Texas Instruments

In the end of the 70's Texas Instruments decided to enter the home computer market. They did it with the TI-99/4. It was a computer designed around the 16-bit TMS9900 processor. The machine had a rather odd design with only 256 bytes (!) of RAM. Also only the RAM and the ROM was 16-bit, everything else was 8-bit and needed to be multiplexed. The TI-99/4 had a chiclet keyboard. The model was replaced in 1981 by the TI-99/4A, which featured a real keyboard. The TI-99/4A was discontinued in 1983 as a result of the ongoing price war where Texas Instruments were forced to sell the machine for a price that did not even exceed the production costs.