Texas Instruments
Texas-based manufacturer of semiconductors, electronic equipment, and calculators ranging from the simple to scientific and graphic. They also produced two models of home computer for a short time.
Texas Instruments, a major manufacturer of electronics and electronic equipment since 1951, entered the home computer market with the TI-99/4 in 1979. In June 1981, it replaced that model with the greatly improved TI-99/4A, which featured a full-travel keyboard, an upper and lower-case character set, bit-mapped graphics, and a much lower price (5).
The 99/4A was at first a reasonable success in the home computer market. It was relatively powerful compared to its competitors (indeed, it was the first home computer with a 16-bit processor), and had ahead-of-its-time features such as plug-and-play support for add-on hardware. However, TI was determined to control the publishing of all software for the machine, even adding lock-out hardware to later revisions to prevent the use of third-party software cartridges. Coupled with a deliberate lack of documentation for hobbyist or third-party developers, the software base for the TI-99/4A was tiny, only consisting of about 100 titles, mostly focused on educational software rather than games.
Another problem with machine was its hardware complexity, probably a result of a late-term switch to the 16-bit TMS9900 CPU after a planned 8-bit CPU specifically designed for the system was dropped. This made the system costly to produce. Commodore pursued a very aggressive price-war strategy with the VIC-20, forcing TI to repeatedly drop its prices despite the VIC's inferior design. TI could not continue to profitably manufacture the machine as prices dipped to 0, and discontinued production in October 1983.
