The great Gazoo (Tony Knerr)

Entry posted by Davvel November 22, 2015

1,251 views

I urge anyone reading this blog to post comments and add material that would remind us of great people who shaped the world of TI 99/4A.

I have only recently started to learn about the rich history of the TI as I had put my TI on a shelve for 30 years, but a month ago I wondered why I should not try to turn it on and start reliving my childhood.

In the process I learnt of the late Tony Knerr and his Genius and was shocked to realise how many great people live and die and 99.999% of the world just are oblivious of the loss.

In this blog I hope to capture the best TI 99/4A contributors. I will be brief and reference or copy material where possible, but the mash-up should help those who cannot be bothered googling for the info.

Tony Knerr has given the world a special cartridge which many say is the de-facto cartridge to have in your TI. It is called XB 2.7 (eXtended Basic 2.7). It has much more than XB within. It comes with an Editor Assembler (E/A), the XB, a few games and all that is seen below :

The following is copied from various sources :

Tony lived up till the young age of 57. He died on the 22nd September 2015 which happened to be his Birthday.
Known as the "father" of the Extended Basic v Suite 2.7 as well as
the Collection of programs on cartridges of 512 KB and 1024 KB.
Throughout its history the world "Texan" has also programmed
the MDOS 6.50 of Geneve and presented some cards for
the Peripherial Expansion Box, here's a quick list of what he has done for us:
Geneve Boot Eprom v 1.0-HSGPL Loader-Utilities Pgram Pgram-Reloader-Extended Basic v & v 2.6-2.5 TKgrom0-80 track Disk Controller Modification-YOU Pgram Y2K DSR-AVPC-Upgrade Eprom Personality Card Disk Manager Upgrade-Various Music Programs-Scattergories-Extended Basic v 2.7 Suite Cartridge-cartridges 1 through 6 Games-2048 k-512 k cartridge Games Utilities cartridge-512 k Educational cartridge. (http://www.ti99iuc.it/web/index.php?pageid=homepage&artid=165)
Lived in Downingtown, PA 19335, USA
His Public Facebook page is still active today - https://www.facebook.com/tony.knerr.3
He released his masterpiece work in 2015.
Many talk of him as the ultimate humble genius who shared every single thing he did in a selfless, altruistic manner.

His work ensured that TI can be enjoyed for many years to come.

Today (18th December 2015) I clicked Gazoo's 999 Like. I tried to be the one to hit 1000 but I ran out of likes for the day. I will surely hit a couple of more likes tomorrow.