Review of TI-99/4A in old New Zealand computing mag

[palmheads]

Hi

 

Read some discussions about how hard it was being a TI owner outside of the US.

 

As a kid I remember reading an NZ computing mag called "Bits & Bytes".Thanks to classic-computers.org.nz, they have been archived as PDF's. Found the issue that reviewed the TI arriving in NZ in Feb 1984!

 

http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/bits-and-bytes/issue2.5.htm

 

http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/bits-and-bytes/downloads/NZ-bits-and-bytes-issue-2-5.pdf

 

It wasn't given a glowing review, but you can see some of the issues the TI had outside of the US. Looks like the only reason why it even appeared in this part of the world was because TI had already discontinued it, so effectively it was a way of trying to get rid of the surpluses. It was still relatively expensive compared to other machines $NZ600 (the Sega SC3000 reviewed in the same mag has almost the same hardware as a TI, but with a Z80 - and actually had quite a big following in NZ - was about $NZ200 cheaper!).

 

Just being able to review the console by itself would have all the issues everybody knows about (slow etc). Getting extra hardware like PEBs etc would have been expensive & almost impossible. Extra software the same.

 

Its actually just interesting browsing these old mags. All the memories come flooding back!

 

cheers

Daryn