Texas Instruments Advert - December 1982
From Personal Computer World
TI's Home Computer. Unbeatable value. Unrivalled software.
The original TI99/4 had been released back in 1979 and was the first ever 16-bit home computer, running TI's own TMS 9900 CPU.
It didn't get off to a good start in the UK, as early models of the micro shipped with US-standard video, requiring either modification of the owner's own television, or selling with a bundled NTSC TV.
An updated version - the TI99/4A - was released in 1981 - a few months after Commodore's VIC-20 - and was significantly more successful in the US, although it was never a top seller in the UK - eventually shipping 2.8 million units[1].
At this point, a price war - that Commodore had kicked off partly in revenge for the calculator wars of the 1970s - led to the TI-99 having its price continually reduced until "they were being sold at ridiculous levels", according to Raymond Yap of Wongs, the Hong Kong-based manufacturer of the TI-99[2].
Frequent price cuts left Texas Instruments with little or no margins on its machine - a "road to disaster" according to Yap.
It got so bad that legal action was instigated in the US with a law suit filed by a stockholder claiming that TI was actually selling the TI-99/4A for less than it cost to make. At one point, it was selling for only $49, or about £140 in 2025.
Continued losses led to TI announcing its complete exit from the home computer market in November 1983[3].
Date created: 11 January 2024
Last updated: 04 April 2025
Sources
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