TI-99/4A
More info
- Creator
- Texas Instruments
- Released
- 1981
- CPU
- TMS9900
The first home computer with a 16-bit processor, and the best-known casualty of the price war.
Texas Instruments released the TI-99/4A in 1981 as an improved TI-99/4. Its TMS9900 CPU was 16-bit, which sounded impressive, but the processor had only 256 bytes of RAM of its own; the remaining 16 KB sat behind the video chip and could only be reached, slowly, through it. Sound came from a close relative of the SN76489, and the BASIC interpreter was famously sluggish.
Its fate was settled by Commodore. Jack Tramiel cut the price of the VIC-20 and then the C64 again and again, TI matched with rebates until the machine sold well below cost, and in autumn 1983 TI walked away from home computers with losses in the hundreds of millions. By then it had sold in the millions, so it still has a loyal enthusiast following.