Omnimaga

Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => TI-Nspire => Topic started by: Fireicee1 on February 10, 2013, 10:10:53 pm

Title: Calculator Emulator
Post by: Fireicee1 on February 10, 2013, 10:10:53 pm: How difficult would it be to write a calculator emulator for the TI-Nspire?

I.e, run ROMs of older calculators (Like the TI-83, 84, etc) on the TI-Nspire?
Is this even possible/does it already exist?
If so, that would be awesome.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: Sorunome on February 10, 2013, 10:16:51 pm: there are already nspire emulators, but i can't name specific ones right now, sorry
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: Deep Toaster on February 10, 2013, 10:23:05 pm: calc84maniac was working on that at one point, but the project died when he lost the source :(
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: Fireicee1 on February 10, 2013, 10:25:17 pm: Just to be clear: there are emulators, that can be run on the Nspire platform, which emulate other calculators?

Essentially, a WabbitEmu the runs on Nspire.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: Deep Toaster on February 10, 2013, 10:31:16 pm: The emulator calc84maniac was working on was, yes.

In addition, there's an official TI-84 Plus keypad available (http://education.ti.com/en/us/products/calculators/graphing-calculators/ti-nspire-with-touchpad/ti-84-plus-compatibility/ti-84-plus-compatibility) for sale for regular non-color TI-Nspires. There are some limitations though—for example, the emulator doesn't support undocumented instructions (which may cause problems with assembly programs that use them), and you can't change the OS without changing the OS of the entire TI-Nspire (I think, not sure about this one).
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: DrDnar on February 10, 2013, 10:44:23 pm: How difficult depends on your skill level. However, it certainly will take quite a time investment. The Nspire has more than enough CPU power to emulate the Z80 and 68K series calculators. If you're not already familiar with the details of the platform you're trying to emulate, you'll likely have problems implementing it.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: fb39ca4 on February 10, 2013, 11:59:29 pm: It is definitely possible, you should be able to write your own or port an existing emulator.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 11, 2013, 12:38:54 am: Very possible. In fact, a TI-84+ emu would run at least 6 times faster and a TI-89 one would almost run at 100% speed. Calc84maniac tried both, as mentionned above, but he lost the source code and then we saw no more signs of life of any of the two projects.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: Lionel Debroux on February 11, 2013, 01:26:56 am: A good starting point for a TI-68k emulator is using the Cyclone m68k optimized emulation core for ARM-based platforms.
calc84maniac has several ideas on making a TI-68k emulator even better than his lost attempt.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 11, 2013, 01:34:42 am: Yeah I think his failed (as in everything lost) attempt was actually an emu that he wrote completely from scratch. He could never get it to run at full speed. I think this is why afterward he wanted to port an existing one instead.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: MasterGeek on February 15, 2013, 05:27:38 pm: Someone could try writing an emulator for Linux for Nspire. Then you could just port a linux emulator.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: Deep Toaster on February 15, 2013, 06:15:30 pm: Quote from: MasterGeek on February 15, 2013, 05:27:38 pm
Someone could try writing an emulator for Linux for Nspire. Then you could just port a linux emulator.
That exists too: http://ourl.ca/17359

Don't think anyone's attempted loading an emulator though.
Title: Re: Calculator Emulator
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 15, 2013, 06:23:02 pm: The akward moment when someone tries to run Emu8x (with a 83 ROM) on a Linux version of TilEm running in nspire_emu in VirtualBox.