Floppy Days 50 - TI-99 History

Dec 20, 2015

The TI-99/4A - History, with Jim Fetzner and Mark Wills

This is the second in a multi-part series on the TI-99/4A computer.  For this history segment, I was lucky enough to find a couple of people who have an incredible history with the TI-99, Jim Fetzner and Mark Wills.  Jim has an extensive, multilingual library of all things TI and possesses some very interesting hardware items related to the TI-99.  Mark is the author of TurboForth for the TI-99/4A and has been involved in the TI-99/4A scene pretty much since 1983.  He’s also English, living in the UK, so he has a rather British take on the home computer wars.  I will cover TI-99 history with the help of these two gentlemen.  I think you will find this very interesting!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

Intro

• Bill Degnan’s VintageComputer.net - http://www.vintagecomputer.net
• Bill Degnan’s “History of Commodore Computers” Poster - http://www.vintagecomputer.net/poster_detail.cfm

New Acquisitions

• Tricky Tutorial #5 (Player/Missile Graphics for the Atari - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tricky-tutorial-no--5-player-missile-graphics_28271.html
• Tricky Tutorial #6 (Sound and Music) for the Atari - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tricky-tutorial-no--6-sound-and-music_28278.html
• Tricky Tutorial #11 (Memory Map) for the Atari - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tricky-tutorial-no-11-memory-map-tutorial_28283.html
• Atari Logo - http://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n6/logo.html
• Atari 130XE Package from Ron Luks - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208571288938997&set=gm.1662349070709066&type=3&theater
• REX for M100 - http://bitchin100.com/wiki/index.php?title=REX
• Club 100 - Club for the TRS-80 Model 100 - http://www.club100.org/
• TRS-80 Model 100 Mailing List Subscription Page - http://lists.bitchin100.com/listinfo.cgi/m100-bitchin100.com
• HP-85B Owner’s Guide and Programming Manual - http://www.greendyk.nl/hp85/

News

• Stan Veit Audiobook Podcast, published by David Greelish - http://www.classiccomputing.com/CCPodcasts/Stan_Veit/Stan_Veit.html
• RetroChallenge 2016/01 - http://www.retrochallenge.org/
• The M3SE Project by Peter Bartlett - http://bartlettlabs.com/M3SE/
• Vintage is the New Old - http://vintageisthenewold.com
• VCF Southeast 4.0 - April 2 & 3 2016, Roswell, GA
• VCF East - April 15-17, 2016 - InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ - http://www.vintagecomputerfederation.org/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/
• 25th Annual Last Chicago CoCoFest - http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/ - April 23 & 24, 2016, Heron Point Convention Center, Lombard, IL

Feedback

• Quantum Link - https://www.tinytickle.co.uk/quantum-link/

History

• Bill Gaskill’s TI-99 Timeline - http://www.ti99ers.org/timeline/timeline.htm
• Ron Albright’s “Orphan Chronicles” - https://archive.org/details/tibook_the-orphan-chronicles
• Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A