The Story of the TI99/4A, The Successful Failure - Tech Retrospective

The TI99/4A was Texas Instruments second attempt at taking over the home computer market. Released in 1981, the TI99/4A has a mixed reputation with retro computer collectors. On one hand it was an innovative computer with the first consumer 16 bit CPU (the TMS9900) that was a starting point for many lifelong computer nerds, on the other hand it was an over priced paperweight with a poor software library and a abysmal revised model. Which camp are you in?
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[@please_send_Todd_to_Vegas]

You are not lying about the plastic model. I loved my chrome and black unit as a kid, but had to replace it after an accident...by that time, they had discontinued both models but were still honoring the warranties. I was scared to death I was going to wind up with that beige POS, but luckily I was handed another chrome and black. I had it all, Man...the expansion box, Extended Basic, boatloads of cartridges and boxes of cassettes and floppy disks. Now I have an emulator of it on my PC just to relive the good old days. :)

[@RCfromtheNYC]

The 99/4A was the very first compuetr I ever used in 1983. In retrospect, the black & brushed chrome look is a sexy as a computer could get in the 80's!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

I had the equally seductive beige model!

[@-taz-]

​@@jackilynpyzocha662 I don't know if you're being sarcastic or delusional.

[@CharlieJohnson963]

I shared one with my friend who had the chrome and black middle, with modem and cassette . I started my love of computers with this modle. So many memories.

[@Archpope]

Hunt the Wumpus was an absolute classic!

[@kmhowells2]

I just discovered this and the $49 price is exactly why my dad bought this back then lol. My favorite memory on this system was Parsec, Hunt the Wumpus and Jungle Hunt.

[@KznnyL]

Parsec snd Hunt the Wumpus. Good times.

[@cbmeeks]

I'm not sure I agree with some of your comments about the TI-99/4A. The TI has a VERY active community and there is new hardware and software being released for it often. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of games (great, good and bad) for it that are NOT educational. But if educational games are your thing then the TI has them in spades. Sure, Apple and Commodore had MORE games but the TI has a lot as well.

[@NewsmakersTech]

The Ti definitely did have a smaller library of software available during it's lifetime than the competition (something criticized heavily at the time) It;s no where near as bad of a library as say, the Coleco Adam or the Timex Sinclair 1000 but still not great. The TI does have an active homebrew community but so does the Commodore 4+4 and nobody would say that system has a great library.

[@cbmeeks]

@@NewsmakersTech of course it had/has a smaller library. I acknowledged that. And considering the Coleco ADAM can execute ColecoVision software, I would say the ADAM has a very good library. Especially in the home brew scene. I think you need to do some more research on the TI. I have a FinalGROM cart with literally hundreds of games on it. A lot of them are crap, yes. But a lot of them are very enjoyable. But I would certainly say it has a great library. These days you can get a great condition TI for not much money. A 32K sidecar RAM expansion (not much money) and a FinalGROM cart (again, not much money) and you are pretty much set in TONS of games (many of them good to great). Through in a cheap speech synthesizer and you're in business. If you want to be more exotic, you can even hook a Pi to it and get serial and disk "server" with even more software. The TI is a very underrated system. It's certainly not the garbage you hint that it is. But you're entitled to your opinion as am I.

[@deathstrike]

Like I said in an earlier post, the TI was the most powerful system hands down for the price. Mine was the 100 dollar with a 50 dollar rebate and they honored it!!! So 50 bucks and software for pennies. I think I broke my joysticks playing Moon Mine and Donkey Kong and now I have my TI 99/4A from my youth modded with the NanoPEB from Custodio Malilong that had 32k extra memory, CF card slot for virtual disks and a serial port. It's a great machine and my kids can both learn (got the PLATO courseware for free) and play some great oldies. I HIGHLY recommend this machine if you like computer collecting. The TI, C64, and the Atari 800 are the best retro around.

[@realcourte]

Before the internet... How to find this "hundred of games"? In my small town, TI-994A was non existing. N'uff said! :)

[@cbmeeks]

@@realcourte I lived in a small town too. Biggest store we had was K-Mart. Our local K-Mart (30 minute drive from home) had dozens of TI games at the time. They existed. And like I said in my previous cart, my FinalGROM99 cart has "hundreds" of games on it. All of them weren't written after the Internet became popular.

[@CarsonG1017]

I just bought a beige one of these today for a cool $4. Saw it sitting on a table at a church sale, and thought it'd be neat to play around with. You really weren't kidding about the coffee warmer part!

[@-taz-]

I had the chrome one, but the CPU actually melted and we had to get a new one seated under waranty.

[@RadioCaledon]

Yep still have one in my storage room with the expansion cabinet and a few expansion cards. Plus a crap ton of cartridges. Mother in law worked for TI. One day (hopefully soon ) it will come out of storage for restoration.

[@leewilkerson8185]

I can still remember much of the hardware and software high technical side.

[@tron3entertainment]

Used my TI until 1990, and also amassed 90 cartridges - mostly games. Still have it tucked away.

[@NewsmakersTech]

That's a lot of cartridges!

[@why-even-try-brotendo]

So underrated as a gaming console, that's basically what it was.

[@why-even-try-brotendo]

What was your favorite game? Mine was Parsec because it was a challenge.

[@tron3entertainment]

@@why-even-try-brotendo - I did enjoy my Parsec. There was one like Missile Command. I enjoyed that one a lot. Lively spritely action.

[@lurkerrekrul]

Back in the 80s, I only had an Atari 2600 and knew nothing about computers. To me, they were mysterious, expensive machines that I would never be able to own. I hadn't even seen that many screenshots of games in the video game magazines. Then one December I saw a Toy 'R' Us commercial advertising the TI99/4A for $50, and I realized I might actually be able to get one for Christmas, so I started asking for it. After a visit to a local store where they had some other other machines on display, I started asking for a Commodore 64 instead. At the time, I had no idea that it was MUCH more expensive. Anyway, my parents got it for me, although for the first year, I only had a cassette drive, which was agonizingly slow. Not knowing much about computers, I thought that's what they all used. I didn't get a floppy drive until the following year. Looking back, I'm pretty happy that I didn't get the TI. The C64 had much more software available for it, and most peripherals just plugged right in. In more recent years, I've acquired two of the beige model TI99/4As. I tested one years ago and it worked fine, although I didn't have any software for it. I forget if I tested the other one or not. My only real experience with TI software has been running games in an emulator. Cartridge games work fine, but it seems that absolutely EVERYTHING on disk, whether commercial software, or homebrew stuff, needs some expansion cartridge plugged in, in order to work. Half the time, I can't get the homebrew software to work at all.

[@metalheadmalta]

Apologies for the delay... but giving -10k score for software???? Granted, assembly was locked away,but the cartridges on offer were far from disastrus. You mentioned only Parsec... but there are a ton of other gems in the catalogue worth mentioning. Practically all the Scott Adams asventures, the MBX series, with Bigfoot leading the way, the stupendous TI Invaders (definitely the BEST invaders ever), Blasto, Star Trek , all the games by Atari , Pacman, Donkey Kong, Burgertime... The Extended Basic cartridge was a godsend, and so many games were written... And also, Europe is totally full of the Beige TI.... that also received an enhance production tooling system and quality control...

[@realcourte]

Before the internet... How to find "this" catalogue? In my small town, TI-994A was non existing. N'uff said! :)

[@collinimmanuel9941]

you prolly dont care at all but does anybody know a way to get back into an Instagram account..? I was stupid forgot the account password. I appreciate any tricks you can offer me

[@andredemetrius6083]

@Collin Immanuel instablaster :)

[@collinimmanuel9941]

@Andre Demetrius I really appreciate your reply. I got to the site on google and I'm in the hacking process atm. Takes quite some time so I will get back to you later with my results.

[@collinimmanuel9941]

@Andre Demetrius WTF IT ACTUALLY WORKED :O I just hacked my ig account after ~ 30 mins by using the site. Had to pay 15$ but for sure worth the price :) Thanks so much, you saved my ass!

[@MrSmriley]

I had it and loved it! Its Basic was slow, but ok for a first computer. As a kid I used to write Basic games with pen and paper while we were away on vacation then type them in when we returned home, which was very rewarding. And the cartridge games were awesome, loved Parsec and Alpiner!

[@-taz-]

Yes, those were good games, especially with the speech synth.

[@bigthicketadventures]

Scott Adams adventure series alone make this system worth having, even today.

[@dougbadgley6672]

I wish I had access to those games today.

[@philipshumway9943]

@@dougbadgley6672you might still be able to!! There are emulators online and the community for interactive fiction is pretty niche :) I wish I had a link for you, but I’m sure you could find some stuff online! Try searching up for ‘ti99/4a emulators’ or ‘Scott Adams adventure emulators’

[@Troy729]

TI99/4A was my first computer and I bought it for $59 at Venture. I loved that computer. I was in college and it put me on track to being a future network admin. It did have some second party game cartridges. I had Donkey Kong for it and it looked great on that computer.

[@vwestlife]

Only the final revision of the beige TI-99/4A with a 1983 copyright date on the intro screen prevented the use of third-party cartridges. Most beige 4A's have an older revision of the circuit board with a 1981 copyright date and they *can* run third-party software. This web page shows you how to tell the difference between them: www.mainbyte.com/ti99/computers/ti99qi.html

[@NewsmakersTech]

Thanks for the resource

[@deathstrike]

Exactly, I have both the silver/black and the first run beige model. Mine is I think a revision 2 model that does play all third party software. Also, there were actually a lot of decent games for the TI including the Atari series, the actually really good Donkey Kong (has all screens) and the Imagic games like M.A.S.H, Super Demon Attack and others. Sorry but there was plenty of entertainment to be had, and after the selloff, the most powerful game console for the price.

[@robertlock5501]

Good call VW - I had just commented on this but your reply is much more thorough

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

It was a Christmas gift in 1983, I learned BASIC programming, had fun with games, too! 16K color, amazing!

[@MrHurricaneFloyd]

I grew up dirt poor and my first computer was a Ti994A that I picked up in a thrift store for $10 back in 1990.

[@TheAtomicTexan]

Just finding this after digging through storage I found an old cartridge. This was my first computer in 83. I loved it at the time. It's partly what drove my love of computers. I feel old now... almost 50 years old now.. where did the time go?

[@solangecossette1374]

In the small town we lived in, there was an active Ti 99 4A club. Each month you could borrow a game cartridge they had. They also had over 32 cassette tapes of games - one side for Basic, the other for Extended basic. Every now and again the director of the club would obtain new games or softwsre on tape and allow people to borrow those (1 cartridge, 1 tape - exception for tunnels of doom, which required both). The director then had a talk on how they could 'get software' using the modem - likely from a BBS of sorts. About 4 other friends of ours also had a Ti 99 4A. It felt that you either had a Ti, or a Vic 20.

[@chad017]

The commentary on *Bill Cosby* is completely mistaken. I don’t know if you were alive in the early 80’s, but *Bill Cosby* was the biggest name in entertainment at that time. He came off his hugely successful *Bill Cosby Himself* film and into the highest rated TV show. Yes his reputation is tarnished now, but that was decades later. There was no better celebrity in the early to mid 80’s to hire as a spokesperson than *Bill Cosby.*

[@PeBoVision]

I think I paid $199 locally for my 4A in 1982. When the line was cancelled on the eve of the 99/8, I moved over to the Atari 800XL. It had an enormous library, a slower processor that provided much faster system performance, and an interesting take on sprites. But there was just something about the 4A that I always missed. 10 years ago I rekindled the flame, and discovered a remarkable enthusiast community and a wealth of new hardware and software that finally demonstrate the system's considerable capabilities, despite its by-design failings. After 40 years it has become a very desirable nostalgia system. (The limited in-house library makes acquiring a complete set very possible, with just enough hard-to-find items to make it a fun hobby (Still looking for "Gestion Privée"). In retrospect TI shot themselves in the foot by rushing a product that was gerry-rigged from available components, and instituting a draconian 3rd party licensing model. They believed they could go it alone, and alone they went. But QI models notwithsatnding, they left us a REALLY cool toy to play with. Among the best collector systems in that regard (as long as you have a big desk).

[@OldAussieAds]

I too went from a TI99/4A to an Atari 8-bit. I was only a kid back then and didn't understand 8-bit vs 16-bit or MHz or anything like that. I just knew the Atari was like lightning compared to the slow TI BASIC.

[@PeBoVision]

@@OldAussieAds I was already an adult when I made the switch. All my friends had Ataris or I likely would have gone C-64 (went ST instead of Amiga for the same reason - along with the much, much lower price of admission). The Atari was a MUCH MUCH better game machine in 1982...the 4A gives it a run for it's money in 2024 maybe even edging it out (with 32k memory expansion on the TI) But can't argue that console TI-BASIC was (and is) both slow and feature-poor. The fact that it was the machine's very architecture that caused it to be so awful is unforgiveable (and kind of adorable).

[@danielrjones]

TI had the black/chrome look WAY before everyone else! I actually like the look of the updated model too.

[@alerey4363]

Both models beat the VIC20 aesthetically; a true pity TI made bad design decisions (having the FIRST 16-bit processor in the home market slowed down to 8 bits and running thru VDP, no 3rd party software licensing, bad PR & marketing, ,etc); I had the beige model when I was 11 and loved it even if it was slow and limited

[@Miler97487]

There was some licensed third party software. Milton Bradley, for example had several games out for the TI-99/4(a) in which TI released them using the standard TI cartridges. Like Zero Zap and Blasto. In 1983 TI had Sega and Imagic release games through TI like Super Demon Attack, Fathom, Wing War, and Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom, all using standard TI cartridges. Then a bunch of third party software in 1983 flooded the market that TI had nothing to do with, and they had their own distinct looking cartridges. Usually Atatisoft and Parker Bros. which ported popular arcade favorites to the TI-99/4a like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Q*Bert, Popeye, etc.

[@manlan8]

Somewhere between 84-86, the elementary school I attended had like one, maybe two TI-99/4A for the whole school, so one would come to each classroom a few days of the year. I don't remember being given much direction on using it. They had a few of those education titles and maybe one game on cartridges, and the teacher would send us one by one to use the computer for a 15-20 minute allotment of time during the day or two it was in our classroom. I'd go over and play with whatever program I wanted till the timer said my time was up. Either shortly before, or shortly after we moved away from that school system in 86-87, my dad acquired a TI-99/4A. We had no software for it, no expansion slots, no hard drive, just the 16K of RAM. We used the TV as a monitor. I copied a program or two out of a book, and played around a little bit with TI BASIC on my own. Learned enough to create a program to practice/drill elementary arithmetic and have the computer tell you if you got the randomly generated math problem correct or not. But since we had no way to save stuff, I wasn't motivated to go much further than that. However, it was nice to already have a basic understanding of loops, conditional commands, and random number generators before I had an actual programming class in college.

[@gjms]

The state of that TI 99/4A hurts my feelings. I got mine in pristine state.

[@Sl1pstreams]

There’s a HUGE Jack Tramiel-Commodore link here. Tramiel hated TI for almost putting Commodore out of business in the 1970s calculator wars. His revenge at Commodore was to launch a price war against the 99/4A by slashing VIC-20 and C-64 prices to levels far below TI’s costs… but where Commodore could still make money due to its high volume and lower costs. In 1983 at a major trade show, Commodore announced a HUGE price cut on peripherals for the 64 including disk drives, monitors, and printers. An enraged executive from TI stormed over to the Commodore booth and shouted at Tramiel about how the peripheral cuts would ruin TI’s computer business… as TI was making up for losses it took on every 99/4A (as a result of price cuts from the price war) with profits on peripherals. Tramiel smiled and reportedly said “yes, I know,” and the 99/4A was discontinued later that month. He’d had his revenge.

[@DiabloVentureGames]

This was my first computer, my wife bought it for me for Christmas of 1982; i believe she paid $199.00 and it came with a mail in discount coupon. I loved it, eventually adding most of the upgrades, expansion box and so fourth. As far as the software I did purchase a real good DOS style spread sheet and word processing in late 1983 and taught myself on the little TI machine. I kept this computer until i upgrade to a Macintosh 512ke in 1986 and computers have been in my home ever since, including starting to build my own windows based machines from good old Fry's electronics. But i will always have fond memories of my first little TI 99/4a. Postscript... at 62 I'm finding myself distancing from tech all together seeing how dystopian our nation is heading. With High Tech censoring our speech for political views and AI and algorithms monitoring you, I have no social media whats so ever. If i do go on line which is mostly for occasional news and KZbin videos I now use a good VPN and a TOR browser. Ditched my so called smart phone, use google voice and burner flip phones, went back to a stand alone un-traceable old garmin GPS and dusted off my vintage copies of 1984 and Brave new world to see just how close we are heading to whats in those books. Whats next? Look to history for the White Rose Movement...Lol

[@stephenwevans]

We had the black/chrome model when I was a kid. My dad still has it, in the box, along with a brand new one, mib, unopened. Peripheries included the official cassette player (dad has another one, new in box, as well), the speech synthesizer and the joysticks which really cut into the palm of your hands and the articulation of a spoon in molasses. We had a small collection of games, and even coded some simple games from magazines that we saved to cassette tapes. It may have been an overall failure, but it was my introduction to home computers, writing code (which I eventually never did anything with) and learning to type (with one of the educational games). Would love to drop a raspberry pi into one some day and confuse my friends. Thanks for the video, there was a lot here I'd never heard before!

[@lordevyl8317]

I think the computer gets more flack than it deserves. While it might not have been the best computer as far as being a gaming computer when compared to computers like the C64, and the Atari 8-bit line (hell, even the VIC-20), the fact that it was technically the very first mass marketed 16-bit computer (at least as far as processing is concerned) kind of makes the computer way ahead of its time in that department.

[@DanDrolett]

My mom called to wake me up after I worked an overnight shift in the fall of '83. She told me she saw these things advertised on sale for 99 bucks at Toy 'R' Us. Couldn't pass on that deal. The TI99/4A was my first PC. Didn't know anything about programming language so I loaded up on cassette software and did my best to learn the ropes. Took about five minutes to load a program from cassette and if it didn't read the data bursts just right you had to rewind the tape and start the read over again. Still for a $99 machine it was amazing what it could do for the day, and with the TV RF output there was no need to spring for a separate monitor.

[@packfan1946]

The TI 99/4A was my first computer and I loved it. I was in middle school and the book that was included with the computer on learning the Basic Programming Language put me way ahead of my peers cause the Basic language was being taught in all my math classes. By the time I was a freshman in my high school algebra class, my programming skills were advanced compared to my peers and was actually put into accelerated math because of that programming skill. I moved on the Commodore 64 which was fine, but I had to add a cartridge module to increase the basic language level to a more advanced level.

[@PianoMan-hx3ev]

Learned BASIC thanks to that thing.

[@fitfogey]

Same here. Grew into a nice lucrative profession because of this thing. This video disrespects one of the best computers ever made.

[@dennisc6716]

That was my first computer at home in 1981. After I learned its BASIC I sat up all weekend and wrote an authentic looking Pac-Man game for it.

[@leoismaking]

A used Ti-99a was the first computer we ever had in our house. I'm too little to remember much about it other than playing some game cartridges, and I wouldn't really become interested in programming until much later. Now I wish I could go back to it and see what I could make of it nowadays.

[@allenbythesea]

Wrote my first program of my life on the ti/99/4a we got from jcpennies. IIRC though it was more like $199 back in the early 80s. I can still remember the 'cush cush cush cush...' of the tape drive. Good times!

[@yeahralfi1]

Great video which deserves much more views. Thanks !,

[@NewsmakersTech]

Thank you!

[@rachelreid8621]

This was the first computer I learned about in elementary school. BASIC program I even remember some of the commands .

[@georgegozzard6030]

I had one of those...used to play Parsec on it for hours every day. No other game has ever received that much of my time and attention!

[@mattcorley4622]

This thing basically taught me math and to read.

[@silitekmodder5681]

I got my TI-994a for under $49 even today!

[@TehDrewsus]

The beige models had 2 revisions. The first allowed for third party carts to be used, home screen had a 1981 copyright. The QI, "quality improved" second revision, only played first party carts and has a 1983 copyright on home screen.

[@jasongross6362]

Thank you! I had the black and chrome version and loved it! Of couse the best games were Parsec, Munchman, TI Invaders, Donkey Kong, and Pac-Man! I loved the TI-BASIC and Extended BASIC. Very easy to grasp. I realize now that other computers were faster and better in many ways but still have fond memories!!!

[@ronb6182]

Me too. I liked the three voices on the music chip set. I can program the 15 2 part inventions by J. S. Bach and 3 part inventions. Fugues can also be programmed. I cannot play these pieces on a piano keyboard but to program the computer to play them is a challenge in itself. 73

[@jackeldogo3952]

Funny, I was going to mention PARSEC. I used to play that on my older sister's computer whenever I'd go visit her apartment when I was in HS. I think it's the only thing I ever played on that machine. I remembered she had some Pac-Man knockoff that didn't impress me.

[@dmcd7333]

yes , KC Munchkin...great game!

[@Danny-us8dc]

This was my first home computer in the late 80's. I never realized there were so many games and cartridges. I only had 3. Basic, Extended Basic, and Turtle. If I wanted games, I used a book filled with Extended Basic code for several simple games. Took me forever to manually type out the code in hopes that the game was any good.

[@etownAndy74]

Well BASIC was built-in, not a cartridge. And I'm assuming "Turtle" is TI Logo or TI Logo 2? There's was no cartridge called "Turtle."

[@biggur5]

Same here. I was a kid but I can still remember the codes! Call char, call hchar, etc etc

[@markbanash921]

Its best feature for me was the keyboard. It reminded me of the TI Silent 700 terminal that I used at a local library.

[@indeliblyinked]

Oh the memories of Parsec and Hunt the Wumpus.

[@TheRetroShed]

We’ve recently got hold of one here in the UK. I never knew anyone who had one back in the day. However it’s a great addition to our collection and I’m waiting for an SSD multicart for it to explore that immense library for it. :)

[@flirtwd]

Wow! I remember being in a mall with a Kmart and they had those stockpiled for only $49. Circa, 1983. And hello! Cosby was the main spokesperson for TI speak and spell back in the day. That short pause, er, shade was funny but out of context. No disrespect. You are an awesome presenter! You can see the striation marks on the coffee holder or whatever the tech name is where the cartridges were to be loaded. The games were pretty damn good too. Now I have tears streaming down my face.

[@NewsmakersTech]

Thank you for watching! We have two different models of the TI99 and really need to get some software for them and get them up and running.

[@78katz]

My father started out programming with these. He bought dozens of them before transitioning to the IBM PC. I remember going into a Kmart with him and filling up a shopping kart with the $50 units. Parsec with the speech synthesizer couldn't be beat in '83-'84. Hunt the Wumpus wasn't too bad either

[@Slightly_Sadistic]

T'was my first gaming system. I played Parsec to death among several of the games. Alpiner is also quite nice.

[@gregoryknight2928]

I'm not so sure I agree with everything in this review. The TI 99/4A was my first computer and we bought it at JC Penney's for $299. That substantial investment in 198 terms for my single mother helped paved the way for my interest in computers and programming. Tunnels of Doom and Parsec were awesome games beyond compare to any other games of the day. Played them for hours. With that computer I learned TI Basic and TI Extended basic and programmed games for my brother and I and other friends with TI's -- a horse racing game, Wall Street simulation game, etc... The VIC 20 was too limited (in my teenage opinion at the time and playing on my best friend's VIC 20) as was the Commodore VIC 64 (my friend upgraded to that as soon as it was available). Just as in video gaming you were either an Atari 2600 fan or Intellivision, in intro home computer market as a teen you were either a TI 99/4A fan or Commodore. The TRS 80 was a school only model because it was just too expensive for most kids in my neighborhood to have their parents buy. This was a great stroll down memory lane for an old fart like me, but it hardly captures the crux of the importance of the TI 99/4a. Nor does it capture the advantages of the TI 99/4A over the Commodore VIC 20 or Commodore VIC 64 and the interplay between those systems. For what it's worth, most of my Atari 2600 friends were also TI 99/4A geeks. My Intellivision video gaming friends were typically the Commodore VIC 20/64 geeks.

[@vcv6560]

At the time it wasn't understood why a 16 bit computer would be so slow; to learn later it was a delay in the production of their 8 bit CPU forced the design change (and the 256 byte memory area) that it all made sense. Imagine the frustration of the engineers already knowing their 'superior' system would be a technical failure.

[@markradaba]

I had the silver version... Loved it growing up!

[@dtester]

That explains why I had two friends that both had this along with my school! Probably my first computer experience!

[@OldAussieAds]

My family didn't have much in the mid 80s. E.g. We still had a black and white TV when most of my friends had colour. So when my grandfather passed to us his beige TI-99/4A (years after it was discontinued) I was excited. We got no software for it. All I ever played were BASIC games typed in from the manual, or games my father translated from books from the library. Was it the ideal setup? Absolutely not. Would I have changed anything in retrospect? No way. It gave me an appreciation for programming and tinkering and it gave my father and I a lifelong bond through technology.

[@robertlock5501]

Good video by and large. One thing of note is that the Beige systems came in **two** varieties, and only that latter revision was "locked out"

[@User0000000000000004]

"periphreal sales" Yeah, I'm sure that's how that wodr is prononucde.

[@oldradios09]

Hi, I am having an issue with a 1983 beige model TI 99/4A. I read somewhere it could be an issue with its VRAM? I’m wondering if it’s worth getting it fixed (I’m not very good at DIY repairs) or should getting a different 99/4A would be more cheaper? I have posted a video on my channel highlighting my problem.

[@kevinstrade2752]

Have both models, but are more recent purchases. My cousin had one back in the day and had fond memories with it. My aunt bought it on liquidation and it was impressive for about a year or 2. He had the voice module wich was awesome back in the early 80's. Its A shame because the TI-99 could have offered more back in the day had TI not bungled it. I do have the power tower for mine and it modernizes the whole set up. I could not imagine daisy chaining disk drives,voice modules, memory expansion etc. There are some decent games for it though nothing that would have drawn anyone from thier existing platforms or beloved computers. I do fire mine up from time to time and play some of the games and newer homebrews for it. Thanks for the memories and taking us back.

[@adamsal5877]

i remember got ti99 at 1987 the main problem face me is that many companies like olivetti and ibm had complete system with disk drive and bigger memory...the ti99 its like lego you need buy and buy to get complete system and bigger twice than personal pc ..so i through in garbage

[@Trishlicious]

The Timex Sinclair 1000 was my first, Ti was my second; dad got some cash and said lets buy a computer, wish I knew more when I was 13, I would have purchased the C64 instead. Parsec!!!!!!

[@blushduluth6739]

The discovery of this channel has improved my overall quality of life.

[@NewsmakersTech]

That's wonderful, thank you!

[@BazookaIke]

Hunt the Wumpus or a Space Invaders type of game that i recall playing a lot. Can't remember if it was called Space Invaders, but it had the aliens going back and forth across the screen, firing at you and inching their way to the ground. Clear the board and you get bonus points for shooting a space ship that crosses the screen.

[@jamesslick4790]

I bought the revised model (with the software limitation) and swapped in an older mobo. Boom, Better keyboard, But no limitation. LOL. This was in the late 80's and these were at every yard sale for almost nothing! I had Extended BASIC, a P.E. Box, 2 FDDs and 2 cassette decks and Speech Synth! so, for "almost nothing" I had a fully decked out TI-994a system in 1988! The only "O.G." thing I did NOT have was the TI monitor. (It was a "holy Grail" for me in those pre eBay days.) 👍😊👍

[@s0ld4u]

Nice historical overview. Peripheral "Peri-feral"

[@antonnym214]

Very nice! I subscribed immediately.

[@craigdallen]

My first computer was the Silver 99/4A. I had limited games, but I learned BASIC on it.

[@Nikioko]

This was my first computer. I was 8 and inherited it from my uncle, who got himself an Apple IIe.

[@SpikeDiegel]

I had an uncle who worked for TI that got me the Biege, cost reduced version. It ended up burning out one day when I was a kid and had to throw it away

[@martinbarr-david8173]

My 1st computer was the TiI994a beige.

[@JonathanAshworth-mm4jp]

Had one in 1984.£49.99.2 games TI invaders and parsec.Then got alpiner.My dad's mate had one with tape games. Plus you spent an hour typing in a program out of a mag.Then waited 10mins for it to load. Happy days hahaha 🤘👻

[@Tuxon86]

There are three version of the 99/4a. The silver, the beige non QI, and the crippled beige QI.

[@theoneleggedraven1940]

2023 i picked up a replica of my old ti-99 4a from a game repair store locally for $35 with the cords and 3 "games" lol. It's one of the few pieces of trash i feel good paying for.

[@VitruviusXXV]

The chrome and black was my first. Had a lot of fun writing programs for it. I graduated to an Amstrad CPC464 colour monitor. Powerful machine for the time and plenty of good games.

[@dyscotopia]

Parsec was great. I remember playing something called Henhouse I really enjoyed, which being not made by TI would have not been playable on the revision. Still, I have fond memories of ruining my eyesight attempting to learn BASIC.

[@jeffhyche9839]

I must be the only one in the world with out any great love or fondness for this computer. It was the computer that I learned to program on because if you wanted a game for it, you had to sit down and write it. This wasn't actually that bad because through our Ti-99 users club we would trade programs we wrote with other uses had wrote. One of the thing we did was go to a arcade and take notes and draw screens from the arcade. Then go home and port them to the Ti. Some of the ports of arcade games ranged from garbage to amazing, depending on the skill of the programmer. Eventually, we got tired of our friends, who had Ataris, Apples, and C-64 having better setups than we did. You could buy a C-64, a disk drive, and have access to a whole world of third party programs. For the price of the expansion box, no cards, for the Ti I could have a C-64 and a disk drive. Once I did the Ti went into the closet and never saw the light of day again.

[@FrozenCharlottes]

I got my "silver" one in probably 1983 (I was 11) and I really resented the fact that I didn't at least get a Commodore which was what I wanted. One thing that you didn't mention on this video was that if no cartridge was inserted, it would boot to a command prompt that allowed you to write code in BASIC. You could not save anything without the expansions (which I didn't have) but it taught me the in's and out's of programming which I ended up pivoting to a 30 year career using Visual Basic starting from the early 90s.

[@Miler97487]

You could save in BASIC without any expansion. You could save on cassette because the TI-99/4A came with a hookup that allowed a cassette recorder to be hooked to your TI-99/4A so you can save and load programs on cassette. To be honest I loathed cassette storage because it was so cranky about the volume you have it set. When loading more often than not you'll receive an "Error detected in data" or "Error: No data found" message.

[@ThePictic]

I went to school thag had one. This takes me back

[@funretrogames7498]

Bonjour, petite question, est ce quelqu un saurait si les cartouches de jeux du ti-99 sont compatibles avec un autre ordinateur ou une autre console que celle ci ?? ou sont t ils exclusivement conçu pour ne fonctionner que sur le ti-99 ?? les consoles atari par exemple ont la possibilité la plupart du temps de permettre d interchanger les jeux atari sur d autres consoles atari.. merci d avance pour celui qui aurait l info :)

[@paherbst524]

My first computer

[@richardmoser1272]

I had the black and chrome model. Paid $99. Had two tape recorders for writing and recording my own software, in TI Basic, which was a little different from regular Basic (not completely compatible).

[@captaincrash12]

Buck Rogers cart for the win.

[@mattbaker5757]

I really prefer the look of the brushed metal cased TI's over the beige plastic, however, on almost every TI I've come across, the metal has been bent, dented, scratched and corroded. I'd love to find one in primo condition. I also own Atari XL computers which also use brushed metal, more sparingly as trim and function buttons, but they are also difficult to keep the brushed metal looking good, but at least with them there are solutions like faux brushed metal decals/tape that can cover the original metal and look great. No such luck with TI-99/4A's with all the realestate that has to be covered.

[@compactflash]

I have one of these. It's a good computer.

[@entropygenerator2646]

Die hard Parsec fan reporting.

[@MrPatrichon]

The black & silver model is such a beauty, even by today's standards. That's the one we had. The cartridge games were awesome and lightning fast. And the games which we programmed in TI-Basic and which we picked in magazines, while generally very sluggish because it was run on two layers of interpreters (that's what I read somewhere), were very imaginative and make for extremely fond memories. The joysticks had great ergonomics. I don't think the TI was a great productivity machine, but it was an insanely good gaming rig.

[@jamesslick4790]

It was "double interpreted". Also The TI-994/a BASIC was written by Microsoft!

[@inachu]

I still have it in my closet. I am tempted to build it out with the best hardware new or old.

[@tombrickhouse-growthmatrix6201]

I had the chrome & black one with expansion box, voice synthesizer, modem. I learned to write software in Basic language on that computer, which led to a second career in web development after 25 years as a bricklayer. I can't remember the next computer I got but I remember that one. I thought it was cool.

[@georgeh6856]

When I was in high school, my friend had one of the silver and black TI 99/4As. He used to call me on the phone and "talk" to me by typing stuff into the TI and having it output the speech through the speech synthesizer. I had no idea what it was saying.

[@jorgesampaio5635]

My first computer too, 1983 ( the gray plastic one). I had the Extended Basic, the Editor Assembler, and even the Wycove Forth (useless). I've learned how to program the TI9900 assembler, which I did some code to draw points, straight lines, and arcs. The 5 1/4 disk driver was a sh...!! I used it until 1987 when I got an Apple IIe for my master program, which I replaced some 6 months later for a PC, with a cheap 8088 processor, 30MB HDD, and a math co-processor.

[@DJTI99]

I had the silver one. It was my first computer, hence my DJ moniker...

[@quincy1048]

I had the TI/99a I bought for $100. I didn't realize at the time TI was dumping it. So I never got to get any peripherals. I have since picked up a NIB model that is like a trip back in time. But before that I picked up a untested model and guess what it didn't work. I sent that one off to be swapped with a working model for $40 which turned out to be about $70 by the time I was done and the swap was not so much a swap but a repair that took about 9 months. it took so long I bought the other one figuring it was NEVER going to get done. I had no idea the revised plastic version only ran TI software. Glad I didn't get one of those. My interest back in the day and still today is in software development and while the architecture of this machine is choked the TMS9900 is a nice chip at the asm level with the 16 registers and stuff. I also picked up a mini-peb for mine which is a nice modern expansion. I wanted to pick up the modern video upgrade but it seems to be in a long redesign phase. Hey I even forgot the name of it. FA18 I think it was...might be wrong on that.

[@NewsmakersTech]

The Ti99/4A is such an interesting system for software development, definetly a challenge but quite the fun one.

[@TehDrewsus]

9:12 "bedroom programmers" Um, context?! Haha. I know this video is old, but my first computer was a ti 99/4a. I currently have an unopened beige model in my garage.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, It was my first computer as well. Why not talking about the FinalGROM, show the machine working... ?

[@MT-or7lv]

yep, I had one of those and learned Basic.

[@leewilkerson8185]

I hope you meant to say TIOS instead of MS-DOS which was only being written for 8-bit machines. MS-DOS is a compiled language and TIOS is interpretive just like Linux except for the level. It was TIOS which coupled with the 16-bit TMS-9900 processor. It used reversed logic (LSB is 15, MSB is 0) and it was written in-house in Texas. It was one of only three 16-bit processors at the time and IBM did not own any of them! Microsoft wrote very little software for the TI as they were busy playing with IBM. I manually disassembled the first 4K of BIOS into a notebook line by line by hand until I got a printer working (I still had it in my possession less than ten years ago) and then watched the CPU step through each individual line of code. I built extra hardware for my TI machines and I wrote code in TI BASIC, TI Extended BASIC, and TI Assembly code. I took a BASIC system for serial and parallel printing written and published in BYTE magazine by Paul Urbanus and I modified it to run in Extended BASIC. That's changing the BASIC calls and functions AND the underlying support assembly language routines. I published my work, my modifications, documentation for the mods, and a complete manual for it in the Lexington, KY TIUG newsletter. I had a 99/4, a 99/4a, and a 99/4QI, the BIOS of which had been modified by TI to no longer accept third party games. For that reason, I back-graded a few machines for folks in the UG.

[@delscoville]

Sadly, it was the closed architecture that killed it. It had 32 sprites, beating the Atari 400/800, and as many colors as the yet to be released Commodore 64. It also had a sound chip that would later be used with the Sega Master System. So it had more power for gaming than any of it's competition. But sadly, TI locked out independant studios. Was bad at licensing games for the studios they had, and so the software library was just a fraction of other home computers had. Without the software, hardware sales stagnated. Yes, they designed a killer machine. But they hoped to corner all the software for it, which was their only mistake. Other than trying to compete with the VIC 20, which was always a losing battle because it was such a inexpensive machine to manufacture. I was sad to let my TI/994a go. I hadn't used it for several years and hadn't seen new software for it almost the entire time I had it.

[@bardmoss]

The TI marketing department was primarily responsible for its marketing failure. The head of the department felt the only thing to market was price. The C=64 had 1/3 fewer chips and cheap[er chips, so competing on price only was destined to lose TI lots of mnoney. The second point of failure was their unwillingness to buy MS BASIC. The TI BASIC was quite inferior.

[@NewsmakersTech]

Was the TI99/4A your first PC? Were you happy with it or disappointed?

[@cbmeeks]

It was my first PC and I enjoyed it immensely. It was the first PC I learned to program on.

[@galier2]

It was my first computer (february 1982) and I was quite disappointed. I My brother and me were not rich and so we only could afford the console 16K, the cassette interface cable and the joysticks. As software, we only had listings in magazines but in the publications here (France&Germany) had almost no TI code, only Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore PET/CBM/VIC (it was before C64). It was a horror to adapt the code in TI-BASIC and because the graphic memory was used up by the BASIC programs, it was nearly impossible to exploit the graphical capabilities of the machine. Drawing a line, a dot, a circle on the screen? You must be joking? Only text character reprogramming for you. We then tried with TI-Extended BASIC which was really much better, but the fundamental flaw using the VRAM for the Basic was still here. When we calculated what it would cost to have a floppy and a 32K RAM extension, it was clear that it was hopeless. We sold the TI and bought an Apple II+ clone that were sold cheaply in Germany. The computer+floppy+monitor was cheaper than what the floppy+RAM extension would have cost for the TI. So even if we had enjoyed some cartridge games of the TI (Parsec and TI Invaders, indoor soccer was a real stinker though), it was much better for my later career that we got rid of the TI and switch to something more mainstream.

[@metalheadmalta]

It was my second after the ZX81, and it made a massive difference... I still pay games on it to this day!!! I learned programming on it... today,I am an IT Administrator, thanks to it.

[@2010mistersoftee]

I ran a TI 99 four a with its acoustic modem and ran a bulletin board service…..1980…

[@geoffreyoltmans4356]

The reason the 99/4A failed has more to do with poor decisions around using the 9900 processor in the first place. Using it added a lot of unnecessary cost to the system due to upper management insistence that every IC in the machine have “TI” on it. A Z80 would have been a much better choice. In fact, if you study the machine you’ll see there’s a lot of unnecessary built in cost to all of the add ons. To get 32 KB of RAM you had to get either a sidecar expansion or a massive PEB. An Atari 800 and later XL machines fit all that extra stuff into the console itself and the disk drive peripheral and SIO for quite a bit cheaper. The 99/4 was waaay more expensive due to FCC regulations. You also had to get the TI monitor (which was included in the price) for that machine for it to pass FCC emissions testing. Different manufacturers accommodated these regulations at that time in different ways to varying success but ultimately added cost to all the options. Apple completely skirted this, Tandy got fined, Atari built a big die cast brick faraday cage into their systems, and TI tried to bribe a senator. Nevertheless warts and all an interesting machine that is good looking when fully expanded.

[@bjbell52]

I started with an Atari 400, then 800, then 130xe. I tried a C64 but the colors were so washed out on my TV set that I could barely see what I was writing. I had a chance to get a TI99/4A for a very small price and didn't. Watching some of the TI99 videos, I wish I would have.

[@NewsmakersTech]

The TI994A was a really cool system but with some pretty major drawbacks compared to the C64 and Atari 8 bit line