TI-59 People

Many TI-59 owners were ready to spend countless hours discovering secrets of their calculator and writing programs, and then to share their knowledge with others. Hundreds of great articles were written and published and thousands of programs exchanged via the official library, Professional Program Exchange (PPX), independent software exchange catalogues and newsletters. Each of those men contributed to the success of the TI-59 calculator, but some of the names stood out - club founders, great programmers, discoverers of synthetic programming essentials...

Most of those individuals became successful IT professionals - this page will hopefully help them stay in touch. If you know more about them or think some other name should be added to the list, please write...

Patrick Acosta Patrick had only a TI-58, but wrote great TI-59 programs like 'Speedy Factor Finder'. He also discovered the way to enter Fast Mode without the PGM 02 SBR 240 sequence (see TI PPC Notes v6n8p3) and designed a Hexadecimal code implant procedure (v6n9/10p14). Patrick's present whereabouts are unknown.
Thomas Coppens Founder of TI Software Exchange club in Kappelen, Belgium. TI SOFT had a huge library of TI-59 programs (math, engineering, games etc) and also published a quarterly newsletter. Thomas is now headmaster of a high school in Antwerp.
Thomas Edling Peter Poloczek's associate in the Plewnia club (Germany), mostly in charge of tips and tricks. Thomas later received a Ph.D. degree and is a university professor in Wiesbaden.
Don O'Grady Great programmer working for Texas Instruments. He wrote the Math/Utilities and RPN Simulator modules. Don now lives in Houstin, Texas, works as a programmer and spends his free time enjoying his sail boat.
Palmer O. Hanson Jr. Succeeded Maurice Swinnen as the editor of the TI PPC Notes and successfully published the newsletter from 1983 to 1987. Palmer also wrote many famous TI-59 programs, including 'Speedy Factor Finder', and published great survey articles about fast mode and hexadecimal codes. Palmer retired and lived in North Carolina during the summer and in Florida during the winter. He passed away in 2014.
Lars Hedlund Founder of the famous Swedish newsletter Programbiten (the co-editor was Bo Nordlin) and author of interesting TI-59 programs, including 4*4*4 Tic Tac Toe. Present whereabouts are unknown - do you know something about Lars?
Martin Neef ZEPRA club member who discovered the fast mode (PGM 02 SBR 240 sequence) and also the technique of branching from the keyboard during program execution. Martin's present whereabouts are unknown.
Harald M. Otto Author of several good compilations of TI-59 tricks - one of these compilations is a 112 pages long book. He also wrote programs, like 'Contour Graph' and 'Puzzle'. Harald is now a teacher of mathematics and computer science at the Gymnasium Laurentianum Warendorf, Germany.
Peter Poloczek Founder of the 'TI58-59 Software Club' in Germany. The club had a library of TI-59 software and published a newsletter in German six times a year. Peter himself was the first to combine fast and graphics mode in a single program called 'Fast Grafik 3D Plot' (TI PPC Notes v8n2p11-16). He is now a teacher of Informatics in Frankfurt.
Robert AH Prins Ace TI-59 programmer from Holland, author of famous 'Pie Charts' and 'Plot 60 Mk2' programs. Robert also discovered a way to download the firmware by simply calling a non-existent module (see TI PPC Notes, V7n1/2p28) and wrote an extensive survey article about the flag register and hex codes. He later emigrated to England, founded a consulting company and worked mostly with mainframes, solving Y2K and other problems. Robert is also an avid hitchhiker who traveled all over the world.

Ace TI-59 programmer from the Netherlands, author of the famous 'Pie Chart' and 'Plot 60 Mk2' programs. Robert also discovered a way to download the firmware by simply calling a non-existent module (see TI PPC Notes, V7n1/2p28) and wrote an extensive survey article about the flag register ("HIR 0") and hex codes. He later moved to Great-Britain, and some years later to Belgium. He's a freelance consultant working on IBM mainframes running z/OS, but he's still interested in calculators, and has recently finished the conversion of all 34 issues of 52-Notes to html5. He is also an ace hitchhiker, who made it into the Guinness Book of Records with 24-hour hitchhiking record.

Dejan Ristanovic Author of many TI-59 articles and programs, including 'Gauss Reduction of Matrices', 'Fast Mode Scribbler' and 'Treasure Island'. Also author of the famous 'TI-59 Super Test' (PPC Notes v7n9p8-11) - can anybody solve that test after all these years? Dejan is now Editor-in-Chief of PC Press, the leading personal computer magazine in Serbia. He is also the author of this Web site.
Heinrich Schnepf Editor and publisher of German PPC newsletter 'Display' and discoverer of HIR codes, in September 1977, just months after TI-59 was introduced. Heinrich's present whereabouts are unknown.
Robert & Richard Snow Authors of great programs, mostly published in TI PPC Notes: '3D Tic-Tac-Toe', 'Alphabetical Sort', 'Bowling', 'Blackjack Tutor' etc. Used to live in Vallejo, California; Richard still lives there, while Robert moved to LA.
Michael Sperber Discoverer of the Graphics mode and author of the 'Fine Plot' (Plot 60) program. Also author of 'Schach 2.1', the famous TI-59 chess program (TI PPC Notes v7n7/8p20-22). Today he is a computer engineer who collects old calculators as a hobby.
Maurice E. T. Swinnen Founder and Editor of the TI PPC Notes (1980-1982), the most important TI-59 publication. Besides doing a great job editing the Notes, Maurice wrote a lot of articles and programs, including the famous 'Jive Turkey' for each new Texas Instruments calculator. His polyglot talents helped keep the TI-59 community all over the world closely connected. After retirement, Maurice lived in Tucson, Arizona and dedicated his free time to ballroom dancing. He passed away in 2021.
David Thomas David used to work for Texas Instruments; he was the teacher who taught 'secondary teachers' the intricacies of the calculator. The secondary teachers taught many classes all over the US, to people at Insurance Agencies, the Post Office, Engineering firms and sometimes just at hotels (the US and Canada were divided into 5 zones, each with its own teacher). David is now a computer consultant for several large OEMs and lives in Alrington, near Dallas, TX.
Richard Vanderburgh Founder of the 52-Users Club (June 1976) and Editor of SR-52 Notes from June 1976 to March 1979. Despite the title, SR-52 Notes dedicated most of the space to the TI-59 (since June 1977) and was succeeded by Maurice Swinnen's TI PPC Notes in January 1980. Richard is now living in Dayton, Ohio.
John Worthington &
Emil Regelman
Authors of many math programs published in TI PPC Notes. 'Mileage and Expenses System' and 'Print Code Processor' were their masterpieces. Emil is still working for US Environmental Protection Agency in Bowie, Maryland as a programmer/system developer. John Worthington, a biological chemist with the same agency, has regretfully passed away.

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