TI-99/4A: Leaning More on the Firmware

Ah, the TI-99/4A. My first computer. What a mercurial beast of thing that was. I desperately wanted a C64 for Xmas but my Dad was somehow convinced to buy one of these. It had about 4 games (including “Hunt the Wumpus”) and so instead of playing the myriad C64 games that all my mates were playing, I was forced to learn BASIC and try to write my own! 45 years later, I’m still programming.

an ordinary part that mapped into 8KB at location >6000->7FFF (the ROM) and another part, that normally held Graphics Programming Language bytecode, mapped into a completely separate “Graphics ROM” address space from >6000->F7FF (the “GROM”).

This reminds me of the NES, which has separate PRG and CHR address spaces, the latter being exclusively for the PPU to display its graphics.

I love reading about classic machines like the TI 99/4A. Leaning on firmware to squeeze out more capability is such a clever way to extend hardware from that era.

I had to look up TI-99/4A. Are there still TV sets today you could connect this to?

TFA lacks a picture of the TI-99/4a. I've got one and it's such a beautiful machine:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Texas_Instrument...

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