Just curious, which is better? Casio Prizm or fx-9860GII (or fx-9860GII SD)?

The 9860 is the older of the two, and it has quite a few good programs. However it recently went through a hardware change so some of the old programs still might not have been made compatible yet.
As a calculator it's pretty good, after using it in a primarily-z80 math class it's better/faster in just about every way I can think of compared to the TIs aside from the small community and the resulting small library of programs/ways to program

The Prizm does pretty much everything the 9860 does, and then more with the color screen. it's kind of new, just being a few years old, but still has a sizable community and growing number of programs. It hooks up to the computer like a usb drive, so no linking programs needed. It doesn't look too bad either

Both have C, lua and an implementation of Basic.
Edit2: and asm

Basically it depends on your priorities, (math vs gaming vs programming vs etc) but the Prizm seems to be the more popular of the two around the community atm.


Edit: just as a note I don't follow casio stuff too closely, I'm just saying what I know having both of them

Quote from: Deep Thought on January 06, 2013, 08:43:15 pm

And if you want to appease the wrath of Ranman and help revive the 68K scene, go for the TI-89s!

Well... You got some good points Deep.

I personally love the 68K calcs. 188Kb RAM available to user -- no page swapping, native support of 32 bit integers, 68K BASIC is very powerful (still slow), 68K assembly is easy, and powerful C support. And you get decenct LCD specs (160x100 TI89, 240x128 92+/V200)

For Z80 calcs: their BASIC is powerful but slow as well, Z80 assembly is not as straightforward, limited RAM requiring page swaps. These limitations can be fun to work with though. And now you have... Axe which is pretty darn cool!

For nSpires: not too sure about these bad boys. Great LCD resolution. LUA programming language -- since I am a C/C++ guy, I dont care for Lua.

You could go for a Casio 9860 or Casio Prizm. 9860s have good LCDs specs, 64Kb RAM, BASIC and C languages available. Prizms sound like a middle ground between 84/89 series and the nSpire.

My next calc may indeed be a Prizm.

Ranman runs again

I love the 68k series as well, and would prefer it to revive again, but it looks like it's a lost case.

However, like Lionel Debroux just mentioned it also has newprog, which is kinda like AXE, and can be programmed on-calc in the regular Ti-basic editor. To see some Newprog examples look here: http://www.ticalc.org/pub/89/newprog/

The only dissadvantage I can currently think of is that it's community isn't big.

I think it's similar to 89 BASIC, Axe and C, but I,m unsure. It's done on-calc like Axe, but you need to use the Newprog Shell to launch programs, unlike Axe, which can produce nostub/APP programs.

Also, the FX-9860G series is now seriously problematic in the way that Casio changed the processor recently so most old ASM/C programs no longer work and if you make some you need to take in account cross-compatibility between each calc. I noticed lately that most new FX-9860G releases are written in BASIC too.

I really recommend a 84+, PRIZM (and please don't leave Omnimaga entirely if you switch to PRIZM dev lol, like most PRIZM coders did ), the Nspire or 68K, but only got for 68K if you don't mind programming for a calc that is in constant danger of being discontinued.

How do you program in NewProg?
DO you need to downlaod this and put it on calc? http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/426/42635.html

* Sorunome needs to get a silverlink

Yes, you have to send that to your calc indeed.
Like DJ_O said, it's also necessary to run the program. You have two programs for newprog; the one that compiles your TI-Basic file to a newprog file. Then you can with the second program run it by typing: newprog("name_compile_source").
I don't really find it annoying to be "forced" to have newprog on your calc to be able to run those programs, but I can imagine that some may do.
The language is similar to TI-Basic(well at least the 68k basic), but it does have a cool command "basic'. With this you can have your source partially with TI-Basic, however I think it'll in that case be as slow as TI-Basic.

I'd recommend trying first a bit to get used to the 68k Basic, but I don't think it's an absolute necessity, since I guess you know z80 basic.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy your Ti-89 a lot.

So like an oncalc C compiler or ASM assembler? I'd like to know too

Can you somehow assemble the 89 on-calc?

GTC can compile some C code on-calc, and IIRC, said code can contain assembly