TI-99/4A

But I don't mind a remake of a really, really old game that couldn't quite do justice to its original vision because the technology wasn't there.

I would, and there might be, having explored, I think I've told the tale of having a Texas Instrument TI-99 as one of my first ever gaming platforms.

Is that not a calculator? No, it's a keyboard, like a proper computer.

But it actually had a cartridge slot, but not in the top, but horizontal on the side.

I spent the entire summer doing it.

I used a TI-994A only because the keyboard reminded me of the computer in the War Games movie.

It was a proper keyboard, not like a Spectrum, right? It was the real deal.

Stainless steel looked really good.

Yeah, me too, technically.

At my TI-99-4A.

I did too.

That was my first computer that I wrote my first piece of software on.

That's pretty cool.

That was my inspiration.

Yeah, I always thought I wanted to buy a TI-99-4A just to have it and bring back the memories.

And I watch YouTube videos on people that have them and stuff like that.

And you think, you know, back in those days, I was 12, 13 years old.

And on the LinkedIn story, I tell about the very first game that I made, which was on the TI-99 4A, the very nice looking stainless steel American made Tetris instruments computer with the real keyboard on it.

which drew me into buying it from not buying a Spectrum, which is what everybody was buying at that time.

And when I made that first game, being so young, being a naive, bedroom coder, I hadn't saved it to cassette tape.

I remember being fascinated with the Atari computers, uh, because I didn't get a 2600.

Instead, I got a TI-99/4A, and then I saw the Atari computers.

I'm like, "Wait, uh, should I have gotten that? 'Cause then I could play the Atari games," but they didn't play all the 2600 games, and they weren't that good of a computer, actually.

Wow.

Yeah, I kind of feel like the magic of Breath of the Wild on the Switch is the same magic that was in the Ocarina of Time, which is one of the reasons that I like Breath of the Wild so much.

Uh, for, for me, I wasn't a console gamer.

I would-- I had that TI-99/4A and the Commodore 64, and I, you know, I would play games on that.

Uh, and then I was pretty much PC games, playing things like Civilization-

One of the first, um, educational software publishers.

Um, and, uh, They were based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and they created dozens of educational software titles for Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 and TRS-80 and TI-99 and Apple II.

This company just churned out educational software.

And some just straight-up games, too.

[laughs]

Um, I think it was called a TI-99-4.

Mm.

I remember this stuff 'cause it literally burned into my brain.