[Ham-Computers] RE: Blind Man's CPU Down For The Count?

[Hsu, Aaron]

TI-99, eh?  A TI-99/4A was the first computer I owned.  Still have it in my closet along with some carts and the cassette recorder.  I also touted it's 16-bit capabilities while others were playing with the 6502 and Z80.  Alas, Commodore's marketing (and pricing) of the VIC-20 and C-64 eventually dominated the market.

The '99 was the computer I learned to program in BASIC with.  I also learned how to type on the thing.  The graphics capabilities of the '99 was impressive for the time and I crated simple graphics with the "CALL CHAR" and "SPRITE" commands.  I also had a FORTH cart, but never really got into FORTH.  First game I owned was "Adventure"...kept me going for hours!  TI also had the first game with speech (some space game...forgot the name), but I couldn't afford the add-on speech synthesizer so "speechless" it was.  But, like a lot of 99's, the keyboard eventually went flaky and I caved-in and bought a C-64 and 1541 drive.  Now that I'm *little* more familiar with computers, I should dig out the '99 and repair the keyboard.  It'll bring back a LOT of memories.

Glad you were able to resolve the dial-up problem.  Being a former (and sometimes current) Customer Support "idiot", I know how it is with Tech Support phone calls.

73,

  - Aaron Hsu, NN6O



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