When I think back to the microcomputers of the early 80's, I'm kind of astounded that they sold in the numbers they did. They were pretty useless.
You could also expand your imagination by thinking of the things you might do if you worked hard at it, or if it was only slightly bigger/faster/better.
Modern computing is the opposite. It does so much it doesn't leave any gaps for your imagination to fill - the creative equivalent of a distracting wall of noise for you to consume.
Thank you for that, yes - that explains them perfectly. Probably explains why I've always felt more at home in the terminal.
In my view, this is one of the appeals very low resolution graphics can bring to the table.
Code does not have to do much, which helped the fun alone.
See the blue ones? Yeah, collect those. Reds are baddies...
Or, on a ZX81 or PET, it was just shapes.
Still that was enough. Let the mind run wild!
That's a phrase that's always intrigued me. I think Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson said something similar and Steve Jobs is famous for saying computers are bicycles for the mind.
I've always wondered what exactly these people were thinking of when they said that. Maybe I'm just spoiled from having computers within reach for the past 40 years, but I wonder if the phrase still means anything. Do we all have mind bicycles now and so it's just the default state?
Though, one of the big drawbacks of it, relative to some other home computers of the time, is that you couldn't really take advantage of the overpowered graphics processor using the TI BASIC that came with it. To use assembly language, you needed a rare add-on. IIRC, there was also an Extended BASIC cartridge, which was also rare.
But the TI 99/4A wasn't useless -- you could do a lot with character set definition and sound from the stock BASIC, and it came with a great introductory book that taught you enough to get started creating with those. With some creativity, you could do a lot with that. (Flight simulator? So long as you didn't bank too fast for characters to be redefined for the horizon, maybe. :)
I recall the family going to some dingy school-supply audio-visual store to look at their Apple computers. They had the //c and I think //e on display. Then my parents saw the price, and I could tell it was way too high. So, TI 99/4A it was, plugged into a portable little B&W TV that my dad bought from a guy at work. (Until I made enough money lawn-mowing and babysitting and various money-making schemes, and a kindly computer store owner gave me what had to be a below-cost deal on a semi-compatible PC.) Apple got some pre-Mac glory for microcomputer innovation, but I suspect that the non-Apple $100-$250 home computers reached more families at the time.
Having a computer was infinitely better than no computer, and the TI 99/4A was a good little imperfect computer.
Your opinion.
Even the micros of the 70's, not just 80's, were useful. Not just for fun. Even for work. Just do some Googling. And check out recent HN thread about Don Lancaster's sites and work, for just one interesting example. There were many more. Heard of Steve Ciarcia? Jerry Pournelle? BYTE? SCSI? S-100? Z80? 6502? 6809? Acorn? VIC-20? Commodore-64? BBC Micro? Amstrad? Also, without those precursors, you would not even have the h/w and s/w stuff you may consider "useful" today. Because, evolution.