The TI-99/4A Legacy Of Games
by Howard 'Codex' Kistler
Page 1 of 6
The TI/99-4A computer was released in June of 1981 by Texas Instruments (TI). This model, the most successful of their computers, was an expansion of the TI-99/4 released in June of 1979. The suitably Thunderbirds-style names of these computers were a standard of the day. Witness the release of Commodore's VIC-20 and the Sinclair ZX-81 around this same time. A computer just wasn't a real computer unless its name was a bunch of letters and numbers.
By the time the 4A iteration of the series debuted, the TI-99 was becoming fairly well establish in the States, and even had a small population of UK and other European users. Fans of the system, known as 99ers, rallied around a computer which offered a 3.3 MHz CPU, up to 32K of RAM, a 16 color display, and 32 built-in sprites. Specifications like these put the TI-99/4A ahead of many of its contemporaries, like its deadly rival the VIC-20, and indeed it held up well against the generation of computers which followed. Some of the games discussed here were released on the 4, but all were experienced by most users (your author included) on the enhanced 4A system.
Ah yes, the games. The TI featured a cartridge slot in addition to the usual computer ports of the day. And while the slot was ostensibly for cartridges like the memory-and-language expanding Extended BASIC, or the serious application software, it really came into its own with games. A quick glance at any TI cartridge list (try http://99er.net/cartlst.html) shows a definite bias toward the recreational. (Not to mention that even more games were created and distributed on cassette thanks to the aforementioned Extended BASIC cartridge. But we'll concern ourselves only with the cartridge games for now.) Of those, there are two main types of games - original titles, and ports.
The TI-99/4A, like many computers that followed, received its fair share of ports. Indeed, sharing market space with the Atari 2600 game system, it played host to many of the same arcade hits that would grace the VCS console. Arcade staples Defender, Centipede, Donkey Kong and Frogger all made a showing, as did the inescapable Pac-Man (whom we'll be seeing again later). There was even a brave effort made to port hardware intensive arcade titles like Star Trek and Robotron. Some of the more popular early computer games, such as Choplifter and Miner 2049er, also stuck a face in.
But while the ports on the TI-99/4A were generally much superior to Atari versions, there's little reason to play them today, given the ready availability of pixel-perfect versions of these titles on everything from desktop PCs to mobile phones. No, what we want to see are the original titles. What games did the TI-99/4A have that no one else did, games for which it's remembered to this day?