Not Polyoptics

Not Polyoptics was an early US based supplier of games for the TI99/4 and TI99/4a.

They obtained early recognition of their unusual name by released the initial version of their program Cars and Carcasses to User Group libraries. A later slightly more complex version was released commercially as Cars and Carcasses 2 - the simple aim being to guide a single character car around the screen hitting some objects and avoiding others.

Founders of Not Polyoptics were Michael Capobianco who later had a science fiction book published, David Harter and Gene Hitz. The emphasis of most of their games was strategy rather than action.

Their TI BASIC flight simulation program Winging It was very popular.

Initially successful with tape based TI Basic programs, efforts to move to Extended BASIC programs or disk based programs did not succeed due to the low user base for expanded systems at the time.

Michael commented "When we released a game on disk, instead of cassette, or one that required memory beyond the TI's built-in 16K RAM, we sold about a tenth of what our most popular "console only" games did. Even requiring Extended BASIC, cut into sales to a huge degree. The bottom line, at least in the early 1980's, was that the user base of people with a TI-99/4A, a tape deck, and nothing else to work with, was massive."

Later programs were written by users and published by Not Polyoptics- for example 99 Vaders, Thomas DiMarco - Designer; Peter DiMarco - Programmer; Tim Trapanado - Marketer - who did business under the TIPET Programming banner out of Suffolk, NY. They were all in the 15-16 year old age group when they broke into the TI-99/4A software market.

A listing of a selection of programs (not all) published by Not Polyoptics:

99 Vaders; Addvance; Ant Wars; Backgammon; Bankroll; Cars and Carcasses 2; Crosses; Hordes; Khe Sanh; Laser Tank; Maze of Ariel; Ophyss; Sengoku Jidai; Ships; Starship Pegasus; Tickworld, Tower, Treasure Trap, Waldoball, Wingint It.