Micropendium Volume 1 Number 1
 February 1984 Micropendium (Home Computer Compendium) Front Cover | |
| Editor | Laura Burns |
|---|---|
| Categories | Home Computers, TI-99/4A |
| Publisher | John Koloen |
| Year founded | February 1984 |
| Country | USA |
| Based in | Round Rock, Texas |
| Language | English |
Contents
What is the Home Computer Compendium?
It may be better to begin answering the above question by describing what the Horne Computer Compendium is not.
As you can see, HCC is not a slick, high-priced magazine. Nor is it a clever merchandising scheme. We have no intention of selling you, the reader, anything other than this magazine. We have no plans to market software, books, T-shirts or anything else that cannot fit between the covers of the Compendium. To paraphrase a popular television commercial, we will strive to do only one thing well.
So what is the Horne Computer Compendium?
It is a conduit, a source of information and a vehicle for the dissemination of information.
It is also unique among computer publications inasmuch as it operates under newspaper-type deadlines. All of our schedules revolve around the goal of providing up-to-date articles and news. We have the capability of going to press within a day of completing a late-breaking story, unlike other publications which must work months in advance of publication dates.
We also offer a classified advertising section, which we hope you will find useful.
Each edition will also include a minimum of six staff-produced reviews of software, hardware and other items designed for use with the TI home computer. They will be unbiased, consumer-oriented reviews with an opportunity for rebuttal on the part of vendors.
We urge you to review this edition carefully. It is the prototype of what will follow. We hope it is the smallest we ever publish, but regardless of its size we feel that the Compendium is an idea whose time has come.
We hope you agree.
Sincerely,
John Koloen
Publisher
TI: Answers to your questions about what it will do for you - and what it won't
Although Texas Instruments is no longer producing the Tl99/4A home computer, it is not turning its back on buyers of the popular, low-priced machine.
TI spokesmen in Lubbock, Texas and elsewhere say that TI will continue to provide support for the home computer "on an indefinite basis."
According to Jon Campbell, manager of press relations for TI's consumer group, this open-ended service policy extends not only to the console but to all TI peripherals, cards and software.
Citing Tl's service policies regarding other discontinued items, including watches and calculators, Campbell said, "we'll continue to maintain our repair facilities for out-of-warranty repairs." He noted that users in need of service may continue to send the units to the Lubbock repair facility as has been done in the past. Repairs to out-of-warranty items will be billed to the user. Consoles come with a one year warranty while other hardware and software items come with a 90-day warranty. There is no charge for repairs made during the warranty period.
Campbell says the company continues to service and repair calculators that are 10 years old. Although TI stopped producing watches three years ago, he notes, service is still provided for them.
As of mid-December, he said, TI was still producing consoles to meet contractual obligations. TI stopped taking new orders on the consoles when it announced that it was leaving the home computer business.
As of December, however, Campbell says, "We haven't ceased manufacturing software." Although TI will not continue to produce software for a significant length of time, Campbell says, TI is engaged in negotiations with numerous companies interested in taking over production of the software.
"The plan is to eventually get rid of it," Campbell says of software production. "We're making every attempt to get other vendors to continue to produce software before we phase out of it."
He notes that about two-thirds of TI software was created by third party developers, and they are being offered the first shot at receiving the production rights from TI.
As for Tl's toll-free telephone number-800-TI-CARES-Campbell says the company has no intention of discontinuing it. It's now operating six days a week, he says, and everyone who has ever worked on the line for TI has been called back to staff it.
It's pretty well swamped with people wanting reassurance," Campbell says.
The toll-free line is not designed exclusively for home computer users, Campbell says. It's also used by purchasers of calculators and other items sold by TI.
Asked about a bid by the International 99/4 Users Group to take over the toll-free number, Campbell said, "They've talked to us about it."
While Campbell maintains that TI isn't going to abandon users, it's apparent that the network of user groups that TI helped establish, has been orphaned by the company. Campbell indicated that the company will no longer offer support to the user groups, and said that he is not aware of any plans to provide a final "wrap up."
Several user groups have told Home Computer Compendium that they have not been able to get in touch with TI's user group coordinator since November.
At this point, there is little information available about the availability of particular software titles, though supplies of most cartridges seem to be plentiful.
Hardware availability is another matter. There are virtually no peripheral expansion boxes remaining on dealers' shelves. However, peripheral cards are still obtainable.
The new TI service policies do not appear to be significantly different from those of the past. The most fundamental change is in the elimination of an exchange policy, whereby users could take defective units to one of Tl's exchange centers and receive a new or reconditioned unit. This service was provided without charge if the unit was still in warranty or at a relatively modest charge if out of warranty.
Campbell estimates that users can expect to ·wait an average of two weeks for repairs to be made.
Software service will be handled in the same way as hardware service at this point. Once contracts with third party vendors have been signed, the vendors will be expected to provide service for the software. TImanufactured software carries a three-month warranty from the date of purchase. Third party negotiations seem to be concentrating on applications software.
— JK
Dream Machine? The soon to be unveiled 99/64 (aka Phoenix) may be the best home computer yet
Speculation about a successor to the Tl99/4A home computer has been settled by a California-based hardware manufacturer called Cor-Comp Inc.
The company is producing a computer called the 99/64, dubbed the Phoenix. that it expects to have on the market by March. According to a company spokesman, the new machine will be compatible with all Tl99/4A software and hardware. The cost of the machines is expected to be in the $500-$600 range.
Features of the new machine include 64 kilobytes of built-in random access memory (RAM) and a built-in RS232 port and disk drive controller. The machine is supposed to come with a host of other features, including expandability to one megabyte of RAM in 64K increments and plug-in ports for such central processing unit chips as the Mostek 6502 chip used in Apple and Atari computers, the Intel 8088 chip used in the IBM-PC and the Z80A used in Osborne and Timex computers.
According to Dana Webb, in charge of public relations for CorComp, the machine will be unveiled at the winter Consumer Electronics Show.
Webb characterizes the new computer as a "modular unit." Users will have a choice of three keyboards: typewriter style, mylar and wordprocessing style with a built-in numeric keypad and programmable function keys. Each will be priced differently.
The keyboard will be separate from the Cor-Comp peripheral expansion box that is the brains of the new system. Webb describes the PEB as a "slimline version of the Texas Instruments (peripheral expansion) box." It will include a motherboard with two cartridge slots and a processor slot.
The system will come with what Cor-Comp calls "Improved Extended BASIC" in ROM (read only memory). It will also have what Webb calls "a true Extended BASIC compiler" and an operating system that allows the user the option of choosing screen display formats. Webb says the user will be able to chose from 32-, 40-, 80- or 132-column displays. The user will also be able to choose screen color, he says. The screen will include 25 rows, with the bottom row dedicated to command lines.
The system will feature numerous built-in utilities. Webb said, including a word processor, spelling checker, spreadsheet, mail-merge to the word processor. menu planner, text filer and dc1tabase manager. It will also have a built-in text-to speech capability, real-time clock, two game controller ports-one Atari compatible, the other Apple compatible -compatible-hard disk capability and networking capability for multiuser systems.
The disk drive controller card will accept up to four double-sided, quad-density drives, Webb said.
Planned for the system are plug-in cards for CP/M, Logo and Pascal.
Other standard features, Webb says, are a built-in light pen, graphics code generator and music code generator.
Cor-Comp is setting up its own distribution network, Webb says, eschewing the major chains that TI used. "We don't expect to use any mass merchandising yet, or probably in the future," he says.
Another Cor-Comp official indicated that the company has already turned down bids by such companies as Sears to distribute the machine.
A number of mail-order houses that currently stock Cor-Comp's other hardware products, including a 32K memory expansion card and RS232 card for the Tl99/4A, expect to sell the new computer when it hits the market. Among these are Unisource Electronics of Lubbock, Texas, and Tenex Computer Marketing Systems of South Bend, Indiana. Neither had received any information from CorComp about the Phoenix by late December.
The International 99 Users Group of Bethany, Oklahoma, is said to have one of the machines and is supposed to be in the process of testing it. However, Charles LaFara, president of the IUG, declined to comment when asked about the Phoenix.
Vendors shifting gears; remain loyal to TI market
Nothing is permanent except change. — Heraclitus
For some, it's a newfound opportunity, with the major competitor out of the market.
For others, it's a signal that they'd better start looking for other pastures.
Texas Instruments' decision to get out of the home computer market have been met with varying reactions from third party vendors. Nobody was really ready for it, but most vendors interviewed by the Compendium have made plans for future actions, one way or another.
Gene Harter, a general partner in Not-Polyoptics, reflects what he says was his firm's "mixed reaction" to the TI pullout.
"At first we were dismayed," he says. "We knew the TI was the best home computer you could get at twice the price. Even at $250 that computer outclassed its competition and it just wasn't fair when that computer went away."
Yet there is a bright side.
"TI was our biggest competitor and they've gone out of business," Harter comments. "As far as business goes, it's going to help us."
Roger Dooley, president of Tenex Computer Marketing Systems, South Bend, Indiana, echoes this optimistic viewpoint.
"I think that there is going to be a large aftermarket for the next one or two years," he says.
He notes that among the third party vendors whose orders Tenex handles, there is "95 percent enthusiasm to stay in a market in which their largest competitor has deserted."
However, he notes, "in the long run people question the viability of the TI market" unless some of the rumors of a compatible console to be produced by another company prove true. (See related story Page 6). He notes that there are two million TIs in place. Our position as a company is to support the TI market."
He feels that the "mass market channels the products used to move through were typically not very supportive. They didn't know what went with what. I think that the aftermarket will return to firms that can help them more."
Gary Siegel, president of Challenge Software, a division of Ashford Computers, says, "Our plans, I suppose, are to wait and see. We have advertising in place that involves mail order sales and we'll see what develops."
He notes that some future plans may depend on whether "the patent on the 99 is sold to a major company like Milton Bradley. That's going to affect the shape of the market, or at least the length of the demand." Siegel says, "We don't see a lot of change so far. A lot of people have put things on hold. We hear from some places that sales are very brisk."
As for the future, Siegel says, "Not having a crystal ball, I don't know." Craig Reitan, owner of Unisource Electronics, Lubbock, Texas, another large mail order distributor of TI products, says that his company is "in the process of selling everything as fast as we can."
He says that since consumers "aren't going to be able" to buy TI products at outlets such as K-Mart or Best Products, "mail order dealers like us are in a strong position."
His company is now "100 percent TI mail order and 70 percent retail TI," but, he observes, "five years from now that's going to be a very small business. We need to look at other businesses to be in while continuing to support the TI market."
Reitan sees a lot of short-term opportunities for consumers and manufacturers, particularly with "third party peripherals that don't have to compete with the distribution system from TI. "Many consumers are delighted when "we tell them what's available," he notes.
He says that "we have a very close relationship with TI and as long as TI stays in business we'll continue to support their products."
Charles Ehninger, president of Futura Software, says that his company will also continue to support the TI99/4A market, in which "we have a lot of good friends." However, his company also plans to develop products for the TI Professional and the IBM Personal Computer.
"The optimistic view (of TI) is that this is a static market and will never grow," he says. "The pessimistic outlook is that it will die very soon."
Futura Software specializes in business software for the vertical market, with specialized products for professionals such as architects, engineers and attorneys. The company's inventory also includes more than a dozen game titles.
He says the TI pullout from the home computer market was "a very disappointing experience, especially since we had just completed a total business system on the Winchester hard disk."
Futura was on the verge of announcing the system when TI "exploded the bomb," Ehninger said.
The week before, he notes, some TI officials had told him that TI would continue to support the 99/4A for two or three years to come. He feels that his sources were sincere in what they told him. Corporate decisions, he says, are made in "ivory towers" and not everyone gets to be there when they are made.
Mr. Moon, of Moonbeam Software (he says his first name is Mr), notes that his company will continue to produce games for the TI home computer "as long as there is demand."
He notes that his company has recently reduced prices on all its software.
"We had intended to reduce the prices before Tl left the market," he says. "That just brought it to the forefront."
The International 99/4 Users Group, which does $2.5 million in TI business annually, has a number of proposals in to TI.
Charles LaFara, IUG president, says that the IUG would like to manufacture a number of TI cartridges on a royalty basis, buying the parts from TI and assembling them for resale. Included among these would be Extended BASIC, Editor/ Assembler, Terminal Emulator II and non-solid state programs such as Teach Yourself Extended BASIC and Teach Yourself BASIC. The IUG has also asked to take over TI's toll-free hotline.
La Fara feels that the IUG can help TI users "detain the obsolescence" of their machines for the next 36 to 48 months. He notes that the IUG program library contains some 2,500 user written programs. He also says that the IUG will continue to publish its magazine, Enthusiast '99, and plans no major changes in its operations that will affect members in the near future.
— LB
Many user groups see unprecedented growth coming their way
If TI knew as much about marketing as it does about making home computers, assembly lines would be turning out the 99/4A today, and when E. F. Hutton talks people would be listening to the advice, "Buy TI."
This viewpoint was universally agreed upon by nine users' group presidents across the country interviewed by Home Computer Compendium.
Both advertising and pricing strategies were criticized as marketing mistakes of TI.
"Some very poor marketing of a very good computer," is the way Diane Kavanaugh, president of the MSP 99 User Group in Minnesota describes it, criticizing TI for "starting the whole price war."
Grayson Hudspeth, president of the Big Sky 99er's Computer Users Group in Montana says TI's biggest mistake was "trying to sell the computer as a game machine against the Commodore, the Vic 20 and the Atari. They weren't trying to point out the features it has as against the Apple or the IBM-PC until recently."
As a result, he notes, "nobody realized the computer was as much a computer as it was."
"Bill Cosby is neat. I like him personally," Bill Mills of the King's 99er User's Group in Hanford, California, says, while criticizing TI's "very, very poor ads" with their game machine orientation. He feels that the machines were not available in enough stores and "when they finally got in enough stores, they went out of business."
In addition to marketing, Ron Kuseski, of the Rocky Mountain 99ers, in the Denver, Colorado, area, feels that TI should have released the specifications on its software, disk operating system and the basic operations of the computer so that third party vendors could build up the computer system.
"I hope that now that TI's out they will release them so other people can keep it going," he says.
TI has been "not very consumer oriented," comments Bob Utter, president of the Central Iowa 99/4A Users Group. "They produce a very good product, they just don't relate well with the product. Most of what they did right was too late."
"That computer is so good, people can't believe TI is going to do it," says Ota Jiroutek, president of MUNCH in the Worcester, Massachusetts, area, who comments that selling the computers for $50 was "ridiculous."
Don Donlan, president of the Hoosier Users Group in Indianapolis, Indiana, says he works with a man who bought a 99/4A for $25.
By giving rebates and reducing the computer's price, TI "gave the image that this was a very cheap piece of hardware," Donlan says.
He suggests that "instead of discounting the hardware, TI would have done better discounting some of its software."
"Reducing the price below $300 was a mistake," comments Rik Papagolos, president of the Tri-State Users Group. He also believes the firm "pushed the command module too heavily," giving the impression that the computer was merely a machine into which to plug cartridges, like an Atari game machine. "It was marketed as a game machine and as an educational machine, but not as a computer."
"They spent enough money on advertising," he notes. "Their advertising budget was adequate. They just had terrible commercials. The only thing they did right was hiring Bill Cosby, but hiring him and giving him terrible commercials wasn't right." He says that the Texas Instruments user group coordinator has not been in contact with his group since TI announced it was quitting the home computer market.
"I think they're missing the ball," he says.
Charles D. Bathman, president of NET 99er in Hurst, Texas, believes that TI should have "gone out and proved that they were better than Apple. They should have advertised how good it is and more capable than machines that were more expensive."
He also believes TI was "too stingy with allowing third party manufacturers to produce software." TI "tried to get all the gravy," he says.
