TI99'er Hall of Fame - Heiner Martin

Heiner Martin was an important publisher, designer and programmer for the TI99/4A Home Computer in the eighties. Many European TI users read his magazine publications. In 1985 Heiner wrote the book TI99/4A Intern in the German language. The book was translated into English with the subtitle: "The Operating System of TI99/4A Internal ROM and GROM Listing with Commentary and Directions for GPL". This is the 'bible' for anyone trying to understand the inner workings of the TI99/4A. He described the reason for writing this book as follows:

"The TI99/4A is a Home Computer about which little is known. This is due primarily to the fact that the manufacturer has published very little information about its inner structure. Nothing could be obtained from Texas Instruments about the operating system called "Monitor" and the Programming Language GPL (Graphic Programming Language) used for the TI99/4A. Therefore the operating system of the TI99/4A (ROM and GROMS) has been analysed in detail and the results are summarized in this book." (From the book TI99/4A Intern)

The book was a very important resource for the developers of hardware and software for the TI99/4A and was also used for the creation of the Myarc Geneve. The English version of the book is now available as freeware for the TI community and is still widely used.

Heiner is a gifted assembly programmer and hardware designer for the TI99/4A, but his main hobby was and still is Radio Controlled Model-Cars. In 1982 he bought a TI99/4A Home Computer with an Extended Basic module to support this hobby. A year later he upgraded to a full PE Box with P-code, Speech and an Editor/Assembler package. His extensive studies of TI Assembler resulted in the book TI99/4A Intern and a large number of articles in German TI magazines. In 1983 Heiner started writing a column in the Austrian magazine TI99 Journal from Vienna. In the period from 1985 till 1987 he was the editor of the German TI magazine TI-Revue from Lohhof-München in Germany. He also wrote several articles for this magazine; including a series of nine articles with the title: Assembler leicht gemacht für den TI 99/4A (TI99/4A Assembler made easy).

Heiner Martin was involved in several hardware projects for the TI99/4A. The most important were:

The DSR and utility software for EPROMer-99 developed and marketed by Mechatronic from Sindelfingen in Germany.
The programming of the DSR for the Mechatronic eighty column sidecar device.
The design of a module expander as published in the TI Magazine TI-Revue.
The development of the hard and software of the GRAM card, distributed by Mechatronic.
The programming of additional functions for the Mechatronic Extended Basic II+ module.
The design of an 80-track disk controller, marketed by Atronic from Hamburg.
The development of the hard and software of a 256 Kb RAM card, distributed by Mechatronic.

Heiner Martin was born in West-Berlin in 1950. When he was 14 years old, his parents moved to Ulm in Baden-Württemberg. In 1978 he turned his hobby of Radio Controlled Model-Cars into a profession and became a journalist for a RC-Car magazine. Two years later he became the editor in chief of this magazine. In this position Heiner wrote a program in Extended Basic for the administration of the magazine. Today he is working as a freelanced journalist for several RC-Car magazines. He is also writing handbooks for computer programs and just restarted programming PC-software. Heiner is a bachelor and still lives in Ulm.