Comment by FarmerPotato

I have a few ideas but I think they were set on using their own chip.

There was a memo asking if TI should support those other CPUs in their AMPL prototyping system (990 based tools and in-circuit emulator). That investment was rejected.

Anecdotally, Don Bynum was unhappy with slow progress on defining the Home Computer, and hacked together a Z80 based machine. The engineers redoubled their efforts... supposedly...

There's politics between the Calculator division (all consumer products), Semiconductor, and Data Systems Group.

Still, TI had a TMS8080 (and later their own 486).

I'll work on this idea, thanks...

---- As a child, I knocked some books off a garage shelf once and was plonked on the head with copies of The 8080 Bugbook. What the heck was a Bugbook? Or an 8080?

Some years later, a 9995 data sheet fell on my head and I thought how hard can it be to wire up a computer?