An amusing little TI PDF file highlighting some TI history.

[Omega-TI]

I found this 148 page .PDF on the Internet, got a chuckle out of it so I thought I'd share...

 

Remember when you went to Sears, Wards or some other place how ignorant some of the sales people were? It's like they had no clue back then how to use a computer... and that was probably true as the average person working in retail probably did not even have enough money to buy one. This document is like SALES 101 for the TI.

 

Anyway the first part of the attached document shows what lengths they went to in the training process to get the sales staff familiar with the computer. I'm sure most of you will find it amusing, but it was a sign of the times. The middle part of the document has some instruction manuals and the third part covers comparisons between other popular computers of the time and selling points.

 

I hope you enjoy it.

TI Demonstration Guide.pdf

[Keatah]

Granted I stay away from sales and even further from marketing. I couldn't sell a GPS to someone stuck in a paper bag. With all those objectives and rigidity no wonder the 99 never caught on in comparison against other systems. I have nothing against the Ti99/4a, it's just fine.

 

The best marketing, IMHO, is having an intelligent and enthusiastic sales force selling a quality product. I remember going into a Compu-Shop and asking about games. And the guy with the 'fro asked me what kinds of games. And I said airplane games. And he showed me a flight simulator. I remember I didn't understand jack. And it took me like an hour to figure out how to take off and see the wireframe mountains. He just kinda let me alone with the system for all afternoon. One or two times I got to stay past closing time and played other games.

 

Then later I pestered my parents to no end till I got one. Best marketing ever!

Edited September 19, 2014 by Keatah

[Keatah]

btw: Why did the speech synthesizer add-on have a flap-cover that opened? I don't recall putting anything in there.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Keatah

[RobertLM78]

btw: Why did the speech synthesizer add-on have a flap-cover that opened? I don't recall putting anything in there.

I think it was for an unreleased set of expansions for the vocabulary, IIRC.

[Willsy]

btw: Why did the speech synthesizer add-on have a flap-cover that opened? I don't recall putting anything in there.

The idea was that different vocabularies could be added to the machine. For example, TI Spain could sell a Spanish vocab for their market and so on. I don't think any were ever produced, and I've never seen a speech synth with any actual circuitry to support speech roms - only ever seen the empty flap.

[+mizapf]

There is a row of pads on the right edge, see http://www.ninerpedia.org/index.php/File:Synth_board.jpg

 

Maybe this was intended for a speech cartridge connector.

[Tursi]

Some years ago someone posted pics of a speech synth that had the internal port. But nobody reported ever having seen cards for it. Here are the pics I saved off of it.

 

 

[+Ksarul]

Only the earliest releases of the speech synthesizer had the port intact, as TI changed course on that idea shortly after it was released. . .and released the Speech Editor cartridge instead.