Omnimaga
Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on November 12, 2012, 11:49:18 pm
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Here are some bad news about the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition from TechPoweredMath (http://www.techpoweredmath.com/confirmed-texas-instruments-release-color-ti-84/) (thanks to Kerm for summing things up on Cemetech (http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=194652). There is also a calculator info page (http://www.cemetech.net/tools/ti84pcse) being built up there):
-Like what happens when running FX-9860G BASIC programs on a Casio PRIZM, TI-BASIC programs that uses Pixel-On/Off/Test functions will not display properly on the new calculator. This also means that programs using Line() will obviously look weird as well. We do not know what will happen with old 8xi files when sent to the new calculator. The good news, though, is that this will allow far more details in games (providing drawing commands aren't as slow as on the Casio PRIZM) and if a game only make use of Text() and Pxl() commands, they'll still look OK, even if no longer full-screen.
-Similarly to when the TI-83 Plus replaced the TI-83 calculator (now the TI-82 STATS) in 1999, all TI-83 Plus, 84 Plus and Silver Edition ASM programs and applications will not run at all on the new color models.
Although this is bad news in general, this is not the first time this happens in the calculator community, the most recent example being the redesigned FX-9860GII which now uses a PRIZM processor. On that calc, any ASM or C program that do not use the official SDK no longer run on new models. The TI-89 Titanium suffered from compatibility issues as well with older TI-89 programs. For the TI-89 Titanium, however, HW3Patch solved all those issues and almost no program needed to be ported.
(http://i.imgur.com/2x4Mo.png)
In other words, when the new calculator comes out, the TI community will have a lot of porting work to do if they want old programs to run on it. That's unless, of course, a savior decides to create an emulator or shell that can run older programs in their old school resolution. One thing we should be glad, though, is that unlike the TI-Nspire, where TI has fought non-stop against Ndless, the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition will at least have native ASM support in the first place.
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Bad news? Not necessarily. Maybe it means they've taken the opportunity to fix all the problems with the old 83+/84+ OSes that were necessary for maintaining backwards compatibility.
...okay, granted, this is TI we're talking about. :P
Anyway, reverse-engineering the new platform is all part of the fun. I'm rather looking forward to it.
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That would be cool, unless they inadvertently based the OS on 2.71MP <_<
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The V200 / AMS 2.07 broke backwards compatibility with existing programs (model detection + AUTO_INT_3 clock being disabled by many programs), and so did the 89T / AMS 3.00 (no ghost space at 0x40000, which broke pretty much anything that launches other programs, and pretty much anything that modified the vectors - such as grayscale). Now, we have the 84+ C, which is severely backwards-incompatible as well...
From the manufacturer's POV, breaking backwards compatibility can be seen as a good way to maintain some level of activity in the community... but it's not really nice to users !
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And that means that people who have much experience in z80 ASM and Ti-83+ "in general" will not find it hard to write new games! Sure it means new routines such as tilemappers will have to be redone, but I at least look forward to ASM games in color
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It's also worthy to note that full compatibility with asm programs would likely be impossible without some sort of compatibility mode, due to the fact that the new display is so completely different than our current black and white one.
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Yeah true. I hope it's as easy as porting games from the FX-9860G to the PRIZM (which almost had the same hardware except the screen).
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True, but technically, I'm positive that such a huge HW + SW company as TI could have added that sort of compatibility mode, with some special hardware (such as 3 x upscaler from 96x64, optionally with shift for centering the output on the physical screen of the new calculator), at very low production cost ;)
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I'm hoping they will yet. There is still time for them to take these sort of things into consideration.
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I actually don't care at all that the pixels aren't compatible. existing BASIC programs that use lines can be adapted quite easily I think and it's great that we will have access to all pixels on-screen.
Plus I am very willing to help out porting stuff over to this calc :D
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I'm with Hot_Dog, i'm looking forward to finally having a nice z80 color platform to play with. I just hope that it will be able to handle fullscreen color graphics quickly enough to support decent games. Now that the screen won't be divided into groups of 8 pixels, just filling the screen is going to take much longer (or will at least need to execute a lot more instructions).
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...I still want one.
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A few very important programs will need to be rewritten. Remember how the GameBoy Color had the ability to play Gameboy games and even give them a little color? :)
If we still have most of the same RAM areas, we can do these:
MirageOS: If this is ported, we can make the LCD updating using 3x3 pixels and it can be zoomed in or out. Otherwise, sprite commands and drawing commands will need to be rewritten. Once this is done, most games should work again :)
DoorsCS7: A new version for the new calc can be written with updated ION/MOS/DCS7 calls.
Grammer: I can try to port this so that older Grammer games work on the new calc (with scaling up pixels, basically). This actually shouldn't be too difficult, and as well, I will be able to create new routines to work with color :D (I've already been trying to figure out a way to make B/W and color versions of programs work across platforms because of my Prizm)
Also, we may need to make a program to "fix" compatibility. What I mean is something like this:
We will need to have a list of RAM equates (which we have) and their sizes. We can go then find equivalent values on the new calc. Then, when MirageOS or something tries to run a program, it will instead parse the file, adjust addresses accordingly, then run the modified version (without changing the original, except for SMC). That sounds a bit daunting, but not too much so. There are a few more steps involved and it wouldn't work for all cases, but it would be useful! (We would also need to modify ports and other fun things)
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Also, you have to keep in mind that there might not be a gbuf anymore. As others have mentioned, a gbuf might not even fit in RAM!
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Yeah, that might turn out to be a tough thing to get around :[
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I think manually porting games won't be too difficult, though. Well, assuming the new larger/color LCD doesn't slow things down and the processor/LCD can still handle games at that speed.
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I think this calc, assuming it isn't too expensive, will definitively bring a lot of people in the community compared to what the Nspire did, especially because it natively supports ASM and that the TI-83+ series has always been the most popular. Sadly, a lot of the newer people who grew up with Crysis-esque game graphics seems to be turned down by the 96x64 monochrome graphics of the older models, especially when they get a TI-Nspire CX or Casio PRIZM, but those people will probably don't mind the new calc. Also in 5 years or so, I'm betting it will do like old game consoles and monochrome calcs will once again increase in popularity due to the old school factor (like with the NES, SNES and more recently the Nintendo 64)
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I think this calc, assuming it isn't too expensive, will definitively bring a lot of people in the community compared to what the Nspire did, especially because it natively supports ASM and that the TI-83+ series has always been the most popular. Sadly, a lot of the newer people who grew up with Crysis-esque game graphics seems to be turned down by the 96x64 monochrome graphics of the older models, especially when they get a TI-Nspire CX or Casio PRIZM, but those people will probably don't mind the new calc. Also in 5 years or so, I'm betting it will do like old game consoles and monochrome calcs will once again increase in popularity due to the old school factor (like with the NES, SNES and more recently the Nintendo 64)
I wonder if TI is making this to attract programmers, it seems like too much effort to improve their market towards plain-old-students and teachers
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I don't think they cared that much about people who make calc games, since their focus is education, but maybe they realized that calc games brings more sales from word to mouth or that they got too many complains about how hard making math programs for the Nspire was. For backward compatibility they probably found it too long and hard to add so to keep the OS easy to maintain they probably ditched compatibility.
Hopefully for this calcs new games aren't only ports of very old games or emulators, though. It would suck if nothing new ever came out D: (like on the TI-Nspire, where in ASM/C there are barely any new games)
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I cannot even afford an Nspire. If I'm going to buy a new calc it's probably gonna be the new 84+ C, but it's gotta be good.
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The only reason I bought my nspire cx was gbc4nspire :p
Don't tell my parents.
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The only reason I bought my nspire cx was gbc4nspire :p
Don't tell my parents.
Yeah, about the same reasons for me. It's kinda sad, though, that I'd have gotten a CX CAS paid for by my parents if I had just waited a few months :P
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Well you can wait for a CAS to be ported...
edit: but we're getting off-topic :P
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Satanic indeed. :P Well, hopefully the porting will go smooth.
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I cannot even afford an Nspire. If I'm going to buy a new calc it's probably gonna be the new 84+ C, but it's gotta be good.
Well based on what might be suggested for the price, the new calc might be almost the same price as the Nspire D:.
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In the case the price is similar to the nspire's, I would go for the nspire.