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Airshack

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Tonight I’ll be meeting with my buddy whom worked at the Consumer Electronics TI-99/4A facility in Lubbock Texas — back in the day.

 

He worked as a tech fixing returned TI-99/4 systems. He’s claimed to have seen the then secret 99/8 and 99/2, to include the ramping up of a 99/8 production line.

 

I brought my Lubbock map and plan to ask about where everything was located. This summer I’ll be in Lubbock and figured it’d be fun to track down the old buildings.

 

Anyone have any good questions I should ask?

 

9f3020f5eafba062626fe8f1fe30c49a.jpg

 

 

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I lived in Clovis for three years--I'm not sure I would even try to send my worst enemy there to live. . .although the third of the town that was mostly of Mexican descent (those families had been living there since Clovis was part of Mexico) was actually quite nece--and had some really nice restaurants too.

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I lived in Clovis for three years--I'm not sure I would even try to send my worst enemy there to live. . .although the third of the town that was mostly of Mexican descent (those families had been living there since Clovis was part of Mexico) was actually quite nece--and had some really nice restaurants too.

 

It sucks the soul out of you. I figured that out during my last visit.

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that is so cool! my dad worked at TI in Richardson and Sherman. :)

My buddy Brett was transferred to Sherman after the third line of TI-99/4s shut down.

 

Unfortunately, Brett was only there for a year before it all collapsed. He was hired in Dec 1982.

 

Told me an interesting story on how he got contacted in Detroit by TI recruiters, and hired at the age of twenty to move down to Lubbock.

 

Brett was hired to repair the 99/4s that failed testing at the end of the new third assembly line. He says they were going at full steam when he arrived in Jan 1983.

 

He included a few interesting details about life working on the line.

 

I’ll try to fill in the gaps and post if anyone is interested. Maybe we can start a thread of these kind of memories?

 

The history of our favorite 1970s computer is rather ignored by the Fake News retro media.

 

 

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My buddy Brett was transferred to Sherman after the third line of TI-99/4s shut down.

 

Unfortunately, Brett was only there for a year before it all collapsed. He was hired in Dec 1982.

 

Told me an interesting story on how he got contacted in Detroit by TI recruiters, and hired at the age of twenty to move down to Lubbock.

 

Brett was hired to repair the 99/4s that failed testing at the end of the new third assembly line. He says they were going at full steam when he arrived in Jan 1983.

 

He included a few interesting details about life working on the line.

 

I’ll try to fill in the gaps and post if anyone is interested. Maybe we can start a thread of these kind of memories?

 

The history of our favorite 1970s computer is rather ignored by the Fake News retro media.

 

 

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I'm definitely interested.

 

My dad I know in Sherman was an Electrical Engineer working on the Paveway missile guidance stuff (if I'm remembering correctly). He was there like from 1974-1998 or something similar. Towards the end his group was moved to the Denison facility, then they got folded into a firm called 'Superior Magnetics'.

 

His involvement with the TI computer stuff was in the early 80s and submitting programs/demos to their program where TI would 'buy' the stuff off the employees/users. I also vaguely remember a company store where they sold things.

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His involvement with the TI computer stuff was in the early 80s and submitting programs/demos to their program where TI would 'buy' the stuff off the employees/users. I also vaguely remember a company store where they sold things.

Interesting. Part of an internal TI program or that OK City Intl TI Program Exchange deal? Did he get anything published?

 

 

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Yeah, ask him where they buried the rest of the 99/8s :D

Ha! He saw the 99/8 line they were building once. He does not know where the few machines he saw in the R&D area ended up. Probably went to higher ranking employees he said.

 

 

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Interesting. Part of an internal TI program or that OK City Intl TI Program Exchange deal? Did he get anything published?

 

 

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I'm pretty sure it was an internal TI deal. I was so young that I don't remember which demos that TI bought/published/distributed, but it seemed like they were all music demos he programmed in either Basic, Extended Basic, or Assembly.

 

I've got an unfinished version of a game called 'Caveman' he was working on in Assembly that was based on the Ringo Starr movie, as well.

 

His name was Sam Moore, Jr. :)

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I'm pretty sure it was an internal TI deal. I was so young that I don't remember which demos that TI bought/published/distributed, but it seemed like they were all music demos he programmed in either Basic, Extended Basic, or Assembly.

 

I've got an unfinished version of a game called 'Caveman' he was working on in Assembly that was based on the Ringo Starr movie, as well.

 

His name was Sam Moore, Jr. :)

 

So you have the source code? Share? Loved that movie because as I recall Barbara Bach was hawt! How did Ringo get the best looking wife? Game I suppose.

 

 

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Always interested in hearing about memories like this - thanks! :love:

 

BTW: there's still no 'History of the TI-99' book?

There is The Orphan Chronicles book which the first half is factual and interesting yet drifts off into weirdness of post-1983 99/4 survival topics.

 

https://archive.org/details/tibook_the-orphan-chronicles

 

I’ll summarize the things I find out from Brett and will post here.

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That is so cool! Did you happen to take any video of your trip? If you did/have enough footage and want someone to edit for you, I'd be happy to do so. I could send you my edits back for you to post or I could post it to my YT channel, either way. That would be a great piece of history to preserve!

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So you have the source code? Share? Loved that movie because as I recall Barbara Bach was hawt! How did Ringo get the best looking wife? Game I suppose.

 

 

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I do- it'd just take me a bit once I get my TI back up and going. i need to get a replacement tv/monitor for mine :)

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That is so cool! Did you happen to take any video of your trip? If you did/have enough footage and want someone to edit for you, I'd be happy to do so. I could send you my edits back for you to post or I could post it to my YT channel, either way. That would be a great piece of history to preserve!

I am going to Lubbock this summer. Haven’t gone yet. I do know where to go now.

 

 

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I'm pretty sure it was an internal TI deal. I was so young that I don't remember which demos that TI bought/published/distributed, but it seemed like they were all music demos he programmed in either Basic, Extended Basic, or Assembly.

 

I've got an unfinished version of a game called 'Caveman' he was working on in Assembly that was based on the Ringo Starr movie, as well.

 

His name was Sam Moore, Jr. :)

 

Sam Moore Jr was a big influence on me as a kid.
I received a few of his music "videos" through friends. They were generally excellent in quality, so I loaded them many times.
All of the pop songs were new to me as a kid, so I credit Sam Moore Jr with "educating" me in these pop standards, such as Time in a Bottle, Killing Me Softly, You're So Vain, Yesterday, plus a few classical works like Moonlight Sonata and the jazzy 5th of Beethoven and Bumble Boogie. The graphics were always fun.
Here are listings of what's available in the Tigercub collections of Sam Moore Jr:
Sam Moore Jr disks
600, 601, 602, 603 in PC99 format (use ti99dir to extract files or convert to V9T9 dsk)
600       :     343 used  17 free   90 KB  1S/1D 40T  9 S/T
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMAZEFILE     11  INT/VAR 80    2454 B  122 recs
AMAZEGRACE    10  PROGRAM       2254 B
BERCEUSE/X    35  PROGRAM       8655 B
BUGLEBOOGX    31  PROGRAM       7557 B
BUMBLBOOGB    45  PROGRAM      11116 B
DOGBOOGIEX    38  PROGRAM       9340 B
FORESTROSX    31  PROGRAM       7653 B
LOAD           7  PROGRAM       1410 B
MAINSCRX      17  PROGRAM       3925 B
ODEPUPPYX     34  PROGRAM       8326 B
VARTHEMEX     30  PROGRAM       7181 B
VENUSRHAPX    26  PROGRAM       6297 B
WESTBOOGX     26  PROGRAM       6257 B


MOORE#2   :     345 used  15 free   90 KB  1S/1D 40T  9 S/T
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5THBEETHVX    47  PROGRAM      11574 B
ALBUMLEAFX    46  PROGRAM      11444 B
IN/MILL/X     38  PROGRAM       9371 B
JUSTWAY/X     38  PROGRAM       9390 B
KILMESOFTX    28  PROGRAM       6819 B
LIGHTFILE     10  INT/VAR 80    2244 B  121 recs
LIGHTLIFX2    16  PROGRAM       3802 B
LOAD           7  PROGRAM       1334 B
OP/23/X       30  PROGRAM       7307 B
TIME-DATA     12  INT/VAR 80    2620 B  134 recs
TIME/BOTX2    28  PROGRAM       6720 B
YESTERDAYX    43  PROGRAM      10607 B




MOORE#3   :     350 used  10 free   90 KB  1S/1D 40T  9 S/T
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOGOOGIEX    34  PROGRAM       8204 B
GUITAR/X      20  PROGRAM       4773 B
LOAD           7  PROGRAM       1345 B
MOONLSON/X    49  INT/VAR 254  12090 B   48 recs
MORNING/X     40  PROGRAM       9850 B
NOCTURNE      41  PROGRAM      10218 B
OZMEDLEY      42  PROGRAM      10384 B
RONDO         41  PROGRAM      10068 B
SEABOTTOM     23  PROGRAM       5400 B
SENORITA      24  PROGRAM       5804 B
VENBOAT/X     27  PROGRAM       6454 B


MOORE#4   :     339 used  21 free   90 KB  1S/1D 40T  9 S/T
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIGCATBOOG    19  PROGRAM       4457 B
CSONATA       43  PROGRAM      10668 B
GRAYMOUSE     18  PROGRAM       4116 B
KANGAROO      16  PROGRAM       3793 B
LOAD           7  PROGRAM       1502 B
MAPLELEAF     44  PROGRAM      10962 B
MASH4077      40  PROGRAM       9934 B
SILENCIA      14  PROGRAM       3240 B
SNOWSCENE     11  PROGRAM       2393 B
SPLENDORED    38  PROGRAM       9405 B
SUNDAYDRIV    18  PROGRAM       4286 B
WITCHDANCE    42  PROGRAM      10331 B
WITHLOVE      27  PROGRAM       6495 B
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nice! greg converted a lot of these to TI disk for me and sparkdrummer i think chased down some more but it's awesome to see the stuff and that folks remember. :)

 

when my dad left TI it was on pretty bad terms because of how they handled it- he won't even talk about it 20-odd years later.

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So you have the source code? Share? Loved that movie because as I recall Barbara Bach was hawt! How did Ringo get the best looking wife? Game I suppose.

 

 

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I got my TI up and found the disk file, but when i loaded it into E/A it said something about 'control character missing'. I will need to look at it some more. :)

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I got my TI up and found the disk file, but when i loaded it into E/A it said something about 'control character missing'. I will need to look at it some more. :)

Is it CONTROL CHARACTER REMOVED?

I have seen this somewhere, maybe a messed up file.

This error might be returned by EDIT1 (the editor) or possible ASSM1 (assembler), but the LOADER does not use it.

 

I think it refers to the last line of the file, which has the editor's tab settings, being an unexpected format.

 

 

These are some of the E/A error numbers.  
0-7 I/O ERROR
8  MEMORY FULL
9  CONTROL CHARACTER REMOVED not used by loader.
A  ILLEGAL TAG (one of D,E,G,H)
B  CHECKSUM ERROR
C  DUPLICATE DEFINITION
D  UNRESOLVED REFERENCE 
E  PROGRAM NOT FOUND   not used by loader
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Ugh. I think this ate my reply on the phone.

 

I havent pulled out my EA manual yet- i just had a few minutes between stuff today to dink with it. The game will load just fine, but was hoping to peek at source code.

 

Just need to be methodical, i think. Ill dig more into it tomorrow and get filenames and screenshots/etc.

 

To keep from further derailing ill start a new thread tomorrow :-)

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  • 5 months later...

I finally made it out to the site where our beloved machines were produced. A large complex for sure! Still, smaller than I anticipated. It’s still in the middle of nowhere. About two miles north of the Texas Tech Stadium on University, just north of the loop.

 

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0594AD0E-0DD0-428C-9C5B-D2F871431ACF.png

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