I stumbled on a site dedicated to everything TI 99/4A, including hardware mods.

[JakobAir]

Link first: http://www.nouspikel.com/ti99/titechpages.htm

It's basically a collection of link, most of which are internal, and include a debugger, overclocking the console, and a GROM reader for that there computer to read whatnot and so forth. I'm not sure who needs to know this but I think it's cool it exists.

 

[FAST6191]

Heh. While I was aware of the TI stuff in general then being in the UK we never saw them (some kids might have just about had a "scientific" Casio* if they were flush and probably still needed a regular one for exams,) I also was unaware of how in depth it got as you mostly just got the how to hide the reset/cheat program from examiners stories from those that went on to become programmers and whatnot that presumably left them behind with school and the occasional "look what they ported to it" post filter down. Those are some very impressive modifications and dedications to the art of modding things.

*basically one with a large screen you could theoretically draw a graph on (screen probably lower res than an original gameboy) that was of no real use to anybody in any high school exams, theoretically you might have solved an equation experimentally with one but not like schools expect such feats before university level really and even then that is dubious.

 

[Kazzie]

Heh. While I was aware of the TI stuff in general then being in the UK we never saw them (some kids might have just about had a "scientific" Casio* if they were flush and probably still needed a regular one for exams,) I also was unaware of how in depth it got as you mostly just got the how to hide the reset/cheat program from examiners stories from those that went on to become programmers and whatnot that presumably left them behind with school and the occasional "look what they ported to it" post filter down. Those are some very impressive modifications and dedications to the art of modding things.

TI Calculators are a very rare breed in the UK, so you might not have realised that the TI-99 was a home computer released c.1980 (a la Sinclair, Amstrad, Beeb, etc).

 

[hippy dave]

I had one of the calculators that could play tetris, but I didn't know about the computers, don't think they made it this side of the pond.

 

[FAST6191]

My bad. Never saw one of those either and have time on and possibly even still examples (sadly no Amiga) of many "home computers"/keyboard sporting things ( https://www.globaxgaming.com/blog/micro1 and https://www.globaxgaming.com/blog/micro2 for those wanting a crash course in the UK efforts, though the vic20 featured more heavily than that series might imply).
Though in some ways that makes some of the peripherals they managed to attach to the devices if not less impressive then not quite as eyebrow raising.

 

[Kazzie]

I had one of the calculators that could play tetris, but I didn't know about the computers, don't think they made it this side of the pond.

I don't think they did (in any great number, at least). Back then, the home computer market was still very localised.

 

[subcon959]

Online emulator if anyone fancies a quick peek..

https://js99er.net/#/