Project X

• The Setting

The landscape of Programmable Pocket Calculators was clearly laid out between 1974 and 1976: Hewlett-Packard respected as leader in innovation and marketing their perfectly engineering products in the upper price segment while Texas Instruments following up within roughly one year and appealing a broader market through aggressive pricing. This storyline changed dramatically on May 24, 1977 when Texas Instruments introduced the now legendary TI Programmable 59 and its sibling TI-58, featuring a novelty, the Solid State Software Modules^TM with up to 5,000 program steps. A small lid on the backside of the TI-58/TI-59 allowed for easy access to the modules roughly the size of thumb tip.

The Master Library, known as "Module -1-", with 25 different programs was included with the TI-58 and TI-59. Twelve additional Solid State Software Modules, known as "Module -2- to -13-" were available from Texas Instruments as Standard Libraries. Due to this innovative module concept both the TI-58 and TI-59 gained a lot of attention and dozens of Modules were released for applications ranging from insurance fee calculations to tax calculations to screw joint calculations, HVAC design, pool water analysis and even flight computers for the USMC Harrier.

As of May 1977 the market of Programmable Pocket Calculators was dominated by Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments, having low-end, mid-range, and high end products in their respective portfolios:

Note: Table excludes the lowest end of “programmable” calculators featuring only simple key-reply operations and sporting only one memory.

• Project X

Understanding the game of cat and mouse with Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments initiated already in Summer 1977 the "Project X" with clear objectives in mind:

The ambitious requirements for "Product X" later called "Product 225" were finalized in January 1978:

Goal: Define an operating system or "language" for Product X that allows the user to enter problems as they are normally written

Or in other words: The capabilities of an SR-60A desktop calculator fitting into the package of a TI-30, operating 150 hours on the charge of a small AA-sized rechargeable battery. It is obvious that this challenging goal could not be realized with the TMC501E building blocks used with the TI-59 and tracing back to the SR-50 introduced already in January 1974 and manufactured with a power hungry PMOS process.

• LCD III Project

Understanding that sooner or later the complete portfolio of electronic calculators, educational toys and even products like travel clocks needed to be ported to a more recent manufacturing process, Texas Instruments decided to skip the common polysilicon gate NMOS process and jump right into a state-of-the-art CMOS process for future products, including "Product X".

Texas Instruments did not only invent the Integrated Circuit, but defined with the portable electronic calculator its first killer application consequently leading into "Calculator Chips" with two different architectures:

As of Summer 1978 the calculator chips in use could be divided into two categories:

Register Processors

Examples: TMC0501E (TI-59), TMC1500 (TI-57), TMC0920 (TI-1050), TP0310 (TI-1030)

Digit Processors

Examples: TMS1000 (SR-16), TMC0980 (TI-30), TMC1980 (TI-1680), TMC0260 (TI-5040), TMC0270 (Speak & Spell), TP0320 (TI-50), TP0455 (TI-55-II)

Looking into the advantages and disadvantages of the two architectures and already experienced with porting the TMS1000 microcontroller-based TI-30 calculator chip TMC0980 to CMOS technology for the TI-50 resulting in the TP0320 chip, Texas Instruments defined the "LCD III" project with very ambitious goals:

Engineering teams at Texas Instruments decided early in 1978 for a very innovative approach with a modular design:

The Approach Rationale of the LCD III Project Team stated in January 1978 for their stakeholders:

Within the LCD III Project a total of three chip sizes A, B, and C where defined, differing mainly in ROM and RAM capacity and each chip could include additional modules for timekeeping functions and drivers for LC-Displays.
The original naming convention for the three A, B, and C chips defined:

Example: C22FT – 3k ROM, 22*16*4-bit RAM, Fast ROM, and Time Keeping.

These three chips were meant to cover the whole portfolio of calculator products to be converted to low-power, LC-Display based successors and some future products, too:

In general:

Each version was meant to be more powerful than the circuits it will replace and the Project Team defined the performance goals of the LCD III processor accordingly:

The Project Team chose a very interesting design approach to achieve fast execution times with a Digit Processor with three innovations:

Early benchmarking of the LCD III design versus TMC0500 showed clearly the advantages and disadvantages of the two different design approaches:

The advantages of the LCD III architecture based on the instruction set capabilities more than outweighed the performance deficiencies with respect to the TMC0500 building blocks:

• Enter TI-85

The naming convention of the three chip sizes A, B, C was changed in Fall 1979 to the more common TP04XX style:

Note: While the original "Product X" incorporated one TP0475 plus two TP0470 chips and schematics of a "TI-85" feature one TP0475 plus one TP0475/TP0485/TP0495 chip, the actual TI-88 sports two TP0485 chips labeled CD2901 and CD2902.

Based on the available information we triangulated the specifications of the TP0470/TP0485 chips accordingly:

The "Project X" demanded not only the development of these 4-bit Microcontrollers but new memory chips (both RAM and ROM) and cascadable display drivers for the alphanumeric display, too. The final design of the TI-88 included the following main components:

The only existing component reused from the TI-59 is the keyboard which in succession created a lot of headaches with the TI-55-II due to the lower voltages of the new designs (3V versus 16V).

The scope of "Project X" included not only the Programmable Calculator with its CRAM and CROM modules, today known as TI-88, but two additional peripherals connecting with a 2-pin Peripheral I/O connector to the calculator:

• Project Milestones

With the "Project X" starting in Summer 1977 and having in 1980 around 55 FTE (Full-time equivalent) assigned to the project (around 30 FTE in the Consumer Products Group and around 25 FTE in the Semiconductor Group), one would expect that the market introduction of the TI-59 successor was planned for May 1981 (Summer CES).

Four years would have been a rather long product cycle in the early days of pocket programmable calculators:

Note: The earliest TI-88 we discovered so far was manufactured in September 1981 or about 40 months after the introduction of the TI-59, most of the units were manufactured either in May 1982 or August 1982.

While Texas Instruments had in 1977 with Hewlett-Packard only one serious contender in the market of consumer programmable calculators, by 1981 the market looked completely different. Not only did Hewlett-Packard introduce its flagship calculator HP-41C, competing directly with the "Product X", but Sharp and Casio launched with their PC-1211 and FX-702P very successful "Pocket Computers" introducing BASIC programming instead of keystroke programming and Matsushita, also known as Panasonic, created the market for Hand-Held Computers with their Panasonic HHC.

As of May 1981 the market of Programmable Pocket Calculators and Pocket/Hand-held Computers was much more competitive than in May 1977:

Note: Table excludes the lowest end of “programmable” calculators featuring only simple key-reply operations and sporting only one memory.

• Market Research

Surprised by the success of Sharp's, Panasonics, and Casio’s early Pocket/Hand-held Computers using BASIC as programming language (and later confirmed by Hewlett-Packard introducing the HP-75C Pocket Computer in September 1982), Texas Instruments’ Marketing Team conducted in June a large market study pitting three fictional products against each other. The market study was funded by Texas Instruments Corporate to serve as an example and model of in-depth analysis of the market potential for new TI product concepts, and to provide a sound basis for market planning.

The major objectives of the study presented in July 1981 to TI’s management included:

The team interviewed 857 carefully selected people in ten markets, most of them by appointment. Each participant was shown two of the three concepts mixed, matched and controlled to insure both monadic and comparative exposures.

Texas Instruments developed three different concept boards to illustrate and describe the product concepts. All three boards were designed to accomplish the same objectives for each product concept:

The three proposed products are looking to us today very familiar:

The market study suggested that - as of Summer 1981 – the two product ideas RM 1000 (TI Programmable 88) and RM 3000 (Compact Computer 70) should be prioritized over the RM 2000 (TI-74 BASICALC).

It is understood that the study favored the continuation of the two (with respect to engineering resources) competing programs:

• Enter TI-66, TI-76, and TI-86

One of the outputs of the market study conducted in June 1981 was:

Well, the TI-86, known as Product X, was designed for a MSRP of $250 and unlikely to be profitable at $125 or even lower. With the Casio FX-702P already on the horizon, Texas Instruments conducted on June 29, 1981 a simulation of the expected market share of the TI-86 and other market contenders including a "TI-66" and "TI-76". The simulations covered three different scenarios for the TI-86, Casio FX-702P and Sharp PC-1211, best case was obviously with the TI-86 at lowest price, Casio FX-702P without printer availability, and PC-1211 at highest price:

The "TI-86 vs Casio FX-702P Morton Market Simulation Model" discussion concluded with an important statement:

The phrasing "on time" would suggest - with the Summer Consumer Electronic Show CES in June 1981 already passed - an announcement of the TI-86 in January 1982, ahead of the Winter CES.

In retrospect a very optimistic market share for the TI-86 at an unexpected low price point. And yes, the TI-66 Programmable was introduced in 1983 with a MSRP of $69.95 and well received while the TI-76 Programmable (or TI Programmable 76?) was just some vaporware making a product portfolio look professional on the performance-over-price discussion.

• Troubling Waters

Texas Instruments announced the TI Programmable 88 with CRAM/CROM modules and its peripherals on May 26, 1982 ahead of the Summer Consumer Electronic Show CES, knowing that the polysilicon gate CMOS process used with the TP0485 Microcontroller was finally in good shape but the design of the chip still needed some fixes requiring one or two additional manufacturing runs. Consequently the small printed read: "Availability expected late 4th Quarter".

As of May 1982 the market of Programmable Pocket Calculators and Pocket/Hand-held Computers included even more contenders than one year earlier:

Note: Table excludes the lowest end of “programmable” calculators featuring only simple key-reply operations and sporting only one memory.

The stronghold of the TI-59, its ability to be customized with its Solid State Software Modules for target applications like insurance fee, tax, mortgage calculations vanished completely with the introduction of BASIC programmable Pocket/Hand-held Calculators like the Sharp PC-1211, Sharp PC-1500, Casio FX-702P, and Panasonic RL-H1400 offering easier program development, avoiding costly Mask-programmed ROM modules and offering much more advanced user interfaces and peripherals. Secondly started Hewlett-Packard’s innovative HP-41C already in 1979/1980 to capture most of TI’s target markets and to make things even worse, plateaued the market for keystroke Programmable Calculators in 1981 at 600k units and started to decline in 1982 with a projected volume of about 500k units.

A market survey conducted by Texas Instruments in Summer 1982 with ALC (Advanced Language Calculator) target customers identified that three Pocket/Hand-held Computers with BASIC programming language (TI ALC, Sharp PC-1500, and Panasonic RL-H1400) were overwhelmingly preferred over keystroke programmable HP-41CV and TI-88 devices. Seventy-one percent of the respondents interviewed preferred the BASIC Language computing device. The major points of the preference were:

• Cancelation of the TI-88

Hewlett-Packard introduced on September 15, 1982 with the HP-75C a powerful Pocket Computer with BASIC Programmability, a 32-digit alphanumeric display, 16k Bytes of non-volatile RAM for both programs and data, 4 ports for expansion cartridges, and even a build-in reader for magnetic cards. HP was forced to introduce this product at a significantly higher price point ($995) to protect the HP-41CV’s entrenched sales position. The HP-41CV and TI-88 are particularly vulnerable to a competitively priced Advanced Language Pocket/Hand-held Computer such as the ALC (think Compact Computer 40). This vulnerability would be amplified by the availability of Pascal as a language of that computer.

Consider it the final nail in the coffin of the TI-88!

Management at Texas Instruments discussed early in September 1982 the impact of the TI-88 cancellation in three different areas:

The following alternatives were considered:

The decision was to abandon the keystroke Programmable Pocket Calculator market and expand the ALC family to provide a Pascal program product to re-capture the keystroke user.

The Pascal version of the ALC included three significant new product features:

On September 10, 1982 Herb Shanzer, then Manager of TI's Calculator & Compact Computers Division, sent a short note to Doug Dobbs:

• Lessons Learned

A memorandum from Herb Shanzer distributed on September 20, 1982 provided interesting insight into Project Management in Texas Instruments’ Consumer Product Group:

• Quanto Costa?

Continuing the TI-88 program would have included fixing the logic problems in the TP0485 chip set, producing new samples, and then further analyzing additional problem symptoms to ascertain whether or not the logic fix made the product sufficiently reliable to ship. Electing to ship the next mask version of the product, first shipment would occur January of 1983, already missing the promised availability of the TI Programmable 88 by Fourth Quarter 1982. If, as a calculated assumption, it would take two additional mask changes to manufacture a shippable product, shipment date would be in June of 1983 and additional spending was calculated to be $1.75M or about $5M in today’s (2020).

Texas Instruments calculated the total investment in the TI-88, CA-800 and PC-800 peripherals, and the TI-88 portion of the LCD III process, exclusive of the write-offs (about $3M), as follows:

Assuming the cost of Manpower in 1979 to 1982 averaging around $50K per MY with both the Consumer Product Group (CPG) and Semiconductor Group (SC), we could add up to a total damage of around $19M, or in today’s money between 50M and $60M. Always remember this number when you proudly hold one of the few surviving TI-88 calculators and CA-800 / PC-800 peripherals in your hands.

• Impact on the ALC Program

As of September 1982, Texas Instruments was finalizing plans for a family of Programmable Language Portable Computers based upon extensions of the ALC-A (Advanced Language Computer, Product A) and a library of application programs and language compilers to be used with this family. The planned product portfolio included three products with various options:

The ALC-LC was supposed to have a 16-character LCD display, reduced functionality BASIC language, no Plug-in modules but full ALC I/O bus (peripherals) compatibility.

The ALC-LC never materialized, its spiritual successor could be found with the TI-74 BASICALC introduced in 1986. Nevertheless were the TI-74 BASICALC and its sibling TI-95 PROCALC, a keystroke Programmable Calculator, based on the hardware and software of the Compact Computer 40 Plus.

Principally a multi-language version of the ALC-A with a ¼" thicker housing, the addition of a Plug-in (flat pack) programming language module, expansion of the language ROM space from 32k Bytes to 64k Bytes, and expansion of internal RAM capacity from 18k Bytes to 34k Bytes.

The ALC-A2 was realized with the Compact Computer 40, announced in January 1983 and available for the end user around June 1983 with multiple peripherals and application programs announced and/or made available.

An expansion of the ALC-A2 to enhance the product for use in higher utility applications, specifically high level professional and managerial support. The ALC-C will be an ALC-A2 in a larger case with a 6-line by 40-character LCD display, full travel typewriter keyboard and built-in tape mass storage.

The ALC-T (Terminal) is a variation of the ALC-C and provides the added feature of a built-in 300 Baud modem and telecommunication software.

Texas Instruments was working on the Compact Computer 70 but as of today we have no evidence of a functional prototype of the device. Rumors are, that the first batch of Gate Arrays designed for the CC-70 were faulty.

• Sad Ending

Texas Instruments dropped out of the home computer market in March 1984 - after selling more than 2.5 million of the famous TI-99/4A - and production of the CC-40 was ceased immediately after. The CC-40 Plus never made it to the market and only a few prototypes survived.

• Legacy

While with the TP0530, TP0531 and TP0532 three of the Integrated Circuits used with the "Product X" aka TI Programmable 88 were designed for TI’s metal gate CMOS process, decided the team to go for the ambitious LCD III microcontroller, known as TP0485, a different path and decided for a polysilicon gate CMOS process.

Although the LCD III was with the cancellation of the TI-88 a complete write-off (its technology was considered to be not compatible with solar powered calculators – enter "Project Solar", survived its polysilicon gate CMOS process and had a great comeback with the TMC70C20 8-bit Single Chip Microcontroller family used with the Compact Computer 40, HX-1100 Video Interface, HX-2000 Wafertape Digital Tape Drive, HX-3000 RS-232 Interface, HX-3100 Data Modem, TI-74 BASICALC, TI-95 PROCALC, PC-324 Printer, Financial Investment Analyst FIA-10 calculator, Fixed Income Securities (FIS) calculator, and last but not least the Franken-Calculator Data Dimensioner.

• Thank you

Brian Green for locating and securing the "Project X" Binder from the estate of CB Wilson
Jon Guidry for scanning the "Project X" Binder and making it available
Sean Riddle for decapping dozens of TI Calculator Chips for our research
Ken Shirriff for reverse engineering the technology of TI Calculator Chips
Mike Sebastian for compiling a reference with TI Calculator Patents
Viktor T. Toth for operating a site dedicated to Programmable Calculators and Pocket Computers
Rick Furr for maintaining an accurate database about HP calculators
All the unsung heroes working between 1977 and 1982 on "Project X" and sharing their valuable insight with the Datamath Calculator Museum 
Many friends for sharing their Programmable Calculators and Pocket Computers with the Datamath Calculator Museum for our research
And last but not least an amazing community of Calculator and Pocket Computer Aficionados sharing their knowledge and...
.. and not to forget Google - the greatest Search Engine on the planet!

If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.

© Joerg Woerner, January 28, 2021. No reprints without written permission.