Texas Instruments
Company logotype.
Texas Instruments, better known in the electronics industry as TI, is a company based in Dallas, Texas, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology.
It was founded by Cecil H. Green, Jon Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott and Henry Bates Peacock, three out of whom would live to see their ninetieth birthdays.
TI is a major manufacturer of transistors, integrated circuits, and MEMS devices. The integrated circuit was invented by Jack Kilby of TI in 1958. The 7400 series of transistor-transistor logic (TTL) chips, developed by TI in the 1960s, popularized the use of integrated circuits in computer logic, and is in widespread use to this day.
Texas Instruments is also notable for their calculator range, the TI-30 being one of the most popular early calculators. TI has also developed a line of graphing calculators, the first being the TI-80, and most popular being the TI-83. TI is often seen as the competitor to Hewlett Packard in this regard, with often fierce loyalties arising. See also TI-89 and TI-92.
In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single chip speech synthesizer and incorporated it in a product called the Speak & Spell, which was later immortalized in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Several spinoffs, such as the Speak & Read and Speak & Math, were introduced soon thereafter.
In June 1979, they entered into the home computer market with the TI99/4A.
External links