“The internal design of the system was excellent and one of the best home computers I had worked on to date,” says Scott Adams, who developed several games for the platform with Adventure International. It went back to the drawing board and came up with the TI-99/4A (note the “A” in the name), which included the same 16 KB of RAM and 3 MHz TMS9900 CPU as its predecessor, but which also included a full-stroke keyboard, lowercase support, and graphics chip improvements.Īlthough the TI-99/4A and its predecessor garnered some criticism for not living up to the potential of its 16-bit CPU, others found its design elegant. This locked out third-party developers that could have enriched the platform with software variety.Īfter the 99/4 flopped in 1980, TI decided to try again. Texas Instrumentsįrom the beginning, TI wanted to maintain tight control over who developed software for its 99/4 platform, so the company didn’t publish technical specifications or initially release an editor/assembler package that would allow for advanced programming on the system. The predecessor of the 4A, the TI-99/4, launched in 1979. Notably, the TI-99/4 included the 16-bit TMS9900 CPU, which was based on the TI-990 minicomputer, making it the first mass-market PC with a 16-bit CPU in the U.S. The 99/4 retailed for $1,150 (about $4,083 today), and due to strict FCC emissions regulations, shipped with its own 13″ custom color TV set as a monitor.

What Came Before: 1979’s TI-99/4Īfter dazzling the world with pocket calculators and digital watches in the early-mid 1970s, Dallas-based electronics powerhouse Texas Instruments set its sights on the emerging video game and personal computer markets in the late 1970s.Īt first, the firm intended to create both a video game console and a low-cost personal computer, but while in development, those products merged together into the TI-99/4 (no “A” yet), which was released in late 1979. Forty years later, here’s what made it special. In June 1981, Texas Instruments released the TI-99/4A, a 16-bit home computer and gaming platform that became a huge cultural success in America after selling 2.8 million units, although it resulted in a business loss for TI.

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