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Re: World-wide 8-bit computer sales (all-time)?
Ben Yates wrote:
"Bo Zimmerman" <bo@zimmers.net> wrote in message news:<bdia61$tg3ja$1@ID-149169.news.dfncis.de>...
Actually, the crash was the following year, 1984.
TI pulled the 99/4a because they were losing huge wads of cash on the
machine, selling it far below it's value, hoping to make it all back on
the PE BOX and the various things to stuff into it. Then, the straw that
broke the camel's back: The Coleco ADAM was announced in the spring of
1983. $600 for a 64K (80K with video RAM - compare the 99/4a which ONLY
had the 16K of video RAM!), a fast reliable random access tape system,
and a letter quality daisy wheel printer with included word processing
software. TI couldn't compete. Coleco hoped that no one could. But
Coleco released it before the engineers were finished making the thing
work reliably. Death to two systems.
Roy
The mere annoucement of the Coleco ADAM caused the death of TI (and others no
doubt) in 1984.
Hmm.. well, we Commodore users surely thank God daily for Coleco's mercy on us
during that time.
- Bo
(Peddle is God, and Tramiel is his propheteer)
No, firstly the crash STARTED in 1983. Christmas sales that year were
dismal.
No. 1983 wasn't that bad. 1984 was poor, and by 1985 "orphan" was
becoming all too come for 8 bit users.
Did the Coleco cause TI to pull out? No, the Coleco had a pretty
crappy daisy wheel, with a slow "hi-speed" tape unit and a terrible
Basic (Applesoft compatible that loaded from tape) without an
underlying Apple making it not so compatible. Hey, I have a Coleco, I
know...
I have one too. Actually several. I bought my first in 1986. As poor as
the daisy wheel was, it was far better than most dot matrix printers of
the time (at least the ones attached to C-64s, CoCos, etc.
The tape unit was slow - compared to anyone's disk drive, but far faster
than nearly anyone else's tape units, and far more reliable (once the
bugs were worked out)
Byte thought the SmartBASIC was one of the best BASICs, and certainly
the fastest for any 8 bit machine. It was code compatible with
AppleSoft, but that was excluding peek and poke locations.
Again, as you point out - TI was losing millions on the 99/4a. It wasn't
so much the ADAM, as the *bundle* and the price that made TI realize
they would never get the 99/4a market to make any money. They could
never had delivered for c. $600 what Coleco and Atari promised (esp.
after Atari released the 800XL) so they would never recover what they
lost with the basic machine.
TI had already lost money from the start, when the 9985 failed to be
produced so they were required to use the 9900 with static ram to
replace the 9985's on-board 256 byte cache. Then they had to add a 16
to 8 bit multiplexer.
The TI 99 used the 9900 from the 70's. And the 9900 was designed to use
either 8 or 16 bit memory.
And the original price of about $1150 included a monitor (TV), it
dropped to around $500 when they got approval for the TV modulator.
TI's tactic of selling you the console cheap and hoping you will add
on more expensive peripherals isn't unlike the telecom industry of
today. Sign-up for a 1 or 2 year contract, you get a free phone. They
just didn't realize how cheap (oops, I mean frugal) TI users were/are.
I bought my TI in 1982 for $300, in '83 they were going for half that.
$600 for 64k would have been too much. For about $200 in 1983, I added
the P-box with 32k and disk drive & controller. I also got a free
speech unit for buying some game carts I already wanted. So, in '83
you could have a TI system with 32k + 16k video ram (48k) + disk drive
+ speech for a mere $350, almost half of a Coleco that had a
"hi-speed" tape unit.
All prices quoted from Consumer's Reports, September 1983
TI 99/4a $100
PE Box $250
32K card $300
Total $650
No parallel or serial card
No printer
No word processing software
C-64 $200
Disk drive $399
Total $599
Atari 800 $300
Disk drive $450
Total $750
CR October 1984
Atari 800XL $200
Disk drive $350
Printer $297
Total $847
C-64 $250
disk drive $275
printer $250 (Commodore 1525)
Total $775
As you can see, TI could never have put together a system with printer
and interface for anywhere near what Coleco, Commodore and Atari did.
And if they hadn't pulled the unit, a hex-bus interface was being
released to allow you to add TI's own "hi-speed" tape unit, and
cheaper peripherals.
And if bulls had tits that wouldn't make them cows.
Roy
Ben
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