80
>> PC-4 in appearance, but a bit bigger. It has BASIC in ROM and a
>> connector for cartridges. Is there anything actually useful for this?
>> THe keyboards too small to do any actual word processing.
>
>I have one of these too. TI supposedly made a thermal printer, an RS-232
>interace, and a 70KB tape drive, which would plug in to the six-pin BERG
>connector on the back, next to the power jack. I use it as a programmable
>scientific calculator.
>

The thermal printer and RS-232 interface were both produced, but not in
large numbers. They're hard to find. A few pieces of cartidge software (or
as TI liked to call it, "Solid State Software") were produced, AFAIK, but
also not in large numbers. I've never seen any in six years of looking.

The tape drive, called a "Wafertape" drive, was pretty much vapourware.
There were a few prototype units sold, but it was never in full production,
because TI couldn't get the bugs worked out. The box for my CC-40 has a
sticker attached that says "Tape drive not available". The lack of
secondary storage pretty much doomed the CC-40 as a computer; it never
caught on.

I think there was an article in the book "The Best of 99'er Magazine" on
how to build a cable to connect a CC-40 to a TI-99/4A. I also used mine as
a programmable calculator.

Cheers.
Mark.


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Received on Sat Jan 16 1999 - 22:16:33 GMT