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I still have my TI-99/4A! I received it Christmas morning of 1983, although a Timex/Sinclair had been on my wish list. Sears had them marked down to $50 durin

I still have my TI-99/4A! I received it Christmas morning of 1983, although a Timex/Sinclair had been on my wish list. Sears had them marked down to $50 during the 8-bit wars. Mom had been up all night hand-typing in a BASIC demo so it would be running in the morning. Many Wumpuses were hunted that day. Today, it has a F17A video processor that enables VGA output: https://dnotq.io/f18a/intro.html https://dnotq.io/f18a/intro.html And a FinalGROM99 cartridge, so I can have an SD card with all the program cartridges loaded. https://endlos99.github.io/finalgrom99/ https://endlos99.github.io/finalgrom99/ There's still a community of fairly active development for retrogames, and some of them are quite good given capabilities of the hardware. My niece particularly enjoys a marble game called Skyway, try it on the online emulator at https://ti99ers.com https://ti99ers.com

bee_rider 2y ago
> Mom had been up all night hand-typing in a BASIC demo so it would be running in the morning. Many Wumpuses were hunted that day. Hah, that’s a bit of special effort into making Christmas a little bit more magic. Was she a tech person of some kind?
- manyturtles 2y ago
  Well she was smarter than those families who paid for the cartridge edition of "Hunt the Wumpus", like mine.
- buildsjets 2y ago
  She was a High School math teacher, but had an intensest in computing and programming from working on her Master's degree, where she learned state-of-the art COBOL programming. The first computer we had in the house at all was a few years previous, when her school district allowed her to take home a brand new Commodore PET over the summer break. On that machine, many stick-figure men were hung from the gallows. https://www.commodoregames.net/CommodorePET/Hangman-(2)-342.html https://www.commodoregames.net/CommodorePET/Hangman-(2)-342....
Damogran6 2y ago
I've been buying and restoring older stuff (2013 Mac Pro most recently, recapped a Mac SE before that) and I think you just gave my 99 4/a new life. Thanks for that!
rbanffy 2y ago
> Today, it has a F17A video processor that enables VGA output: https://dnotq.io/f18a/intro.html https://dnotq.io/f18a/intro.html This is awesome. I don't have a TI-99, but I do have an MSX that would hugely benefit from this.
seemaze 2y ago
>Many Wumpuses were hunted that day Oh man! I remember playing 'Hunt the Wumpus'[0] with my cousins on my grandfathers TI-99 in the mid 80's. Probably the first computer I ever touched! In the spirit of HN pedantry, should the plural be Wumpi? I will concede that wumpuses is way more fun to say.. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus

bee_rider 2y ago

> Mom had been up all night hand-typing in a BASIC demo so it would be running in the morning. Many Wumpuses were hunted that day. Hah, that’s a bit of special effort into making Christmas a little bit more magic. Was she a tech person of some kind?

manyturtles 2y ago
Well she was smarter than those families who paid for the cartridge edition of "Hunt the Wumpus", like mine.
buildsjets 2y ago
She was a High School math teacher, but had an intensest in computing and programming from working on her Master's degree, where she learned state-of-the art COBOL programming. The first computer we had in the house at all was a few years previous, when her school district allowed her to take home a brand new Commodore PET over the summer break. On that machine, many stick-figure men were hung from the gallows. https://www.commodoregames.net/CommodorePET/Hangman-(2)-342.html https://www.commodoregames.net/CommodorePET/Hangman-(2)-342....

Damogran6 2y ago

I've been buying and restoring older stuff (2013 Mac Pro most recently, recapped a Mac SE before that) and I think you just gave my 99 4/a new life. Thanks for that!

rbanffy 2y ago

> Today, it has a F17A video processor that enables VGA output: https://dnotq.io/f18a/intro.html https://dnotq.io/f18a/intro.html This is awesome. I don't have a TI-99, but I do have an MSX that would hugely benefit from this.

seemaze 2y ago

>Many Wumpuses were hunted that day Oh man! I remember playing 'Hunt the Wumpus'[0] with my cousins on my grandfathers TI-99 in the mid 80's. Probably the first computer I ever touched! In the spirit of HN pedantry, should the plural be Wumpi? I will concede that wumpuses is way more fun to say.. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus