I was surprised at how fast thepenguin responded.

You can't see it yet (due to post count), but we have a IRC client embedded in the page. This leads to very quick replies to posts.

As far as the amount of ram the calculators actually have, you are right, it is not 24KB, that is just the amount that TI advertises to the public and is the amount officially supported for saving user variables and such. However, you don't have to listen to TI's demands when programming, so, in reality the old calculators had 128KB of ram and the new ones have 48KB of ram (8 and 3 16KB pages.)

While the z80 is an 8 bit processor, it still has 16 bit registers inside of it, and this includes the Program Counter. At any given time, the processor is addressing 64KB of data, which is split up into 16KB banks. The first bank is always operating system code, then, the next 3 banks can be switched however the programmer wishes, this includes a range of 128 flash pages and 8/3 ram pages. By default, one of the banks is flash, and the other two are the working memory. (Which is where the 24KB comes into play.)

We think, (at least I do) that the main reason that TI cut the extra ram was purely to save money. It was not an attack against the GameBoy emulator because although we found out about the cuts a year or two ago, the actual change in manufacturing happened in 2007, which was long before the emulator.

If you want some better pictures, check out datamath.org. They have a good comparison of the 83+ and 84+ here.

I can't get GameBoy games on my calculator, but I did afterall buy it to use for school(my first graphing calculator!)

Actually, calc84maniac released a version that allows you to play gameboy games on the calculators wthout the extra ram, you'll have to look around the site for it, (he might have even put it on ticalc.org). The only problem though is that some games, like pokemon, have an extra 32KB of memory in the cartridge, and since the calculators only have 48KB of memory, I think you can see the problem.


Edit (to your ninja):
   Flash memory cannot be used efficiently as ram because it can only be erased 64KB at a time. You can write as many 0's to it as you want, but to write a 1 requires a full sector reset. It is also very slow, a full sector program takes about 3 seconds.

Edit 2:
   After a bit of googling, I think the smaller chip you found is our beloved crystal. This thing runs the internal clock as well as a set of super precise timers that are available to assembly programmers. This description fits since that chip only appears to have 2 leads.

As far as I've noticed, the only time downrating gets to be a problem is when someone gets downrated and they make a production out of it...
I could be wrong, though.

I agree. I like the rating system, but I don't think an individual post's rating should really be discussed. If some one makes a negative comment, but is not really bad enough for a moderator to take action on, a -1 on that post would let the author know that in general, that kind of behavior isn't what's expected at Omnimaga. If some one gets a big negative on a post, then they should just realize that what they did offended people, and try not to do it again. I think the rating system is a good way to provide subtle clues as to what should and shouldn't be posted here.

The only times I see it being a problem is if some one starts accusing other people of downrating their posts and makes a big deal out of it. But then, it is really the person doing the accusing who is abusing the system.

Well, I must answer with eventually. I work on stuff in phases, so when this pops back up, you'll see a ton of updates.

Quote from: Hot_Dog on September 18, 2011, 04:00:44 pm

Most of the stuff here is stuff anyone would do if they had little experience,...

but still: only TI does 'or   a \ adc   a, c'. Everyone that knows what a z80 is uses 'add a, c'.

Don't forget about LD B, 1 \ SUB B.

A while ago when I was making my boot code 1.03 exploit, I was looking through the app security code when I found absolutely horrendous code. The whole system of app trials appears to be written by someone who has been programming z80 for less than a week. The worst part though is that this person was assigned to write code that protects paid apps and is run on a privileged page. But of all the app trials code, this one routine just sticks out as the worst TI code I've ever seen.

Here it is in it's entirety:
transformA:
push bc
ld c, 11h
sub c
jp nc, loc_4F03
or a
adc a, c
cp 0
jr z, loc_4F03
cp 1
jr z, loc_4F03
ld b, a
dec b
ld a, 2

loc_4EFA:
sla a
djnz loc_4EFA
ld b, 1
sub b
jr loc_4F05

loc_4F03:
ld a, 0

loc_4F05:
pop bc
ret

First off, what is the purpose of this routine? It is a really complicated way to calculate the number of trials an app should have, I'll show the code that calls it at the end. But let's try to figure out what this routine does. (To be honest, I didn't figure it out until just now.)

The expected results are given by this table:
if A = 0-16  result = 2^A - 1
if A >= 17  result = 0

However, since the result is returned in A, the real table is:
if A = 0-8  result = 2^A - 1
if A >= 9-16  result = 255
if A >= 17  result = 0


Now, let's break this down and see where they went so wrong.

transformA:
push bc
ld c, 11h
sub c
jp nc, loc_4F03
or a
adc a, c

When you see this, your expected response should be "wtf." What are they doing? First off, why don't they just do CP 11h \ JR NC, loc_4F03? Then, why do they use ADC? I honestly believe the person who wrote this code didn't know that ADD existed.

cp 0
jr z, loc_4F03
cp 1
jr z, loc_4F03
ld b, a
dec b
ld a, 2

Again, horrible. CP 0 is a no. CP 1 is acceptable, but DEC A is preferred. And would you look at that, they DEC A anyways!

loc_4EFA:
sla a
djnz loc_4EFA
ld b, 1
sub b
jr loc_4F05

They actually did the loop correct, which is a surprise. But what on earth are they doing at the end. Again, I don't think this programmer knew that you are allowed to do actions to A, like ADD and SUB. But the worst part is that they could have used DEC A, but what really sets this apart is that they have already used DEC once! It's not like they didn't know it existed.

loc_4F03:
ld a, 0

loc_4F05:
pop bc
ret

They finally wrap it up with this. XOR A would be preferred, but the programmer probably didn't know what XOR does.

For comparison, here's how the routine should look:
transformA:
or a
ret z
cp 11h
jr c, notOver17
xor a
ret
notOver17:
ld b, a ;b is trash anyways
ld a, 1
shiftLoop:
add a, a
djnz shiftLoop
dec a
ret

Ok, but it doesn't stop there, here's the code that calls it.

call getCertByte

loc_4E55:
push af
ld b, 9
sub b
jr c, loc_4E6B
pop af
ld b, 8
sub b
call transfromA
ld d, a
ld a, 8
call transformA
ld e, a
jr loc_4E72

loc_4E6B:
ld d, 0
pop af
call transformA
ld e, a

loc_4E72:

It should be noted that LD A, 8 \ CALL transformA is the equivalent of LD A, 255.


Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Hopefully this will help to explain the dislike of TI that the more advanced assembly programmers share. It is code like this that causes Err:Version and Err:Bad Address, and the OS is full of it.

Edit:
   Hey, what an awesome post to be number 1000.

[Feature Wishlist]
-Allow Symbolic
-Allow Graph³
-Make the ability to run GUIs (read spoiler for more informations about what I think about)

Official support for graph3 and Symbolic would be pretty tough because I'd have a mess with the hook chaining. However, what you want to do isn't hard.

You would make a program like this.

ld hl, symbolicName
rst 20h
bcall(_findApp)
jr c, noSymbolic

ld hl, $43B7
bcall(_enableRawKeyHook)
ld hl, $43E1
bcall(_enableTokenHook) ;straight from symbolic
ld hl, $47D0
bcall(_enableParserHook)

noSymbolic:
ld hl, graph3Name
rst 20h
bcall(_findApp)
jr c, noGraph3

ld hl, $4083
bcall(_enableYEquHook) ;straight from graph3
ld hl, $4087
bcall(_enableWindowHook)
ld hl, $408B
bcall(_enableGraphHook)
ld hl, $408F
bcall(_enableAppChangeHook)

noGraph3:
ret

symbolicName:
.db appObj, "Symbolic " ;the apps probably have spaces
graph3Name: ;  after their names
.db appObj, "Graph3   "


And then make it "Run on zStart" with ON + 0. I attached an assembled version.

-Make the ability to run GUIs (read spoiler for more informations about what I think about)

I think you mean APIs, (application programming interface) and yes I've thought about it. It wouldn't be hard at all, but it would have to be after I go two pages due to the space it would take.

Quote from: ben_g on May 18, 2011, 04:04:27 pm

yea, but not like this. to me, this always happens:
TI-connect can't find the divice
OR: ti-divice detected, but couldn't get status
But now, it connects as it should, and when I send something to it, it starts the transfer, interrupts the transfer and says 'ti-device detected, but couldn't get status'. I never had this with my previous OS

EDIT: now it says 'transfer failed, a retry may be succesfull', but a retry isn't sucessfull, nor a 10th retry...

I got the same problem can someone help me?

Hopefully, I wrote an awesome tutorial on Ti-Connect, which can be found here.

virtual desktops! (Or multiple desktops!)

The main problem I have with that is that the homescreen doesn't really even remember that much. For instance, an AP chem test half way though the year will easily take the equivalent of 4 homescreen buffers. So I think to do this, I would have to increase the OS's command history.

And of course, this would create a whole new area of the extra memory that people can't touch, and that would be no fun

Is it possible to make a shortcut to compile with axe inside the program editor. When I'm done making changes, it'd be nice if I could compile from the editor instead of going to the program's name in the editor again.

I didn't do that because the program editor is not a friendly place. Yes, I could close the currently editing program and compile it, but reopening the program seamlessly would not be easy at all.

A very effective alternative would be: Set a compile shortcut for that program (ON + nuimber in edit menu). Then, whenever you quit the program, just press that shortcut on the homescreen. Of course this isn't quite as nice for single use programs, but, it's as nice as I can make it without some serious hacking.

I made an interesting font. It's based off one of my favorite fonts, which just happens to be my new coding font: Cloister Black.

How on earth do you code with that? But I am glad to see a custom font.