Talk:TI-99/4A

message: I merged content from TI99/4A.  Does it still read well? --Timc 14:56, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content merge 

message: When I went shopping for a home computer in 1983, the guy at the TI store asked me if I were a teacher.  I admitted that I'd taught 7th-9th grades for a year and a half three years ago, and presently taught an occasional college course in the evening.  Well, that was enough to get me a small discount on a 99/4A.  I think I paid something like $200 plus tax for the basic machine.
I regretted that decision pretty quickly when I learned that ANY expansion of my system was going to cost a thousand bucks.  Sure you can get a disk drive ($250) . . . and you'll need a disk controller ($300) and the peripheral expansion box. (a million dollars)  More memory?  Same deal.  Printer?  Take out a loan.  (TI was trying to bury the stand-alone expansion items and didn't talk about these.)  I bought a Commodore 64 for serious work, and it cost me a lot less.
: In late 1982, an expansion system package was available for $400. Your choice of two of the following: 32k memory card, disk controller (with disk drive) or RS232 card. And you got to pick as a bonus either the TI Writer word processor or Microsoft Multiplan. As the RS232 card had both serial and parallel, and these were universal interfaces, you didn't have to buy a TI printer. Ti99 forever (talk) 12:02, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: TI had a very nice policy on repairs. Up to the end and beyond (1983) you could send in your unit, get a replacement, and at most pay $50. Ti99 forever (talk) 12:02, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  TI and the Education Market 

message: Anyone fancy adding a picture to this article? --Rebroad 16:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  wot no picture? 

message: What about having a section in the article on the TI's (most popular) games, such as Parsec, TI Invaders, Munch-man (Munch Man or Munchman?), and Car Wars.  Those four stand out to me. 24.222.121.193 01:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You probably had some recursion going on, and ran out of stack space. Ti99 forever (talk) 12:08, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

text: The TMS9919 sound chip has three tone generators that range from 110 HZ up to 44,733 HZ. I'd say "that's a lot of tones". And there was a noise generator that had 6 fixed noises (3 "periodic" buzzer-type, 3 "white noise"), and one of each type that was programmed by the frequency given to the third tone generator. Ti99 forever (talk) 12:08, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  games section? 

message: The external link to search for images of TI99/4A is labelled as Google images. But the actual images come from somewhere else. Google merely indexes them. So the link title should not be Google images. Actually, link to search for a particular item should not be kept. The user can do the search himself if she wants to. --Soumyasch 10:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Google Images 

message: I have just started an article about Car Wars, one of the video games mentioned in this article. The article is by necessity a stub, since I have based the information in it entirely on my childhood memories of playing the game. I could use some help from anyone who has more information. marbeh raglaim 05:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Car Wars 

message: The TI/Commodore price war was Tramiel's revenge for TI pricing him out of the calculator market in the 70s.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 15:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you point us to a chart that illustrates the differences in prices between Commodore and TI calculators?  216.99.198.43 (talk) 20:01, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  calculator rematch 

message: The article talks about the higher build quality of the TI - has this translated into a higher % of surviving examples?69.125.110.223 (talk) 18:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Build quality 

message: Someone made a link about a port made on the "Tomy Tutor".  When I clicked it, it brought me to the TI-99.  I don't feel this is right because a redirect is like "The name of the article is not identical but it's the same thing".  So, ok, the TT had TI-99 parts, but it wasn't THE TI-99.  It's like redirecting a bicycle to a motorcycle because both have 2 wheels - but they are two very distinct objects.  The TT really should have its own article and the redirect removed. -- Lyverbe (talk) 12:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tomy Tutor redirect 

message: Is a 99/4, not a 99/4a. Fix this, internet.  --98.148.119.83 (talk) 07:32, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Current Picture 

message: I skimmed through the main article for information on the ASCII set used by the TI/99 4A.   If the information is there, I missed it.   Where is it?   Maybe the article could be rearranged a little so the information is located at a major subheading?    Could somebody knowledgeable please rewrite the main article to explain how Texas Instruments viewed the ASCII question?   Did the computer have its own unique set of ASCII (for the sake of proprietarial control), and where were the character definitions?   Were they in the GLOM, as I suspect?   Was each letter effectively a sprite?  How did the fonts differ from ATASCII and PETASCII, two standards that were fiercely competitive at the time?   If the TI/99 4A was a 16 bit microprocessor, were the fonts laid out a letter at a time, 16 bits across by 8 or 16 bits deep,  or did they follow some other standard?   Could letters back then be a different color than the cursor?
Were there memory ports for controlling the shape, color, and location of the cursor?   216.99.198.43 (talk) 19:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Characters are 8x8. You define a character in TI BASIC with a CALL CHAR command. CALL CHAR takes two parameters: the ASCII value of the character, and a string of 16 hexadecimal digits whose binary representation determines the pixel values. So CALL CHAR(65,"183C7EFFFF7E3C18") turns the letter A into a diamond shape. The cursor is a part of the character set itself, but is not in a character set affected by the CALL COLOR command (character code is either 30 or 31, I can't remember). Ntsimp (talk) 18:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, that was very helpful.   216.99.198.97 (talk) 07:05, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

text: The 99-4/A supported the 256 character set, but AFAIK only 32 through 127 were standard ASCII. All 256 characters could be redefined. Each 8x8 pixel character could have two colors, but the colors had to be assigned to blocks of (IIRC) 16 characters. A problem cropped up with TI Extended BASIC because it reserved two blocks of characters for sprite functions. A TI BASIC program that redefined any character in those two blocks would not run in Extended BASIC. There were some programming workarounds for that to make such BASIC programs work in EX-BASIC and some 3rd party Extended BASIC's incorporated workarounds so that any BASIC program using the sprite reserved blocks would run. Unlike the regular character blocks for color assignments, every individual sprite could have its own color. IIRC the background color for sprites was always transparent. The 9918A did not have a true bitmap mode where every pixel was individually addressable for color. The "bitmap" mode was actually 32x192 1x8 pixel stripes. Each stripe could have two colors. Sprites were not affected by that limitation and could move around the screen without affecting (or being affected by) that limitation. Sprites could be 8x8 pixels or 16x16 pixels and a pixel doubled "magnified" version of each was available. That enabled a 4 step sprite "zoom" using only two sprite definitions. Bizzybody (talk) 08:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  ASCII on the TI/99 4A 

message: What does the "caps" key on the TI 99/8 do?   It is the key on the upper left part of the keyboard, sort of located where the ESC key was, on similar computers of the era.
Is it similar to a caps lock key?   Does it stay down when you press it, like a typewriter shift lock, or does it come up again, functioning more or less as a toggle?   216.99.198.126 (talk) 06:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caps key on the TI 99/8 

message: How much addressing space was available on the ROMs?   Were the ROMs socketed?   If somebody opened up his TI-994A, did he have an easy way of unplugging the ROM and replacing it with an EPROM of his own design?   216.99.219.27 (talk) 02:23, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  ROM replacements 

message: This article is not consistent:  The photo says it was released in 1979.  Directly underneath (and in the article) it says 1981.  This needs to be made consistent.  --Rehcsif (talk) 18:15, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The article says that the TI-99/4A was released in 1981. The photo is of the predecessor of the TI-99/4A, the TI-99/4 (which is mentioned in the first paragraph of the article), which was released in 1979. HMishkoff (talk) 01:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, completely missed that.  As common as the 99/4A is, you'd think someone could post a picture of the actual machine, not the 99/4 which was much more rare.  --Rehcsif (talk) 16:36, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Release data 

message: Someone keeps adding that that console has 16KB of CPU RAM /and/ 16KB of VDP RAM. This is not true for either the TI-99/4 or the TI-99/4A. They only have 16KB of VDP RAM and 256 bytes of CPU RAM. Please stop updating the article to say otherwise. You can clearly see this in any of the memory maps released from TI - check Editor/Assembler manual page 399 for one of many examples (explained on pages 398-399) - the only CPU RAM available besides scratchpad is the 32k memory expansion card.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.8.167.185 (talk) 23:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Memory of the System 

message: This whole article needs a cleanup. Every section has had opinions inserted at random so many times that the whole thing reads somewhat random. The main sections should focus on the console as it was released and marketed, and all the custom user modifications, if they are worthy of mention at all, really should go in a separate section, to reduce confusion between what the machine originally was, and what people did with it. Perhaps we should check some of the other machine articles, are they as random?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.8.167.185 (talk) 23:31, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: The F18A (for FPGA 9918A) project is nearing 100% original hardware compatibility. http://codehackcreate.com/archives/30 The prototype board is pin compatible with the 9918A (NTSC composite out), the 9928A (NTSC component out), 9929A (PAL component out) and TMS9919A (PAL component out, if such actually was made) Video Display Processor chips. How it does that is it does not use the pins that differ between the composite and component (color difference, works when connected to the common red, green and blue component video inputs) output versions of the chips. It has been tested in an MSX1, a TI-99/4A and a Colecovision without any changes to the F18A VHDL code. The F18A outputs video to a standard VGA 15pin connector, so there is no PAL or NTSC to bother with, its VGA. The creator of this plans to implement at least some features from the 9938 and 9958 VDP chips as well as some new features never available in that series of video chips. Aside from a perfect 9918A/9929A copy with VGA output + enhancements, another goal is to make the F18A much more affordable than any previous video upgrade for the TI-99/4A so that unlike previous video upgrades there will be many more TI owners able to use software that takes advantage of the enhanced features. The same should apply to use of the F18A in MSX1 computers. Bizzybody (talk) 08:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  An FPGA pin compatible 9918A replacement. 

message: Hi,
I added planet-99.net to the external links section, and I also cleaned up the formatting of the links, such that the link (the clickable part that you click on with your mouse) is at the beginning, and the description is regular black text. This seems to be in line with external link sections on other pages on Wikipedia. Hope nobody objects.
Mark Wills, 18th Jan 2011  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.177.50.5 (talk) 07:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: Hi,
Today I have added some information about modern, contemporary use of the TI-99/4A, as it still enjoys a very active afterlife. I've also added a section briefly describing some of the modern hardware that is now available, or in development. It needs fleshing out more, and needs links/citations, but it's a start. Please have at it and go ahead and improve.
Regards
Mark Wills, 21 Jan 2011  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.97.147.31 (talk) 10:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contemporary Use and Modern Hardware sections 

message: Placed directly after Tech Specs seems to imply release reception, not some place-in-history review 25 years later.
This IGN semi-factoid should be in legacy or something, not release reception, which discussed above anyway (as in sales, etc.)71.197.14.59 (talk) 11:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reception... 

message: Someone changed the release date of the 99/4 from 1979 to 1977. I changed it back. I was working for TI in the Home Computer department until early 1979, and the product had not been released by the time I left, so I know that the 1977 date could not be possible. HMishkoff (talk) 00:46, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  99/4 release date 

message: The article doesn't seem to make this clear: software-wise, how compatible were the 99/4 and the 99/4A? --179.182.131.165 (talk) 17:38, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: They run almost all the same software. The only practical difference is the TMS9918A in the 4A. A program using the 'graphics 2' mode of that chip would run only on the 4A, but that was very rare. The notable example is Parsec. Ntsimp (talk) 20:54, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compatibility 

message: While this article is currently titled TI-99/4A, it also is Wikipedia's only content on the original TI-99/4. I'm considering being bold in restructuring the article to be about the TI-99 family in general, which would cover both the 99/4 and 99/4A, but would also expand the sections at the bottom with what is known about the 99/2, 99/3, 99/4B(5), 99/7, 99/8, and other variants that were in development, prototypes built that still exist today, and in some cases advertised to the public before TI pulled the plug on the whole home computer division. At that point the article ought to be moved to "Texas Instruments TI-99." Is anyone opposed? –Mabeenot (talk) 16:40, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expand article to TI-99 in general? 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 23:05, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 4 November 2021 

message: I am confused by the edit notice for this article. 
TI certainly did not knowingly release the source code, or any schematics besides the authorized copies in "PES and Console Technical Data". 
Also, saying that any graphics, sounds etc are fair use, "do whatever", is not the precise meaning of "fair use".
Texas Instruments has never relinquished copyright on home computer materials, ROMs, etc (except for 3 limited exceptions in 1984).  For instance, Plogue recently BOUGHT the rights from TI for the Parsec and other voices.
I am all in favor of attributing Texas Instruments on any material quoted!  Credit where credit belongs. 
However, the majority of source code/schematics that are out there were NEVER PUBLISHED.  Therefore material from those can be removed from Wikipedia at any time.   Exceptions would be published books that re-wrote this material, like TI Intern. 
It's a conundrum that much of the best material about the TI-99/4A and cousins came from unpublished TI internal documents.  The answers to many questions are recorded as oral history of TI employees, or unpublished documents--and ultimately, unpublished documents in the TI Archives at DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. (which anyone can access. They are absolute treasures.)   Neither of these counts as "published" per Wikipedia policy.  
The papers from the CB Wilson estate are an example of "floating around the Internet" and are the authoritative, primary source on the origin of the TI-99/4A.  However, until they are archived (they ought to be preserved at DeGolyer with the rest of CB Wilson's papers) they can't even be published. 
Texas Instruments has a process through the DeGolyer library for journalists to request permission to publish material from the archive. 
FarmerPotato (talk) 20:05, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair comment.  I've requested that the notice be removed as it's unsourced, Google doesn't confirm it, and "has been released" is a very vague term in any case.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 05:47, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  have set that edit notice to expire this date 28 October 2022. If editors would like to see it or an updated version restored to the edit pages, then please join this discussion with your opinions and comments. [Link] P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 04:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  EDIT NOTICE misleading