John Behnke

Sorry to hear that Rick. Dealing with my own set so I fully understand and wish you the very best. Sucks getting old 🙂

Well Rick you have a few months to relocate 🙂

Friday-Sunday October 25,26,27 2024 Location: Evanston Public Library 1703 Orrington Ave Evanston, IL 60201 Falcon Room (303) Time: 10am – 4pm cst A limited number of speaking slots and vendor tables are available for demonstrations, talks, and seminars. Space will be awarded on a first come basis. Please direct all requests to: Hal Shanafield at hals12@hotmail.com The Faire consists of an entire weekend of events which include: Friday Night Dinner: TBA Saturday TI World Faire Saturday After Faire Banquet TBA Saturday Night Pub Crawl: TBA Sunday Morning Survivors Breakfast: TBA Details of each event will be forthcoming The below hotels are closest to the Faire. Hilton Orrington/Evanston (Adjacent to Library) 1710 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL 60201, (847) 866-8700 Hyatt House Chicago/Evanston (2 blocks) 1515 Chicago Ave, Evanston, IL 60201, (847) 864-2300 Hilton Garden Inn Chicago North Shore/Evanston (4 blocks) 1818 Maple Ave, Evanston, IL 60201, (847) 475-6400 Holiday Inn Chicago North-Evanston (3 blocks) 1501 Sherman Ave, Evanston, IL 60201, (847) 491-6400 DoubleTree by Hilton Chicago - North Shore (3.5 miles) 9599 Skokie Blvd, Skokie, IL 60077, (847) 679-7000 Hampton Inn & Suites Chicago-North Shore/Skokie (4 miles) 5201 Old Orchard Rd, Skokie, IL 60077, (847) 583-1111 Residence Inn by Marriott Chicago Wilmette/Skokie (4 miles) 3205 Old Glenview Rd, Wilmette, IL 60091, (847) 251-6600

Although I never had the pleasure to meet so many wonderful people in the community, it still saddens me when groups and individuals pass. I know it's been done before but it's no longer maintained, perhaps someone could put up an international web page that would allow people to add names and comments to those members of the community who pass. I put one up for our local Chicago members if you want to see what I'm talking about. https://sites.google.com/view/chicagotiug/eternal-flame?authuser=0 Well needless to say you have my condolences.

I have started work on our Super Summer Edition of the Chicago TImes Newsletter. This newsletter is larger than normal and takes the place of the June-July-August Editions. So with all this extra space I need stuff to put in them. If anyone is selling TI related hardware/software and would like a free 1/2 page ad, please forward the ad to me. I'm also looking for articles and game/program reviews of both new or old software. If you're not great at writing, no worries as I'll clean it up for you if needed. Please forward any material you wish to submit to: chicago.ti994a.usersgroup@gmail.com Thanks!

Well once I get the console up and running I have a few years left of 3rd party hardware to look at. Hopefully some of it is still being produced. Thanks for the suggestions.

I sure wish TI had thought of something similar. I love the TI but I had nightmares of bumping my desk and having the long black PBox cable disconnect. Well the TI had a better keyboard than the 400 so there! LOL

Well truth be told, those add-ons were consolidated into the PBox (think an oversized bread box) that kinda sorta helped but was still huge nonetheless. Now we seem to judge size my today's standards LOL so everything back then looked huge. I actually was going to buy an Atari 400 (all I could afford) but TI's real keyboard and cheaper price won me out. Now I don't remember if the Atari had expansion devices but if they did add memory expansion, Disk Drives, Modems etc... how did they manage space wise? They do have console only devices now for the TI that adds SD storage instead of that huge box. I'm looking into getting one of those as I don't have the space even for a PBox. Thank you for your encouragement and kind words BTW!

Thank you Rick for allowing us the space here to help distribute as well as solicit contributions for the newsletter. It's a bit hard re-starting something that has been dormant for decades but I remember how excited I was to get each issue every month in the mail. There were many other excellent newsletters by other user groups and some are still being printed but this was the one that was most dear. In restarting this we made a few changes. The first, of course, is that it will not be distributed by mail and it will be free of charge. The cost alone to mail this would be huge but today it's far easier to distribute it in PDF format which also allows us to print it in color. You download it, you print it, read it on your computer or on your phone. It's that simple. Now we will be printing hard copies for those who take the time to attend one of our meetings in person as well as having copies available at the TI Faire but the cost to print those is small vs a worldwide distribution. So what is the purpose of this newsletter? 1. Nostagia - We're going to handpick some great articles, ads, programs and pictures from the good old days. Right now we have a bit more of this than we would like but until we start gaining fresh sources of new material, we have to fill the pages and I'm sure you do not want to see nothing but my ramblings LOL 2. Drum up support for the community and rekindle some of the fun we all had in better times. Sure we're a bit older and we have even lost a few great friends by way of relocation or in passing but communication is one of the most outstanding things in modern times and we can meet old freinds as well as new by means of great forums such as this and if a newsletter helps in a small way then so be it! 3. If I can create a newsletter in a few hours, so can you! If re-starting this newsletter helps nudge your group into doing the same, let's trade ideas and exchange newsletters and rediscover the special place in our hearts for this little machine we bought so long ago. 4. We'd like this to be an international edition. We've already gotten a few outside contributions and even a few from England. Now before I end this long post, I'd like to ask everyone out there what they would like to see. What they liked about the first few issues and what we could make better. I'd also welcome articles, game and program reviews and we'll even accept small ads for new items for sale that would be of interest to the community. We want to make this the best we can and we could use your help! Thanks again to this great forum for not only supporting the TI community but also allowing us this space. Thanks!

Yeah my issue is that I was given a used system from the club (much appreciated of course) but it's so huge that I do not have space for it. Back in the day when it was my only computer sure but now the TI is a secondary and I just do not have the room for that huge expansion box and an old tub TV. I ordered a cable online but they seem to be taking their sweet time sending it out. I already have a convertor box but I need that cable. Oh well I'll keep using Classic99 for now. What a great program that is.

Thanks Rick! This is very kind of you.

The April Edition is out for download at ChicagoTIUG.org I hope it's getting better. I'll keep asking people for contributions but I have to be honest, few people seem to want to write even a short article. I'll keep trying.

Yeah they kinda blew the pooch on the marketing. I think they wanted this to be a more upscale system and not just a game system. I cringe when I read about some of the shortcuts they took to save a buck but might have made the TI into a true competitor of the C64. The PE Box alone was a huge mess and while I'm trying to remember that times were different and yes I saw the original daisy chain setup that went halfway across your room in expansion boxes, there just had to be a better way to both keep the cost down and that long ribbon cable that would disconnect when you bumped your desk... ACK! They seemed like they designed a system NOT for the masses but rather those who could afford $1000+ along with another grand for the rest of the system. Now I'll be fair and say that the crash affected everyone and in the end we got some pretty good games from 3rd party sources once TI gave up. I only went with the TI over the Atari 400 because the TI have a real keyboard. I much preferred the Atari software. The Vic20 was ghastly (I hate the way the C64 looks but that was not a consideration when I bought my TI) Well I really cannot complain. I have so many fond memories of the TI and of the great people I met. I hope this will continue a little bit longer cause I'm having a blast rediscovering the TI. I've even started writing games again for the 12 people who still play them 🙂 P.S. The voice module was good but I wish they would have incorporated it into the actual machine so it was a standard feature.

I rem how many really bad games I paid top dollar for because the selection of TI games in the beginning was so bad. One of the reasons I started making my own LOL.

They demoed this at the last meeting. Very impressive!