I was disappointed in what the embedded basic could give me...it was slow, it had sprite-only graphics exposed (couldn't draw a vector from X,Y to X,Y) and my parents only bought touch typing tutor.
and in my boredom, I'd slot and pull the cartridge which made it do -interesting- things...dumping memory space to what would eventually be called a frame buffer...and when it did, it would show cycling bitmaps at a much higher speed than you'd ever be able to do with Basic.
So you could see the potential, but a 12 year old with nothing but a tape drive and one cartridge couldn't and didn't know how to touch it.
And 4 months after spending $350 for it, Sears was closing them out for $50. Which was why, a few years later, when I wanted an Amiga, Dad bought an XT clone. It's support and software cpabilities was much improved over the TI.