FEB 2001: From: harold.mayo@c... Date: Thu Feb 22, 2001 5:32pm Subject: Board demise! "To all that may be interested. On February 28th, the flag at THE ORPHANAGE BBS will be lowered to half staff in mourning for the demise of THE CHICAGO BBS. It will remain at half staff for the month of March. Also, the doors of THE ORPHANAGE BBS will be closed for 24 hours starting at mid night February 28th. This will be for a period of 24 hours, at which time, on March 2nd, 2001, it will resume operations. Thanks to Ernest Pergrem for his valiant efforts to provide a home in the Chicago area, and surrounding areas, for the users of TI/ GENEVE equipment. Via: THE ORPHANAGE BBS in beautiful downtown Sperry,OK. The old oldest 100% TI/GENEVE bbs using S&T software. Est: 1985! Harold Mayo, Sysop!"

• Video Game Makers Target Internet 'Warez' And 'ROM' Pirates -- Crackdowns continue on people the industry considers to be software pirates. Copyright infringement lawsuits are filed against the owners of two web-sites based in Texas, one in California and a fourth in Massachusetts.

MAR 2001:

APR 2001:

MAY 2001: Harriet Kradenpoth, a long time member of the TI Community and member of the Southwest 99ers in Tucson, AZ dies on May 31st.

The Jim Peterson Achievement Awards for 2000 go to:

JUN 2001: The "On-Line TI-99/4A User Group" at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a gains its 300th member on June 10, 2001.

• Email conversations between 99er Bryan Roppolo and various individuals who played a part in the history of the TI-99/4A. All information was provided by Bryan Roppolo for the benefit of the TI-99 Community.

Gerry Humphrey, Datasoft programmer: "... Regarding Zaxxon, I don't remember a TI99/4 version being done, however, there
were a handful of games that were done (such as Canyon Climber) that were never released. Some of them did make it on to diskette
and get copied around in the mid 80s. I don't have any copies of them. I don't remember the main TI programmer (I think his first name
was Jeff and he did work at Big Five Software (the Miner2049er people - although they started out as a TRS-80 software company)
before coming to Datasoft. I haven't had any contact with my Datasoft co-workers in the last few years. Bryan, I am not sure, but the
following sounds like they were done or at least considered
• Bruce Lee
• Lost Tomb
• Genesis
• Clowns and Balloons
• Shooting Gallery
• Sands of Egypt
• TumbleBugs aka MegaBug aka DungBeetles
• Nibbler
Canyon Climber looks about the same on all platforms. If I remember correctly the background was green on a TI version (as opposed to
the orange on other versions.) I am not sure about the Wizard in the Forest game. The Zaxxon port might have been outsourced. If you
can put it somewhere where I can get it to take a look, it would be cool. Also, I would need to know where to get a compatible TI
emulator. :) The TI hardware sucked for gaming development compared to most other platforms. But we were not putting out high
resolution 30fps games back then either. As far as the list goes, I am definately not an expert on what we did on the TI. This is the first
time that I even had to think about it in years :) My favorite game to work on was Pooyan as it had a lot of moving objects, some basic gameplay, and could be played via keyboard just as well as via joystick..."
Terry Heim, Technical Editor of Enthusiast '99 Magazine: Terry Heim: "Actually, I was the Technical Editor for that publication back
in the early 80's during the hayday of the TI 99/4 Home Computer. Probably one of the coolest things I've done in my career to date."
-- Terry

Charles LaFara, President of the International 99/4 User Group: "Dear Bryan -- The "Star Trek" manual that was on the cover of
July 1983 issue of "Enthusiast 99" magazine was from a prototype e-prom module that I received from Sega. I only know of 3 copies.
One was sent to T.I., the second was sent to the IUG for our evaluation and the third was sent to Jack Carroll who worked for me at
that time. Jack; if I remember correctly re-burnt 4 other copies for other IUG employees. The game was almost identical to the Atari
800 version except it ran much faster on the 99/4 and had better sound qualities. Jack, once he broke the source code, added some "text-to-speech" features to his copy. I am not sure where any of the modules are today. My ex-wife still has all of the hardware and
software we salvaged from the bankruptcy of the IUG. My son who is now has his MBA, and is webmaster for a large bank on Tulsa
still plays with the 99/4 when he visits his mother in Oklahoma City. I will ask him if he has seen the "Star Trek" module lately. In
November of 1983 I approached T.I. in an effort to purchase the entire remaining inventory of hardware and software. I had some
very strong financial backing for an OKC bank. While considering my offer I was given 1 each of the current module inventory and 17 unreleased projects from T.I. and third party producers, none which ever reached the consumer level. If I remember correctly all but
one was on e-prom. Several of the projects were from Milton-Bradley; some from Creative and some from Sega, only one was from
Activision. Needless to say T.I. was unwilling to sell us their remaining inventories, under our terms, and chose to use another source
to dispose of their remaining product. Bound by copyright laws ( by this time we had enough legal problems, Guy Romono was suing
us for 1 million dollars) we did not attempt to copy and distribute any of the prototype product in our possession. We did, however
make copies of all except the Activision project for internal use. Some where someone may still have copies of all of these. I will ask
Bill Gronos who worked for me if he still has any of the ones we burnt off, if not he may have the original source code. He is a pack
rat by nature." -- Sincerely, Charlie La Fara

Tom Sloper, programmer involved in the development of Looking Glass' "E.T. and His Adventure On Land" : "Since the
graphics I did was of a landscape, I’m pretty sure it was the Land game. The thing is, the programmer explained to me how the
graphics worked, then I drew a big grid, used the rules for how the graphics worked, and created a system for drawing pretty
backgrounds. One day the executive came from Texas Instruments to see what we were doing. He looked at some of the graphics
I was working on. He asked, “Nice. What system is that for?” I said, “Yours.” I got the impression that he hadn’t realized his system
COULD look that nice!"

Terry Bochanty, head of Disney Computer Products: "Hi Bryan! -- In regards to the cartridges that were in development at that
time for the TI-99/4A, they never made it to market. If you may recall (how old are you anyway?), there was a major shakeout of
formats. Combine that with a weak market as well as all the problems Atari was having, and you have a situation where a number of
hardware manufacturers retreated from the business (Texas Instruments included.) Disney demanded a settlement from the
companies we were co-producing software for that were now getting out of the business. As part of the settlement with TI, Sierra
On-Line (an existing co-producer for TI) was brought into the deal, and ended up being a co-production partner with Disney.
Sierra O-L got to pick and choose which titles they wanted to complete and bring to market (with Disney's approval of course.)
Due to changes in the marketplace, a decision was made to produce the titles in the PC, Apple II, and Commodore 64 formats.
None of the specific TI titles you mentioned were released in any formats. The only remaining cartridges (if anyone has them)
would be prototypes"... Kindest regards, -- Terry Bochanty

JUL 2001:

AUG 2001:

SEP 2001:

OCT 2001: Don O'Neil, dba Western Horizon Technologies begins selling a 5-CD Set containing all of the TI-99 uploads on the WHTECH FTP site.

From: don@whtech
Date: Sat Oct 20, 2001 12:06 am
Subject: WHT FTP Site CD Set Available
CD SETS NOW AVAILABLE!!! The entire WHT FTP site is now available on a 5 CD set for only $15.00 + S&H ($3.20 US)
If you would like to order a CD Set (updated quarterly), please call our main number at 800-767-5665 or 408-259-4411
or email sales@whtech. We accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. Shipping available world wide
(at additional cost). Orders will be shipped in approximately 1-2 weeks. CD Contents:
Disk 1: Main site archives
Disk 2: PC99 archives
Disk 3: User Group Newsletters and Magazines
Disk 4: More Newsletters & Magazines
Disk 5: Micropendium

NOV 2001:

DEC 2001:

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