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                          THE TI-99 HOME COMPUTER TIMELINE

                                    Bill Gaskill

                                    part 2 of 4

     JAN 1980: The FCC grants TI a waiver on its RF modulator, which failed
     to pass FCC muster in early 1979 because Texas Instruments did not send
     the entire unit in to be tested. The waiver allows the TI-99/4 Home
     Computer to be sold without the expensive monitor that TI was forced to
     bundle with it because of the RF modulator troubles. In response to the
     FCC decision TI conducts an extensive advertising blitz to put the 99/4
     in the consumer eye. Unfortunately, production problems continue to
     haunt the Home Computer for the first few months of 1980 and TI is
     selling fewer than 1000 units per month.

     MAR 1980: TI has turned out fewer than 30 pieces of software for the
     99/4. Although their policy of locking out third-party developers has
     not yet been articulated, the lack of an Editor/Assembler package for
     the Home Computer pretty much says it all. This is Mistake #3 according
     to Joseph Nocera. The only way to write programs for the TI-99/4 is to
     buy one of TI's $50,000 minicomputers, which is what their in-house
     programmers use for cartridge program creation.  In fact, even after
     the release of an Editor/Asembler package, programmers at TI continued
     to use minicomputers.  During the entire life of the TI-99/4 and 4A,
     Hopper was the only cartridge program ever developed internally using
     the TI-99 Home Computer.

     The existence of the secretive GPL (Graphics Programming Language) has
     not yet become common knowledge among the computer community, but it
     will eventually surface and add another nail to the coffin of an
     already sick reputation the TI-99/4 is earning.

     - Creative Computing magazine calls the TI-99/4 "One of the most easy
     to use systems we've tested...price still beyond the grasp of Middle
     America."

     APR 1980: TI releases Disk Drive Controller PHP 1800 and Disk Memory
     Drive PHP 1850 for $299.95 and $499.95 respectively. This release comes
     ten months after the computer was announced! Would you, or did you pay
     over $1000 for a computer that lacked any storage capability? Before
     you answer, don't forget that there was no cassette recorder offered
     for the 99/4 yet either. In fact, TI didn't offer their own cassette
     recorder until the 1st quarter of 1983!

     MAY 1980: Bill Hawkins reviews the TI-99/4 in Popular Science magazine
     on page 10, along with the Atari 800 and a virtually unknown cartridge
     using computer named the APF Imagination Machine from APF of 444
     Madison Avenue New York, NY. Although Hawkins is critical of the $1150
     price of the 99/4 (TI has still not dropped the price because there are
     so many console/monitor bundles in dealer inventories), he raves about
     the computer's Speech Synthesizer peripheral, and mentions the little
     known PHA 2500 Speech Modules designed to increase the vocabulary of
     the the early Speech Synthesizers.

     - TI hires William J. Turner away from Digital Equipment and charges
     him with creating a marketing plan that will move the TI-99/4 Home
     Computer off the shelves of retailers and into the homes of consumers.

     JUN 1980: Radio Shack Executive VP John Roach brings down the house at
     a brokerage house seminar when from the podium he points to a demo
     model of the 99/4 and quips, "I'm sure glad somebody brought a TI
     computer here today. It's only the second one I've seen--and the first
     was when they launched it at the Consumer Electronics Show last June."

     - New England Electronics, one of the top 10 personal computer
     distributors in the U.S., stops carrying the 99/4 after only nine
     months as a distributor. It tries to help its dealers by shifting 99/4s
     from the many stores where they are gathering dust to the few stores
     that have found a way to move the Home Computer.

     - The June 16, 1980 issue of Fortune magazine says, "...TI has managed
     to exclude itself from the business and professional market (with the
     99/4).  It designed the system in a way that makes it difficult (more
     like impossible) for small, independent companies to write programs or
     make peripheral gear that can be used on the 99/4."

     An unnamed TI engineer states that some of TI's top managers saw the
     99/4 as their "private electronic fantasy" in explaining how the 99/4
     survived when two other TI projects, the 99/7 business computer and the
     professional/scientific computer were both canceled. It is reported
     that the professional/scientific computer died for lack of funds when
     the Consumer Products Group was allowed to bleed off funds from the
     professional model's budget in order to speed up the introduction of
     the 99/4, which had fallen behind schedule.

     The same article reports that distributors were so impressed with the
     TI-99/7 business computer that some agreed to take on stocks of the
     99/4 just to get at the TI-99/7. Despite this, internal competition and
     squabbling killed the 99/7 whne Shepherd and Bucy decided TI could not
     afford to fund the 99/7, the professional/scientific computer and the
     99/4 Home Computer. As a former TI employee put it, "They threw away
     two pieces of gold and kept the lump of coal." in opting to continue
     with the development of the 99/4.

     - Commodore Business Machines introduces the VIC-20 at a retail price
     of $299. The VIC-20 is a dismal machine that is easily outperformed by
     the TI-99, but marketing mistakes keep TI from ever taking advantage of
     the Home Computer's technological advantages. The VIC-20 will become
     the arch enemy of the TI-99 in the price wars that will begin in the
     Fall of 1982. Getting into a price war with Commodore are Mistake #4
     according to Joseph Nocera.

     JUL 1980: Texas Instruments hires 150 college students for the Summer
     to convert popular software written for other computers to the 99/4
     format.

     - The Houston, Texas TI Users Group (TI-HUG) is formed by Raymond
     Wells, becoming the first known TI-99/4 Users Group.

     AUG 1980: The Author Incentive program is instituted by TI in an effort
     to get more application programs written for the 99/4. TI also begins
     publishing the Home Computer Users newsletter.

     - On August 12th, Charles LaFara sends a letter to all known 99/4 users
     and dealers announcing his intention to start the 99/4 Home Computer
     Users Group.

     SEP 1980: LaFara incorporates the 99/4 Home Computer Users Group in
     Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In its four and one-half year life the
     organization will move to larger headquarters in Bethany, Oklahoma, it
     will produce a respected newsletter, and a professional 99/4 specific
     magazine, it will grow to a claimed membership of over 100,000 users
     and then ultimately it will file for bankruptcy and breathe its last
     gasp of life in April 1985.

     - The Chicago TI Users Group is formed by Jerry Strauss.

     OCT 1980: Texas Instruments replaces 26 advertising agencies with one
     agency when it hires New York's McCann-Erickson Inc.

     - In a letter to dealers in the United Kingdom, TI announces that an
     extended GROM is under development for the Home Computer, but that
     memory expansion for the 99/4 is not planned. The letter points out
     that no interaction between BASIC and the console GROMs is possible,
     though that proves not to be true for the Personal Record Keeping and
     Statistics cartridges. Dutch 99er Paul Karis will uncover this secret
     almost a year later when he publishes an article on the hidden secrets
     of the PRK module in the TIHome TIdings newsletter.

     NOV 1980: TI finally drops the price of the 99/4 on November 28th a
     full $300 to $650, a move that was first promised for the Summer of
     1980.

     DEC 1980: SourceWorld Magazine, a monthly publication of The Source
     on-line information service, reports that Texas Instruments has plans
     to begin a TI sponsored Special Interest Group (SIG) called TexNet on
     their service. No date is given for TexNet availability.

     - In a products price list sent to retailers, TI announces 38 new
     hardware and software products for the 99/4 that are scheduled to be
     available during the first quarter of 1981. This would turn out to be
     one of the two largest mass-releases of Home Computer products that TI
     would announce during the life of the Home Computer. The other would
     occur during the second and third quarters of 1983, but by then it was
     too little, too late.

     JAN 1981: On January 5th, TI releases prototype models of Extended
     Basic and 32K Memory Expansion to selected users for testing. A year
     and a half AFTER the TI-99 is announced to the world, TI finally gets
     around to beta testing OPTIONAL products that some of the competition
     comes with as standard equipment! To make matters worse, the actual
     availability of these two items for the masses is still more than 6
     months away.

     FEB 1981: TI releases the 10" Panasonic made color monitor PHA 4100 to
     replace the 13" Zenith monitor PHA 4000 that was originally released
     with the 99/4. The Zenith monitor retailed for $450 when sold
     separately. The new monitor sells for $374.95 at the time of release,
     but TI will raise the price on it to $399.95 in 1982.

     - 99ers in England are told of the impending release of a Value Added
     Tax program in cartridge form, but it never appears. The program would
     surface on disk in 1988 in GRAM format.

     - Pewterware of Gulf Breeze, Florida announces the release of
     Decathelon and Challenge Poker games on cassette.

     MAR 1981: Texas Instruments announces the impending release of UCSD
     Pascal for the 99/4.

     APR 1981: Charles Ehninger of Fort Worth, Texas, who would found Futura
     Software, wins first prize in the Author Incentive Program with his
     Home Inventory program.

     - TI Logo is introduced on April 17th and is made available to
     qualified school districts. It is not available to the general public.

     - Delays in the release of Extended Basic and 32K Memory are announced.

     MAY 1981: 99er Magazine publishes it first issue.

     - The Cin-Day Users Group and TISHUG Users Groups are formed, Cin-Day
     by Larry Morrow in the Cincinnati area, and TISHUG by Shane Anderson in
     Sydney, Australia.

     - TI cuts 2,800 jobs from its semiconductor division after prices and
     demand for chips fall dramatically.

     - The as yet released Extended Basic module is reviewed in Creative
     Computing and bugs are found that cause TI to push the release date
     back further than anticipated.

     JUN 1981: TI drops out of the digital watch and magnetic bubble memory
     business in order to conserve cash in a market where chip prices are
     depressed and the cost of capital is inflated. While TI was the last
     U.S. semiconductor maker to manufacture digital watches, it was losing
     $10 million a year doing so, thus the move was seen as a wise one. The
     decision to drop the bubble memory business, which only TI and Rockwell
     International were involved in, came as a complete surprise to most
     analysts. Texas Instruments had sunk between $50-100 million into
     bubble memory technology over the last 10 years and seemed destined to
     stay with it since bubble memory promised to be a cheap and reliable
     replacement for mechanical rotating disc memories.

     - J. Fred Bucy appoints long time TIer and Senior Vice President Grant
     A. Dove as TI's top marketing official (yawn). Dove spreads the gospel
     of "marketing" among the troops and immediately decides to increase
     radio and television advertising a mere $10 million.

     - In a move explainable only by insiders, TI announces the Fall 1981
     introduction of a digital watch line just two days after telling the
     world that it will be totally out of the digital watch business by the
     end of the year.

     - The TI-99/4A Home Computer is announced at the Consumer Electronics
     Show in Chicago at a suggested retail price of $525 for the console
     only. Additional releases are TI LOGO to the general public, TexNet,
     Editor/Assembler, Terminal Emulator II and Addition and Subtraction 1.

     - When the 99/4A is announced, the Atari 400 is selling for $399 and
     the Atari 800 for $1080. Street prices though are $339.95 and $899.95
     respectively. Mattel's Intellivision is available for $249.95 or
     $569.95 with the Keyboard Component that turns it into a home computer
     that is able to compete with Atari, Commodore and TI. On the high end
     of the spectrum, the Apple II+ is selling for $1275 and the new Apple
     III can be had for a mere $3200.

     TI's own Touch & Tell, Speak & Read, Speak & Math and Speak & Spell
     learning aids are selling like hotcakes for between $49.95 and $59.95
     each. The TI-59 programmable calculator, which now sports over a dozen
     Solid State Software modules, can be had for $199.95 street price. TI
     digital watches are now 40-50% off their suggested retail price since
     TI's announcement that they would be abandoning the wristwatch market.
     Their top of the line Model 8012 gold tone, which sold for $110.00
     originally, can now be purchased for less that $60.

     - While announcing further delays in the release of Extended Basic, TI
     does announce the release of Cash Management PHD 5029.

     - TI announces that by early 1982 there will be over 1,000 programs for
     the 99/4A Home Computer. TI also adds 300 new members to its retail
     network, a move that is critical to William J. Turner's strategy of
     mass marketing.

     - JC Penney agrees to carry the 99/4A in its Fall catalog where it will
     enjoy exclusive coverage since Penney's does not carry any other
     computers at the time.

     - Denali Data of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma introduces a joystick adapter
     that allows Atari joysticks to be used on the Home Computer.

     JUL 1981: Epson introduces Graphtrax for the MX-80 printer.

     - The 99/4A appears on the Mike Douglas Show during the week of July
     6th. Representatives from Texas Instruments and students from the
     Lamplighter School in Dallas demonstrate TI Logo and other educational
     applications. Guest hosts on the show, Darrel Dragon and Toni Tenille,
     better known as the Captain and Tenille, hear their hit "Love Will Keep
     Us Together" sung by the 99/4 with a Speech Synthesizer attached.

     - Texas Instruments introduces the Video Controller PHP 1290 peripheral
     which plugs into the I/O port on the right side of the console.

     AUG 1981: Structural Engineering Library and Teach Yourself Extended
     Basic are released.

     - TexNet on The Source is announced by TI in the Personal Computer
     Users Newsletter.

     - The 99/4 Home Computer Users Group offers Texpacs in support of the
     upcoming initiation of TexNet on The Source. Texpacs are three
     different hardware and software packages that will allow the user to
     access TexNet.

     SEP 1981: Hustle is released.

     - The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Users Group meeting of September 20th
     features a large display and presentation all put on by representatives
     from Texas Instruments. Demonstrations of TexNet, TI Logo and the soon
     to be available Editor/Assembler package are given.

     - Invoice Management, and Electrical Engineering Library are released.

     OCT 1981: Blasto, Terminal Emulator II and Yahtzee are released.

     - Financial problems continue to plague TI dimming the glow of the
     company who had been the darling of 1970s corporate America. TI reports
     a 55% drop in profits over the last year, a 3% reduction in its work
     force and a 50% drop in the price of its stock, which has gone from
     $150 per share in 1980 to $75 a share in 1981.

     - On October 9th Texas Instruments sends the following letter to
     registered 99/4 and 4A users in the Southern California area.

          "Join the Orange County TI-99/4 User's Group on Saturday
           October 17, for an afternoon with the management of TI.
           Mr. Don Bynum, the Personal Computer Division Manager, and
           Mr. Brian Gratz, User's Group Coordinator for TI, will
           present the program.

           Highlight of the afternoon will be demonstrations of the
           Editor/Assembler package, Text-to-Speech, Logo and some
           exciting future entertainment packages.

           The meeting is scheduled to be held at 1:00pm in the Cafe
           Ricard room of the Airporter Inn, 18700 McArthur Blvd.,
           Irvine. Join us for an afternoon with Texas Instruments.

     - Charles LaFara changes the name of the 99/4 Home Computer Users Group
     to the International 99/4 Users Group and moves company headquarters to
     Bethany, Oklahoma.

     - Production problems continue to plague Extended Basic, making the new
     cartridge difficult if not impossible to get.

     - TexNet on The Source goes on line on October 23rd. It would flourish
     for 3-4 years but ultimately founder due to cost, slow operation of the
     300 baud limitations of Terminal Emulator II and the lack of the more
     standard Xmodem protocol for downloading.

     TexNet offered color graphics and animation on line, music and sound
     effects, an extensive library of programs and state of the art
     synthetic speech. Services and features included a News Section, Voice
     Chat using the Speech Synthesizer, a Software Library, a dictionary of
     phonetic words for text-to-speech, a software directory, listings of
     User Groups, a graphics library, a music and sound library, a section
     on help, a Logo exchange and more. Sign up fee was $100 and $7.75 per
     hour weeknights and weekends 6-12pm, then $5.75 per hour from 12-7am.
     At its startup, The Source boasted over 350 local access telephone
     numbers for users.

     - Draw Poker, Bridge Bidding II, and Terminal Emulator II are
     released.

     NOV 1981: Adventure, Car Wars, TI Invaders and Tombstone City are
     released.

     DEC 1981: In a Business Week article on TI's inability to crack the
     personal computer market, a computer analyst for the Arthur D. Little
     consulting firm observes, "The 99/4 is neither fish nor fowl". The
     comment refers to the 99/4's position as a computer which is not
     powerful enough for the high end business user, but that is also too
     expensive for the low-end home market.

     - TI phases out the little known PHA 2500 Speech Modules designed to
     add vocabulary to the Speech Synthesizer and begins packaging a small
     4" x 6.5" notice saying so (part # 1043624-1) with the Speech Editor
     and Speech Synthesizer instruction manuals.

                                    ADDENDUM
                            Speech Editor and Speech
                           Synthesizer Owner's Manuals
                           ---------------------------

           Please disregard any references in your manual to Plug-In
           Speech Modules that can supplement the Speech Synthesizer's
           resident vocabulary. These references are no longer applicable.


                                                               1043624-1
                                    (Use with 1037109-111 and 1037110-1)

     - Texas Instruments begins to add customer support staff as sales of
     the Home Computer pick up during the Christmas season. Marketer William
     J. Turner is having an effect on the sales volume of the Home Computer
     by finding ways to bring its price to the consumer down.

     =eof=