What was the first home computer released by Texas Instruments?
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The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A is a home computer, released June 1981 in the United States at a price of $525 ($ adjusted for inflation). It is an enhanced version of the less successful TI-99/4 model, which was released in late 1979 at a price of $1,150 ($ adjusted for inflation). Both models include support for sprites and multi-channel sound, some of the first home computers to include such custom hardware, alongside the Atari 8-bit family also introduced in 1979.
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
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"InfoWorld" criticized the computer's game library as mediocre. TI discouraged third-party development for the 99/4A, including games, but did not license popular arcade games like "Zaxxon" or "Frogger".
In 1977 groups within Texas Instruments were designing a video game console, a home computer to compete against the TRS-80 and Apple II, and a high-end business personal computer with a hard drive. The first two groups merged at TI's consumer products division in Lubbock, Texas; the 99/4's (according to Walden C. Rhines) "ultracheap keyboard", RF modulator, and ROM cartridges came from the console design. Others within the company persuaded the Lubbock group to use TI's TMS9900 CPU.
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
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Texas Instruments (TI), at the time the world's largest chip manufacturer, decided to enter the home computer market with the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Announced long before its arrival, most industry observers expected the machine to wipe out all competition – on paper its performance was untouchable, and TI had enormous cash reserves and development capability.
History of personal computers
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The Texas Instruments Professional Computer (TIPC) and the Texas Instruments Portable Professional Computer (TIPPC) were devices that were both released on January 31, 1983. The TIPC was a desktop PC and the TIPPC was a fully compatible, portable version of the TIPC. Both computers were most often used by white-collar information workers and professionals who needed to gather, manipulate and transmit information. Texas Instruments (TI) was the first company to release videotape training videos for their computers.
Texas Instruments Professional Computer and Professional Portable Computer
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The Texas Instruments Professional Computer (TIPC) and the Texas Instruments Portable Professional Computer (TIPPC) were devices that were both released on January 31, 1983; the TIPC was a desktop PC and the TIPPC was a fully compatible, portable version of the TIPC. Both computers were most often used by white-collar information workers and professionals that needed to gather, manipulate and transmit information. TI was the first company to release videotape training videos for their computers.
Texas Instruments Professional Computer
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By 1982, an estimated 621,000 home computers were in American households, at an average sales price of US$530 (). After the success of the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Commodore PET and the Apple II in 1977, almost every manufacturer of consumer electronics rushed to introduce a home computer. Large numbers of new machines of all types began to appear during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mattel, Coleco, Texas Instruments and Timex, none of which had any previous connection to the computer industry, all had short-lived home computer lines in the early 1980s. Some home computers were more successful – the BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari 800XL and Commodore 64, sold many units over several years and attracted third-party software development.
Home computer
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In 1983 National Instruments reached an organizational milestone, developing their first GPIB board to connect instruments to IBM PCs. With the arrival of the Macintosh computer, however, the company felt ready to take advantage of the new graphical interfaces. Kodosky began a research initiative with the assistance of student researchers at the University of Texas into ways to exploit the new interface. This led to the creation of NI's flagship product, the LabVIEW graphical development platform for the Macintosh computer, which was released in 1986. The software allows engineers and scientists to program graphically, by "wiring" icons together instead of typing text-based code. By allowing people to use a more intuitive, less-structured development environment, their productivity greatly increased, making LabVIEW quite popular. The following year, a version of LabVIEW, known as LabWindows, was released for the DOS environment.
National Instruments
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Texas Instruments invented the thermal print head in 1965, and the Silent 700, a computer terminal with a thermal printer, was released in the market in 1969. The Silent 700 was the first thermal print system that printed on thermal paper. During the 1970s, Hewlett-Packard integrated thermal paper printers into the design of its HP9800 series desktop computers, and integrated it into the top of the 2600-series CRT terminals as well as in plotters.
Thermal paper
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The TI-99/4 has a calculator-style chiclet keyboard and a character set that lacked lowercase text. The TI-99/4A added an additional graphics mode, "lowercase" characters consisting of small capitals, and a full-travel keyboard. Both use 16-bit processors, making the TI-99/4 series the first 16-bit home computers.
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
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The TI-92 was originally released in 1995, and was the first symbolic calculator made by Texas Instruments. It came with a computer algebra system (CAS) based on Derive, and was one of the first calculators to offer 3D graphing. The TI-92 was not allowed on most standardized tests due mostly to its QWERTY keyboard. Its larger size was also rather cumbersome compared to other graphing calculators. In response to these concerns, Texas Instruments introduced the TI-89 which is functionally similar to the original TI-92, but featured Flash ROM and 188 KB RAM, and a smaller design without the QWERTY keyboard. The TI-92 was then replaced by the TI-92 Plus, which was essentially a TI-89 with the larger QWERTY keyboard design of the TI-92. Eventually, TI released the Voyage 200, which is a smaller, lighter version of the TI-92 Plus with more Flash ROM.
The TI-92 is no longer sold through TI or its dealers, and is very hard to come by in stores.
TI-92 series