3 ms·

I have a TI-99/4A somewhere (perhaps in my in-law's basement) and I'm really tempted to dig it out. My first computer was a heavily modified ZX-81, but my firs

by smoyer 14y ago

I have a TI-99/4A somewhere (perhaps in my in-law's basement) and I'm really tempted to dig it out. My first computer was a heavily modified ZX-81, but my first computer with a real keyboard was the TI. Both were amazing platforms for learning, and really the only downside was the use of a cassette recorder for storage. Anyway ... thanks for bringing back some great memories. As an aside, the inductor isn't so much used to "tune" the frequency of the crystal as it is to make sure the crystal's impedance is matched properly. You can "pull" a crystal's frequency slightly, but you'll also notice the amplitude of the waveform drops significantly as you move away from it's natural resonance.

ams6110 14y ago
You could get a floppy disk as an add-on (a whopping 90K .. single density 5.25"). I had one back when I was a kid. Learned BASIC of course, and assembly language. There was a little plug-in cartridge called the "Mini Memory" that provided an extra 4K of RAM and an assembler. The keyboard was small so a lot of the punctuation was accessed with the "FN" modifier key, unfortunately FN-= was an immediate hard reset which was all too easy to hit accidentally. More than once lost a lot of code that way. Taught me to save frequently. I seem to recall there was some hack (POKE a value into a specific address?) that would disable that....
- nsxwolf 14y ago
  Don't forget the other cool thing about Mini Memory - it has a lithium battery to save your programs in that 4K. It's almost like a tiny SSD!
  - ams6110 14y ago
    Yeah I did forget about that... as long as your program was less than 4K!
- endgame 14y ago
  I picked up my 99/4A very late (mid-00's, I think), and the battery on MINIMEM gave out and the line-by-line assembler wouldn't load. Still, I had a lot of fun making speech with it. Great system, but a lot of strange ideas. The FN-key stuff, the double-interpreted BASIC, requiring the peripheral expansion box to do assembly work (mini memory and the line-by-line assembler came later).

by smoyer 14y ago

ams6110 14y ago

You could get a floppy disk as an add-on (a whopping 90K .. single density 5.25"). I had one back when I was a kid. Learned BASIC of course, and assembly language. There was a little plug-in cartridge called the "Mini Memory" that provided an extra 4K of RAM and an assembler. The keyboard was small so a lot of the punctuation was accessed with the "FN" modifier key, unfortunately FN-= was an immediate hard reset which was all too easy to hit accidentally. More than once lost a lot of code that way. Taught me to save frequently. I seem to recall there was some hack (POKE a value into a specific address?) that would disable that....

nsxwolf 14y ago
Don't forget the other cool thing about Mini Memory - it has a lithium battery to save your programs in that 4K. It's almost like a tiny SSD!
- ams6110 14y ago
  Yeah I did forget about that... as long as your program was less than 4K!
endgame 14y ago
I picked up my 99/4A very late (mid-00's, I think), and the battery on MINIMEM gave out and the line-by-line assembler wouldn't load. Still, I had a lot of fun making speech with it. Great system, but a lot of strange ideas. The FN-key stuff, the double-interpreted BASIC, requiring the peripheral expansion box to do assembly work (mini memory and the line-by-line assembler came later).