My Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Home Computer Page
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My Early Experiences with the TI-99/4A:
The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Home Computer is my first and truest retrocomputing love. We had a TI-99/4A in the house when I was very young in the early 1980s, and I have many fond memories of the TI-99/4A from those days:
- Educational games (i.e., cartridges or "command modules") for the TI-99/4A such as Early Learning Fun, Beginning Grammar, Alien Addition, Dragon Mix, etc.
- Learning to program in TI BASIC using various resources such as the Beginner's BASIC and User's Reference Guide manuals included with the TI-99/4A, and the 10-part Teach Yourself BASIC series of programs on cassette. I recently completed video/emulation run-throughs of these resources, which you can see in the following YouTube playlists:
- A cute little asterisk-shooting program, Shooting Star, that my dad wrote for me in TI BASIC and saved on cassette. Sadly the cassette that this program was stored on has been lost, but I have slowly been working on my own recreation (and improved version) of Shooting Star in TI Extended BASIC. I'll post the completed program here after I've completed it; stay tuned!
- Having great fun playing various games for the TI-99/4A, such as Alpiner, Car Wars, Centipede, Hangman, Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position, TI Invaders, Video Chess, ZeroZap, etc.
- Messing around with the TI-99/4A Speech Synthesizer and getting it to say all kinds of crazy things!
- Composing music on the TI-99/4A via the Music Maker cartridge / command module.
- Typing in various TI BASIC type-in programs from computer books such as 101 Programming Tips & Tricks for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Home Computer by Len Turner. I recently completed a video/emulation run-through of all 101 programs from this book, which you can see in the follolwing YouTube playlist:
Socrates: An Open-World Philosophical Adventure in Ancient Athens:
We are currently working a new game called "Socrates"—an open-world philosophical adventure game about the life and conversations of Socrates set in ancient Athens. "Socrates" is an authentic retrocomputing game development project, as we're programming it entirely in TI Extended BASIC for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Home Computer (with the 32K memory expansion). We plan to release "Socrates" in digital form for use in the Classic99 emulator, in compiled BASIC / assembly language form, and ultimately as a physical cartridge (i.e., command module) as well. You can follow our progress on "Socrates" with the following links to a YouTube playlist with our various video devlogs and to the "Socrates" page of our Spark Gap Games Itch.io profile:
My List of Essential TI-99/4A Links:
The following are some essential links to information about the TI-99/4A with emphases on the TI-99/4A as a viable retrocomputing platform, TI BASIC and TI Extended BASIC software development, and TI-99/4A emulation:
My Massive List of TI-99/4A Type-In Programs (Work in Progress):
I have been working on compiling a massive spreadsheet of TI BASIC and TI Extended BASIC type in-programs from computer magazines and TI users group newsletters from the late 1970s, throughout the 1980s, and into the early 1990s. This is a work in progress, but the list already contains over 2,000 programs with a link to each program listing in the original publication/source. I am actively adding to this list regularly, so be sure to bookmark the following link and check back regularly!
This page was last updated on 4/3/2026.
