Floppy Days Podcast #50 on the TI-99/4A Computer!

[rkindig]

Floppy Days #50 is out!

The TI-99/4A - History, with Jim Fetzner and Mark Wills

http://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-50-ti-99-history

This is the second in a multi-part series on the TI-99/4A computer. For this history segment, I was lucky enough to find a couple of people who have an incredible history with the TI-99, Jim Fetzner and Mark Wills. Jim has an extensive, multilingual library of all things TI and possesses some very interesting hardware items related to the TI-99. Mark is the author of TurboForth for the TI-99/4A and has been involved in the TI-99/4A scene pretty much since 1983. He’s also English, living in the UK, so he has a rather British take on the home computer wars. I will cover TI-99 history with the help of these two gentlemen. I think you will find this very interesting!

Randy Kindig

Host Floppy Days Podcast - floppydays.com

[ElectricLab]

Love this podcast. I was listening to it on the drive home tonight and one of the gentlemen mentioned a Yahtzee cartridge for the TI that's supposedly super rare due to a recall for a bug, from Milton Bradley. I ran straight to my collection since I knew I had that title in my collection. Lo and behold I have two of them - but the TI-branded ones, apparently not so rare. Darn!

[sometimes99er]

That took some time (the show is 2 hours). The TI stuff takes off after about half an hour. Very nice stuff. Well done. Thanks.

 

[+Ksarul]

The TI branded Yahtzee cartridges were released after they fixed the bugs in the GROM (the original version of the program effectively cheated because a variable wasn't being set properly). The Milton Bradley Gamevision version of the cartridge was on the market for about six months, in a period of time where there were only a few thousand TI-99/4s on the street. The first buyers found the bug and reported it--and spurred the recall. Milton Bradley didn't want to release a replacement Gamevision version of the title, so the only ones that survives were the ones that weren't turned in for the recall (a very small number back then, with even fewer surviving to the present). The only confirmed examples came from a warehouse find back in 2000. Someone found a bunch of Gamevision cartridges (four of each of the released Gamevision titles), so it was probably an original case and put them up on eBay sorted by title in a series of Dutch Auctions. Most of them ended up in the possession of three people: me, Bill Gaskill, and Toucan. Each of us got one of the Yahtzee cartridges. I have never seen one of the Gamevision Yahtzee cartridges that didn't come from that group of four, so though there may be other survivors, the chances are pretty low that anyone will ever find one as 20 years of watching eBay has never seen another one turn up. . .

[kl99]

enjoyable podcast. it got me through my workday.

[rkindig]

Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. Jim and Mark did an outstanding job!

 

There are 2 more shows on the TI-99 coming up, one with Tursi, and one with Chris Schneider and Rich Polivka, that I hope you enjoy very much!

 

Randy

host Floppydays.com

 

[+jedimatt42]

Randy, those podcasts are really entertaining. It was great to hear Jim and Mark. I learned quite a bit. Very appreciated, all of you.

 

Looking forward to the next installments. And looking forward to rifling through the previous episodes to learn about other systems.

 

Thanks!

-M@

[rkindig]

Randy, those podcasts are really entertaining. It was great to hear Jim and Mark. I learned quite a bit. Very appreciated, all of you.

 

Looking forward to the next installments. And looking forward to rifling through the previous episodes to learn about other systems.

 

Thanks!

-M@

Thank you, sir. It's nice to know people enjoy these. That's why I do it!

 

Randy

[Opry99er]

Truly good stuff. Both of these chaps are friends of mine, and it is great listening to them speak in detail about the TI. It really is a fascinating system with a rich and fascinating history.