TI’s answer to the HP-41C

[Sylvain Cote]

Very interesting, from "1981-1982-ALC-Planning-TI88-Replacement.pdf"

Market Impact
The impact of implementing a general purpose portable computer should be large. This strategy will impact four separate market areas: TI-59 owners, HP-41 owners, computer users and naive individuals. The direction of the market is clear, and with HP's announcement of its HP-75C BASIC language computer, it has been reaffirmed. The future of the market is high level language computing. This market movement eliminates RPN/AOS arguments and provides a new proving ground for product performance between TI and HP. By eliminating keystroke product from the line entirely, TI sets a concrete commitment to portable computing, eliminating confusion in the market and resultant lost sales. It will give potential TI-88 owners a clearer choice and assure them of long-term support that would not have been evident in a two product line approach. The end result should be an ability to recapture in excess of 80% of TI-88 sales with the portable computer (in fact, with the clearer direction capture rate could exceed 100%). In addition, playing off the HP-75C and its high price point ($995) we should be able to capture HP-41 potentials. That is, the confusion the HP-75C brings to the HP product line, combined with the TI commitment to portable computers, will pull a great deal of potential HP-41 sales to the TI portable product. Last, the additional flexibility and growth potential of multiple language machines opens the market up to a base of computer literate individuals and third party programmers that was left totally untapped by the programmable calculators.

That they thought the CC-40 was a credible replacement of the HP-75C I can understand but that it was a credible replacement of the TI-58/TI-59/TI-88/HP-41 is beyond me.