4 ms·
Not to denigrate the post, but the TI-99/4A did color out of the box; this post is talking about a modern adapter board to work with a modern display instead of
by incanus77 6y ago
Not to denigrate the post, but the TI-99/4A did color out of the box; this post is talking about a modern adapter board to work with a modern display instead of TI's proprietary monitor or a TV. I know because I first programmed on a TI-99/4A and we didn't have the space nor free connection to hook it to the living room TV, so I used a 13" B&W TV in my room for years before ever seeing the color that it was capable of.
- codezero 6y agoI went there with the assumption this was a modern tweak, but nonetheless enjoyed learning a bit about the hardware and the video output situation.
- JdeBP 6y agoIt seems to be a perennial retrocomputing thing. For example: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/15915/what-kind-of-television-set-would-work-with-the-commodore-64 https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/15915/wha...
- eternalban 6y ago16 bits with hardware sprites. Used to write games and rudimentory physics-engine (canons shooting, that sort of stuff) for it in highschool. I still have mine!
- banana_giraffe 6y agoIt's still amazing to see an image coming out of the TI-99/4A without any ghosting or other analog artifacts. It was years into my computing journey before I saw such a crisp display. It always throws me for a little bit of dissonance whenever I see a TI-99/4A on an emulator or here with a VGA output going to a LCD display.
- incanus77 6y agoYeah, that is beautiful.
- pmiller2 6y agoWow, what a coincidence: I, too, first programmed on a TI-99/4A, mostly with the small B&W TV in my room, for the same reasons. I saw the color output on one we had at school, and at a friend’s house, but I outgrew the machine before I ever got my own color TV.
- smcameron 6y agoCount me among those whose first computer was a TI-99/4A. Learned so much on that little machine, esp. hexadecimal with the way sprites worked. Extended BASIC cartridge was a must have. I wrote so, so many half-finished game programs on that thing.
- wsc981 6y agoMy father owned a TI-99/4A and used it to teach me some programming. Afterwards I mostly just copied listings from the TI-jdingen magazine (published by the Dutch TI users group TIGG [0]). Together with my dad I also made a small game. Nothing to impressive. Basically just a ship that automatically moved from the left to the right side of the screen. The player could press a button to shoot a projectile on randomly generated airplanes that would fly from right to left. I know Edsger Dijkstra considered the BASIC language to cause brain damage [1], but still at times I feel like it would be nice to program in a language like TI-BASIC again, just modernised a bit. --- [0]: http://www.ti-99.nl http://www.ti-99.nl [1]: https://programmingisterrible.com/post/40132515169/dijkstra-basic https://programmingisterrible.com/post/40132515169/dijkstra-...
- incanus77 6y agoWhat sorts of modernizations would you like to see? Things removed (GOTO) or things added?
- wsc981 6y agoMostly stuff you see in other modern BASIC variants. Like line numbers removed. Labels for GOSUB. Multiline scope for things like IF THEN ELSE, etc... GOTO should be removed as well. And I'd like to see a BASIC specifically developed for making games and also working for iOS, Android, ... Perhaps such a BASIC language already exists by the way, I haven't done a whole lot of research on this.
- incanus77 6y agoI'm curious, then: why not use the modern variants? What is it about the TI BASIC experience that you'd rather have? Reason I'm asking is I'm working actively on a TBA project around retro-ish BASIC hardware/software as a learning / confidence-building tool. I'm genuinely curious. Related: have you seen the PICO-8 system? It's Lua, but it's specifically designed for games, has some nice constraints that encourage a certain retro look & feel, and is pretty approachable.
- S_A_P 6y agoI think his headline was possibly poorly phrased- I parsed his post as “getting a TI-99/4a to output to a modern monitor without using an RF modulator.” I also had this as my first computer. I also remember getting infuriated by the game “the attack”. I was made fun of because it had TI munch man and not the “real” pac man. I think my brother ended up with ours and I kinda want to see if I could find one again...