[rbc]

I wanted the TI-99/4 that was marketed at the beginning of the 80s. As it turned out, I didn't own a computer until buying a Tandy PC-6 pocket computer in the mid-eighties.

Fast forward to buying the later TI-99/4A in the beige case in 2023. Booting it up into the Basic prompt gave me a nice flashback to learning Basic in High School on the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I.

I've also bought its cousin the TI-74 BASICALC. Given hindsight, the TI-74 is my favorite TI-99 for retro computing, even though the similarity is limited to a subset of the TI Basic from the TI-99 family. The TI-74s are rugged and available. It's very useful as a desk calculator.

[OhMeadhbh]

I still have both the 74ALC and a CC-40. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't pick up on how the 74 was essentially just a re-skinned CC-40 until about 10 years ago. You can apparently get a plug adapter for the 74 that lets you drive CC-40 peripherals (not that there are a lot of them around.)

[progmetaldev]

This seems like an expensive hobby, but one that chases that feeling we first got off our first system! I often wish that I understood hardware a bit more when I learned Atari 8-bit BASIC, in the late 80's/early 90's, and would have known to keep everything wrapped up in an environment that wasn't humid. I feel the one I learned on, owned by my dad, was probably moved to the basement storage and is completely corroded at this point.