An American perspective on the late great Sir Clive Sinclair, from Fast Company

John Many Jars john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net
Wed Sep 29 10:47:22 CDT 2021


I had a TI 99/4 when I was a kid.  It was my first computer (although I
used my friend's Apple ][ much more).

All I can say is, what a piece of garbage.  It was horrible in every way,
and it overheated if you left it on too long.  SLOWEST BASIC EVER!



On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 16:37, Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Sept 2021 at 22:49, Fred Cisin via cctalk
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I think that it is truly tragic about the price gouging.
>
> Strongly agreed.
>
> The TI-99/4A wasn't a great computer, with foolish design compromises,
> but it was driven out of the market by unfair pricing.
>
> The Amiga was a superior machine in almost every way to the Atari ST,
> and should have been a bit more expensive -- I'm sure it was to
> produce. But no, another price war.
>
> And so on.
>
> > A number of people have commented that computers were sold as if the
> > exchange rate was 1:1!
>
> Yup. But that was probably me.  A computer that sold for $1000
> > would be sold in UK for 1000 GBP! (the equivalent of $3000)
>
> Yup. A particular habit of Apple, to be fair, but not unique to them.
> Also, the US cost of living is substantially cheaper -- e.g. gasoline.
>
> Today the average US price is €0.80 per litre.
> EU average is about c€1.40 per litre.
>
> Source:
> https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/USA/gasoline_prices/
> https://www.tolls.eu/fuel-prices
>
> >  How much did the TRS80 sell for in UK?
>
> Which model?
>
> They were pretty rare here -- I don't think I ever saw a single one
> anywhere outside Tandy store display units.
>
>
> https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/5791/was-the-trs-80-model-1-ever-actually-sold-new-with-that-name
>
> Model I, 4K Level I: £385.25
> Model I, 16K Level II: £546.25
>
> --
> Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
> Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
> Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven • Skype: liamproven
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>


-- 
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems:  "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net

--------
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign,
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." -- Jonathan Swift


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