Competition in the $1 billion home-computer business has been fierce. Other major players, such as Mattel and Atari, have also suffered heavy losses this year. But TI was primarily the victim of its own self-destructive strategy to bolster sagging sales. In a series of price reductions and rebates over the past year, TI slashed the price of its 99/4A in half. The gamble didn’t pay off. Even though sales soared, the firm reportedly lost up to $50 for every machine it shipped. By the end of September, its home-computer operations were more than $500 million in the red.

This isn’t the first time TI president J. Fred Bucy has miscalculated. During the l970s the company’s digital-watch division lost millions of dollars whenTl followed the same deep-discount pricing strategy and then dragged its feet in switching to the latest technology. TI abandoned digital watches in 198 l. Texas Instruments also lingered too long in the low-cost, handheld calculator business, well after it was apparent that the Japanese would gobble up the largest slice ofthe market

IBM is expected to end months of speculation this week with the unveiling of its new personal computer for the home and education markets. The PCjr will be available in two versions. The basic model—expected to retail for $800—will be a stripped-down computer without disc drives or a computer screen; it will have 64 kilobytes of random access memory (RAM) and slots for game cartridges. The enhanced version— featuring 128K of RAM, a single disc drive, video-display screen, printer, modem (for telephone communication) and software—is expected to sell for $2,000. Theoperating system is designed so that some software programs running on IBM’s best-selling Personal Computer will also run on Junior.