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lproven | 4 days ago

> was its own distinct upgrade path

"Would have been", surely? It never existed, did it? The Geneve shipped.

MESS is one thing. I am interested in something the size of a RasPi I can connect to a screen.

Think of something like this:

https://github.com/DonSuperfo/Xberry-Pi

discuss

FarmerPotato|4 days ago

Oh, 350 prototypes were built. Many were incomplete. The finished ones tended to go home with engineers--TI didn't exactly watch what went out the door.

I owned a 99/8 (without Pascal GROMs), so for me it was definitely real! Extended BASIC II was onboard, and showed this:

> SIZE 62235 BYTES FREE

The manuals and most schematics are long known and archived at ftp.whtech.com. I have/had paper copies of many of them. Sadly, TI never archived any Home Computer work from Lubbock, TX. Those employees had been laid off or transferred just as TI got interested in preserving archives (starting in 1983. Described in Ed Millis book: TI, the Transistor and Me.

The TI Records are at DeGolyer Library, SMU but contain very few Home Computer folders. Conspicuously missing are the papers of CB Wilson, which turned up at an estate sale and were fortunately scanned.

Wilson's office in Dallas seems to have contributed a few things to the archives. That is typical: mostly executives and Fellows were canvassed for documents. Ed Millis revived obsolete floppy formats for the cause in 1983!

lproven|3 days ago

Thanks for this. It's been most educational.

> Oh, 350 prototypes were built.

OK -- so I was correct when I said it didn't ship, then? Unfinished prototypes leaked, like the Commodore C65, but no final complete product?

I found this page:

https://www.99er.net/998.html

But it's so riddled with typos it's extremely irritating.

There were aproxximately 100 etched PC boards. Only 250 of these were actually assembled into working units. Out these 250, only about 150 were the final preproduction versions.

Really. 100 boards but 250 of them were assembled?

At a guess: 1000 boards?

FarmerPotato|4 days ago

@Shift838 made a ready configurator for the 99/4A MESS. He calls it OoeyGooey.

You might also try running Classic 99 under WINE. That works on my x86 MacBook. Classic99 has the legal license to ship with ROMs. (Well PC99 as well but it's hard to get.)

I'm not sure if JS99er runs standalone --that's a very good emulation in the browser, which you can load up anytime.