So "physics" is perfomed 4 times before the screen is updated.This also applies to computer programs. Thus, your argument is invalid :3
Uhu, but the refresh rate is about 60-90HzSo "physics" is perfomed 4 times before the screen is updated.This also applies to computer programs. Thus, your argument is invalid :3
That's definitely not the same font. Just look at the N.That's just windows scaling it big time. The shape of the other letters match.
Maybe they'll use an eZ80! =D Wouldn't that be awesome? hahawhat is a ez80?
The Zilog eZ80 is an 8-bit microprocessor which is essentially an updated version of the company's earlier Z80 8-bit microprocessor.
The eZ80 (like the Z380) is binary compatible with the Z80 and Z180, but almost four times as fast as the original Z80 chip at the same clock frequency. Available at up to 50 MHz (2004), the performance is comparable to a Z80 clocked at 200 MHz if fast memory is used (i.e. no wait states for opcode fetches, for data, or for I/O) or even higher in some applications (a 16-bit addition is 11 times as fast as in the original). The eZ80 also supports direct continuous addressing of 16 MB of memory without a memory management unit, by extending most registers (HL, BC, DE, IX, IY, SP, and PC) from 16 to 24 bits.
The processor has a 24-bit ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) and overlapped processing of several instructions (a so called pipeline) which are the two primary reasons for its speed. Unlike the older Z280 and Z380 it does not have (or need) a cache memory. Instead, it is intended to work with fast SRAM directly as main memory (as this has become much cheaper). Nor does it have the multiplexed bus of the Z280, making it as easy to work with (interface to) as the original Z80 and Z180, and equally predictable when it comes to exact execution times.
The chip has a memory interface that is similar to the original Z80, including the bus request/acknowledge pins, and adds four integrated chip selects. Versions are available with on-chip flash memory and on-chip zero wait-state SRAM (up to 256 KB Flash memory and 16 KB SRAM) but there are also external buses on all models. The eZ80 supports a free TCP/IP stack and operating system based on the Xinu operating system, as well as a real-time kernel.
Oh, nice! Let's have a 50MHZ calc :D (compared to 16 MHZ)Oh yeah,
and I'm wondering if ti reads along all this....
O EM GEE. WUT DON'T FUCKING TEASE ME TI, IS IT APRIL 1 AND I SOMEHOW MISSED IT?That was exactly my first thought when seeing this XD
Oh, nice! Let's have a 50MHZ calc :D (compared to 16 MHZ)Oh yeah,
and I'm wondering if ti reads along all this....I'm pretty surethey do :D
(also, a LOT of visits from TI on tiplanet actually come from Omnimaga (referral))
oh, and will it have extra ram? (probably not, lol)It's gotta have more RAM if it's going to be handling all those pixels.
Why did it die? D:
And i wonder if there will be a non-silver edition of the 84+c
SOmething I just saw that I like a lot: See attachment below, which shows the calc fonts zoomed in. Notice how they look very close to the standard small TI fonts? To me, it seems like that calc might be trying in some ways to not break graphical compatibility too much. And if the image quality happens to be poor and the fonts are actually pixelated IRL, then that's even better.I stated this earlier. It became apparent that the there is just one character that differs from the standard small font which is the N. Assuming that the font is scaled up twice the resolution is about 320 x 240pixels which is the same as the nspire.
I hope to see more info and if possible some tests.
The good thing is that according to calc84maniac, the guy said Asm commands were still present in the CATALOG.Why did it die? D:
And i wonder if there will be a non-silver edition of the 84+c
EDIT: Nvm got confused with Cooliojazz file editor project. Anyway OTcalc died because it could only progress during Summer due to school work.
Soo it might be safe to say that a z80 might cost $5 at max?A z-80 costs 20 cents at max :P
Btw is the calc on the photo a production model or a prototype?Probably a prototype reasonably close to the final model. Back in the day, the pilot classes were equipped with Nspire CAS+, before they scrapped that model.
Will the consumer OS feature the same GUI?Probably something close to it, unless it has something incomplete / wrong enough (or whatever other defect) for TI spending another year to fix it up. AFAWCT from observing the dates, that's exactly what occurred with the Nspire CAS+.
Btw is the calc on the photo a production model or a prototype? Will the consumer OS feature the same GUI?Good question but I believe that if this is some "final prototype", it wil lstill look the same, and that pretty much applies to the OS look too. But of course, for the OS, that can change over time anyway.
Nintendo has confirmed that the Wii U console will have the same price in Canada and the United States.
Well, we'll see. Recoding the GUI on top of the nucleus RTOS wouldn't be that much work, though, compared to the work of recoding an OS from scratch.They're apparently recoding the GUI either way. The question is whether they're really recreating the meat of the OS "from scratch", even if it's on top of Nucleus or whatever.
I hope they make it a double-buffered display for BASIC and graphing.What would be double-buffering in that case? Do you mean it would be faster to switch between screens or do you mean split screen? I personally don't want BASIC games to be windowed like in TI-Nspire BASIC D:
Considering how cheap they are, I doubt they'd put that much RAM in this thing (128KB -> 48KB anyone?), even if it is identical to the Nspire hardware in every other way (which we also can't assume).Although they have to do something about the screen. I don't think people will like if their 8xi images take the entire RAM.
Please also be mindful that the older color systems with z80 hardware were not full color; hardware sprites or tiles could only have a few colors at a time.That adds to nostalgia feelings :3
Please also be mindful that the older color systems with z80 hardware were not full color; hardware sprites or tiles could only have a few colors at a time. This artifact can be easily seen in "attribute clashing" of the ZX Spectrum graphics. In the Sega MasterSystem/GameGear and MSX, Texas Instruments' TMS9918 IC made these artifacts less apparent with the use of movable sprites.
[I lied. The TMS9918 does in fact have a rarely used mode that would map a single color to each pixel, but it had drawbacks in resolution.]
I assume from the picture that TI is not using a tiling method to display color on their screen. Mapping one color per pixel is much more CPU intensive.
EDIT: Maybe not too intensive if they use a good DMA.
I'm betting it will use a rechargeable battery (li-on) like the Nspire Touchpad and CX models. I think they last a few hours and gets charged completely in a few hours as well (except the first time which can take like 5-6)It says it has 100 hours of battery life, and two weeks under normal usage, although I never seem to get 100 hours out of it, and since I might use my calculator 10 hours a day instead of the normal half hour, it doesn’t last me too long either.
why wouldn't it use regular AAA's? the prizm does, and it has pretty good batt life. (actually, prizm allows both).Because the TI-Nspire CX doesn't and there are speculations that the new 84 might be built after the Nspire CX hardware, it is likely that TI is moving towards the lithium battery world for those advanced calcs. Plus I am sure they heard a lot about people who hate having to spend $2-10 every month on new batteries. Also in my Clickpad with cheap AAA batteries, if I play gbc4nspire, my calc lasts about 10 minutes (and about 3-5 hours with good batteries that costs $10). With my CX with the built-in battery, I get about 3-5 hours of gaming before it finally runs out of power.
Plus I am sure they heard a lot about people who hate having to spend $2-10 every month on new batteries.What I hate is that the rechargeable batteries cant be removed.
PRIZM batteries last 1-2 months with ~2-4hr. of usage... for me at least. Do TI calc use more battery?Its strange, but sometimes I find myself having to charge it every 1-2 days, other times I find myself recharging it every 1-2 weeks, even with near identical amounts of usage.
PRIZM batteries last 1-2 months with ~2-4hr. of usage... for me at least. Do TI calc use more battery?Its strange, but sometimes I find myself having to charge it every 1-2 days, other times I find myself recharging it every 1-2 weeks, even with near identical amounts of usage.
Yeah it is supposed to be removable, but neither of my two nspire cx’s have had a removable battery.
Also I think the battery on the Nspire can be removed, but you need a screwdriver and buy the battery online.
PRIZM batteries last 1-2 months with ~2-4hr. of usage... for me at least. Do TI calc use more battery?The nspire does, not in the least because it has almost3 times the processing power of the prizm. (When not overclocked at least)
I see, thanks for the explanation. Back in the days I was sure that cartridges used some sort of ROM or chip to keep data saved until a friend lent me a copy of Super Metroid where saved data kept vanishing every few day. I was told that it was a dying battery or something, but that was only 3 years after the game came out. My Ys III: Wanderers from Ys cartridge had the same problem, but back then I thought that the fact it had 15 save slots (which was very uncommon for a SNES game) was just too much for the battery lol. The Illusion of Gaia copy I tried had similar issues, but far less worse. Years later I was shocked to see many of my NES/SNES games with their save data intact (the last time I checked, only Secret of the Stars kept losing its data). I wonder what could cause batteries to die faster or something...I had this problem too with my copy of super metroid. I wound up replacing the battery.
At least I'm glad my calcs kept my data protected more reliably :P
from my experience, I think CX lasted a month or so with me keep on playing FF6 Advance quite a lot with overclocking.I wonder if some older programs might just use instructions taking more battery power, because when I play some games my battery got depleted faster.
TI has begun previewing the soon to be released TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition graphing calculator. This product will be available in the Spring of 2013. The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition has all the functionality of the best-selling TI-84 Plus family of graphing calculators - now with color and TI Rechargeable Battery.
Is a z80 processor going to be enough for driving a color screen? Or will we see some not-shitty screen drivers (at last :O)? I wonder how fast the processor is going to be...I have asked for the frequency, but I'm not sure I'll get an answer :D
Yes, I got confirmed it's a z80.
More details/answers are coming "soon" and HD photos in early January.
edit : lolz dilbert.
I wonder if they could manage to fix the RAM Clear issue after crashes by storing a backup of the user RAM into a different RAM area, so when the calc is reset, the last backup from when the calc was last turned OFF is restored from there?
Yeah I meant implemented by default though lol. That said (off-topic): I wonder if that United-TI hosted copy of Omnicalc for MP OSes is available anywhere else? Because now that UTI merged with Cemetech, all attachments are gone...I wrote that. Here it is again.
More informations on the TI-84 Plus C:You don't know how happy it makes me to hear that there is a z80 in there. ;D
(http://i.imgur.com/hX97x.png?8195)
Source:
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=10736
Here's something bad to consider: as long as they're completely reworking the ASIC, they might as well remove the ability to unlock the boot code. No doubt, with great color comes great restrictions on programmer freedom. But that's why we have people like BrandonW. We are firing up our oscilloscopes! We are reading our disassemblers! Native code! will! be! ours!
But I still think it'll actually turn out to be an Nspire in disguise.I have speicifically asked that, and they said they actually considered that at first, but they didn't go that way.
As I've been told, you'll be able to see that when you open it :PNot that I don't trust you, but I want to point out that you can't see a real Z80 inside the current TI-83+ series calculators. All three models still in production (and the TI-83+SE) have the Z80 hidden inside an ASIC. You'd have to desolder the ASIC, de-encapsulate the chip, and take a micrograph to prove there's an actual Z80 inside. (I've tried de-encapsulating chips. It's very difficult. Even 30 molar sulfuric acid can't make a dent in the packaging unless heated to near boiling point.)
Thanks for the clarification. And yeah as DrDnar said the processor is inside the ASIC. Glad to hear that the calc will have a Z80, though.Here's something bad to consider: as long as they're completely reworking the ASIC, they might as well remove the ability to unlock the boot code. No doubt, with great color comes great restrictions on programmer freedom. But that's why we have people like BrandonW. We are firing up our oscilloscopes! We are reading our disassemblers! Native code! will! be! ours!
Humm, just to know, what would the point of downgrading be, if the modified 2.55MP is the only one availalble for this model anyway ? (since it has to handle the new hardware etc.)But I still think it'll actually turn out to be an Nspire in disguise.I have speicifically asked that, and they said they actually considered that at first, but they didn't go that way.
As I've been told, you'll be able to see that when you open it :P
Anyway, it's a real z80 :)
I don't know about RAM/ROM or anything else very technical, I'll see if I can get these kind of details.
But anyway, everything should be known by mid-january.
I'm curious about the LCD. Is it supposed to use a color palette or individually-controlled RGB pixels?We don't know. We probably won't know until an assembly-savvy person gets one and starts dumping code.
I'm a little skeptical that you could get good performance either wayI agree that the vintage Z80 design couldn't provide good graphical performance, but I believe that upping the clock rate and rewriting some of their worst-performing code could provide adequate graphing performance, as in it would take less than ten seconds to graph y=mx+b. We're speculating that an eZ80 could easily provide the performance.
I'm a little skeptical that you could get good performance either way - and I'm even more skeptical that TI could pull it off (these are the same people who brought us MathPrint.)An eZ80 would easily let them use C, which really makes it more likely they'll be able to implement good functionality, since C is much less specialized that than Z80 assembly. Although, in the end, it'll probably end up being as slow as the original software.
I'm pretty sure everyone is just throwing around the eZ80 cause i jokingly said it would be awesome if it had one ;P Seriously, there's like literally no reason for them to put it in, haha (From TI's viewpoint)Except maybe using that as an excuse to jack up the price :P
Cool to hear. I added it although I probably won't post a news news just for the pic. I might wait until there are more infos to post (or someone else posts more info)Excatly what I will do myself on tiplanet
ZDS doesn't. He's probably thinking of TI Flash Studio.You are right, thanks. I didn't think it was zds, but I remembered seeing something from TI that had an emulator and was a dev enviroment.
wow, this is pretty epic! And how come ti just gives you such images? /me is just interested about contanct stuff
There's some sort of contract with some staff at TI-Planet iirc.
[02:35:20] Vijfhoek I went to the Shift+Plus->About iirc
[02:35:28] Vijfhoek and there wasn't any OS version
What, the 84 had a OS 0.x?
That is interesting, you are doing some very wired and non-logical stuff TI