{"id":992,"date":"2013-07-15T05:00:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T10:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=992"},"modified":"2013-07-16T07:19:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T12:19:44","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-bill-cosby-loves-the-ti-cc-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/992\/retro-scan-of-the-week-bill-cosby-loves-the-ti-cc-40","title":{"rendered":"[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> Bill Cosby Loves the TI CC-40"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Texas<\/a>“Try new metal puddin’ pops!”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When looking at the Texas Instruments CC-40’s capabilities<\/a>, one wonders why companies even bothered in making tiny portable machines like this one (see also the Epson HX-20<\/a>, HP-75C<\/a>, and TRS-80 Pocket Computer<\/a>, among others) in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

(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<\/a>, which many journalists relied on for decades)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

To those companies, I say this: Thank you for wasting your money to make my hobby more fun.<\/p>\n

See Also: Bill Cosby Fondles a TI-99\/4A<\/a> (Retro Scan, 2006)<\/em><\/p>\n

[ From Popular Computing, June 1983, p.129 ]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> What’s the smallest vintage computer you’ve ever used?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,27,26,10],"tags":[139,561,560,562,291,111,60,559],"class_list":["post-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-computers","tag-139","tag-bill-cosby","tag-cc-40","tag-celebrities","tag-popular-computing","tag-portable-computers","tag-retro-scan","tag-texas-instruments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}