My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI99-4/A that my parents bought at Montgomery Ward for my 8th birthday. I remember it like it was yesterday, tearing back the Snoopy wrapping paper to reveal… the future.

My dad wanted me to be a computer engineer or programmer, and THIS would get me started—or so he hoped.

The TI99 was awesome looking, the design was WAY ahead of its time — all stainless steel and black, like a DeLorean—it definitely set a standard for construction as compared to its all-plastic competitor, the Commodore VIC-20. I don’t remember too much about the specs — I recall it being advertised as a 16k computer versus the VIC-20's 5k (that “20" was totally misleading) but actually it was 16k VDP (Video Display Processor) RAM. It only had 256k “scratchpad” RAM.

In other words, your smart phone FARTS more RAM than the TI99-4/A had.

I remember my Dad did some research and pimped it out to 192k with some aftermarket mod, but ultimately it didn’t do any good because the TI didn’t support any third party languages. Sure, it was the first computer to offer a 16-bit processor, but that didn’t matter, because the standard for the more “mainstream” computers of the day was the 8-bit processor — the Z80 and 6502 CPUs—so I was stuck programming in TI BASIC. And since the TI company itself discouraged any third party development, I was limited as to what I could (potentially) do with it. We learned this all after the fact from the resident “computer expert” at Duane’s Toyland — the local hobby shop specializing in CB radios and RC cars that was “making the move” into Atari’s, Colecovision’s, and home computers. (Computers were “hobbyist” stuff in those days.)

So the TI99-4/A wasn’t my ticket to MIT after all.

I did, however, write my very first program in TI BASIC, and for that, the TI99-4/A will always be dear to me. I called it “Infintie Poop” and here, for the first time ever, is the source code:

10 PRINT “POOP”
20 GOTO 10
RUN

POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
POOP
(You get the idea.)

As soon as my dad realized the TI99-4/A was a dead-end road for his future engineer/programmer it was immediately replaced by a series of other “z80" and “6502" computers I’d work on over the next few years. There was the TRS-80, the Amstrad, the Osborne I, Apple II and IIe, then the Commodore 64 and 128. I don’t remember the exact order of each, but I remember ultimately settling into the C64 when I was about 10.

By 1986 (13), I was running up $1,000 a month bills using Quantum Link (a/k/a Q-Link) — which ultimately became America Online in the 90s — sharing files (and even photos!), instant messaging, sending email, chatting, and playing games with people across the globe— all of this long before anyone ever heard on an “internet.”

In fact, the whole Internet thing may have happened much sooner had it not been for the specialized software and nonstandard protocol that limited Q-Link to Commodore.

So, like the TI99 a few years earlier, it was just more Infinite Poop.

And my point is?
Well, that’s easy:

10 IF DAY=THURSDAY THEN 20 ELSE 30
20 PRINT “IT’S #TBT!”
30 GOTO 20