Author Topic: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page  (Read 37018 times)

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« on: December 12, 2012, 03:12:46 pm »
As mentionned here and here, Texas Instruments has finally opened a new page on their website, announcing the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition and confirming some informations about the new color screen calculator model:

http://education.ti.com/calculators/products/US/ti-84c/

If you check the comparison chart, you will see that the calculator is confirmed to have 3.5 MB of archive, but 21 KB of RAM (3 KB fewer than the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, 5 KB fewer than the TI-82 STATS and 7 KB fewer than the TI-82). It also confirms the rechargeable battery, backlit 320x240 16-bit color screen, USB transfer, the compatibility with the TI-84 Plus (although Cemetech reports having been confirmed that old ASM programs, along with some TI-BASIC ones, will not work) and that people will most likely start to bug Runer112 or Quigibo for a TI-84PCSE port of Axe Parser.

TI-Connect will also be updated for the new calculator and good news for Mac OS users: It will be updated for you too!

There are also some pictures of the calculator there, like the one seen to the right.

A FAQ is available on Texas Instruments website at the link above.
 

« Last Edit: December 12, 2012, 03:13:20 pm by DJ_O »

Offline epic7

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2012, 03:21:54 pm »
Nice! :D
I hope asm won't be too different :/

Offline DrDnar

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2012, 04:48:23 pm »
21 K of user memory, 154 K of video RAM. There is a serious fracking engineering WTF. Also, why is there a 3 K decrease in available user memory? Previously, TI has allocated new memory for new static OS vars in off-page RAM. Have they decided to eliminate that RAM entirely?

Quote from: FAQ
Is the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition allowed on high-stakes exams?
Yup, the TI-84+C SE can be used on exams that will determine your ULTIMATE FATE IN LIFE.

On the comparison chart, they list a "MathPrint everywhere" feature. This suggests that pretty printing will be available in other edit buffer contexts. That's a definite UI improvement, but it will break some of our existing tools. TI's anti-hacking staffers must be nigh-orgasming.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2012, 04:50:07 pm by DrDnar »
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Offline Xeda112358

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2012, 04:51:46 pm »
If you check the comparison chart, you will see that the calculator is confirmed to have 3.5 MB of archive, but 21 KB of RAM (3 KB fewer than the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, 5 KB fewer than the TI-82 STATS and 7 KB fewer than the TI-82).
Well, luckily at this rate, the next model will have 20KB of memory, then it will start to rise 2KB for each new remake :D That means by 2100, we could be looking at >40KB of RAM to use o.o

XD

Offline DrDnar

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2012, 05:02:31 pm »
Xeda, actually, I'm starting to suspect seriously my idea that they've completely eliminated RAM paging in order to allow the extra archive to map into pages 80-FF. So available RAM will continue to decrease.

More importantly:
Quote from: IRC
(4:54:01 PM) OmnomIRC: (O)<calc84maniac> 84 Plus C SE has no 3D graphing
(4:54:06 PM) OmnomIRC: (O)<calc84maniac> CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
We're going to hold you to that. And we want color and lighting effects.
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Offline calc84maniac

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2012, 05:04:24 pm »
I was speaking collectively :3
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Offline Xeda112358

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #6 on: December 12, 2012, 05:05:36 pm »
Xeda, actually, I'm starting to suspect seriously my idea that they've completely eliminated RAM paging in order to allow the extra archive to map into pages 80-FF. So available RAM will continue to decrease.
That does seem very likely :/

Offline DrDnar

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #7 on: December 12, 2012, 05:31:12 pm »
calc84 pointed out in IRC that 8000h will still need to map RAM, no matter what TI does. But I'm still guessing that port 6 will map flash in 00 to FF, and not map any RAM. Port 7 will either not function, not map any flash, or map only some flash, e.g. only the bottom half.

I mentioned this in IRC, but not in the forum:
The TI-83+ uses a 512 K flash chip, the TI-84+ uses a 1 MB flash chip, and the TI-83+SE and TI-84+SE both use 2 MB flash chips. These chips follow a standard layout and use a standard command set. In the same family of chips is a 4 MB flash chip, which uses a similar command set. However, the boot sector break-down in the 4 MB family is different. The smaller chips break one 64 K sector into a 32 K sector, a 16 K sector, and two 8 K sectors; the 4 MB chips break one sector into eight 8 K sectors. This broken-up sector is termed the "boot sector" by the datasheets, and is either first or last sector; TI always selects the chips which break up the last sector.

Now for prediction time:
In the TI-83+ family, the 32 K sector was used for the OS, the 16 K sector for the boot sector, and the two 8 K sectors for the certificate. In the TI-84+, they needed another 16 K of flash for the USB routines for the boot code. They kept the convention that the 32 K sector is used for the OS. So instead, they made one of the 64 K sectors a boot sector. So 48 K of flash is wasted. Had they used to 32 K sector for the extra USB boot routines, only 16 K would have been wasted. (BrandonW likes to point out that this would require rearranging some of the OS. I say, so what? It's within their power to do so.) My prediction is this: They will keep this silly layout, wasting 48 K of flash, instead of using some more of those aptly-named boot sectors.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2012, 05:33:46 pm by DrDnar »
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2012, 06:14:40 pm »
21 K of user memory, 154 K of video RAM. There is a serious fracking engineering WTF. Also, why is there a 3 K decrease in available user memory? Previously, TI has allocated new memory for new static OS vars in off-page RAM. Have they decided to eliminate that RAM entirely?

Quote from: FAQ
Is the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition allowed on high-stakes exams?
Yup, the TI-84+C SE can be used on exams that will determine your ULTIMATE FATE IN LIFE.

On the comparison chart, they list a "MathPrint everywhere" feature. This suggests that pretty printing will be available in other edit buffer contexts. That's a definite UI improvement, but it will break some of our existing tools. TI's anti-hacking staffers must be nigh-orgasming.
My worry is that the graph buffer is stored directly into Flash. If TI dared to do that, I can't imagine how slow it will be to draw stuff on the LCD and how fast the ROM will wear out (unless flash wearing out is an urban legend like some people claim?). From what I remember, storing something in the archive is far slower than doing it in RAM, right? Granted, in BASIC the speed difference might not be visible due to how slow the language is to begin with, but how big will be the performance drop for ASM?

Of course, maybe TI decided to use a separate RAM chip for video?

I also hope that MathPrint can still be disabled. It's annoying.


Offline DrDnar

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2012, 06:18:52 pm »
My worry is that the graph buffer is stored directly into Flash.
Highly unlikely. I doubt even TI is silly enough to do that. The 3.5 MB figure supports this: The TI-84+SE has 1.5 MB of user-available memory out of 2 MB. The TI-84+C SE is advertised to have 3.5 MB of user-available flash out of a probable 4 MB. The fact that the OS is still about 500 K in size suggests that they did not allocate 150 K of flash for a graphics back-buffer.
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2012, 11:12:30 pm »
Great news!  But we still don't know the processor speed...

Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2012, 01:40:05 am »
Quote
My prediction is this: They will keep this silly layout, wasting 48 K of flash, instead of using some more of those aptly-named boot sectors.
Seems likely, as they like wasting space, be it on the TI-Z80 or TI-68k series...
tiosmod+amspatch uses a small fraction of one of the large areas left unused by TI to fix up / expand some things, or shrink the 89 2.08 and 2.09 versions. I know for a fact that PedroM uses that area, as TI should have done, and I haven't checked but Punix certainly does as well.
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« Last Edit: December 13, 2012, 11:06:12 am by Eeems »
/e

Offline V1mes

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2012, 11:28:10 am »
I also hope that MathPrint can still be disabled. It's annoying.

Tell me about it :P
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Offline Sorunome

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Re: TI opens TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition page
« Reply #14 on: December 13, 2012, 06:52:02 pm »
only 21KB RAM? O.o what should we do??? D:

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