[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Bill Cosby Loves the TI CC-40
July 15th, 2013 by Benj Edwards
“Try new metal puddin’ pops!”
When looking at the Texas Instruments CC-40’s capabilities, one wonders why companies even bothered in making tiny portable machines like this one (see also the Epson HX-20, HP-75C, and TRS-80 Pocket Computer, among others) in the early 1980s.
Sure, each one came equipped with a gee-whiz wow factor, but most of these diminutive PCs proved impractical to actually use. Limited memory, restrictive and unreliable data storage, and tiny LCDs capable of displaying either one or a few lines of text almost ensured that these products would remain technological novelties.
(As an aside, the only computer of this circa-1983 portable class that I find to be practical and truly useful was the TRS-80 Model 100, which many journalists relied on for decades)
After giving the question considerable thought, I recently realized why they did it. Companies like TI spent untold millions upon millions of dollars on R&D, design, tooling, and production, distribution, and marketing so that collectors of vintage computers, like me, would one day have more and varied specimens to collect.
To those companies, I say this: Thank you for wasting your money to make my hobby more fun.
See Also: Bill Cosby Fondles a TI-99/4A (Retro Scan, 2006)
Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the smallest vintage computer you’ve ever used?
July 15th, 2013 at 9:20 am
I had a friend who had a CC-40 that his dad had given him (passed down from work, apparently). He let me borrow it over the summer and I had quite a bit of fun playing around with it myself. But it was horribly limited — the best you do was write some TI-BASIC programs with it. No graphics support, no way to save (at least the one I was using didn’t have any way to save) to external storage — this was basically a fancier calculator.
Still was fun to play with, though. It was pretty cool to have a computer, however limited, that could go anywhere.
July 15th, 2013 at 11:19 am
This was the first computer my grandfather owned and was his introduction to programming. I used to tinker with it but I can’t imagine using it as anything but a programmable calculator, which is exactly what my grandfather used it for.
July 17th, 2013 at 5:21 pm
The smallest vintage computer I ever owned was a Radio Shack Pocket computer 2 (which I believe was manufactured by Sharp). I used it mostly as a programmable calculator. I still own a TRS-80 model 100, which I use as a portable terminal to log into some old telecom equipment at work.
July 18th, 2013 at 10:44 am
but up to 200 hours of service using regular AA batteries!!!
July 20th, 2013 at 11:13 pm
I didn’t know he did that. I thought he only did 99/4A which my parents bought me as my first home computer.