I will never forget this rare moment in history when the YT algorithm actually started making interesting recommendations to me. Thank you for this video, and for you! The TI-99 era of home computing made me who I am today. I look forward to exploring some of your back content!
When I was a kid I could only dream of owning a PEB. Thank you for a wonderful channel. Every time I watch I am transported back to a great time in my life. I'd be on my TI 99/4a and my brother on his ZX Spectrum. So many Fridays we'd pull all-nighters just typing in source code from magazines. What memories, but I was really blown away when you showcased the new TI games in this video. Wow! Just amazing that there are new games still being developed for the TI. Thank you again for a great channel.
You and your channel are simply adorable. I've been a Texas Instruments TI99/4A user since 1980 and I love listening to your voice and learning new things about our favorite computer. Thank you very much and greetings from Germany!
Finally just finished "getting my 99/4A band back together" - Console, Speech Synth, almost fully-stocked PEB, (Cassette) Program Recorder, TI pain-stick controllers, and a TI handset-interface Modem. Didn't have the modem when I was a kid, but man did I always want one! Watching this makes me want a P-Card (for completion's sake!) and that damned MBX!
The CC40's are pretty cool looking. Around a decade ago my dad found a few of them randomly somewhere for just a few bucks, still brand new in the box, and he plucked them up as they were clearly very old. I have opened mine up and played around with it a little but it has mostly been a display piece. Would have loved having something like this growing up.
It's still a fun little machine to mess around on as I see it, coding up BASIC 10-liners and the like. With the custom character graphics and relatively fast interpreter, you can do some pretty entertaining stuff.
TursiLion said the cost of the Dragon's Lair cartridge using the best compression available would cost about $18,000 in 1984, due to all the memory required for the video.
I would really like to see a full game shelf/room tour. The TI stuff has been your focus but seemingly not your only vice when it comes to retro hardware.
In 1984 my father bought a WICO adapter that allowed the use of Atari joysticks on the TI-99/4A and he bought an Atari compatible WICO joystick, and it was a much better experience than the old TI Joysticks. We went through three or four TI joysticks before we bought the WICO adapter and joystick. In 1985 my father bought an Atari 800XL and we already had a joystick ready for that computer. Years later, we bought a Sega Genesis and found out their controller was Atari compatible. I plugged it into the Atari and found I could play on it. We still had the TI-99/4A, so I hooked it to the WICO adapter and able to use it on the TI.
Interesting. I knew the Genesis controllers worked with the Atari, but had never considered there being an adapter to use with the TI. That must have been fun and a great improvement over the TI joysticks!
I admire your collection. Emulation has allowed me to enjoy the TI99/4A in a way I was unable to as it was incomplete. It now looks better than the original with smooth scaled graphics and filters. When you get the machine to sing it is funny, but enjoyable in a quirky way. Best wishes from the UK!
I'm not entirely sure the skin between my pointer finger and thumb have ever fully grown back, considering the number of times that skin got pinched in this infernal joystick!
Funny, I never experienced that... but I did break the stem on two sets. Today, I use Atari knockoffs and a converter. The Hyperkin "Trooper" (not the Trooper 2, which is a USB joystick, though!) is the first decent Atari knockoff joystick I've found, too... after destroying several of those other lower-quality knockoffs. I wonder why no one ever produced "mainstream" high quality (metal parts, good sensors/buttons, etc) Atari-style joysticks?
I only have the original TI joysticks and the Atari joystick conversion to work with the TI. I’ve noticed some games work better with either one or the other. To get far in Parsec I have to use the original joystick. To play Super Demon Attack I use the Atari joystick. Playing Munchman with the Atari joystick is practically impossible. Most games I use the Atari joystick but there are a few games where the response just needs to be different.
I am envious of your /4 (as I'm sure I've said in the past). Finding one (preferably a volume control model) was a concerted effort when I was working, but retirement has put any I've seen far out of my snack-bracket. Have also wanted a P-Code card since 1982, but the ones on eBay are usually listed as "untested", and once again, a tad pricey for something that may not work. You were right to list both of these at the top of of your favourites. As far as your 'prized' game selection, I not only agree with your choices, I own most of them by your recommendation. (Dragon's Lair I found before I found your channel, but adding Legend II and Realm of Antiquities to my collection was thanks to your reviews.) I also love my MBX, and very happy I have the complete collection of games/overlays. The spinner on my controller is broken ( after 40 year old tiny plastic tab finally snapped), and the headset is toast (I hold onto it to keep the collection authentic, but learned that the Labtec LVA-7330 is a compatble replacement that is very reasonably priced if you can find one.) I've often posted that my DataBioTics cartridge/manual collection is the top of my personal heap, with my Moonbeam tape collection running a close second. If I can find a copy of Video Vegas, my 'released' Funware collection will be complete (only one box/manual though (damn), and since you've introduced me to Lobster Bay, I'd say one of their best games was never published. But my real prized possesions in the TI realm, are the folks like you Mlle Pedant, who make this very niche computer hobby far less of a solitairy affair. I wish you a 2024 that is healthy, productive and stress-free. Cheers.
TI Speaks looks so great, I'd have messed around with that for hours on end if I'd had that on my TI99 back in the day😁 Great vid as always PixelPendant.
What, exactly, are the issues you see in the prior videos? And how are those improved upon now? As a long time follower here, I'd be fascinated to read you expand in that.
Huh. To me, this feels far more fake, far more forced. Anytime someone attempts to use a "fake voice" on an ongoing basis, when it be Gilbert Godfrey, Pee Wee Herman (Paul Rubens) or some dude using a bit of falsetto while trying to sound like a chick... it sounds fake and forced. That can work in comedy, but never in an attempt to be taken seriously. We have years of hearing his natural voice. We all know what he really sounds like. The attempt to "sound female" doesn't sound female at all... it just sounds like a guy imitating female vocal tones. Dare I say, perhaps as far as "mocking" female vocal tones. Audiobook readers typically use the same technique while reading female characters... but most of them are more convincing. And none of them are trying to pretend that they're actually women now. I like PP... I've been following him since almost his first post here. But I absolutely don't agree with this either "ridiculing" or "delusional" behavior. The first should be intolerable on moral grounds against the person foing the ridicule. The second should be intolerable on moral grounds on the part of those choosing to willfully reinforce a delusion. I'm fine with Elvis impersonators. But when someone tries to say he's really the real Elvis... it's actually malicious to "go along with" that claim. I have no problem with a guy who impersonates women. Not unless the impersonation is overtly misogynistic, anyway. But it's malicious to "go along" with a man's claim that he's "really a woman." Or, on the exact same level, that he's actually a cabbage.
Thanks for sharing those. I was not familiar with several of them! Seems like TI was ahead of it’s time… I remember wondering as I got older why other computers that came later couldn’t do things my childhood TI did in the 80’s (such as using voice).
Still own a original TI99/4A and last year I've finally upgraded to the Extended Basic Carttrdige. Wish I had the possibily of Extended Basic when I was in my teens.
Hello Pixel Pendent, I am a TI-99/4A enthusiast & gamer. While playing the DEUS EX Mankind Divided video game on my PC I noticed an Easter Egg mentioning the 99. To find the Easter Egg: Level 12: Flowers, but no funeral Go to the Kingpin's (Radich Nikoladze's) Office When you search his computer read the 1st email I thought you would like to know. Thanks for the great videos & your excitement for the 99.
My 4A also came from Penneys... the one in my town had a whole wall devoted to the TI. The rest of my stuff (apart from carts) came from a well known TI computer shop in nearby Indianapolis, though. (Almost all my carts and (rare) disk software came from "Service Merchandise.") I remember the shock when I discovered that the "TI printer" I bought was literally just a relabeled, and up-priced, MX80. (It still works, though! Amazingly, Epson still produces and sells "Black Fabric Ribbon Cartridge #8750" to this day!)
Huh... I posted a reply and it seems to have disappeared. I was suggesting that you might be... having 2x functional MBX units... be the guy to fully document the internal physical configuration of the MBX. And to share that info on WHTech and AtariAge. Wonder what happened to my post?
It's a cool thought, as it seems perfectly suited for it. Unfortunately, as far as I know, only one independent programmer (Barry Boone) ever went to the trouble of working out the business of communicating with the MBX joystick from the software end of things, and while he produced demonstration code, nobody else has put it to this kind of practical use. Mainly just because the number of people with a working MBX with working joystick these days is so small, I'd say.
Only in the sense that there were minor design changes made over time. Though not ones which fundamentally affected overall function in significant ways. The "99/4 Peripheral Expansion System" label changed. The separators between peripheral cards on the back changed in height. The power switch changed. But for basic functional purposes, any PEB's a good PEB.
The TI99/4A is a decent machine but that f***ing expansion box is such a bad design in so many ways. Not a fact, just an opinion but damn… couldn’t they just make an external floppy drive like everything else without that behemoth?
It's huge. It's heavy. It's loud. But in a way, it does serve the power users pretty well. Lots of slots, and lots of space, and expansion card conventions that are pretty easy to replicate and develop for. And there's always sidecars, if something more compact is desired.
@@PixelPedant True, but I wish they’d come up with a more efficient design and not made using the expansion mandatory for accessing floppies. In any case I’ll just be using an SD card adapter cartridge… not an authentic experience of course but much more efficient and at a fraction of the cost. BTW I don’t know if you’ve ever used one of those, but do you think it might be possible to save homemade BASIC programs to an SD card via cartridge slot?
they did.. the Side-car disk controller plugged in to the side port and made a "train" of expansions.. so after the 32k ram box, disk controller box, rs232 box, solid state thermal printer box, disk drive and modem.. you needed a 5ft long desk just for the "train" hence the expansion box was designed to solve that issue lots of photos on my website in the TI FAQ
@@arcadeshopper Ah, I see! Didn’t know that. I’m very new to this computer. Just started using it a month ago and still learning about it. I came from the world of Commodore and Atari, and this is a machine that I never messed with before I bought one. *I forgot the Golden Rule: NEVER use Wikipedia as a primary source of information!
The PEB is really the precursor to the modern PC "expansion slots" approach desktop PCs have used for decades. PCI, AGP, AMR, CNR, ISA, EISA, and VESA ISA card slots, then PCI card slots, then AGP card slots, and now PCIe card slots. All are physical descendents of the approach first mainstreamed in the TI PEB. If only TI had kept the CPU, video, etc, in that enclosure... ... And that's exactly what the Geneve eventually did!
To the best of my knowledge, the TI-74S is just the slightly modified variant of the TI-74 sold exclusively to corporate partners. With the primary modifications being: 1) No BASIC or calculator mode key labels (based on the expectation that the partner will use a proprietary overlay), and 2) Autorun for cartridge software, bypassing BASIC (based on the expectation that the partner will use its own proprietary cartridge software and not general purpose BASIC and calculator features). Lots of them out there, though. Especially German units. It seems to have sold well.
Well, there was rather a lot of not worrying about copyright or ownership, in TI software of that era. Disks and cassettes ordered from obscure off-the-radar (from the standpoint of the larger computing market) mail order catalogues could get away with just about anything they liked.
Up until a very few years ago, "what is going on" was universally recognized as a mental illness. Unfortunately, at present, we're "not supposed to say that," on fear of "harsh punishment" despite the vast majority of the human race still recognizing and acknowledging it. A person who decides that they are something that they are not is simply in denial of reality. Whether its a person convinced that he's Elvis, or Napoleon... or a Klingon, or a leprechaun, or the King of the Potato People... or a man claiming to be a woman, or a woman claiming to be a man... it's the same thing. Denial of reality in favor of fantasy. And the fantasy is, historically, a "defense mechanism" against some deep seated trauma the person experienced. A great fictional example of this can be found in the TV series "Babylon 5," in an episode entitled "A Late Delivery From Avalon." A character arrives claiming to be Arthur Pendragon... and he really believes that he is. It eventually turns out that this is how his psyche is dealing with the stress of being the gunner who fired (under orders) the first shot in a devastating and disastrous war. It was an unhealthy way of dealing with an unbearable truth. Mental illness, but still needing to be treated with kindness and sympathy. We don't need to play along with, much less reinforce, the delusion. But we can still support the person suffering from it. Just remember... treating an illness as "good" is the most harmful thing we can possibly do. Attack the illness... not the person suffering from it, though.
Pixel pedant is a major contributor to the 99er community and had earned an allowance to dress and speak however they want. As long as content keeps coming out, I'm happy.
@@Appeelicious exactly. Pixel seems like a nice person and is extremely knowledgeable about the TI99 and this is the best resource I’ve found on UA-cam for my new hobby computer. If someone has issues with the show’s presentation there’s other channels out there, just not as good or thorough.
I will never forget this rare moment in history when the YT algorithm actually started making interesting recommendations to me. Thank you for this video, and for you! The TI-99 era of home computing made me who I am today. I look forward to exploring some of your back content!
Every time you release a new video it makes my day. Thanks for taking the time to share your passion.
I love your videos!!! I'm always looking forward for a new one! Have a wonderful 2024!
Always like when you share things from your collection. I would love to have a fully decked out PEB!
My dream from 1984!
When I was a kid I could only dream of owning a PEB. Thank you for a wonderful channel. Every time I watch I am transported back to a great time in my life. I'd be on my TI 99/4a and my brother on his ZX Spectrum. So many Fridays we'd pull all-nighters just typing in source code from magazines. What memories, but I was really blown away when you showcased the new TI games in this video. Wow! Just amazing that there are new games still being developed for the TI. Thank you again for a great channel.
You and your channel are simply adorable. I've been a Texas Instruments TI99/4A user since 1980 and I love listening to your voice and learning new things about our favorite computer. Thank you very much and greetings from Germany!
Been some time since we had a new video, look forward to some more.
Finally just finished "getting my 99/4A band back together" - Console, Speech Synth, almost fully-stocked PEB, (Cassette) Program Recorder, TI pain-stick controllers, and a TI handset-interface Modem. Didn't have the modem when I was a kid, but man did I always want one! Watching this makes me want a P-Card (for completion's sake!) and that damned MBX!
The CC40's are pretty cool looking. Around a decade ago my dad found a few of them randomly somewhere for just a few bucks, still brand new in the box, and he plucked them up as they were clearly very old. I have opened mine up and played around with it a little but it has mostly been a display piece. Would have loved having something like this growing up.
It's still a fun little machine to mess around on as I see it, coding up BASIC 10-liners and the like. With the custom character graphics and relatively fast interpreter, you can do some pretty entertaining stuff.
TursiLion said the cost of the Dragon's Lair cartridge using the best compression available would cost about $18,000 in 1984, due to all the memory required for the video.
Another tip-top video.
These are always so much fun, and interesting to watch!
I would really like to see a full game shelf/room tour. The TI stuff has been your focus but seemingly not your only vice when it comes to retro hardware.
In 1984 my father bought a WICO adapter that allowed the use of Atari joysticks on the TI-99/4A and he bought an Atari compatible WICO joystick, and it was a much better experience than the old TI Joysticks. We went through three or four TI joysticks before we bought the WICO adapter and joystick. In 1985 my father bought an Atari 800XL and we already had a joystick ready for that computer. Years later, we bought a Sega Genesis and found out their controller was Atari compatible. I plugged it into the Atari and found I could play on it. We still had the TI-99/4A, so I hooked it to the WICO adapter and able to use it on the TI.
Interesting. I knew the Genesis controllers worked with the Atari, but had never considered there being an adapter to use with the TI. That must have been fun and a great improvement over the TI joysticks!
I admire your collection. Emulation has allowed me to enjoy the TI99/4A in a way I was unable to as it was incomplete. It now looks better than the original with smooth scaled graphics and filters. When you get the machine to sing it is funny, but enjoyable in a quirky way. Best wishes from the UK!
I had never even heard of the MBX expansion. It is fascinating.
4:56 - Augh! Unwarned video of using that TI joystick! Unprompted memories of pain!
I'm not entirely sure the skin between my pointer finger and thumb have ever fully grown back, considering the number of times that skin got pinched in this infernal joystick!
Funny, I never experienced that... but I did break the stem on two sets. Today, I use Atari knockoffs and a converter. The Hyperkin "Trooper" (not the Trooper 2, which is a USB joystick, though!) is the first decent Atari knockoff joystick I've found, too... after destroying several of those other lower-quality knockoffs.
I wonder why no one ever produced "mainstream" high quality (metal parts, good sensors/buttons, etc) Atari-style joysticks?
I only have the original TI joysticks and the Atari joystick conversion to work with the TI. I’ve noticed some games work better with either one or the other. To get far in Parsec I have to use the original joystick. To play Super Demon Attack I use the Atari joystick. Playing Munchman with the Atari joystick is practically impossible. Most games I use the Atari joystick but there are a few games where the response just needs to be different.
I am envious of your /4 (as I'm sure I've said in the past). Finding one (preferably a volume control model) was a concerted effort when I was working, but retirement has put any I've seen far out of my snack-bracket. Have also wanted a P-Code card since 1982, but the ones on eBay are usually listed as "untested", and once again, a tad pricey for something that may not work. You were right to list both of these at the top of of your favourites. As far as your 'prized' game selection, I not only agree with your choices, I own most of them by your recommendation. (Dragon's Lair I found before I found your channel, but adding Legend II and Realm of Antiquities to my collection was thanks to your reviews.)
I also love my MBX, and very happy I have the complete collection of games/overlays. The spinner on my controller is broken ( after 40 year old tiny plastic tab finally snapped), and the headset is toast (I hold onto it to keep the collection authentic, but learned that the Labtec LVA-7330 is a compatble replacement that is very reasonably priced if you can find one.)
I've often posted that my DataBioTics cartridge/manual collection is the top of my personal heap, with my Moonbeam tape collection running a close second. If I can find a copy of Video Vegas, my 'released' Funware collection will be complete (only one box/manual though (damn), and since you've introduced me to Lobster Bay, I'd say one of their best games was never published.
But my real prized possesions in the TI realm, are the folks like you Mlle Pedant, who make this very niche computer hobby far less of a solitairy affair. I wish you a 2024 that is healthy, productive and stress-free. Cheers.
TI Speaks looks so great, I'd have messed around with that for hours on end if I'd had that on my TI99 back in the day😁 Great vid as always PixelPendant.
So glad the youtube algorithm brought this video up to me. A great video and love to see how much better your presentation is than in previous videos.
What, exactly, are the issues you see in the prior videos? And how are those improved upon now?
As a long time follower here, I'd be fascinated to read you expand in that.
@@carybrown851 The flow and feel of things. Less like reading from a script and more like talking about something that is loved.
Huh. To me, this feels far more fake, far more forced.
Anytime someone attempts to use a "fake voice" on an ongoing basis, when it be Gilbert Godfrey, Pee Wee Herman (Paul Rubens) or some dude using a bit of falsetto while trying to sound like a chick... it sounds fake and forced. That can work in comedy, but never in an attempt to be taken seriously.
We have years of hearing his natural voice. We all know what he really sounds like. The attempt to "sound female" doesn't sound female at all... it just sounds like a guy imitating female vocal tones. Dare I say, perhaps as far as "mocking" female vocal tones.
Audiobook readers typically use the same technique while reading female characters... but most of them are more convincing. And none of them are trying to pretend that they're actually women now.
I like PP... I've been following him since almost his first post here. But I absolutely don't agree with this either "ridiculing" or "delusional" behavior. The first should be intolerable on moral grounds against the person foing the ridicule. The second should be intolerable on moral grounds on the part of those choosing to willfully reinforce a delusion.
I'm fine with Elvis impersonators. But when someone tries to say he's really the real Elvis... it's actually malicious to "go along with" that claim.
I have no problem with a guy who impersonates women. Not unless the impersonation is overtly misogynistic, anyway. But it's malicious to "go along" with a man's claim that he's "really a woman." Or, on the exact same level, that he's actually a cabbage.
Now look what ya done... made me want to buy more for my TI99/4a haha. Nicely done!
Thanks for sharing those. I was not familiar with several of them! Seems like TI was ahead of it’s time… I remember wondering as I got older why other computers that came later couldn’t do things my childhood TI did in the 80’s (such as using voice).
Still own a original TI99/4A and last year I've finally upgraded to the Extended Basic Carttrdige. Wish I had the possibily of Extended Basic when I was in my teens.
Hello Pixel Pendent,
I am a TI-99/4A enthusiast & gamer. While playing the DEUS EX Mankind Divided video game on my PC I noticed an Easter Egg mentioning the 99.
To find the Easter Egg:
Level 12: Flowers, but no funeral
Go to the Kingpin's (Radich Nikoladze's) Office
When you search his computer read the 1st email
I thought you would like to know. Thanks for the great videos & your excitement for the 99.
I still remember buying my TI/99 (no A) from JC Penney in 1981.
My 4A also came from Penneys... the one in my town had a whole wall devoted to the TI. The rest of my stuff (apart from carts) came from a well known TI computer shop in nearby Indianapolis, though. (Almost all my carts and (rare) disk software came from "Service Merchandise.")
I remember the shock when I discovered that the "TI printer" I bought was literally just a relabeled, and up-priced, MX80. (It still works, though! Amazingly, Epson still produces and sells "Black Fabric Ribbon Cartridge #8750" to this day!)
Another really cool video. Have you ever thought about doing a video on third party extended basic releases?
A great idea! I've used the "real" XB extensively but have barely touched any of those 3rd party versions... I'd love to see that, too!
If you would make 10 videos a day I would watch them all, ace work!
Any intentions of doing another basic game in the near future?
I really wish that the TI had been easy to get here in the UK. I would have loved one.
like the new look. keep up good work. hope you have a new vid soon. maybe a tier list.
I have 2 MBX units complete and Dragons lair and a few other items ..love my.99/4a units never got a 4..but have wanted one
Huh... I posted a reply and it seems to have disappeared.
I was suggesting that you might be... having 2x functional MBX units... be the guy to fully document the internal physical configuration of the MBX. And to share that info on WHTech and AtariAge.
Wonder what happened to my post?
4:59 I figured those 5 1/4 inch floppies my extended family have seemed "TI-y".
Has anyone made a Tempest port using the rotary control?
It's a cool thought, as it seems perfectly suited for it. Unfortunately, as far as I know, only one independent programmer (Barry Boone) ever went to the trouble of working out the business of communicating with the MBX joystick from the software end of things, and while he produced demonstration code, nobody else has put it to this kind of practical use. Mainly just because the number of people with a working MBX with working joystick these days is so small, I'd say.
Tempest would be very difficult to pull off with the 9918a .. maybe with a F18a..
Were there multiple revisions of the PEB? The one we had when i was a kid (my dad still has it) has a rocker style power switch
Only in the sense that there were minor design changes made over time. Though not ones which fundamentally affected overall function in significant ways. The "99/4 Peripheral Expansion System" label changed. The separators between peripheral cards on the back changed in height. The power switch changed. But for basic functional purposes, any PEB's a good PEB.
@@PixelPedant Wasn't the power supply revised as well? Or was that just in the later consoles?
Mon premier ordinateur personnel mais sans extension
The TI99/4A is a decent machine but that f***ing expansion box is such a bad design in so many ways. Not a fact, just an opinion but damn… couldn’t they just make an external floppy drive like everything else without that behemoth?
It's huge. It's heavy. It's loud. But in a way, it does serve the power users pretty well. Lots of slots, and lots of space, and expansion card conventions that are pretty easy to replicate and develop for. And there's always sidecars, if something more compact is desired.
@@PixelPedant True, but I wish they’d come up with a more efficient design and not made using the expansion mandatory for accessing floppies. In any case I’ll just be using an SD card adapter cartridge… not an authentic experience of course but much more efficient and at a fraction of the cost. BTW I don’t know if you’ve ever used one of those, but do you think it might be possible to save homemade BASIC programs to an SD card via cartridge slot?
they did.. the Side-car disk controller plugged in to the side port and made a "train" of expansions.. so after the 32k ram box, disk controller box, rs232 box, solid state thermal printer box, disk drive and modem.. you needed a 5ft long desk just for the "train" hence the expansion box was designed to solve that issue
lots of photos on my website in the TI FAQ
@@arcadeshopper Ah, I see! Didn’t know that. I’m very new to this computer. Just started using it a month ago and still learning about it. I came from the world of Commodore and Atari, and this is a machine that I never messed with before I bought one. *I forgot the Golden Rule: NEVER use Wikipedia as a primary source of information!
The PEB is really the precursor to the modern PC "expansion slots" approach desktop PCs have used for decades.
PCI, AGP, AMR, CNR, ISA, EISA, and VESA
ISA card slots, then PCI card slots, then AGP card slots, and now PCIe card slots. All are physical descendents of the approach first mainstreamed in the TI PEB.
If only TI had kept the CPU, video, etc, in that enclosure...
... And that's exactly what the Geneve eventually did!
Isn't there a TI-74 S?
To the best of my knowledge, the TI-74S is just the slightly modified variant of the TI-74 sold exclusively to corporate partners. With the primary modifications being: 1) No BASIC or calculator mode key labels (based on the expectation that the partner will use a proprietary overlay), and 2) Autorun for cartridge software, bypassing BASIC (based on the expectation that the partner will use its own proprietary cartridge software and not general purpose BASIC and calculator features). Lots of them out there, though. Especially German units. It seems to have sold well.
And here I was thinking this would be about calculators
Haha, I'm guessing Trio+ didn't bother paying for the licensing rights to those Beatles songs, huh?
Well, there was rather a lot of not worrying about copyright or ownership, in TI software of that era. Disks and cassettes ordered from obscure off-the-radar (from the standpoint of the larger computing market) mail order catalogues could get away with just about anything they liked.
👍
you shaved your moustache? what a shame
Whats this new look ?
WTF is going on
TI99 stuff, in a nutshell.
Up until a very few years ago, "what is going on" was universally recognized as a mental illness. Unfortunately, at present, we're "not supposed to say that," on fear of "harsh punishment" despite the vast majority of the human race still recognizing and acknowledging it.
A person who decides that they are something that they are not is simply in denial of reality. Whether its a person convinced that he's Elvis, or Napoleon... or a Klingon, or a leprechaun, or the King of the Potato People... or a man claiming to be a woman, or a woman claiming to be a man... it's the same thing.
Denial of reality in favor of fantasy.
And the fantasy is, historically, a "defense mechanism" against some deep seated trauma the person experienced.
A great fictional example of this can be found in the TV series "Babylon 5," in an episode entitled "A Late Delivery From Avalon."
A character arrives claiming to be Arthur Pendragon... and he really believes that he is. It eventually turns out that this is how his psyche is dealing with the stress of being the gunner who fired (under orders) the first shot in a devastating and disastrous war.
It was an unhealthy way of dealing with an unbearable truth. Mental illness, but still needing to be treated with kindness and sympathy.
We don't need to play along with, much less reinforce, the delusion. But we can still support the person suffering from it.
Just remember... treating an illness as "good" is the most harmful thing we can possibly do. Attack the illness... not the person suffering from it, though.
Pixel pedant is a major contributor to the 99er community and had earned an allowance to dress and speak however they want. As long as content keeps coming out, I'm happy.
@@Appeelicious exactly. Pixel seems like a nice person and is extremely knowledgeable about the TI99 and this is the best resource I’ve found on UA-cam for my new hobby computer. If someone has issues with the show’s presentation there’s other channels out there, just not as good or thorough.
No