1 Oct
2007
1 Oct
'07
6:16 p.m.
On 01/10/2007, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote:
I remember back when we were talking about getting a
computer for the first
time...
She called my attention to the fact that there was this local place
advertising that machine "for only $149"... So we went up there and talked
to them about it.
My thoughts at that time were that to have something useful you'd need at
least two floppy drives. I also thought that more memory than what came in
the basic unit wasn't a bad idea, either. The sales dude did some figuring,
and when the expansion box, the memory, and the drives were all added in
the total came to something over $1,000 -- not as good a deal as it looked
like, at the time. :-)
I also didn't consider that it had only a 40-column screen, either. Having
done a bunch of work on C64s, and having gotten (eventually) an Osborne
Executive which came with a built-in monitor showing an 80-column screen, I
think I probably would've found that hard to live with as well.
I suspect that that machine was an attempt to make a "computer appliance"
which would provide a platform for commercial software or similar, and it
wasn't even that good at that. <shrug>
They were odd little machines. I used several; my school equipped its
computer lab with them. Each with its own cassette recorded and black
& white TV. (!)
The BASIC was dog-slow and integer only, IIRC. There was a better
BASIC as a cartridge, but it cost too much.
They were pretty much the first ever 16-bit home micro, but it was a
crippled 16-bit chip - as detailed in another message in this thread.
They did have good keyboards, were solidly built and I believe the
graphics chip was, for its time, decent and capable.
However, they were obliterated in the UK market (and I suspect
worldwide) by the cheaper, faster, more capable and more flexible
Sinclair and Commodore machines. Even the less successful 8-bit
machines like the Dragon 32/64, Oric-1/Atmos & Amstrad CPC464/664/6128
sold masses more. The TI99s were relegated to the ranks of the
obscure, along with the Camputers Lynx, Memotech 512, Elan/Flan
Enterprise, Tatung Einstein and so on. Even the MSX did better and
/nobody/ over here bought /those/.
I suspect that made them /very/ cheap by the end of their life, and
that's why my school bought 20 or so of them.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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