Features Wishlist

[Builderboy]

Woot ^^ nothing is nicer than uploading a new Axe version onto your calculator and watching the file sizes shrink

[DJ Omnimaga]

Cool to hear more optimizations are being added. I will have to compile my Axe TUnnel game with 0.4.6 to see the difference. It has been a while since I last updated it. It was using 0.2.6 I think.

[Raylin]

Progress?

[graphmastur]

It still amazes me that this thread is 110 pages long.

[Quigibo]

Yeah, I've been making a lot of progress.  I fixed all the bugs that were present last version, and added a ton more auto-optimizations.  Most programs are decreasing in size by about 1% which is actually pretty significant for not having to do anything at all to your existing programs.  The new optimizations are mostly with comparisons (both signed and unsigned) and equalities.  Also, I've been working on adding some new commands.  One of which is the not() command which will finally be usable to invert the lower 8 bits and not()^r will invert the full 16 bit number.   Right now, I am working on variable reallocation.  There should be a lot of new progress over the next few weeks since I'm on break.  Axe 0.4.7 will be the last of the betas and after that, the final stable release will be complete with full Axiom support.

[Runer112]

Most programs are decreasing in size by about 1% which is actually pretty significant for not having to do anything at all to your existing programs.  The new optimizations are mostly with comparisons (both signed and unsigned) and equalities.

[Deep Thought]

Yeah, I've been making a lot of progress.  I fixed all the bugs that were present last version, and added a ton more auto-optimizations.  Most programs are decreasing in size by about 1% which is actually pretty significant for not having to do anything at all to your existing programs.  The new optimizations are mostly with comparisons (both signed and unsigned) and equalities.  Also, I've been working on adding some new commands.  One of which is the not() command which will finally be usable to invert the lower 8 bits and not()^r will invert the full 16 bit number.   Right now, I am working on variable reallocation.  There should be a lot of new progress over the next few weeks since I'm on break.  Axe 0.4.7 will be the last of the betas and after that, the final stable release will be complete with full Axiom support.

Final release

Somehow that sounds ominous. But it's awesome!

As a suggestion, though, how about ! being used for not(? Just my opinion, since I'm used to !If  and Else!If  now

[Happybobjr]

Just saw you changed your progress change to 70%.  Good job.
I wonder how many non-omnimaga users use axe.  I occasionally see something on ti-calc  from a non-omnigamian.

Anyways, great work, i can't wait.

request: what are the chances of two bytes for send( ?

[calc84maniac]

Yeah, I've been making a lot of progress.  I fixed all the bugs that were present last version, and added a ton more auto-optimizations.  Most programs are decreasing in size by about 1% which is actually pretty significant for not having to do anything at all to your existing programs.  The new optimizations are mostly with comparisons (both signed and unsigned) and equalities.  Also, I've been working on adding some new commands.  One of which is the not() command which will finally be usable to invert the lower 8 bits and not()^r will invert the full 16 bit number.   Right now, I am working on variable reallocation.  There should be a lot of new progress over the next few weeks since I'm on break.  Axe 0.4.7 will be the last of the betas and after that, the final stable release will be complete with full Axiom support.

Final release

Somehow that sounds ominous. But it's awesome!

As a suggestion, though, how about ! being used for not(? Just my opinion, since I'm used to !If  and Else!If  now

not() is bitwise complement. If you want logical not like in TI-Basic, you can just use =0.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah, I've been making a lot of progress.  I fixed all the bugs that were present last version, and added a ton more auto-optimizations.  Most programs are decreasing in size by about 1% which is actually pretty significant for not having to do anything at all to your existing programs.  The new optimizations are mostly with comparisons (both signed and unsigned) and equalities.  Also, I've been working on adding some new commands.  One of which is the not() command which will finally be usable to invert the lower 8 bits and not()^r will invert the full 16 bit number.   Right now, I am working on variable reallocation.  There should be a lot of new progress over the next few weeks since I'm on break.  Axe 0.4.7 will be the last of the betas and after that, the final stable release will be complete with full Axiom support.

YAY! And by variable re-allocation, do you mean moving the variables A to Z out of L1 so L1 is 768 bytes?

[Quigibo]

@DJ, yes.  You will be able to move them where-ever you want (including as part of the program itself).  The only limitation is that this can't be decided at run-time, it has to be a constant address.

Another feature I forgot to mention that I'm working on now is getkey(X) with a variable argument.  The routine is a little large (about 20 bytes) but I can see some useful application with this for things like customized keys in games, a piano keyboard, or a trackpad by dragging your fingers along the entire key pad which is something I've done before in BASIC.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Woah we can even put them where we want? Awesome! I guess it should be useful depending of which memory area the person needs. I personally think sometimes a person may actually need both buffers plus L1 in some cases. Maybe that could open the door for a DispGraph^rrr command in the future? (8 level grayscale like in Calc84maniac's chips challenge). Also I like the getkey idea. Will it slow the routine down when using it normally, though (such as Getkey(15))? I think the new one should be pretty useful, though. One thing I'm thinking about are those games allowing the user to choose controls in the options menu. Will it be possible to use them like Getkey({L1+5}), for example?

[Quigibo]

Look-ahead parsing is used when looking at the getkey routine.  So if the number inside the parenthesis is constant like getkey(15) it converts the key code into the correct "DKey code" as it compiles.  On the other hand, if the number is not a constant, like getkey({L1+3}) then it evaluates the inside and performs the conversion at runtime using the slower routine.

By the way, between my last post and this post, I finished the routine and tested it out; it works great!

8-level grayscale would be awesome, but I'm skeptical how good it would look on the calculator.  Is that routine available online anywhere?  Also, the programmer would have to fill the buffer with sprites themselves since the normal sprite routines don't use that buffer.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Ah that's good. If you don't use the new routine at all, it's excluded, right?

And nice to hear the routine works! As for 8 level grayscale, you would have to ask Calc84maniac. On a 83+ it's out of the question, because the screen only allows 6 levels to be seen at once (bad contrast). Calc84maniac said it looks quite nice on a 84+. Flickery, a little bit, but pretty nice considering it's just a z80 calc.

Also is filling the buffers ourselves as fast as using the sprite routines? Someone does the former to use 24x24 sprites so he won't have to use 9 sprites nor the Bitmap routine.

[LordConiupiter]

Just saw you changed your progress change to 70%.  Good job.
I wonder how many non-omnimaga users use axe.  I occasionally see something on ti-calc  from a non-omnigamian.

Anyways, great work, i can't wait.

request: what are the chances of two bytes for send( ?

somewhere near zero: look at this post

I really am looking forward to the next release! good luck!