what are these metal riveted things on my TI-99 cartridges?

[gameselect]

Greetings and happy holidays!

 

I'm cleaning out some vintage goodness this holiday break and ran across some TI-99 cartridges. Some have a metal aluminum 'loop' riveted in to the top/right of the cartridge case. What are these for? Were they from a store display unit so people wouldn't walk away with the games?

 

I did happen to blow up the power supplies on 2 Apple //e and an IBM PS/2 model 50 system while I was testing things out yesterday :-(

 

Vintage computers are FUN! (and very stinky when the caps blow on a 30 year old PSU)

 

 

[Omega-TI]

Were they from a store display unit so people wouldn't walk away with the games?

 

YEP.

[RickyDean]

Greetings and happy holidays!

 

I'm cleaning out some vintage goodness this holiday break and ran across some TI-99 cartridges. Some have a metal aluminum 'loop' riveted in to the top/right of the cartridge case. What are these for? Were they from a store display unit so people wouldn't walk away with the games?

 

I did happen to blow up the power supplies on 2 Apple //e and an IBM PS/2 model 50 system while I was testing things out yesterday :-(

 

Vintage computers are FUN! (and very stinky when the caps blow on a 30 year old PSU)

 

 

Yeh, I blew a Cap about 3 weeks ago on an old ISA hard and floppy controller as I was trying to get a floppy controller that would do single density disks, so I could run TI99OC and try copying old TI disk to try and recover them. Nice load pop, not damage other than to the cap. Also found that my Myar winchester controller card had cap leaking, so before I fire it up, will need to replace them. Sorry off topic, but I blew my cap, before Christmas

[+Ksarul]

The cartridges were from a TI store display unit--and they were attached to it with a metal cable connected to that loop. I have a number of them , some still with parts of the cable attached. I used to test out display cartridges in the various stores that had them BITD. It was a fun way to see if a cartridge was interesting or not, but most of the ones on the displays were the early stuff, none of the later games ever showed up on those things. . .

[gameselect]

Thanks for the replies. I have 3 from 1983, it seems.. probably from the same display/demo unit.

 

If anyone would like to 'steal' a dozen or so common cartridges, I'm going to list them on ebay them in a few days along with a new in the box Apple //e Platinum I've decided to let go of.

[PeBo]

Actually, I know that the explanation given is the common one, but the actual fact is that young TI modules have a tendency to wander off and get themselves in all kinds of trouble. As a result, parents in many cartridge families will often put a 'leash' on their young offspring to avoid losing them in crowded flea markets.

 

The last thing a TI command module father wants, is to find his daughter has come home with a baby Atari or Commodore cartridge to support (1980's cartridges were far less understanding of mixed-manufacturer relationships than we are today).

 

Of course, permanently disfiguring your child as a replacement for watchful parenting is not something that the cartridge community is proud of, so they've come up with this fanciful « Demo Cartridge » story to hide the truth. The fact that so many young cartridges were known to hang out in computer stores in the early to mid 1980's made the deception easy to sell.