My take on TI community

[Halifax]

First off exclude omnimaga from all the discussion in this article cause I am not talking about omnimaga when I say TI community and also exclude some persons that are too numerous to name right now and also the 68K series and TI-85 and 86 and 82 cause I am not talking about those calculators. I am talking about the 83/83(+) series programmers and that is what I am referring to when I say z80. Now that I got that squared away let's get on to the article.

The z80 TI community is heading in a bad direction for most. Games are becoming generic and anything is being realesed on to the Web. Let's take a look at a handful of programs I found in ticalc.org's recent files. Sieprinski Triangle Drawing, Super Mario Bros(8 Worlds), Quadratic Formula Program, MarioDXX(level), Time/Date set. All these programs really should not even make it to ticalc.org let's face the truth. One thing though is that all ideas really have been used dry and that's why if someone finds a good idea they usually run with it and program many sequels thus locking them into shackles and maknig them prone to stay with that program and not move on to another. It is not the programmers fault though.

Hypothetical:
Let's think about this for a second say that NES was the only console system out there and it was the best. It has been out there for 10 years and great games have come out for it. Developers are finding it hard to develop for and turning away. Gamers are turning away because there are no new games for it. All of a sudden PS2 comes out and blows away everyone with 3D and developers are going crazy with games and gamers and buying it all cause it is great. The PS2 sees the same fate as NES though because it has been out there for 10 years.

I think you understand what I am trying to say. The z80 series has been out there for so long with no new updates at all that have sparked interest. Developers are running out of ideas and thus not getting games out which turns away gamers so that when a game does come out it doesn't get many downloads. That's the thing 83/84(+) has overstayed it's welcome. There needs to be a next generation calculator like an 84+^2. The z80 series needs improvement on this next generation system like memory-mapped display instead out an LCD driver, some vector support,update to a better custom z80 processor like maybe adding some registers and combineing 16 bit registers to 32 bit registers!!!!, a OS resembling a computer OS,Programming API like OpenGL and other things, maybe even throw in included grayscale with black and white. This next-gen calculator would inspire people to develop more things and also be more downloads. I know your saying look at the 89-92-and v200, or look at the TI-Nspire, but I don't want to I want a calculator that I am familar with but still has some new cutting edge features.

I have seen the Assembly advancements in 3-D and I personally think these are the pioneers that are keeping the z80 community a float in the middle of an 800 mile ocean of death.

These are just my opinions about the TI Community, and I am not blaming the programmers I am actually blaming TI.

Points of this articles:
There needs to be a next-gen title
The z80 community is exhausted
TI needs to pay more attention to the 83/84(+) series
(random)Why are all TI Applications 2 pages?

[Netham45]

I think(personally) that TI is going to start phasing out the z80 series in favor of the 68k series, then the Ti nSpire CAS. Also, if you noticed, almost all of the apps that are on the 84, they didn't even bother updating 83 to 84(see organizer, ctlghelp). Also, they are realizing that more memory(although nice) is not a major selling point and they lowered the prices on the 83+'s so much that I doubt that they sell very much 84+'s outside of the TI community. There are like 5 kids in my math class that have something other than a Ti-83+(One has a 82, 3 have 84+ and 1 has 84+SE). ATM even I only have a 83+(sadly my 84+SE died after I finished installing a PS/2 port and internal amplifer.)

[Halifax]

Yeah that's the thing I don't want the z80 series to get outdated also I think they could make a custom dual core z80 processer or something right?

[spengo]

hey hey hey, don't be too hard on the 68k. Check out what Ranman's doing with Ultima V. There's a lot of other cool games out there too- oblivion, corridor 99, f-zero, space dementia 1 and 2, and even a gameboy emulator!

[DJ Omnimaga]

the major problem is the lack of an actual asm tutorial. The so called tutorial that are out at the moment aren't even tutorials, they are just reference guide. It won't provide help making games like TI-Freakware BASIC tutorial. Thus, people stick with BASIC, like me, but at one point it's getting harder and harder to push the limits, even if we use asm libs, so we get lack of games ideas.

I think at one point people who want to push limits further will have to switch to 15 MHz models to get more speed and make their games only for their models, but this will not be good for regular TI-83+ users

[Netham45]

TI is really pushing to eleminate the 83+ series.

[Liazon]

The memory mapped LCD is the major thing!!! Do you have any idea how many clocks are wasted trying to update the screen!!!!

Maybe that's why a game like Digitan's RobotWars seems more feasible on 82 instead of 8xp!  86 games can have sometimes up 8 lvl gs, and it's basically a weaker 83+, but it has a MEMORY MAPPED SCREEN. not to mention, I think you can even mess with the LCD port and tell it to read from a different buffer.

edit:

btw, I've decided to make NanoWar rpg similar to RobotWars (probably won't be as good ) and I think I'll probably have to use 8x8 b/w sprites.  I haven't done ASM in awhile, but I'll give a shot at it when I'm bored w/ my 68k project or something.

[DJ Omnimaga]

hmm 82 doesnt have memory mapped display either, it sucks that 83+ series has such crappy lcd tho, even in BASIC gs is a problem cuz of it otherwise it would look awesome and maybe even run faster

[bfr]

Zilog 80 processor with 32-bit registers?  

A FAT-Engine-type thing would probably be good for Zilog 80 calculators, if they can handle it.  But then again, I'm thinking about the amount of 3-D games for 68K calculators, and how fun they were, and how much more fun the 2-D games were... >.>  We need a creative person to come up with a good 3-D game then that is actually programmable.

I like my TI-86 and TI-84+ Silver Edition.  Even if they phase out, like the probably will (but not soon), I'll still be programming for them (for us old-schoolers).  MS-DOS phased away, the TI-58 C phased away, so, my friends, enjoy your Zilog 80 calculators before they are banished from society.

[DJ Omnimaga]

i so want a multiplayer fps for 83+ or SE, there is one for TI-89 called counter strike it would be cool to have it on z80 models

[Radical Pi]

This is a great article. If it isn't already, I suggest xlibman put it with the other Articles.

It does stink that we're here for the end of the z80 series, and we don't want that, but I think it's really a lack of motivation. I mean, it was discovered that you could use blue on the 84+, yet no one did anything about that yet. I'd like some blue lightning titlescreens on my games that only fit on the 84s.
Also, there's the xLib Guru. I've seen nothing done to it in weeks. Does that mean xlib games will start to decline, with a lack of enthusiasm for that?

You're right about running out of ideas for z80, partially. But No one is applying old ideas to new concepts. I don't see any Super Mario + Grayscale in basic or even ASM. But I'm doing Basic SM with SOUND and sprites!

Thank god DCS6 is being released soon. That along with gCn should spark some creativity. Playing multiplayer games online with a calc is a great idea.

I wish I could understand asm so I could do something in that field, but I'm going to stick with Basic and probably something for DS homebrew.

z80 is only as dead as its programmers. And its programmers have given up.

-Radical Pi

[DJ Omnimaga]

it would be amazing if the community did like in late 2001 early 2002, it was that inactive, if not more, but afterward it picked up again, but VERY VERY VERY drastically. Of course i hope we dont get too much n00bs like ticalc.org did (anyone remember the amount of comments in news from oct/nov 2002 at ticalc.org?)

[Radical Pi]

I once checked the ticalc news archives from years ago, when they were only first starting to be commented on. Pretty perverted stuff in there.

[Halifax]

First off I wasn't being harsh to 68k I think I stated in my article that I was talking about them because I personally do think they are great but it is a different development environment from z80 also Radical_Pi I don't know if you have or not but tr1p1ea is making a greyscale super mario game and it is fast with greyscale better than Desolate also it has AI that follows you like Kirby!!! and everything is greyscale, ask tr1p1ea for the link it blew me away

[Radical Pi]

Really? Pwnz!