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Messages - willrandship

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1
Miscellaneous / Re: Post your desktop
« on: April 12, 2015, 05:20:23 am »
I'll be honest, at first glance I thought that was just a modified OS X desktop.

2
TI 68K / Re: Descent 68k/X3D
« on: April 12, 2015, 02:08:24 am »
This is really impressive. I'm a bit confused, though: If it's based on descent, why are the screenshots focused on walking around? The Descent I remember had zero-G flying everywhere!

In any case, great job on the engine. It might actually give me a reason to use my recently acquired TI-89.

3
TI Z80 / Re: TI-OS Optimizations
« on: April 11, 2015, 07:08:59 pm »
@harold faster graphing is a possibility, especially if I optimize the line drawing and screen updating functions.

@Sorunome The patching should hopefully evade the copyright concerns as far as sending changes. Also, I'm intentionally padding modified areas to preserve their alignment in the system, at least until I can get a full build with dynamic bcall labeling built.

@ben_g Mathprint functionality isn't impossible (Kerm demonstrated it actually works on the 83+ BE as is) but if I use it I'll have to extensively modify the code. Also, I definitely plan on improving the floats. Changing from BCD to IEEE or similar would be difficult, since so many routines use it, but it would make several things far faster.

Also, another important point: I'll be avoiding anything that causes incompatibility problems in general. BCALLs won't be changing positions in the table, although unused ones may be moved and new ones added, etc. All LCD drivers should work, no matter how buggy and slow. TI-BASIC programs should work without modification. Timings for various things will change, but programs that don't rely on extremely precise timing should continue to work.

4
TI Z80 / TI-OS Optimizations
« on: April 11, 2015, 07:58:56 am »
I've had this project sitting in a folder for over a year now, and I decided to pick it back up. I'm posting now because I'm actually making progress that I would consider release-worthy, rather than just a toy.

Everyone knows TI-OS is horribly bloated and slow, but we've built so much software into the existing system that no one's too anxious to leave. So, why not fix the problems and keep the OS as it is?

That's what I'm doing. Reprogramming bits and pieces of TI-OS to be faster, better, smarter, stronger, etc.

All the work is being done based on OS 2.41 for 84+SE at the moment. (Although, currently it's all taking place in page 00, so that's pretty much moot) Some of the optimizations will definitely be ported to the other models, but others (like improved USB) obviously wouldn't apply. Ideally, though, the modifications would converge to a single OS version that works on ALL the models in the 83+/84+SE range. (No, I'm not planning to support the CSE or CE. At least, not for now.)

If I release anything, to avoid copyright concerns, it will be patches against the ROMs I specify. It's a historically non-grey method of distributing hacked and modded software, so I hope I can avoid any nasty legal letters with this.

So, without further ado, here's what I've done so far: (I will edit this list with updates)

* Optimized LCD_Delay routine in Page00. It saves a minimum of 260 cycles per screen command on all models, for any software that uses the built in routines. (Not Axe, or most Asm). This results in roughly a 10% improvement in display-heavy routines in TI-BASIC, for example.

Here's what else I want to look into, but haven't done yet:

* The TI-BASIC interpreter (I bet this is loaded with goodies)
* Floating point optimizations
* Various frequently used system bcalls
* Improved Graphing (mostly through optimized fp and draw commands, but also ideally by not updating the screen until it's drawn fully)

Let me know of any suggestions, ideas, discouragements, etc. you may have.

5
Super Smash Bros. Open / Re: [Axe] Super Smash Bros. Open
« on: November 16, 2014, 11:23:02 pm »
Edit: Incorrect info. It's an app, not a program.

6
KnightOS / Re: KnightOS
« on: November 16, 2014, 06:48:54 pm »
LLVM is not particularly suited for z80. It assumes, among other things, the ability to do fast, stack-offset memory access. The z80 doesn't do that. The purpose for those accesses is to allow functions to exist once in code for arbitrary, stack-based memory locations.

SDCC on the other hand is designed with embedded CPUs like the z80 in mind. It uses a lot of RAM compared to assembly, and it's a fair amount slower, but still far above what LLVM would be able to produce without some miraculous IR conversions.

I'm glad to hear all that progress! Sounds like the ball's really rolling, especially with the C support. Maybe we could just port xcas and have working calculation software.

One question: Does the C compiler have a way to do text-based programs with the standard scanf/printf functions?

7
Site Feedback and Questions / Re: Dear Omnimaga
« on: November 11, 2014, 05:19:53 pm »
I can't believe what I'm seeing.

Eeems' work has vastly improved omnimaga over the last year. The hiccups that have happened along the way are not harmful to the community, and do not enforce any kind of behavior regarding discussions in the forum. If anything, the primary issue is the lack of a beta-testing channel for new features.

Wouldn't that be a reasonable compromise? Have something along the lines of an SFM theme for new site changes, with a "stable" theme that gets updated a little while after.

Eeems has been the only person actively managing the site's health for a long time now. Arguments about dictatorship vs democracy aren't directly related to this.

By the way, the "explicit disagreement with support staff" were you referring to this suggestion that DJ made, which Eeems said wasn't in the plans?
Quote
[20:00:36]<   DJ Omnimaga   >   Actually
[20:00:58]<   DJ Omnimaga   >   Maybe edits could be a different color and limited to 1 notification a minute by the same author?
[20:02:05]<   Eeems   >   DJ: edit's are going to be the same colour, and they are under the same limitations as they are for marking a topic as new when someone edits something

I don't see anything else even closely resembling an argument, and even that was quite mild.

Also:
Quote
We feel that he has been forcing people to join a different channel to carry discussions about certain topics he doesn't like, while there is no topic restriction for the #omnimaga channel.
That's referring to this, right?
Quote
[21:34:23]<   Eeems   >   We talking about anime?
[21:34:39]<   Eeems   >   If so, I'd suggest moving the discussion to #anime (#omnimaga-anime on efnet)
[21:34:40]<   jamesguessis   >   yesh Eeems
A simple suggestion to move to a topic-oriented channel. There were no threats. Having separate chat channels encourages discussion of those topics alongside others. It allows the conversation to continue unhindered by others derailing it with other topics.

Eeems has been the most responsible administrator I've seen on this site. He's levelheaded and dedicated, not to mention his great work on various parts of the forum. Sending this kind of message shows just how little you appreciate him, and I wouldn't blame him for quitting because of it.

I'm willing to bet I'll get tempbanned for this post, just like when I was trying to be the voice of reason when issues came up with sircmpwn. Who's the censoring dictator? The one who quietly works to improve what he sees around him, offering mild suggestions for moderation at best? How about the mods who decide that all changes must be approved? All improvements should be shoved down a bottleneck before even being tested? Any dissenting voice must be obliterated?

You're tearing the community apart over nothing.

8
Humour and Jokes / Re: Important life algorithms
« on: November 11, 2014, 02:49:19 am »
Code: [Select]
while(1):
 if(time()<0600): sleep(0400);
 for task in todo:
  if task.due < time(): panic()
  elif task.due - time() < 200: panicdo(task)
  else: sleep(0200)

9
Other / Re: Favorite distro or windows version?
« on: October 15, 2014, 02:20:38 pm »
I prefer Arch, personally, but wouldn't recommend it for most non-tech-savvy users. A nice debian stable installation works well there. I put one on my parents' computer 6 years ago and it's still running strong with no real maintenance.

10
I don't see how this would resolve the issue, since teachers wouldn't know if you had a way to revert it to the old mode. (Which, by the way, you easily could, using the standard OS-changing method)

Short answer: there's no way to do it permanently, or in any way that enforces the inability to do non-CAS functions given a few minutes.

You mentioned the ability to install a CAS OS on the non-CAS nspire. That method also works just fine in reverse. However, it runs from the calculator's RAM rather than truly installing itself. A simple reboot would get you back into the CAS OS, taking around 15 seconds.

If your primary motive is to save money, you could consider buying a used calculator. You can find used ti-83+ calcs on amazon for around $35.

11
It's better to keep Li-Ion batteries charged, rather than run them down and charge them from the bottom. Some other batteries work better by draining and recharging fully, but the ideal for Lithium-based batteries is actually to keep them at around 60-80% of their maximum. Good charging circuits do this for you, so that ideal 80-ish% is actually what reports as 100%.

As far as just using wall current goes, there's no reason to take the battery out in those circumstances.

12
Super Smash Bros. Open / Re: [Axe] Super Smash Bros. Open
« on: September 28, 2014, 09:26:18 pm »
Congrats on the Community Project subforum! It looks like you're making decent progress on this. I especially like the ability to write characters in multiple languages.

13
TI-Nspire / Re: Calling all Linux Kernel developers!
« on: September 14, 2014, 07:13:20 pm »
Using raspbian makes very little sense. All of its packages are optimized for FPU support, which I don't believe the nspire has. There are ports of debian to armv5 platforms that you could potentially use, though.

Take a look at this page: https://www.debian.org/ports/arm/#about

The Marvell port in particular is ARMv5, and potentially others are as well.

The only real benefit obtained by using debian is the package manager, though, which takes up an impractical amount of space with package caches and such.

14
Art / Re: Ye olde fonte (free 6x8 mono font)
« on: September 09, 2014, 05:25:12 pm »
DJ zStart has a built-in font editor. You could put it in by hand with that, then save the var it creates.

Or, you could hex-edit an existing font. It's not compressed.

15
Community Contests / Re: Code Golf Contest #7
« on: August 30, 2014, 10:41:58 pm »
Well, if you had a language that had sub-byte commands, like SysRPL, you could implement something that would, at the very least, loop a bit.

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