Author Topic: Starting game programing  (Read 7708 times)

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Offline sergepca

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Starting game programing
« on: June 16, 2009, 04:33:25 pm »
Hello folks,
   
I have some questions regarding TI and programming games on calculator.

In fact, I'm an "old man" who don't touched a calculator since the end of high school or 10 years ago, and I am interested in programming games (typically RPG).

I'm looking for a development platform that would be like 8-bit computers of the time, ie provided with programming languages and programmable directly above , like in the bus :D (without using a computer fixed).

Specifically, graphical calculators seems appropriate.
Know that I have a HP49 and I wonder if TI would not be better (TI-Basic and xlib).

So what would be the best IT for such use?
A TI89 necessary?
A TI8 sufficient? The 83 programs operating there on 84?

Thank you for your clarification.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2009, 12:01:24 am »
Hiya and welcome here :)

Unfortunately, I never touched a HP calculator myself, so I don't know how much powerful they are compared to TI calcs. However:

The TI built in language from TI-73 to TI-92 and Voyage 200 graphing calcs is easier to learn than HP built in language from what I heard. However, it's very slow. I don't know if it's slower or faster than the HP language. You can still make games such as RPGs with it, though. Else there's z80 and 68k assembly, depending of the platform, and C, on 68k calcs. Most people over here do TI-BASIC (with xLIB/Celtic III), though, so we would be able to help more on that.

For calculator RPGs, if you want to see how TI-BASIC RPGs can be, check out Nyaar, Noahbaby94 game, Illusiat 13 in the projects section and other games as well. There's also a TI-83 Plus RPG nostalgia video serie on Youtube showing some TI-BASIC RPGs made from 1998 to early 2005, before xLIB and Celtic III applications came out. ASM is much harder, altough it is much more powerful. An example of what can be done in assembly would be the grayscale RPG in the calc project ideas section. There are also games such as Dying Eyes and Joltima as example.

TI-89 is more powerful when it comes to games, because the LCD is much better than the TI-83+ and because of the processor. However, they are rather expensive and harder to use in general. Fewer people uses them too it seems these days. Don't get a TI-Nspire, especially not a CAS. It barely has any programming capabilities.

I personally own almost every TI calculator models and various Casio calculators and I've been programming TI-BASIC for 8 years now and the TI-83 Plus series is still my favourite. Btw, the TI-84+ is backwards compatible with it

Offline sergepca

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2009, 04:14:50 pm »
Thank you for this clarification.
If I summarize, the choice is between TI84 and TI89.
For what I want to program in BASIC RPG, without a PC and on the bus, a 89 is useless?
As I am older, I have therefore in the budget is not limited. :)

Offline Ti-newb

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2009, 04:22:45 pm »
I don't know about u. But i CANNOT Find any help on the Ti-89. This is a problem for me.. cause im used to Ti-84, and the Ti-89 is slightly different.. and also the controls are different. So Sergepca, if you pick one of these calculators, you most likeley will stick with it (kk not to dis the Ti-89. but my freind got it and because he couldn't find any help with programming, he quit.)   )= but i don't really know if there are lots of forums out there.  So my suggestion. is Ti-84 XD!!! maybe SE if u want. The only benefit it gives is.. Tons more memory, and it's faster... but i doubt anyone will need that amount of memory, but the speed.. u can never have enuf!

SE = Silver Edition.

Offline calc84maniac

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2009, 04:30:52 pm »
I think Silver Edition would be worth it. It's only another $10 (if I remember correctly) for twice the flash ROM. :)
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Offline sergepca

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2009, 04:49:06 pm »
Oh come on guy, no one for defend programming on the TI89 or V200 ? ;-D
So, Z80 stay better than 68000 for real life ?

Offline TravisE

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2009, 05:06:39 pm »
I don't have any real experience with the 84+, but from what I understand, the TI-89's TI-BASIC is the most advanced "out of the box" (that is, without any extra libraries such as xlib, flib, etc.) and the most flexible. Not to say it doesn't have its annoyances—I really think that all the TIs have a lot of extremely annoying limitations that really shouldn't be there, especially when you're attempting to do large, serious development in TI-BASIC. Though I should mention that since I have done far more coding on the TI-89 in BASIC (over eight years' worth!) than any other calculator, I'm a bit biased here. But I would definitely see what I could do to help anyone with TI-89 programming questions.

I got an HP 50g some time around the beginning of this year (I've always wanted to see what the HPs are like), and its programming language seems to get in the way the least when it comes to large projects out of any calculator I've used. In fact, it seems to have been actually designed for large projects, and some features like the built-in debugger are very helpful. However, as many people say, it has a steep learning curve if you're programming in straight RPN—it's very different and it takes a great deal of practice and getting used to. And there are a lot of strange, tricky areas that I've had to figure out and work around, so it's not the sort of thing to do if you want results very quickly. However, if you have a lot of time to devote to it, there are a lot of possibilities, and there are even on-calc assemblers for lower-level languages as far as I know (though I haven't yet gotten to an advanced enough stage to try them out, so I can't comment on them now).
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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2009, 07:01:17 pm »
TI-89 is still used by some people. However to get help you would pretty much need to check http://www.tifreakware.net or http://tict.ticalc.org forums , since they have more 68k users. However, maybe you could still get some help over here, plus you can still announce your future projects, since a lot of us owns TI-89t

Offline simplethinker

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2009, 07:05:57 pm »
A couple other forums to get good TI-89 help are TI|BD and UTI.  In particular, DarkerLine (a regular contributor at both sites) is pretty helpful with 89 programming.
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Offline necro

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #9 on: June 18, 2009, 02:04:23 am »
I have an 89 titanium but I gave up programing it pretty quickly as its a rather complex calc compared to the 83/84 series.
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Offline Galandros

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #10 on: June 18, 2009, 04:58:04 am »
Don't forget there is BBC Basic port to TI-83+ series.

It can do games comparable to TI-BASIC with libs or even assembly. It should surpass TI-BASIc things. And is a new programming experience that surprisingly is having a slow development on it. Maybe with some exciting games on it (like Tetris to start off) and a big RPG can launch interest on it.
I completely ignore if you can do massive things with BBC BASIC.
But it allows to run assembly and so a lib is possible in the future to overcome some things like TI-BASIC libs do.


About 68k line, there are few people around but some can help. Happy programming in the future!
PS: tell us what you think of HP compared to TI. I would like to hear ;)
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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #11 on: June 18, 2009, 09:25:41 am »
I doubt a big RPG can be done with BBC Basic, unless BBC Basic has support for both sub-routines and copying alerady existing BBC Basic programs from the archive to the RAM. If it doesn't support both these things, then forget about a large RPG, you will pretty much need to have your RPG split into 2 hour chapters, password protected (the password gets told when you finish chapter 1, for example, and when starting chapter 2, you're asked for the password the first time you run it, or the program checks the saved file (if saved files are even possible with BBC Basic) to make sure it's a valid chapter 2 save file. Then you do that with the next few chapters, with a different password each time.

Offline sergepca

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #12 on: June 18, 2009, 02:55:57 pm »
Well,

After new search, I just find stuff like OTBP or TSAM on calc.
So, can we consider that a "little" 84SE as TI-Basic, BBC Basic, and ASM on calc ?

It's just amazing.

Offline Galandros

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #13 on: June 18, 2009, 04:17:54 pm »
Well,

After new search, I just find stuff like OTBP or TSAM on calc.
So, can we consider that a "little" 84SE as TI-Basic, BBC Basic, and ASM on calc ?

It's just amazing.
Yeah, it is quite interesting. There are nice utilities. Some we at first would never imagine possible. I am jealous of you, that can have big surprises easily. That was "cheap" fun.
Trying assembly oncalc is not great idea...

Did you mention about nspire not recommend for coding? I read this post in diagonal... Short version is nspire has no output functions (like lines, points and even text output)

I doubt a big RPG can be done with BBC Basic, unless BBC Basic has support for both sub-routines and copying alerady existing BBC Basic programs from the archive to the RAM. If it doesn't support both these things, then forget about a large RPG, you will pretty much need to have your RPG split into 2 hour chapters, password protected (the password gets told when you finish chapter 1, for example, and when starting chapter 2, you're asked for the password the first time you run it, or the program checks the saved file (if saved files are even possible with BBC Basic) to make sure it's a valid chapter 2 save file. Then you do that with the next few chapters, with a different password each time.
hmm you might be right. But I will check this once I do my last exam.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2009, 04:21:17 pm by Galandros »
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Offline tifreak

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Re: Starting game programing
« Reply #14 on: June 18, 2009, 11:04:45 pm »
I don't know about u. But i CANNOT Find any help on the Ti-89. This is a problem for me.. cause im used to Ti-84, and the Ti-89 is slightly different.. and also the controls are different. So Sergepca, if you pick one of these calculators, you most likeley will stick with it (kk not to dis the Ti-89. but my freind got it and because he couldn't find any help with programming, he quit.)   )= but i don't really know if there are lots of forums out there.  So my suggestion. is Ti-84 XD!!! maybe SE if u want. The only benefit it gives is.. Tons more memory, and it's faster... but i doubt anyone will need that amount of memory, but the speed.. u can never have enuf!

SE = Silver Edition.

http://tifreakware.net/tutorials/89/ and the forums are a good place to get help for the 68k, as many of the active users there seem to program exclusively for that line.
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