TI-99 4A

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away …This was my first computer way back before the interweb was around we had the TI-99 4A. (Texas Instruments)

Technical specifications

CPU 3.0 MHz, 16-bit,
Memory: 16 kB VDP RAM

Let’s walk thru this awesome photo my mother some how kept. Not focusing on the sweet sports wallpaper we will go right to the good stuff. The “monitor” was a black & white 13″ tv. Note item 1 kids, those are called dials. You see when I was a kid you used to have to walk all the way across the room to change channels! There’s a cure for todays childhood obesity, just take away the remote and make them walk across the room just to change the show and they will drop weight faster than a runway model!

Next up is the “hard drive” It wasn’t measured in mega bites mb or ever terra bites tb or even as tiny as kb. It was a tape deck! If you wanted to play Math Blasters you put the tape in and put in another cartridge and then had to listen to the software load. This is what is sounded like.

I just wanted to give a tip of my hat to the TI99 that got me started with computers. I’ve come a long way from that…

oh wait, I guess I haven’t gotten that far far away. ;)