Cool TMS9900 story fixing a comms system in research vessel

[palmheads]

Last couple of days on a New Zealand Vintage Computing Group Facebook page we've been talking about the TI-99/4a.

 

One of the guys had this great story where he recounted to us ... found the original 2011 message
https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=505

 

Basically a Research Vessel called the "Tangaroa" for one of our Science Research Institutes (NIWA) had a broke comms system back in 2011. The CPU in the comms system was a TMS9900! It needed to be fixed urgently, and would have taken too long to get a replacement chip into NZ, so the guy repairing it found a collector here in NZ, and this guy had a non working TI-99/4a so he donated the motherboard to get the comms system fixed!