24 Feb
2014
24 Feb
'14
10:12 a.m.
From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com>
I've long thought that the strangling of the bus done on the TI 99/4
home PC was quite possibly motivated by TI's not wanting to compete with
its own 990 series of computers. The cost of a TI 990/4 was
considerably higher than a 99/4, even though both use the same MPU.
I have heard & read this enough times to think there's something to it.
Wouldn't be the first time this sort of thing has been done.
I find the I2L versions of the 9900 far more
interesting as far as chips
go. They were used quite often in military gear, not as devices offered
to the general unwashed. In a similar way, one did not see the
Fairchild 9940 in much general audience gear.
Yes. You can debate how good a general purpose processor the 9900 is, but
it was proven to be a very good embedded controller. The memory mapped
registers and workspace swapping made real time context switching a breeze
compared to more conventional designs.
From: John Many Jars <john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net>
Basically, my dad bought the wrong thing. It cost
about 1/2 what an
Apple //+ would have cost, and was about 1/8 as useful.
Ha! That is *exactly* how I ended up with my own 99/4.
KJ