By the 1980s, Texas Instruments already had a long history in the electronics industry and were supplying microchips to many other electronics manufactures. They entered the home computer market in 1979 with the TI-99/4 and its successor, the TI-99/4A, in 1981.

The TI-99/4 was the first home computer to utilize a 16-bit CPU. One of the stand-out features of the TI-99 was the speech synthesizer peripheral, based on the same technology as TI’s Speak & Spell toys, which enabled realistic human voices.

The TI-99 ultimately lost the home computer price war. After dropping the price from $525 to under $100, TI was taking a loss on every unit sold, and they left the home computer market in 1983.