@Twig thank you so much for this, I've been wanting a keyboard IC alternative for a *very* long time!

Thanks also to @batteman for the boost that made this visible to me 😎👍

@Zachariah@lemmy.world oh yeah those are terrible! I'd forgotten that, mine were broken anyway so I made an adapter for Atari style controllers instead.

@RL_Dane@fosstodon.org yeah it's 16-bit but using 8-bit interfacing chips most likely for cost reasons, similiar to what Sinclair would later do with the QL - and with similar speed tradeoffs.

I think of TI as a reliable chip company so it's curious to me they couldn't make this system more successful. A bunch of strangely insular decisions on software seems to be the main issue, and why it probably didn't come close to the others in popularity.

@RL_Dane@fosstodon.org until I got this one and repaired it, I'd never seen or used one before. I'm not even sure I knew it existed at the time. It's an unusual design internally, ahead of its time in some ways. I'm now trying to find all the fun stuff for it!