the TI-99/4a computer: an oddity

[2600problems]

(yes i'm using comic sans, big deal) i personally see the 4A as an odd computer. it had no licensed games for the system, slow basic and it's graphics were slightly better than the ZX spectrum. maybe i'm wrong but, how did TI expect to market this when:

 

​a. the Vic-20 was already out

​b. it had no system specific games or had (poorly made) clones

​c. it looked like a miniature 1950's mainframe computer

d. it's Basic language was very, very slow

 

opinions?

[Airshack]

I believe the popular Scott Adams text adventures were licensed.

 

A. How much RAM in that VIC?

B. Good question. They even modified the rev2 beige TIs to lock out Atari carts. Perhaps they were aiming at the education market and homanagement apps to sell it. They probably didn't see it as a game machine console but something more sophisticated. A big mistake. Games sold computers back then. Who knew? Everything was new back then. They were probably arrogant being Big Bad TI. With Speak and Spell, watches, etc. The consumer division was on a roll and probably didn't care about what was happening outside Texas.

C. It actually has unique looks which elevates it above the others, cosmetically. A TI-99/4A in 2017 looks the same as it did 35 years ago. It hasn't turned several shades of nasty yellow. This is actually a strength. It looks faster than it is.

D. Back then they probably figured the users too unsophisticated to need more power. Originally, TI locked users out of Assembly programming and even simple peeks and pokes. This indicates an approach of,"...let us do the programming and we'll put it on a cartridge for you."

 

Conclusion: It's widely accepted now that TI didn't know what they were doing back then. Abandoning the market and killing the 99/8 is all the confession you need.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Airshack]

The fact that it's an odd system (GROM, VDP, GPL, PEB, etc) is kind or a selling point these days. It's far more interesting now, isn't it?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[+arcadeshopper]

[+arcadeshopper]

licensed games:

Scott Adams Adventure

Star trek strategic operations simulator

Qbert

Frogger

Microsurgeon

MASH

 

probably more..

 

it has many system specific games.. moonmine, alpiner, zero zap! or is zero zap a licensed game.. milton bradley and all

 

the look is the best part

 

the 4 came out in 1979.. the 4/a came out in 1981 the vic was released in 1981 ...

Edited May 4, 2017 by arcadeshopper

[+jedimatt42]

Equally unfounded things to say are:

 

I love this computer.

It is unique. See line above.

TI gave us an emphasis on different programming languages, which influenced me immensely.

I owe much of my life to this thing. I don't think I would have learned as much from a C64. The uniqueness drove me to trying to write games instead of just collecting them.

The local TI users group was a cornerstone of my sense of community as a teen. From there I met my first employer.

 

The limits drove me to dabble in several languages, BASIC, assembly, C, Forth, GPL. And mixed development, which I end up doing in C and Forth today.

 

This has all shaped my career, which guided me to where I live, meeting my wife, my family... And now the people I call friends that I've met on this forum and IRL.

 

I'm sure other systems did the same for other people. But for me, the TI is the one.

 

(I'm assuming the goal of this thread is to collect such confessions of love for the TI.)

 

-M@

[sparkdrummer]

Definitely all of the above and one thing I particularly like:

 

Made in America

[sometimes99er]

(yes i'm using comic sans, big deal) i personally see the 4A as an odd computer. it had no licensed games for the system, slow basic and it's graphics were slightly better than the ZX spectrum. maybe i'm wrong but, how did TI expect to market this when:

 

​a. the Vic-20 was already out

 

 

The TI-99 was out in 1979. The 4A made a few improvements, yes, but was basically much the same (was selling without the monitor one?).

 

The 4A came out in 1981, when the VIC-20 came out. That's at least what I get.

 

There were other machines out at that time. There are pros and cons with about any system available at that time. I mostly wanted an Atari 800, but then the best graphics available (Denmark) appeared to be the TI, not the VIC. So I got a 4A.

 

The TI-99 lacks peek, poke and user executable machine-code. Most of the competition has this. Major flaw and maybe a conscious move (but then I got the Mini Memory Module).

 

If you wanted to expand the TI, it was rather expensive, compared with the competition, which was also getting much better third party support.

 

The TI-99 was a relatively closed architecture. Another bad and probably conscious move.

 

The TI-99 gained momentum and sold well at a time, but then probably at a loss, just before, at and after TI bailout.

 

 

b. it had no system specific games or had (poorly made) clones

 

TI Invaders is still considered one of the best clones from that era. Parsec with speech was the "killer application".

 

​c. it looked like a miniature 1950's mainframe computer

 

How is that?

 

d. it's Basic language was very, very slow

 

Absolutely. Sometimes you have to do good with what you have. Part of nostalgia and retro-computing is defining your own constraints.

 

I had the VIC-20, probably at around 1983. It was cheap, but I didn't do much with it. I had the C64 and then the Amiga, but that's another story.

Edited May 4, 2017 by sometimes99er

[digdugnate]

(yes i'm using comic sans, big deal) i personally see the 4A as an odd computer. it had no licensed games for the system, slow basic and it's graphics were slightly better than the ZX spectrum. maybe i'm wrong but, how did TI expect to market this when:

 

​a. the Vic-20 was already out

​b. it had no system specific games or had (poorly made) clones

​c. it looked like a miniature 1950's mainframe computer

d. it's Basic language was very, very slow

 

opinions?

Wow- for someone that wants to encourage an enlightened discussion, I would think that pointing out your choice of font wouldn't be the way I'd start a thread.

 

Not withstanding the specs of the VIC-20 (which were poor in my opinion compared to the C64 that, along with poor TI business decisions, ultimately ushered in the end of the 4A), there were 'System Specific' games that were created for the system- Slymoids is one of the ones that comes to mind specifically.

 

While I don't feel that games were specifically the 'core audience' of TI at the time, it was a good 'stepping stone' from a console such as the Atari 2600 for families that wanted to enter the previously unavailable home computer market.

 

I'm certainly no expert in the realms of GPL, Basic, and Assembly- I will defer to some of the regular posters as they have insane amounts of functional application and knowledge of the TI's capabilities. I will say from what I've read that even now in 2017 the application of the computer in hobby fields even 35-odd years after its inception is compelling and staggering and daresay moreso than some 'equivalent' computers of the time due to its unique architecture.

 

As far as the aesthetic I'm particularly fond of the black/silver Darth Vader-esque design, though as others pointed out there was a beige model release towards the end of the console's lifespan.

 

Just imagine if the 99/8 had been allowed to take root!

[+mizapf]

There was a documentary on German TV (ZDFinfo) some time ago about the home computer era, and in particular about the ZX scene. I always wondered why the Spectrum had such a big success and public visibility, but it was even stronger in the UK.

 

One of the specific reasons, as I learned, was that Sinclair put a lot of efforts in getting movie licences for games, like RoboCop, Batman, and other celebrities from sports, like Daley Thompson's Decathlon and so on. This seemed to be a clever move.

[Retrospect]

I think US Gold helped the Spectrum out heaps with the licensed games from America. Other such companies piled the Spectrum with great games.

So we didn't have that with the 4/A and the major reason for that was that the developers of software weren't encouraged due to no assembly code being stored on tapes - it was all for Disks and 32K RAM only .... However .... you put any machine code game on the Vic 20 next to one made for the 99/4A and see which one we think comes out best. I know which I think it would be. It would be the one with the same graphics as the ColecoVision console, the same sound chip as the one in the BBC Micro, not the one with 3.5K internal RAM and 22 columns for text.

 

As for point C ... Well, matter of taste isn't it really - Everytime I place my TI-99 next to anything it always looks better than what it's next to. And yes that includes the Vic-20.

 

One point that was largely missed about the 4/a was the build quality ... it was second to none ... you open one of these up and you'll see proper parts, solid, you won't see cardboard RF shielding for one. Nothing was done cheaply. Some of the chips I believe were military spec, the 9900 cpu with it's ceramic casing in the 99/4 units for example. They'll just keep going and going.

 

Anyhow. I think the questions were rather baiting if I'm honest , the way they were put.

[+mizapf]

Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding. - Hanlon's Razor

 

This helped me more than once.

[Arnuphis]

I always thought the ZX Spectrum was horrible. That nasty squishy keyboard, the fact that you had to press a function to put in basic commands (You cannot just type 'print' for example. The weedy sound. The horrible colour bleed onscreen. I could go on. I had friends that had Spectrums and once they saw Parsec on the TI and heard it speak they thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

 

Yes there were some strange(dumb?) design ideas and the closed architecture and expensive peripheral path severely limited it to the average home user but everything about the machine screamed quality whereas everything about the Spectrum screamed 'cheapskates'.

[majestyx]

This seems like a rehash of this post: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/264791-what-could-they-have-done-better-with-the-994a/

 

...although in that thread users were giving constructive criticism about what TI could have done better as opposed to "defending" its strengths and admitting to its weaknesses. But hey, some will always see the glass as half-empty.

[+mizapf]

I had friends that had Spectrums and once they saw Parsec on the TI and heard it speak they thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

 

Reminds me of my C64 friends and their puzzled faces when I told them I could load a 12K BASIC file from floppy in less than 5 seconds.

[Retrospect]

Well, as we mention the Spectrum, it was created as cheaply as possible, an attempt to get the most out of the least .... Which is what all Sinclair products were about ... With it came Sinclair Basic developed by Nine Tiles and it was fairly good, some of the commands in there were considerably a short-cut compared to some micro's, but in other ways, you had to use more bytes to do just what a TI-99 could do in one line - defining graphical characters for instance.

 

Some people may forget the 99/4A was using technology that was around in 1978 apart from the 9918A with bitmap mode ... that's when the TI was conceptualized ... The likes of the ZX Spectrum was 1982, then '86 for the 128K, so if you consider this, the 16 and 48K models at least, should have been a bigger leap still, from what they actually were.

 

This reminds me of being at school, when the C64 guys were always debating with the Speccy guys, and there was me, with this Texas TI-99, which nobody really knew about. So they didn't hate me as much as they did anyone who owned an Amstrad.

[etownandy]

Also in the "licensed" category were the Imagic games - Moonsweeper, Fathom, Microsurgeon, the unreleased Wing War.

Sega licensed Star Trek, Congo Bongo, and Buck Rogers.

Parker Bros released Frogger, Q*Bert, Popeye, although those weren't officially sanctioned by TI (weren't licensed BY TI), just like the Atarisoft titles.

 

There's a whole post on great games. But as Nate pointed out, TI's primary thrust was education and home applications, with titles from such big names as Scott-Foresman, Addison-Wesley, and Scholastic. MECC was going to release about a dozen titles, but TI dropped out of the agreement (most likely due to Plato being on the horizon).

 

At the time, the 4A was generally regarded as slotting in between the VIC 20 and the C64, with an edge closer to the 64. They competed against the VIC on price, and that was part of their fatal mistake.

[Diecrusher]

I was already well in the the TI by the time the Atarisoft games came out but those sealed the deal for me. The quality of those games on the TI blew all of the Atarisoft for other platforms out of the water, imho!

[Keatah]

Back in the day, home computing was still new. And manufacturers were still figuring out what worked and what didn't. TI-99/4a had a number of unconventional architectural features that held it back. And it had a closed ecosystem. That's how I understand it.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Keatah

[2600problems]

ArcadeShopper, if you have a problem with my post, then please say so. claiming i'm a troll just shows you're in uneducated idiot, an 8 bit blip in our 64 bit world.

[2600problems]

another thing I found that surprised me is the BASIC language. I think out of all computers, this is the best version for beginner's. while it may be slow, its easy t learn, a bit redundant (just look at the graphics routines) but still better than commodore and slightly easier than the Apple II. I have yet to find any dedicated graphics commands however.

 

​also, what does for next nesting error mean? I ran into that while I was programming a square routine.

[Keatah]

I picked up TRS-80 and AppleSoft Basic the easiest. Then after that it was Atari 8-bit Basic. Perhaps it had something to do with the excellent documentation, with Apple's being the best. IMHO. I thoroughly enjoyed how Dos commands integrated into it. And there were many utility packages that used the ampersand as prefix to "call up" new and custom commands.

 

I liked those because they seemed to have the necessary "additions" to help with sound and graphics and disk interfacing. Their list of commands matched the machine pretty well. After those three, I rather struggled to keep stuff straight in my head and tended to lose interest. What was the point of knowing 10 versions of BASIC for 10 different micros?

 

Besides I hated C64 BASIC and didn't really get into TI-BASIC.

[+Ksarul]

The BASIC is actually a variant of ANSI Standard BASIC. You redefine the patterns of a character with the CALL CHAR command. . .additional commands to allow control of the hardware sprites are found in the Extended BASIC cartridge (not in the console BASIC).

 

As to the appearance of trollish behavior, carefully read your titles and initial posts in both of the threads you created. Both of them are somewhat pointy/needlessly provocative (a trollish characteristic) with additional data usable for discussion (non-trollish). Some folks focus one one part of your posts more than on others--and in this place, when one of us does respond to the irritating portion of a post that wasn't intended to be irritating, we try to resolve the issue peacefully, and not with ad hominem attacks on the person who misunderstood us. This forum is full of folks for whom English is a second language. Mistakes will be (and have been) made. Please look at your original comments as other people would see them--as it doesn't matter what you think you wrote, it is the message that is received that matters. Thanks for reading the entire message here too. We are an active forum because we all help each other, no matter what the level of knowledge on our TI systems. That friendly behavior draws lots of new blood in--and that is a really good thing for us as a community and for the hobby in general.

[LynxHandyCaster]

​also, what does for next nesting error mean? I ran into that while I was programming a square routine.

 

 

Here's an example of a FOR-NEST nesting error:

 

100 FOR Y=1 TO 10

110 FOR Z=1 TO 20

120 PRINT Y

130 PRINT Z

140 NEXT Y

150 NEXT Z

 

In this example, the FOR-NEXT loop overlaps the other because of the order of the NEXT statements in lines 140 and 150. Reversing the lines would fix the FOR-NEXT nesting error.

 

I've made this error many times, btw.

[digdugnate]

another thing I found that surprised me is the BASIC language. I think out of all computers, this is the best version for beginner's. while it may be slow, its easy t learn, a bit redundant (just look at the graphics routines) but still better than commodore and slightly easier than the Apple II. I have yet to find any dedicated graphics commands however.

 

​also, what does for next nesting error mean? I ran into that while I was programming a square routine.

so like with 'dedicated graphics commands', do you mean stuff that directly accesses the computer in some way similar to a PEEK or POKE statement?

 

I always thought TI Extended Basic did some pretty neat things with CALL SPRITE and CALL MOTION/etc- though I think you have to define the sprites/charsets. (I am by no means an expert and am relearning Basic/Assembly)