Omnimaga

Calculator Community => TI Calculators => General Calculator Help => Topic started by: PoisonedV on October 17, 2006, 06:20:00 pm

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: PoisonedV on October 17, 2006, 06:20:00 pm

OK, 1. should I use BASIC or C for my 89 T? What are the pro's and con's?
2. Where can I learn BASIC or C? 3. How hard is each one

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: rivereye on October 18, 2006, 04:20:00 am

BASIC is easier, but C will be faster.

TIGCC might have a tutorial (not sure), and there is a BASIC tutorial at http://tifreakware.calcgames.org

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: Liazon on October 18, 2006, 11:51:00 am

Use C, you can always ask for help here or anywhere really.  But it's not going to make you better at computer C though.  Most of the stuff to make C programs fast on 68k calcs you will NEVER see on a computer.  You will have to actually program a computer to become more familiar with the ANSI computer functions, but at least you'll know all the nuances of the language

tutorials:

http://www.technoplaza.net/

Regular books on C are really helpful for letting you learn abstract computer concepts like pointers and memory, but when it comes time to make a "hello program," you won't be seeing your friendly printf(), but rather Ti-OS's DrawStr().  (ok so maybe you can use printf() on 68k calcs to print text, but it takes up so much more space and it takes a little longer to parse and check parameters.)

Grayscale is not built into the Calc, but is built into the design of TIGCC's outputed code.

Over all, go with C.  It's just so much better, but you can't program on calc if that's what you're looking for.  I think that's the only real advantage of BASIC.

if you've got more questions, just post.  I'd be happy to answer them, though out of all of the TIGCC programmers here (Alex, MathStuf, Ranman, bfr, etc.) I'm the least experienced.  However, I will be around most of the time for awhile.  I've still got my first project to finish.

edit: don't forget about the irc channel.  #omnimaga on irc.dragon-fire.org to find any of us.  #tigcc on irc.freequest.org to ask the ppl who made TIGCC.

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 18, 2006, 12:58:00 pm

theres BASIC, ASM and C on 68k


i would go with C though. Because ASM is very hard and considering C is almost as powerful since C is much easier and not much harder than BASIC it will offer good balance. Also there is very few remaining 68k BASIC coders it seems (most BASIC rpgs in Omnimaga date back in the 90s), so it may be a lil hard to get help and support :S

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: tifreak on October 19, 2006, 01:26:00 am

I need to see about posting up the techno plaza tutorials in my tutorials section... I will of course, try to get the site admin's permission first... :P

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: Halifax on October 19, 2006, 10:30:00 am

Yea I think that the 68k series moved to C games because there was too big a gap between basic games and ASM games not like the z80 series where you can find some basic games that rival ASM games but yes I would recommend learning C because it seems like BASIC games are obsulete(however you spell that) on the 68k series

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: Liazon on October 19, 2006, 10:56:00 am

well, that's not to say they weren't impressive back in their day.  But if you ask me, C is a lot like basic, except you have to do more work to create your variables.  I duno if that's accurate, but I think it's a good way to think of C compared to basic.  I guess the cost of speed is that you have to have a better understanding of what is going on.

Basic did have flib (kinda like xlib) to power it, and it was actually pretty easy to get gs with pure basic on 68k.  I don't know however because I didn't start with basic on 68k.

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: Alex on October 19, 2006, 12:15:00 pm

I recommend you start with BASIC. Play with it for two or three months until you get the feel for reading key input, drawing sprites, and having a simple game structure. Then start reading the tutorials over at http://www.technoplaza.net/

Don't jump straight on C, it will be intimidating. I know it was for me, and it bounced me right back to Basic for a year or so :)

- Alex

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: bfr on October 19, 2006, 01:21:00 pm

I started with machine code and worked my way down. XD

I recommend starting with TI-BASIC, or C if you think you can handle it (the basic stuff in of course isn't that hard because it is basic >.<, no, not TI-BASIC :Oo:, but it gets harder...).  For calculator programming, here's the route I went, which you probably won't want to do, because things are mixed up and not in the way they should be, such as TI-83+ Assembly before TI-83+ TI-BASIC :P (note that this is in the order which I first started actually programming in these languages):

TI-86 TI-BASIC
68K C
68K TI-BASIC
TI-86 Assembly
TI-83+ Assembly
TI-83+ TI-BASIC

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: PoisonedV on October 22, 2006, 11:42:00 am

Thanks guys. I'm a Actionscript programmer, which isn't technically OOP, so I'll definately tackle C later. Thanks for all the resources.

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: bfr on October 22, 2006, 11:49:00 am

I may have misunderstood you, but it seemed to me as if you were saying that C was an object-oriented langauge.  C isn't an object-oriented language; C++ is an object-oriented language.

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: PoisonedV on October 26, 2006, 09:27:00 am

ooh, woops, made that mistake.

Title: Gahh where do I start
Post by: SilverCalcKnight|_ on October 26, 2006, 09:52:00 am

You should probably start with BASIC, it's simple and quite powerful, although it's not as powerful as C. C will be easy for you to learn if you already know another programming language like Jave. Also, C is almost as fast as ASM. I know that I'd be able to help you with BASIC, and Liazon is pretty talented with C, you could ask him if you want to go with that route. You actually may not have to learn either, you could always make sprites. There's quite a bit of demand for sprites, in my case because I program for a reason. (I'm a horrible artist : |)

-=SilverCalcKnight|_=-