ScuzzBlog: Diaries December 2017 Entry 17th December 2017: Post: 1 TI-99/4A or ' that silver thing ' This computer looks real slick, what with the high polished silver and jet black case. Also has the old Citroen BX dash tray for putting your loose change on. There is an ominous shortage of connectors and ports to this machine. Also none of the sockets really are what you can call traditional outlets. To run on a TV you need the special modulator which plugs into the lone socket on the rear. The power supply has a real whacky socket which is seen on no other computer I have. And there is a very strange cassette cable that appears to connect to the joystick port. Saying all that the machine looks all very polished. The BASIC shows the commands in smaller capitals which is neat. The cartridge is a menu option which I think is a brilliant idea. I will have to check out what form of BASIC this uses cus it just didn't seem to understand all the standard words and commands. I did feel that the computer was talking to me at times. Very friendly. I have to say this computer is very very different to anything else I have mucked on for the period. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. What dismays me , coming late to all these platforms is why I ever bothered with the Spectrum. Any one of these other platforms would have provided me with a much better system. I loved the HiTBiT with the software on the ROM. I enjoyed very much the TRS in all it's forms. This computer I would have definitely fell in love with. Like I say sad that I didn't look around at more. The saddest truth is that I never was able to buy the VIC-20 that I was saving up for. The girlfriend has to take the blame for that one. But then she did have much more easily accessible hardware. Texas Instruments TI-99/4A from 1981 Uses the TI TMS9900 CPU running at 3MHz Memory is 16K with 26K in ROM Display id through a special TV modulator 32 characters by 24 lines and 192 x 256 in 16 colour graphics. The unit has a ROM cartridge on the front. Port for data storage There is also a CPU bus expansion plus joystick port. The OS is ROM BASIC. The computer uses its very own TI BASIC which is incompatible with the more popular MS-DOS BASIC. The computer had a very strange way of adding peripherals which basically created a wagon train daisy chained to the right of the machine. This could be overcome but at great cost. Anyway enough about that lets get to the pics. Starting with me first finding the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A... or as I call it ' that silver thing '. I have three of these. One is busted. My shelf with three of these silver things on My SONY in the store always gives way better images than the big Toshiba The computer was working when I first discovered her so looking good so far Also found a goodly amount of docs First thing to connect is the modulator or TV connector. The DIN connects to the one rear port on the back of the machine A TV PAL Encoder Next up you need the special power supply With the very strange connector Then you are good to go Sorry for the blurred images. Camera issues Well , more camera user issues. My bad for leaving the setting on macro. Duh !! Nice touch having the cartridge on a menu Munch - Man ... guess you realised that Very entertaining if you like Pac-Man Think you may just be able to read that. I discovered later that the " " print quotation marks are on the front face of the 'P' and not shown on the top of the button like normal I have to photograph in near dark so couldn't find the print " ... thingies

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Last updated 16/12/2017

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