Author Topic: eZ80 Hardware Discussion  (Read 51667 times)

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Offline matthias1992

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #30 on: August 07, 2010, 02:56:48 pm »
Albertrocks: very true.

Maybe at one point we can have someone that knows what they are doing, write a windows program tha will change something in ti-basic into kos format?

Good idea. Plus it will actually change the program so the calculator it self doesn't have to do the scaling which saves on speed, altough these programs are going to be bigger because you can't optimize 'em to the max. But size isn't much of a problem anymore.

I agree on >20Mhz

As for RAM:16mb?
Flash-Rom: Also 24mb? maybe more, depends on OS size.
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Offline calc84maniac

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #31 on: August 07, 2010, 02:57:42 pm »
How are we going to make a compatibility layer without including the whole TI-OS? Face it, all programs made for TI-83+ rely on the TI software in some way.
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Offline matthias1992

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #32 on: August 07, 2010, 03:00:21 pm »
How are we going to make a compatibility layer without including the whole TI-OS? Face it, all programs made for TI-83+ rely on the TI software in some way.
True but happybobjr just offered the solution, converting converting converting. Won't work flawlessly but It will do. Secondly the asm programs will have little trouble being ported over, they only need to be enlarged or centered not entirely converted.
I think a windows program could easily convert say: Disp into something that KOS understands. When it comes to optimized basic-routines though..I dont know..
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Offline calc84maniac

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #33 on: August 07, 2010, 03:01:16 pm »
Albertrocks: very true.

Maybe at one point we can have someone that knows what they are doing, write a windows program tha will change something in ti-basic into kos format?

Good idea. Plus it will actually change the program so the calculator it self doesn't have to do the scaling which saves on speed, altough these programs are going to be bigger because you can't optimize 'em to the max. But size isn't much of a problem anymore.

I agree on >20Mhz

As for RAM:16mb?
Flash-Rom: Also 24mb? maybe more, depends on OS size.

The eZ80 can only address up to 16MB of memory total. Unless we want to include memory-swapping support like in the TI-83+, which I'm not completely opposed to. It might complicate things a bit, though.
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Offline alberthrocks

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #34 on: August 07, 2010, 03:01:32 pm »
Well, we're not going to throw away every single fun game written for the TI-8x series, are we? :P

I like the converter idea though. That would be very efficient, and avoid even including any of TI's stuff.
We would still need a Basic editor for TI (er, OT) Basic. Something similar, but with more features.
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Offline matthias1992

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #35 on: August 07, 2010, 03:03:00 pm »
Well, we're not going to throw away every single fun game written for the TI-8x series, are we? :P

I like the converter idea though. That would be very efficient, and avoid even including any of TI's stuff.
We would still need a Basic editor for TI (er, OT) Basic. Something similar, but with more features.
I hope you mean similar in terms of ease of use? Because Ti-basic lacks alot of features, I think we need to give OT-Basic a very, very good thought!
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Offline matthias1992

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #36 on: August 07, 2010, 03:07:46 pm »
Albertrocks: very true.

Maybe at one point we can have someone that knows what they are doing, write a windows program tha will change something in ti-basic into kos format?

Good idea. Plus it will actually change the program so the calculator it self doesn't have to do the scaling which saves on speed, altough these programs are going to be bigger because you can't optimize 'em to the max. But size isn't much of a problem anymore.

I agree on >20Mhz

As for RAM:16mb?
Flash-Rom: Also 24mb? maybe more, depends on OS size.

The eZ80 can only address up to 16MB of memory total. Unless we want to include memory-swapping support like in the TI-83+, which I'm not completely opposed to. It might complicate things a bit, though.

Aah I forgot about that, lets make 'em both 16 then shall we? everyone agrees? (I think we don't want to make this one too complex, we might enlarge the flahs and do page swapping there but I strongly suggest the ram being within the eZ80's range)
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Offline alberthrocks

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #37 on: August 07, 2010, 03:08:29 pm »
Well, as I said, OT Basic (or KOS Basic, whatever) should be superb and easy to write.
Maybe convert TI Basic files too? That's probably really easy.

For ASM programs, a decompiler needs to be written, then a converter which can convert bcalls and such to OTZ80 assembly/programs.
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Offline calc84maniac

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #38 on: August 07, 2010, 03:09:52 pm »
Why are people so opposed to the fact that new software can/will be written for this device? Nobody made such a big deal when the TI-83+ came out and we couldn't run TI-86 games on it. Perhaps someone could eventually write something like Emu8x if we want to use TI-83+ software, but I don't think we should make it such a big deal when designing this device. This is NOT TI. We might be throwing away "fun games", but games aren't the point of this device anyway. People can write new games if they want, taking advantage of how much better this device is than the TI-83+.
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Offline matthias1992

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #39 on: August 07, 2010, 03:13:57 pm »
Why are people so opposed to the fact that new software can/will be written for this device? Nobody made such a big deal when the TI-83+ came out and we couldn't run TI-86 games on it. Perhaps someone could eventually write something like Emu8x if we want to use TI-83+ software, but I don't think we should make it such a big deal when designing this device. This is NOT TI. We might be throwing away "fun games", but games aren't the point of this device anyway. People can write new games if they want, taking advantage of how much better this device is than the TI-83+.
I couldn't agree with you more. Yes I know this is contradictonary with the fact that I jsut argeed with alberthrocks on the comp. layer but this is actually more my point of view then that, I just don't want't to halt process beacuse of this.
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Offline alberthrocks

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #40 on: August 07, 2010, 03:18:55 pm »
We won't halt. We'll continue on with the OS building and hardware. But when we're done, we will eventually need to design a compat layer or converter. I really don't mind as long as Axe gets ported. :) But for the other students at school? They will be wanting that "Mario" or "Pacman99" game from the other person's TI, and when they try transfering it (or downloading and installing it), they would be kind of pissed that the calc can't run it. Again, just my 2 cents on the topic.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2010, 03:19:21 pm by alberthrocks »
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Offline calc84maniac

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #41 on: August 07, 2010, 03:25:51 pm »
We won't halt. We'll continue on with the OS building and hardware. But when we're done, we will eventually need to design a compat layer or converter. I really don't mind as long as Axe gets ported. :) But for the other students at school? They will be wanting that "Mario" or "Pacman99" game from the other person's TI, and when they try transfering it (or downloading and installing it), they would be kind of pissed that the calc can't run it. Again, just my 2 cents on the topic.
I don't understand this. If someone has a Casio graphing calculator, for example, why would they expect to run games made for a TI graphing calculator?
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Offline matthias1992

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #42 on: August 07, 2010, 03:26:25 pm »
We won't halt. We'll continue on with the OS building and hardware. But when we're done, we will eventually need to design a compat layer or converter. I really don't mind as long as Axe gets ported. :) But for the other students at school? They will be wanting that "Mario" or "Pacman99" game from the other person's TI, and when they try transfering it (or downloading and installing it), they would be kind of pissed that the calc can't run it. Again, just my 2 cents on the topic.
Maybe converting can be done on-calc? then as soon as it recieves a TI-Basic program it will auto-convert it, conversion can also be done manually of course. Seeing what Axe can do I don't think it's as impossible as it sounds. I do recommend giving a warning stating that since this is not the native programming language for the calc errors may occur or something like that. We want them to develop for our platform but be able, just 'be able' to use old programs.

Second, If people like our calc then we are sure to get tons of games within no-time! we could even provide those by the masses with the release (not pre-installed but downloadable from a site).

Is anyone in for pretty-print functionality? I personally am altough I hated the speed decrease with ti's version, I am sure we can do better then TI though. For a student it would be a big plus too I think!
« Last Edit: August 07, 2010, 03:26:48 pm by matthias1992 »
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Offline fb39ca4

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #43 on: August 07, 2010, 03:27:28 pm »
The processor is going to be fast enough that we can just write an 8x emulator.

Offline JonimusPrime

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Re: eZ80 Hardware Discussion
« Reply #44 on: August 07, 2010, 03:30:19 pm »
The processor is going to be fast enough that we can just write an 8x emulator.
IMO this is the only practical way to do any sort of compatibility, and heck if you have enough ram and rom storage of a 83+ rom would be no issue.

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