Official TI-99/4A Thread

[TNTPLUST]

I'm Curious to see how many of you are collecting the old TI. So a little survey for you!

When did you start collecting?

What is your Favorite Game?

What is your Rarest Game?

What was your best find?

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire)?

How big is your collection?

Where do you find your games?

Here are mine:

When did you start collecting? Xmas of 1980

What is your Favorite Game? Tunnels Of Doom

What is your Rarest Game? Only a R7+ COMPUTER WAR

What was your best find? Beyond Parsec mixed in with atari 2600 carts .50 cents at a garage sale.

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire) The MBX system...I have all the games but not the system! :angry:

How big is your collection? I have collected 3/4 of what is listed in the DP guide. I have quite a few educational titles not listed in the DP.

Where do you find your games? Mostly ebay but sometimes at garage sales. Thrift shops around SO. Cal do not have a good selection of vintage games.

[digitalpress]

I'm Curious to see how many of you are collecting the old TI. So a little survey for you!

When did you start collecting? I started collecting TI-99/4A the DAY the computer came down to $50. I bought it at Toys R Us right away and grabbed whatever software I could find cheaply.

What is your Favorite Game? I have to say Tunnels of Doom, particularly the "Quest for the King" cassette. What a great turn-based RPG for that era!

What is your Rarest Game? I have "Killer Caterpillar" and a prototype Donkey Kong.

What was your best find? I bought a lot on eBay about three years ago and picked up some real tough titles from it, many of the Scott-Foresman toughies and St. Nick among them.

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire) - Does Shnoz-ola exist? I've played the ROM, I want the cart!

How big is your collection? Pretty big! I've got about 3/4 of the library too.

Where do you find your games? Nowadays, only eBay.

[evg2000]

When did you start collecting?
around '98

What is your Favorite Game?
?

What is your Rarest Game?
based on DP guide: Hangman, Gamevision Cartridge
though I think Super Sketch, Sketch Master w/trackball is pretty rare
What was your best find?
Super Sketch, Sketch Master w/trackball for .50

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire)?
?

How big is your collection?
around 250 or so items

Where do you find your games?
thrift stores and swap meets, never pay more than a buck or two or sw, upto ten for hw.

want to check out my collection?
http://www.evg2000.com


later,
Charles

[Toucan]

I'm Curious to see how many of you are collecting the old TI. So a little survey for you!

When did you start collecting? Christmas 1997

What is your Favorite Game? Bigfoot (MBX), pretty fun with the MBX system as the speech is different.

What is your Rarest Game? Milton Bradley Gamevision Demonstration (This game has 4 of the 1979 Milton Bradley video games all in one cartridge. They are the full versions and you can play each one without changing the cartridge)

What was your best find? Milton Bradley Gamevision Demonstration

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire)? Tutankham

How big is your collection? Probably about 200 different cartridges

Where do you find your games? eBay, Thrift Stores, searching on the internet

[Jorpho]

Would someone please name this Mystery TI-99/4a game that has been haunting me for so long?

It was a rather abstract game that basically involved moving a stick figure from the left side of the screen to the right, at which point you would be moved "down" to the next level. The various levels had different themes; some involved trapdoors, jumping through hoops, jumping over the moon, and one particularly difficult level had a moving arrow at the top of the screen that would kill you if you walked under it.

It has also been suggested that this game may not be dumped at this time.

[Ze_ro]

When did you start collecting? - I'm not entirely sure when I got my TI99.... but I think it was about a year ago. I picked it up for something like $12 from the local Value Village.

What is your Favorite Game? - Parsec. Sadly, it's my only game, so it wasn't much of a competition. I've heard it's one of the better games anyways, so at least my collection started off on a good note. Actually, now that I think about it, I bought Parsec long before I bought my TI99... I found Parsec for $3, and I remember people saying it was a really fun game, so I picked it up knowing full well that I'd eventually find a TI99.

What is your Rarest Game?
What was your best find? - I'm going to combine both of these: my HamSoft Ham Radio adaptor. I actually got this in a bag with my TI99 (along with a metric shitload of cables). Unfortunately, I have no software for it (I'm fairly certain that VV just throws out old disks and tapes without considering someone might buy them), I have no idea how it works, and I have no ham radio to plug it into even if I had software. Still, it's gotta be worth something. There's a possibility it's the rarest piece of hardware I have... although I have no idea how many were made.

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire)? - Gee, I don't know... I don't know of many TI99 games. I've heard good things about the port of Donkey Kong, but I doubt that's rare enough to count as a holy grail.

How big is your collection? - I have two cartridges... Parsec, and Household Budget Management :roll: I have no tapes, nor do I have a tape drive. I have all the cables necessary to hook one up though.

Where do you find your games? - I think I got Parsec at a local flea market... HHBM came with my TI99, which I got at Value Village.

I really probably have no business even posting in this thread, since I only really have a TI99 "because it was there"... but I had to take an opportunity to brag about my weird ham radio adaptor :D

--Zero

[evg2000]

I almost forgot, I also have a Triton TurboXT, though I have no idea how to use it. no cords or anything, just the device:

http://evg2000.com/graphics/ti/hardware/turboxt1.jpg
http://evg2000.com/graphics/ti/hardware/turboxt2.jpg

later,
Charles

[djbeatmongrel]

this is slightly off topic but i have a loose pacman cart for the TI-99/4A if anyone is interested. its just taking up space in my collection. just PM if you want to trade for it.

[scottz29]

When did you start collecting?
Well, I guess you could say I started collecting for the TI on September 20, 1982. I was just a kid, and that's when by dad bought it for me, and I still have it til this day. (I put a sticker on the side of it with the date I got it - what a geek!) However, I just got into eBay a few years ago, so I got back into the TI collecting scene maybe 1999?

What is your Favorite Game?
I'd have to say without a doubt Tunnels of Doom. I can't remember how many hours I spent sitting in my room playing that game and listening to Hall and Oates :embarrassed:. Those were the days...

What is your Rarest Game?
According to the DP Guide it's either my 4A Flyer, Computer War or Anteater (Romox), but not long ago I picked up a Typo II by Romox (which isn't even in the guide!), and I've never seen that on ebay ever before. I also have a Junkman Jr., a *mint* Espial, and a few DataBiotics games which are really hard to come by.

What was your best find?
Can't really remember, although I recently picked up Star Runner (DataBiotics) and another 4A Flyer in with a lot of junk on ebay for cheap. I haven't seen any TI stuff at garage sales or flea markets around here (Detroit area).

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire)?
Well, I'm down to the last few DataBiotics, Funware, Navarone and Exceltec titles. Some I don't even know if they exist, so.... If I had to pick one, that would probably be Beyond Parsec. I've heard it's not all that great, but at least I'd have it.

How big is your collection?
Pretty big - I'm down to the last 18 or so rarest of games, other than that I have pretty much everything except the MBX system, but those come around every so often. Also, I'm just into collecting games - super sketch and the educational carts don't interest me.

Where do you find your games?
eBay, internet and a few newsgroups I subscribe to.

[scottz29]

Oh yeah, and if anybody is selling any, let me know!

[Night Driver]

When did you start collecting?
I got my TI sometime in 1982. I still have it. I got into collecting about a year and a half ago.

What is your Favorite Game?
Impossible to answer. I like too many.

What is your Rarest Game?
4A flyer

What was your best find?
Probably 4A flyer or a rare Scott Foresman cart. I was very happy to find a Navarone three cart adapter for $1 though.

What game would you like to aquire?
Joust, but my collection is pretty small, so there are many games I want.

How big is your collection?
50-60 carts and a couple of cassette tapes.

Where do you find your games?
Thrifts, eBay, plus a few I owned as a kid.

[Wookie]

There's a link to this topic on the Classic Gaming forum, so maybe TI fans will end up here.

Original question was whether the TI should be considered a computer or a console. I'd say it's a computer that can be used just like a console. Don't know why people get hung up on forcing a dividing line.

Anyways, this brought me to the original subject of this thread (which I missed first time around), so here goes:

When did you start collecting? Mid '90s when this and all similar systems were dirt cheap and the thrifts were overflowing with them.

What is your Favorite Game? Parsec, though I haven't tried them all.

What is your Rarest Game? Schnoz-ola (which might be a proto since it has only a sticker rather than a real label).

What was your best find? a bag of carts at Goodwill that included Schnoz, St. Nick, Computer War and other goodies, and in a different thrift an unopened MBX expansion system.

What is your Holy Grail (what game would you like to aquire)? Anything I don't already have.

How big is your collection? 195 carts, 110 or so are games and the rest are apps/educational/utilities.

Where do you find your games? I think I've obtained about 10 in trades, 2 or 3 on ebay, and the rest were all found in the wild.

[TNTPLUST]

I dont find much in the wild myself anymore. I have all of the R1's through R7's listed in the DP guide and a few R8's. As a previous post pointed out though I keep finding carts not listed in the DP guide. A year ago I did aquire two pallets of TI stuff at an estate sale that Im still going through (mostly hardware though). Sad to say but some of the older TI enthusiasts are dying off. I'm glad to see people are still collecting the old girl. Wow I started this thread two years ago! My TI-994/a is still setup and running! I teach computer science to children K-8. It sits in the corner of my classroom with a PEB and all my software. It is a curiosity to the kids and every few years you get that one child who really is attracted to it. Who knows maybe one of them will keep this wonderful computer going when we are gone.