Omnimaga

Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: critor on August 22, 2012, 03:45:04 pm

Title: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: critor on August 22, 2012, 03:45:04 pm

The latest TILP-II 1.17 beta brings a feature we've been waiting for for more than 15 years: TI-80 support! :hyper:

(http://i33.servimg.com/u/f33/13/23/13/53/tilp2110.png)

Did you think TI-80 didn't have a link port?
They have one...

As I discovered some years ago, the TI-80 VSC teacher model has the usual mini-Jack link port.
Normal TI-80 apparently don't have the link port, but the needed circuit is present.

(http://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=10&image_id=177)

You would just need to solder missing components.

The link port was not meant to transfer programs, but screenshots using the TI-Graph Link 80 software I've never been able to find anywhere. That software might be lost forever.



The TI-80 doesn't use a z80 CPU, but some proprietary 16-bits ASIC from Toshiba @ 980KHz, without any public datasheet.

Christmas 2009, as dumping through software was impossible, I hard-dumped the 64KB ROM chips from TI-80 3.0 and 4.0:

(http://i13.servimg.com/u/f13/13/23/13/53/ti80ro10.jpg)

I only got 32KB of useful data from each chip, the same data being repeated in the higher ROM addresses.

Strangely, the dump was incomplete as some system strings were obviously missing. But this, was the beginning of everything! ;)




So where was the missing data?

(http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/Images/TI-80_PCBM.jpg)

With only 3 chips, excluding the ROM and the RAM, the only possibility left was the proprietary ASIC, which of course couldn't be hard-dumped.



Randy Crompton studied the partially dumped systems, documented the used assembly language, and developped a dumper he could store in the calculator through some exploits, like the dumping method for the TI-81.

The dumper revealed 16KB missing data, hidden in the ASIC chip. So strangely, the TI-80 is the only graphing TI calculator whose system is stored on 2 different chips.

Summer 2011, Randy acquired a TI-80 VSC, added some TI-80 support in his local copy of TiLP, being able to get the 16KB missing data for the 4.0 system, and to develop an emulator.

(http://i43.servimg.com/u/f43/13/23/13/53/8243610.gif)

So today, at last, two years and a half after my hard-dumping, TiLP replaces the lost TI-Graph Link 80 software thanks to the integration of Randy's code. You can now finally connect your TI-80 to the computer to get screenshots again, and maybe more in the future if a kernel is developped for the TI-80.





Source:
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10256



Link:
http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilp/beta/setup.exe

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 22, 2012, 04:35:50 pm

Cool stuff guys! Now we need to see if we can get sending and receiving of other data worked out. :D

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: Deep Toaster on August 22, 2012, 04:37:54 pm

TiLP's been getting some pretty sweet updates lately. Can't wait to see what happens next!

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: Yeong on August 22, 2012, 04:39:38 pm

great news. :D
That means we can transfer illusiat for TI-80 without seeing the "NSFW" materials/me runs

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 22, 2012, 11:58:34 pm

Could the 80 be hacked that way to run ASM??? O.O

Also Yeong there is no TI-80 version of Illusiat 81 :P (It's only for the TI-73 and 81 through 86 :P).

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: Lionel Debroux on August 23, 2012, 01:01:27 am

Quote

Now we need to see if we can get sending and receiving of other data worked out. :D

Quote

Could the 80 be hacked that way to run ASM???

Not out of the box, as screenshots are the only type of communication supported by the 80's OS, according to Randy :)
It would require manually entering a kernel, the same way as the 81's shell and the 80's ROM dumper are entered.


The TI-80 screenshots capability is definitely cool, but in practice, nowadays, it's hardly useful to anybody on this planet.
Other new capabilities in TILP II 1.17 betas, such as the GTK+Builder conversion (not visible to users, but future-proofs TILP), the new ROM dumpers by Benjamin Moody, the exporting of raw packets in OS format, or the recent packet-level support for Nspire remote control (in a less user-friendly way than nRemote, but released before nRemote), are useful to many more persons.

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: Yeong on August 23, 2012, 09:19:09 am

Quote from: DJ_O on August 22, 2012, 11:58:34 pm

Could the 80 be hacked that way to run ASM??? O.O

Also Yeong there is no TI-80 version of Illusiat 81 :P (It's only for the TI-73 and 81 through 86 :P).

Oh my bad O.o
Then you should make one for TI-80 :P

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 23, 2012, 09:36:49 am

Nah I'm kinda done with calc programming since a while ago and my 80 is broken anyway.

Title: Re: Connect your TI-80 to the computer at last!
Post by: alberthrocks on August 24, 2012, 08:48:14 am

Quote from: Lionel Debroux on August 23, 2012, 01:01:27 am

The TI-80 screenshots capability is definitely cool, but in practice, nowadays, it's hardly useful to anybody on this planet.
Other new capabilities in TILP II 1.17 betas, such as the GTK+Builder conversion (not visible to users, but future-proofs TILP), the new ROM dumpers by Benjamin Moody, the exporting of raw packets in OS format, or the recent packet-level support for Nspire remote control (in a less user-friendly way than nRemote, but released before nRemote), are useful to many more persons.

Good to hear that those features I've been hearing about are coming to a release! ;)