.IF DSK1.C3 .CE JUST SURVIVAL? DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT! .IF DSK1.C2  It takes quite a bit for any organization to survive. It takes quite a bit more for an organization whose base has disappeared to survive. And yet we 99ers have done it and done it well. It's impossible to imagine all the efforts of all the people (many no longer with us) who brought us to where we are today, YEARS AFTER THE ORPHANING! And our computer is better than ever because there are more pieces of hardware and software and firmware and, through user groups, textware, than ever before. We have become a world community. In the process our machine has become a POWERFUL tool in the home and business and education worlds. Could you have imagined a few years ago that, with your $49.50 little "toy" computer, you could go beyond a MEGABYTE of memory and operate up to 5 QUADdenisty drives! Could you have imagined an environment so tight that you could have an advanced Wordprocessor and advanced Editor/Assembler and advanced Disk Manager all operating as an environment off ONE DISK! (not to mention a FORTHLOAD, a disk editor, a c LOAD, a pair of master menus, and piles of other things thrown in - like auto cataloging, 10 screen color choices, printing or reading any 80 file, and on and on - STILL ON THAT ONE DISK!) Not to mention the extraordinary software: TOTAL FILER, FONTWRITER, TI ARTIST (and all the zillion files and companions and converters that can be used with it - including the remarkable RLE), CREATIVE FILING SYSTEM, SCHEDULE MANAGER, AND!!!! [I'm looking through my disk file and am astonished. I have more things than I know what to do with. I have a columnizer and sideways printer and text/graphic creator (all wonderful FAIRWARE items), a WHEEL OF FORTUNE game with a robotic Vanna, a program that lets the TI sing!, one that writes in GOTHIC, one that creates newsletters with many fonts and graphics, one that tells fortunes with speech, Corey Cheng's remarkable cribbage game, and Nutmeg 99ers superb group disks.] I sit here and wonder when I'm going to use it all. As a writer, I am primarily interested in ALL aspects of word processing. Having used very many processors for very many computers, I can honestly say the flexibility of FUNNELWEB is hard to beat. I love the large type of 40 columns and the easy FORMATting to 80 or 136 or whatever. As a teacher I am interested in the educational (though all programs are educational) aspects of computing in the class. I use many computers but mostly TI because it is easily the best for the stuff I do in my class (though the Apple and Commodore have more of the user-friendly printer materials like NEWSROOM and PRINTSHOP which has nothing comparable on the TI). As a game-player, I am about 20 years behind on playing all the wonderful games I own: all the INFOCOM games, all the ADVENTURE games, all the games that I haven't even created through my TUNNEL OF DOOM and ADVENTURE editing programs. (Not to mention the constructions of SPACE STATION PHETA, GRAVITY MASTER, and the intricate tutorial/play/change of NIGHT MISSION.) HOME APPLICATIONS! I haven't yet put my checkbook files onto any of the wonderful checkbook filers I own. I haven't even put all my P.G. Wodehouse books onto my PR BASE or CFS for easy access. Nor my video collection onto VIDEOS. I've yet to wire my house through the TI for alarm systems, light switches, auto radio/TV programs, coffeemaking. (Yet all possible with my computer.) UTILITIES! I have utilities I can't even begin to use, many I don't even understand. Why do I keep buying this stuff? Because I want to make my computer be as potent as a home computer can be. And it is. And I say that someday I'll learn how to use such and such. Maybe I will. And that, my friends, is REALLY why I own and love my 99. I am learning. I am learning every day. I am learning every time I sit at that machine. Learning - let's face it - is great fun! The TI sits there encouraging me to LEARN. All that stuff I said above is true. So's the fact that I've made almost 200 friends worldwide with whom I correspond regularly. So's the fact that the faires I attend are a source of immense delight to me. So's the fact that getting my monthly newsletters and magazines (like MICROpendium and COMPUTER SHOPPER) is like a continual Christmas and last-day-of-school rolled into one. But it's the learning and sharing that really keeps me hugging my TI. And the learning that made me evaluate my computer future. As a teacher with a wife and four kids (all four kids were in college at the same time a couple years ago and now only two kids and one wife are still going), I have found upgrading a bit costly. I took a couple extra jobs to buy my computer in 1981 ($499.99) and held onto the jobs to get Extended BASIC ($119) and TI WRITER ($99) and LOGO ($119) and a tape recorder ($89.95) and my Expansion Package (Box, 32K, RS card, Controller, one drive) ($900). By the time the console came down to $49, I owned five (for my own kids and for my classroom use), and I had invested over $2500 in hardware, software, and textware. My wife was threatening homicide. Justifiably. I was (am?) a computer addict. And Elaine became (is?) a computer widow. Though I had fun and used the beast all the time, I was (am?) probably a very dumb Jim Peterson. I learned more about the TI from Jim than from the library of over 100 TI books I own. (You probably didn't know there were that many.) I stayed involved with user groups and the writing of articles and the editing of newsletters and the constant using and modifying of programs at home and at work. Long after TI left us. Long after the first big exodus. Long after the diminishing user groups. Long after the drying up of most sources (book stores, department stores, computer stores, magazines [like COMPUTE, HCM/99er, FAMILY COMPUTING]). Even long after people stopped laughing at me for suggesting that the 99 was in the same class as Apple or Commodore or Atari. It isn't. It's better! Then I thought "upgrade". Should I get an IBM clone? Or an Apple? or what? All the computers that I use at work and elsewhere came under exacting scrutiny. Will I buy this one? Or that one? I began, also, to try out other computers in computer stores and visit friends who let me test out their equipment. I borrowed books and magazines about other computers. Then Triton came out with the IBM compatible converter for the TI. It was a clone that used the awful TI keyboard. I had saved up steadily, penny by penny, since my blasts in 1981 and 1982. And now I could upgrade to a better computer. IBM/TI was one option. Now that the choice was a reality, I had to reconsider. Back I went to my TI. To MICROpendium. To COMPUTER SHOPPER. To FUNNELWEB and SCREEN DUMP and PRINT IT and CFS and CHINESE CHESS and HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and GRAPHX and CSGDIII and PRINTER'S APPRENTICE. And to all the programs I'd written and all the programs given to me as gifts by other TI authors and all the PD stuff. And all the great stuff from Asgard. And, most of all, all the stuff from Tigercub Software that doesn't even BEGIN to exist for other computers. There are not TIPS or NUTS && BOLTS for Apples or IBMs or whatevers. But my SSSD drive with 32K expansion was becoming limiting. So I went with the best upgrading I could possibly go: with the TI. First, I bought the MYARC 512 for a bunch of reasons. I had borrowed a Horizon 192 for a few weeks and enjoyed the speed of my autoload FUNNELWEB. I thought 512 would be of more use to me (particularly as I could use as much spooler space as I wanted to print out my files while I continued merrily on with my computing) because of the immense amount it would hold. Such things as CSGD or FUNNELWEB (with my FUNLPLUS! included) could leap back and forth from file to file and spool out any text files at the same time. The RAMdisk (of the 512 card) is the greatest leap forward I could have dreamed of. It is easy and wonderful. Next I looked through COMPUTER SHOPPER and bought (for only $75) two new, highly-recommended Tandon full-height DSDD drives. I plugged them in and used the double-sided abilities with my TI Controller. Then my MYARC Controller came in with that superb DMIII and the inside ability to catalog from anywhere (though I wish it could Print with that built-in cataloguer the way it does with its DM). Now I can go into Myarc DM from FUNNELWEB, though DM 1000 works equally as well from that environment. Now I can configure any sided/density combinations I want (including the 512 as drive). It's so great to watch disk verification when initializing as it whips up to 1440 unflipped, instead of the old 360. No more flippies. Speed. Speed. Speed! It's even very fast to be in RAMmed FUNNELWEB with a pile of text sitting in EDITor, realize there is no initialized disk, SF to RAM, leap into DM1000, initialize a disk, leap back into EDITor, LF from RAM, and complete the task at hand without having enough time in between to get another frosty Foster's from the fridge. I suddenly entered the new world of computing very much on my own terms. I quadrupled my disk capacity, tripled my drives, increased my memory twelvefold, added a much desired buffer of incredible size, and created a speed operational zone beyond my wildest dreams. All this while sitting on a collection of software and textware that I haven't even begun to tap. Let's say not another bit of textware, firmware, hardware, or software will ever be created for the TI. This won't happen (as there are presently over 700 companies - mostly Mom && Pop - making stuff for the TI) but let's pretend. Where does that leave me? With one hell of a great machine and lots of stuff for it! That's where. This machine will last me for the rest of my life just with what I have and what is available right now. Then I ordered a Geneve. Frosting on the cake. I had seen it and used it about seven times and had talked and read about it incessantly for months. I wanted that enhanced keyboard, for one. I wanted to increase my memory beyond a MEGABYTE, for two. I wanted all the things that have been and are being written for it, for three. I wanted to truly upgrade my system. Beyond the power and the speed and the graphic resolution of the IBM and Amiga and Atari and Apple and Commodore and ALL the other lesser machines while still keeping the incredible built-ins I came to accept as intelligently designed computerisms: RES, NUM, CALL, etc. So here I am, a TI 99/4A addict and loving it; a man who has come to realize that what I have now is already beyond what I presently need and beyond what I can continually strive for - but never beyond what I can imagine. [Jack Sughrue, Box 459, E.Douglas MA 01516] If any newsletter editor prints these IMPACT/99 articles, please put me on your mailing list. Thanks - JS Հ