Texas Instruments TI-99/4A CPU: TI TMS9900, 3MHz RAM: 16KB DISPLAY: 32 x 24 Text 192 X 256, 16 color SOUNDS: 3 channels, 5 octaves 1 noise channel (periodic and white) Upgradeable to a Speech Synthesizer AVAILABLE PORTS: ROM cartridge (on front) Data storage cassette Audio/Video output Joystick input CPU bus expansion AVAILABLE PERIPHERALS: Speech Synthesizer Peripheral Expansion Box Data storage cassette 300 baud modem OS: ROM BASIC YEAR: 1981 ORIGINAL PRICE: $525
I remember first seeing one of these at an Uncle’s. I didn’t see it often. I got to play with it even less. The few times I got to use it I played a handful of game cartridges he had. But I was curious about the prompt. It was just a ROM BASIC but I had no idea what that was at the time. I’d type in random thing and get the same error over and over. There was still a certain amount of enjoyment. It had a great keyboard that was enjoyable to type on.
Sooner or later I had the notion, “Hey, this is a computer. It has to at least be able to do math problems”. After some trial and error I could get it to do arithmetic. Nothing fancy, but I was extremely excited. I managed to figure it out completely on my own.
Later it occurred it suddenly dawned on me it was a version of BASIC. By that point I had learned a bit at school and could now do quite a bit on the system.
Eventually it had been put into storage after being obsolete and useless, never to be seen again.
Cut to present day, I was perusing eBay and had found a piece I wanted to add to my collection. It was local so I drove to the seller’s house to avoid the extra cost of shipping. In addition to the piece I purchased off of eBay, the seller had a large collection of TI-99′s. He was retired elderly geek, who had obviously worked with these machines professionally in some capacity. He literally had stacks of them, somewhere of 300+ cartridges, and peripherals I had never seen. I picked up a couple of the TI-99′s. The got black and chrome I knew and loved, as well as a later beige model I was previously unfamiliar with. I grabbed a handful of cartridges as well.
I still keep an eye on his eBay store just incase he decides to part with some of his more rare pieces, like the floppy drive expansion case.
Data on the TI-99/4A computer was obtain from the following sources:
