Armas70.126 net.micro utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!rmas70!trl Thu Mar 18 14:13:25 1982 TI 99/4A I have received several replies to my inquires about the Texas Instruments personal/home computer, TI 99/4A. I am suprised my the lack of knowledge surrounding this little 16 bitter critter. Most of the incoming mail contained questions, not answers ! I called the folks at TI and they were of little help. I did find out that assembly language tools and a PASCAL compiler will soon hit the marketplace. There are a few scattered user's groups forming here in Ohio, and I suspect that is true elsewhere. I have been waiting for other companies to provide hardware/ software for this machine, but as of now, the only people preparing either is Milton Bradley, providing firmware games. (By firmware I mean the 'plug-in' chips with burned-in software). I have heard rumors that a company, unknown to me, is marketing some assembly level programming packages. My reaction to the 99/4A so far is favorable. The color graphics are competitive with Atari's and the sound generator can produce any four frequencies at a given time. I have used the disk drives and RS232 interface module and feel satisfied. The largest drawback is the slowness of the BASIC interpetor. It is noticably slower than its competitors. My second complaint lies with TI, getting information from them has been less than desirable. If anyone has information they wish to share, ''''''' I'm HERE ! ''''' Tom Lanning BTL-CB 1B319 1-614-860-4153 cbosg!rmas70!trl ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.