ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 1993
 
      REMEMBERING "BLACK FRIDAY"  
      by Charles Good 
     Lima Ohio User Group 
      
     The Lima newsletter doesn't often reprint material from other sources
since we pride ourselves on usually being able to publish original newsletter
articles.  In this November 1993 issue we are making an exception to honor the
10th anniversary BLACK FRIDAY, that fateful day in late October 1993 when TI
announced its exit from the "home computer" market.  We are reprinting articles
from the mass media of that time.  Some of these articles were also reprinted
in the Lima newsletter in 1988 to mark the 5th anniversary of BLACK FRIDAY. 
      
     I remember back then panicking when I heard the news on national
television Just a few months earlier I had spend $99 for an Extended Basic
cartirdge and invested BIG BUCKS (about $680) in an expansion system that
included a "free" PE box from TI along with a disk controller, SSSD drive, and
an RS232 so I could use my new $399 Gemini 10X printer.  I didn't yet have
memory exapnsion.  I vividly remember phoning my father-in-law, the only other
local 99/4A user I knew well and asking, "What are we going to do?" He had the
an expansion system with 32K, RS232, printer, but no disk drive or controller.
I was beginning to figure out that I really needed that 32K to run some of the
better extended basic software and I thought that if I didn't do something FAST
I would never get one.  So the next day I drove to my local K-MART and
purchased the last 32K card in stock for only $139.  A week later I was back at
K-MART to purchase a backup console for $50.  My father-in-law meanwhile spent
days on the phone trying to get through to 800-TI-CARES.  When someone finally
answered the phone, he ordered his disk controller and SSSD drive and was
grateful he could get them at any price before the supply was exhausted. 
      
     A few weeks later, on a Sunday in mid November 1993 the Lima J.C. Penney
store had a blowout sale of 99/4A software and hardware.  They brought in
stocks from other J.C. Penney stores and had table after table scattered around
the store stacked high with command modules, joysticks, program recorders, and
new $50 consoles. (There were no PE boxes.) The croud was enormous! All the
good stuff, including all the consoles, sold out in about 3 hours.  The tables
with command modules were scattered and the software was in no particular
order.  The croud was so large that it was difficult to get near many of these
tables full of software.  Someone would shout, "I want STORY MACHINE." Someone
else would spot STORY MACHINE in one of the piles, grab it, and throw it to the
person who wanted it.  BOXES OF COMMAND MODULES WERE FLYING THROUGH THE AIR!
There were even a few Extended Basic's available for only $49. I saw some these
XB boxes in customer's hands, but couldn't find one for myself.  I did purchase
8 educational command modules for about $30-$40 each, a set of joysticks for
$19, an official program recorder with cable for $49 and a 10 inch TI
color monitor that was part of the store's demo TI system.  This monitor had a
price tag of $499 on it, but because it was used I got it for only $175.  What
a steal! My wife was ready to kill me when she found out how much money I spent
that day. 
      
     Except for the joysticks I still have all this official TI stuff and it
still works, a tribute to the ruggedness of 99/4A hardware and command modules.
The $680 "free" PE box and the $50 backup console are now my main system.  The
$175 monitor is attached to the Lima User Group's mobile computer cart and is
seem by many who attend seminars at the annual Lima Multi User Group
Conference.  Just yesterday some friends of my 8 year old daughter were over at
my house playing with some of the very same educational command modules I
purchased at Penney's that Sunday so long ago. 
     .PL 1