To clarify some statements that have already been made on the TI-99/4A, I'd like to comment: << True, that's bizarre... they appear to be especially common in the northwest. But just try to find a PEB! >> There were approximately 1+ million consoles manufactured by Texas Instruments from 1981 through early 1984. There were also approximately 250,000 Peripheral Expansion Systems also manufactured. So, while it's true there were more consoles, PEB's are not hard to find. << What I need is the Speech Editor cartridge! >> To Jeff Hellige - these are little rare to find, but are still available. I got mine for around $20 from someone in California. But, you can call up any vendor and get them from around $25-30, due to their rarity. << Personally, my opinion of the TI-99/4a varies from stupid piece of shit to semi-decent machine. Today I feel like stupid piece of shit. It was almost completely closed, it's BASIC sucked and was slow, it's keyboard sucked, and if it wasn't for the hordes of TI-99 faithfuls it would've been just a footnote. I don't understand what the big attraction was, but then, I came from the world of Apple ][, to which nothing could compare (uh oh, here come the holy wars). >> To Sam -- The TI-99/4A, in my opinion, is at the very least a semi-decent machine. The BASIC interpreter is what slowed things down a bit, but you have to look at it from a different perspective - no PEEKs or POKEs just to program graphics and/or sound, like some other machines (no, I'm good enough not to mention any names). The keyboard did "suck" compared to that of a PC, but it was very simple - especially suited towards children. From my own experience, I found the keyboard easy to use compared to a Commodore 64 - the touch response was better. The big attraction came from the fact that it was 16-bit, had full color, sprites (smoothly-moving objects), excellent speech synthesis, easy to use cartridges, and expandability. Some of the games were amazing (like Parsec and Alpiner) - way ahead of its time. And you can do word processing and spreadsheets with it as well. << Even the original PC was really bad, mostly closed design. They were all noteable as it told marketers what would fly and what had to be there. Amusingly the ti has what every P5 box has today, graphics, sound, games so they weren't that far off <in a perverse sort of way>. >> Allison -- I couldn't agree with you more. The TI-99/4A was an amazing machine when you look back at all the components and features it had. It's still easier than my P120 I'm using to type this message - as there's no icons to click, no finagling around to get where you need to go or to do this. Just press 2 keys and you're in the program with the TI. Now that I call ease-of-use! << EVERYONE knows that MY COMMODORE 64 is WAY better than YOUR APPLE! >> To Les -- Yes, the Commodore 64 IS better than the Apple - I must admit! --------------------- And to Bill and others -- So you can begin to see with all these replies that people at least knew about the TI-99/4A and its positives/negatives. But that's to go with any machine. It's about what you learned on, and what you grew up with. In my case, this is the computer I learned on, and I'll stick with it forever because once you get used to one thing, it's hard to change sometimes. Same goes I'm sure for everyone else on this list server. The TI-99/4A was one of the most popular computers ever made back in the early 80's. Again, 1 million consoles gives you a hint. And, I'll tell you why they're like roaches sitting around -- most people bought them for around $50-100 when TI was going out of business (late 1983 into early 1984), played a few games on them, and then said, "I'm done!". Instead of throwing them in the garbage, they thought they were worth something, and now you see them all around in thrift stores. I even went to a local fair around town last year and picked one up for $5! But remember, for these people, that's all they wanted to do with this computer. But for those that were serious, you could do much, much more with it! Bryan Nicalek bnicalek(a)aol.com