How the TI-99/4a computer sold 2.8 million yet failed

Play these games on your device!! Emulators can be found here (unaffiliated link):
(I like Win994a simulator and Classic99 on Windows)

In 1978, Texas Instruments missed an opportunity to define computing architecture. However, we still got the TI-99/4a from it.

Today we will checking out some vintage computing hardware - the Texas Instruments TI-99/4a home computer that was released in 1981. Today we'll be learning about it's history, how history could have been different, and also doing a teardown to see inside it, as well as playing several games.

Gameplay Includes: TI Invaders, Car Wars, Jawbreaker II, BurgerTime, Tombstone City, Blasto, Hunt the Wumpus, Munch Man, A-Maze-Ing, and Parsec

Interesting Reading:

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YouTube Audio Library:
Satya Yuga

[VortexGarage]

I totally forgot the "Lift" setting on Parsec adjusts your speed/distance for the ships vertical movement. After this I looked it up, and the 1, 2, or 3 number keys set it - 3 is fastest and default, but set it to 1, and the fuel tunnels are manageable.

[Pokester]

The Ti 99 4a was my first computer and your video brought back a lot of memories. I mowed a lot of lawns to buy it and eventually had the tape drive, floppy drive, hard drive, modem, extended basic, voice synthesizer, and expansion bays. I think I had about every game you could get to in cartridge or download to tape or later floppy. I loved the machine and ultimately lost it when I got married and had left it at home where my mom got rid of it. I would love to have it to this day. It was my favorite computer ever. In so many ways i found it to be superior to every other machine I used around that same time. I used the Apple IIe, Commodore 64. It wasn't until my Amiga that I felt I truly had a superior system. I also had a PC Clone XT 8088, which was IHMO inferior to them all. It was years before PC would reach the level of graphics quality that all those other systems had early on.
Thanks for the video! It was a great walk down memory lane.

[johneygd]

That memory expansion module actually did solve many of the shortcomings of the ti99 system, but you had to make sure that it was secured tight in place or otherwise it could crash the system, i think texas instruments had no other choice then dropping down the price of those systems, otherwise they would, ve still end up with a large inventory of ti99 systems and maybe just maybe would, ve lost more money into renting costs of those wear houses, so i think they did the right thing.

[fitfogey]

My first computer at 10 years old. I think this PC was a lot of people’s first computer back in the day. Personally it introduced me to a keyboard (typing capability) and basic (programming capability). These things provided a springboard to eventually having a career in the tech industry. I owe a lot to this computer. Just bought another one off of Ebay 40 years later. Going to re-live Parsec with the voice synthesizer. Going to listen to the synthesizer voice with extended basic and enjoy it. Thanks for the video. It is a great review of a computer that meant and still means a lot to many people.

[kneel]

my parents were one of those people who got one of the late beige 4a's at a discount for $50 (or so) prob in 1984 after TI's exit from the market, and it changed my life and most likely shaped my career

[BoDiddly]

Wow!
What a trip down memory lane!
I spent a good part of my teen years on the 99/4a and a lot of that was playing Parsec and Tombstone.

I still have my TI-99/4a, along with the Speech Synthesizer and the Peripheral Expansion Box. They are living in my basement with the last time I dug them out was I think in 2001.

Thanks for the memories!

[tomy.]

Awesome video! I LOVED my TI-994A! Tunnels of Doom, Star Trek, Parsec, TI Invaders, so many classics. I'd program that all day with COMPUTE magazines by my side. My friends would come over to play Tunnels of Doom, such an incredible game! Good times. :)

[Doing_Time]

Parsec! That was the TI99 game--the only one that truly showed off what the TI99 could do that no other computer of the time could match. However, my hands actually started doing the motions to control your cars when I saw them (dang, 40 years later and it's limbic), and burger time was much better on the TI than the Commodores V20 and C64. Dang, I played hours of Tombstone too--I can't believe I remember how to play. I think Hunt the Wumpus came with the computer? I wasn't looking at the screen when you loaded cat maze and I remembered it very well from the sounds, but it was way too difficult after a level or to for me as a toddler. There was a much wider variety of enjoyable games for Commodores, even with their inferior graphics and audio--until the superior Amiga opened a whole new world of computing...Unlike the Commodores, I can't think of a single TI game that would make it worth running an emulator (My family still plays C64 M.U.L.E., Mail Order Monsters, Space Taxi, Summer Games, Winter Games...And the Amiga has at least a dozen still great games, including the GOAT--Earl Weaver Baseball)

The only other thing I remember about TI 99/4A was that TI Basic is probably the hardest high level programming language I've ever used. Apple Basic was by far the most annoying, with it's lousy keyboard and the lack of a backspace. Commodore Basic was so dang easy many kids just went ahead and learned C for more of a challenge. That most TI games came on a cartridge like the 2600 instead of on tapes, also made them much harder to hack, so it just wasn't much of a computer learning system.

IBMs cost about as much as a decent car if you had one with the same simple audio reproduction and color graphics as the TIs or Commodores--I'm not sure how they could even be called home or personal computers for any middle class American. Even a decade later it would cost you $1500 for a low-end x86 clone with rudimentary color graphics and a rudimentary ability to replay recorded sounds. So the IBM is a very curious comparison.

[jecelassumpcaojr]

some tiny corrections: the 9900 was a bipolar (I²L) processor, MOS. The IBM PC project officially started in early 1980 with the extremely un-IBM-like goal of doing a product in less than a year, though IBM had previously explored alternatives (in 1978 they were designing the Datamaster, for example, and selected the Intel 8085 for it). The price for the TI99/4 included a color monitor, while the TI99/4A came with the RF modulator instead.

[negjay]

Whereas Pac-Man plays until it crashes when the score runs out of memory space, Munch Man actually has an ending. In the last stage the character is shifted one tile and instead of filling the maze you actually eat the maze, and then after that he's free.

[richardtwyning]

I enjoyed this. You had some harsh words about the architecture, but I'm glad I chose the 99/4A at age 12. It was the machine and architecture that supported me through school and university, later with the Myarc Geneve 9640. The 9900 was almost designed as a multitasking architecture.
I'm still involved with TI User Group UK to this day.

[hdufort]

The shielding looks much stronger than in other computers of the same era.

[Miler]

When my father bought our Ti-99/4A at the end of 1981 I never realized it was 16-bit. In fact I wasn't aware of the bit concept of home computers at the time so I didn't know standard home computers of the time were 8-bit until the introduction of such 16-bit computers in the mid '80s like the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. Even in the mid 1980s I assumed the TI was 8-bit since it performed more like one and the graphics were 8-bit quality and you'd hardly mistake it for the Amiga. It wasn't until years later when I went online I discovered the TI was 16-bit.

[AllGamingStarred]

TI says you're forced to use poke and peek but without them, actually programming the machine is harder.

[LanceHall]

You should do a part 2 about modern upgrades

[heinzpilot]

I have a NOS TI99/4a in vintage condition. I love it! A fun retro computer. I had one when I was a kid. This was my first computer.

[VenturaIT]

I think the real reason that the TI failed was it was so difficult for a kid to upgrade to a floppy drive. I don't really know, but I never got a floppy and my family got a Leading Edge pc clone before even considering putting more money into my TI. I think more people got C64 floppy drives, were they cheaper than TI floppy drives? My school in IL had a lab with Apples II and IIe with double floppy drives. The Apples were always better than either the TI or C64 and just different than the IBM PC... My middle school in California had a lab with C64's with hard drives. And now in 2022 for the first time on my production server I don't have a hard drive, just solid state technology. I never actually met a kid with an Apple at home until the Macintosh first came out, and that family didn't even know how to use a computer.

[eranvered]

When entering the refuel tunnel in Parsec. try pressing 1 & 2 keys, that will change the sensitivity of your spaceship .. 3 will get you back to normal.... notice the "LIFT 3" text

[nowthatsjustducky]

Lift 1 for the refuelling tunnels, Lift 2 for the asteroid fields, Lift 3 for everything else.

Also, I discovered way back in the days of olde that if you start the game by crashing your ship on various objects on the ground, there is a good chance that after either the first wave of Swoopers or Urbites you will get a wave of Killer Satellites. I seem to recall the sign that the bug was triggered was a brief little graphical glitch in the to right area of the screen when you crashed.

[jimaanders]

Thank you for a detailed view of the TI994/A. It brings back a lot of memories.

The early TMS9900 used a hermetic ceramic package which was much more expensive than the plastic package (show here) that came later.
The address and data busses were 16 bits wide which made the chip very easy to incorporate in new designs but it took a lot of real estate on the mother board. It was awkward to interface the mother board to accessory boards because of the wide busses.

TI eventually developed an 8 bit version of the micro which had similar performance because of a more sophisticated architecture and it was much less expensive but it came too late to save the home computer.

A hardware and software disappointment was the so called GROM chip (game rom), supposedly for games but it was too slow for use with the internal Basic program language. The good games were programmed in assembly language and they performed very well.
The TMS9900 was fun to program in the late '70's but it didn't have the potential to become a high performance PC in the '80's.

Parsec was the ultimate game for the TI994/A. The speech output was considered state of the art at that time. The graphic effects were outstanding. It was better to use the keyboard buttons for control rather than the joystick.
(TI leveraged their speech technology to create the popular Speak and Spell. )