ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER 1994 LIMA NEWSLETTER THINGS THAT HAVE COME AND GONE AND SOME THAT NEVER WERE Trivia collected by Bill Gaskill September 1994 You may recall that the April 1994 Things... article touched on the Childress Photography contract that TI had for the production of most if not all of its color workups and dealer sales pitch stuff. If you don't recall, I've repeated it below for those who didn't get to see the original. Well, if your newsletter editor is able to do so, I hope that you will be able to see some of the 8" x 10" photographs of things TI that Mr. Jim Childress and his staff put together. I have photocopied all of the ones I have in hopes that they can be reproduced for use in the club newsletter. If so, it is likely that they will appear over several issues because there are so many. -CHILDRESS PHOTOGRAPHY CONTRACT: Jim Childress probably made a lot of money from Texas Instruments back in the days of the 99/4A. I have maybe twenty 8" x 10" color photos that his firm did of the 99/4A and its peripherals that show the Home Computer off in its best light. The Lubbock, Texas photography shop did many, many more. Unfortunately, they just recently cleared out their remaining inventory of 99/4A stuff and "threw it in the trash" because it had been too many years since Childress and TI did business. Mr. Childress told me there were about 700 photos in the lot that got tossed! Here's a list of the photos: -99/4A Black and Silver Console and various cartridges on cables (to prevent theft) in a computer carel for demonstration purposes. -99/4A Black and Silver Console and various cartridges on cables (to prevent theft) in a table top computer carel made for demonstration purposes. -99/4A Home Computer Display with Software module. This is a drawing of a marketing tool designed to display the console, monitor and expansion box along with the newly adopted plastic encased cartridge software. The curious thing about the drawing is that the console being shown in the drawing is the 99/2, not the 99/4A? -99/4A Home Computer Display. This is a photo of the actual product that came to be as a result of the drawing mentioned above. The real thing does have the 99/4A console shown in the photo, not the 99/2. -99/4A Shipping Box (black cardboard) with top and bottom views. -99/4A System including Black and Silver console, black Joysticks, 10" brushed bronze color monitor, original black acoustic modem, original Speech Synthesizer, and a Peripheral Expansion Box that has "Peripheral Expansion System" next to the rocker type On/Off power switch. -99/4A System with Black and Silver Console, 10" brushed bronze colormonitor, and Peripheral Expansion Box with "99/4 Peripheral Expansion System" next to pushbutton On/Off power switch. -99/4A System (Beige console) including Console, Hex-Bus Interface, Joysticks, Monitor (10" Color), Program Recorder, Speech Synthesizer and TI Impact Printer. -Addison-Wesley Math Games III and IV in same photo. -Buck Rogers game screen as 1 of 3 screens shown in photo. -Burgertime game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Congo Bongo game screen as 1 of 3 screens shown in photo. -Crossfire game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Demon Attack game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Entertainment Value Pack (juvenile female on box) -Entertainment Value Pack (adult male on box) -Entrapment game screen as 1 of 4 screens shown in photo. -Facemaker game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Fathom game screens (2 ea) in photo with Wing War. -Hopper game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Jawbreaker II game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Key To Spanish opening screens. -M*A*S*H game screen as 1 of 4 screens shown in photo. -Microsurgeon game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Moonmine game screen as 1 of 4 screens shown in photo. -Moonsweeper game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Munchmobile screens (2ea), at T-Intersection and on winding road. -Peripheral Expansion Box with "99/4 Peripheral Expansion System" next to pushbutton On/Off power switch, Scott, Foresman Multiplication 1 cartridge in forground and RS232C interface card to the left of the cartridge. -Return to Pirate's Isle adventure screen filling entire photo. -Software Display Case with lockable, sliding glass doors, capable of holding well over 100 pieces of software. Case stands about 4' x 6' with six rows of software displayed and each row capable of displaying uo to six pieces of software. Has "Texas Instruments" in large letters on front and side as well as the words "Information Management, Arcade Entertainment, Computer Programming and Education" in a banner on the front of the case. -Sneggit game screen as 1 of 4 screens shown in photo. -Star Trek game screen as 1 of 3 screens shown in photo. -Story Machine game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -TI Impact Printer. -Treasure Island game screen filling entire 8" x 10" photo. -Wing War game screens (2 ea) in photo with Fathom. -Word Invasion and Word Radar screens in same photo. -SPINNAKER SOFTWARE: Long time 99ers will remember that TI was able to reach an agreement with Spinnaker Software in the Summer of 1983 to have Facemaker and Story Machine produced for the 99/4A. With the help of Jerry Spacek, who wrote Defend The Cities, and TI's own John Phillips, the job got done before the October "bailout". Well, just this year Spinnaker Software, like so many casualties of the computer industry before it, disappeared forever. Back in 1986 Channelmark Software of San Mateo, California produced some of the earliest low-cost PC software under the Power Up banner. The Channelmark name eventually disappeared in favor of the jazzier Power Up name so the company became Power Up Software. It did pretty good in the mail order arena, acquiring a few flagship products from independant developers until it became an attractive buy for Spinnaker Software. Spinnaker was doing pretty good too, having recently purchased Software Publishing's low-end PFS Series line of productivity software. But no sooner had Spinnaker acquired Power Up than along comes giant New Jersey catalog sales company Misco, who buys Spinnaker. Although this is a story about things in the PC world, Spinnaker, like Sega, Imagic, Data East and others, all hold at least a little corner of my heart for the support they once offered to the 99/4A, back in those heady days when there really were things called "Home Computers". TI's "CL" MARKETING FLYERS: Mike Wright has the most exhaustive list of flyers put out by Texas Instruments in his TI-Cyc book, but because the book is on disk, there are no examples, just text. In the same package containing the Childress Photography photos covered above, I have also included copies of some really obscure flyers from the early days of the "Home Computer so you can see some of the items Mike lists in TI-Cyc. All of the "CL" flyers I have are 8.5" x 11", glossy white paper with an orange band at the top. The flyers I have are: CL458A-RS-232 Interface (PHP1700) CL459B-Solid State Speech Synthesizer (PHP1500) CL465A-Telephone Coupler (PHP1600) CL467A-TI-99/4 Home Computer and Monitor Bundle (PHC 004M) CL481A-Solid State Printer (Thermal printer) PHP1900 CL482A-Disk Memory Drive (PHP1850) CL504^-TI-900 Video Modulator (PHA2100) CL709^-TI-99/4A Home Computer Console (PHC 004A) CL710^-Peripheral Expansion System and Accessory Cards CL711^-10-inch Color Monitor (PHA 4100) -TRITON/TM DIRECT: This information came to me last weekend in a phone conversation I had with a long time friend in the TI-99 Community. I can't verify it, but I also don't have any reason to disbelieve it, and it is certainly not damaging to anyone, so here goes. Back in November and December of 1983, after TI announced that it was leaving the Home Computer market, TI and it's network of retailers saw revenues soar to incredible levels as existing owners scrambled to buy hardware, software and other products related to the now "orphaned" computer and new buyers soaked up the bargains to be found at major retailers like JC Penneys, Skaggs Drug Stores, Elek-Tek, K-Mart, Target and others. Things went so well as a result of the "fire sale" hysteria created by the October 28th "bailout" announcement that TI continued to produce the 99/4A until the end of March 1984. It was right around that time that the FTC or some other Federal Government office, told Texas Instruments that they couldn't have it both ways. Either they were getting out of the Home Computer business and therefore were going to liquidate their inventory, or they were going to get back into the Home Computer business and stop misleading the public with their "fire sale" approach to marketing. Having been "warned", TI then came up with the fulfillment house idea that would allow them to continue to profit from existing inventory, even if they could not do so through their existing retail network. TI found Triton Products company, which was originally headquartered out of Minnesota, and paid McCann-Erickson, the ad agency that Texas Instruments used for all 99/4A advertising, whatever it cost to create the first Triton Catalog. =eof=