The 8-Bit Era's Weird Uncle: The TI-99/4A

This was my very first computer, at age 13. I learned hexadecimal by drawing pictures of spaceships on graph paper, coloring in the squares that had lines through them, splitting the grid into 8x8 sections with a ruler, converting each row of 8 pixels into a hexadecimal number, and then typing them all into DATA statements, just to see the picture take shape on my screen when I ran the program. For some reason, I thought that was just the coolest. About a year later I upgraded to the Commodore 64, but I'll always have a spot in my heart for my TI.

This was my first computer as well! (age 8?) And I too spent time in class drawing spaceships on graph paper, rather than listening to the teacher. I was certainly obsessed with BASIC programming. I didn't start assembly language until the Apple IIe a few years later.

I'm surprised now to see it was a 16-bit CPU -- I had no idea. I assumed 8-bit as most home computers were (6502, Z80, etc).

Two things I remember:

Saving and loading programs on cassette tapes (where are they? I'm jealous of another poster who still has their TI99/4a).

It was insanely easy to reboot it accidentally -- I had to look it up again but apparently it was by pressing Shift-Q [1]. I lost some work several times, until I got the muscle anti-memory.

[1] https://www.99er.net/994.html

Yeah, the cassette tape was an awesome bit of technology. Once I got one, I didn't have to type in the USS Enterprise program every time I wanted to see it. It also made for nice lo-fi background music. :)

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