Texas Instruments

History

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Texas Instruments, better known in the electronics industry as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, USA that develops and markets semiconductor and computer technology. TI is the world's third-largest semiconductor maker after Intel and Samsung and is the largest supplier of integrated circuits for mobile phones. It is also the largest producer of digital signal processors and analog semiconductors. Other areas of activity include broadband modem integrated circuits, computer peripherals, consumer digital devices and RFID.

In June 1979, TI entered the home computer market with the TI-99/4, competing with similar products such as the TRS-80, Commodore VIC-20, and Commodore 64. The TI-99 followed. /4A (1981), a sequel to 99/4, which in late 1983 was plunged into a price war with Commodore, Atari and others. At the Winter 1983 Consumer Electronics Show, TI released the 99/2 models and the Compact Computer 40 (CC-40), the latter aimed at professional users. The TI Professional division (1983) is part of the unsuccessful set of competitors to the unsuccessful MS-DOS and x86-based IBM PCs (ironically, all of Compaq's founders came from TI).

For years the company manufactured and sold compatible laptops until it abandoned this market and sold its product line to Acer in 1997.