Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => TI Z80 => Topic started by: josh landers on February 16, 2014, 03:02:31 pm
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Over the past month I have been developing and creating an application for the TI-8x family of calculators. The big idea started when I wanted to make Bitcoin for calculators, however the ideas for it kept getting more and more simple, less complex, and more useable. The ending result is TIcoin. I am almost done and should have a release in the next 2 weeks, so stay tuned.
What is TIcoin?
TIcoin is an application for your calculator. It has a minimalistic approach to rewarding you for using your calculator. For every time you open TIcoin, the app will find out how much memory is left in ram and reward you for having less then before. It uses a special format as well, primarily to distinguish it from regular fiat money. T000.000, they are called Tic's if less the T001.000, and TIc's, if greater.
How can this be used in the TI- Community?
Developers can add this to their games by having user spend TIcoins for items, levels, etc. You could even go further and create a propriety app the prompts for TIcoin payment to unlock. Mind you this is not real money, but a fun way to hide elements from the games you make so they are prompted to support the calculator community.
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I think that this is a terrible idea. I really don't mean to be rude, but asking people to pay for calculator programs/apps is wrong. Period. Nothing else I can say.
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Well, it isn't actually asking to pay fort a game anymore than a game requiring you to reach a certain level before unlocking a mini game.
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I think that this is a terrible idea. I really don't mean to be rude, but asking people to pay for calculator programs/apps is wrong. Period. Nothing else I can say.
I think that is a bit harsh. Fiat money is in you wallet, Tic's is on your calc, and is nothing more then a way to have users try harder to get to the next level. Xeda is right, for example you have a lot of monopoly games on ticalc.org, one could be a multiplayer game that uses tic's as value, or buy a Pokémon with tic's, of a boss level with TIc's. Optionally have a poker game with kerm's online bridge and bet with Tic's. They wouldn't really have value, because lets face it anyone who programs on ti-8x knows that its open source or at least not worth payment. Basically the possibilities are endless.
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I think that this is a terrible idea. I really don't mean to be rude, but asking people to pay for calculator programs/apps is wrong. Period. Nothing else I can say.
I think that is a bit harsh. Fiat money is in you wallet, Tic's is on your calc, and is nothing more then a way to have users try harder to get to the next level. Xeda is right, for example you have a lot of monopoly games on ticalc.org, one could be a multiplayer game that uses tic's as value, or buy a Pokémon with tic's, of a boss level with TIc's. Optionally have a poker game with kerm's online bridge and bet with Tic's. They wouldn't really have value, because lets face it anyone who programs on ti-8x knows that its open source or at least not worth payment. Basically the possibilities are endless.
Keep in mind that one of those endless possibilities is users simply hacking in as many as they want. When the system that generates them is as weak as a calculator, it's impossible to validate the rightfulness of their existence.
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I did think about that and I'm considering about putting in a hidden appvar to stop that from happening ... if there is a will there is a way.
Edit:
I do just want to say that ideas most original seem to be the worst/craziest.
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I did think about that and I'm considering about putting in a hidden appvar to stop that from happening ... if there is a will there is a way.
Not really. I assure you, if you hide data anywhere on a calculator, I can find it. And an important factor that makes cryptocurrencies work is that no one rogue entity has more computing power than the validation network. When the validation network is just one calculator, anyone has more computing power than that.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't continue with your idea. You'd just have to accept that it will always be susceptible to cracking if a user with a fair amount of knowledge so desires to crack it.
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I get that, but the people using the app to play are most likly nonprogrammers anyway. So it doesn't matter, like stated before, its not real, but to the simple average player in math class it is.
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So it doesn't matter, like stated before, its not real, but to the simple average player in math class it is.
But what if somebody makes a program to hack it, then distributes it online? Then all the user would have to do is run it. Maybe you could encrypt the data and put it in multiple locations in memory so that it won't work if someone tampers with it.
Good luck with this project! It doesn't seem very useful, but it sounds like it could be fun to program.
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This could be handy for some games like RPGs, racing and shooting games where you can save and buy upgrades or power-ups, since it would be a bit like in Diablo III where you used to be able to buy weapons with real money, except that in this case it would be fake money.
As for hacking, I guess it could be an issue, but most BASIC games are hackable and there is a Game Genie/Action Replay-like tool already for calcs anyway. Those hacking games to win would get bored of doing it anyway.
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This could be handy for some games like RPGs, racing and shooting games where you can save and buy upgrades or power-ups, since it would be a bit like in Diablo III where you used to be able to buy weapons with real money, except that in this case it would be fake money.
Thats the right idea!
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All right I am 90% done with this. But when I use asm(EFE542)→{R} and later display the free ram it does not show the correct ram amount. It shows less then three numbers and they have nothing to do with ram. @Xeda could you explain? And for clarification I would like to display the ram amount from the memory menu.
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Perhaps you simply want Asm(EFE542)→R ?
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{R} points to an appvar. Or does R its self point there? Gah! Syntax!
Ok now its
asm (EFE542)→O
{R}-O→T
T÷1000→NBut it still doesnt change the display of O.
Edit:
Im useing output(4,5, {R}▶Dec
Edit... again:
I switched {R} to O, and you know what it worked!
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just about finished most of it but on small error. When I press to exit the screen's first column fills in with lines sorta like underscores. Any one know why?
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Were you messing with lists?
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{R} points to an appvar. Or does R its self point there? Gah! Syntax!
Ok now its
asm (EFE542)→O
{R}-O→T
T÷1000→NBut it still doesnt change the display of O.
Edit:
Im useing output(4,5, {R}▶Dec
Edit... again:
I switched {R} to O, and you know what it worked!
If you made a GetCalc(...)→R, then R points to an appvar, and not {R} which is the first byte in your appvar, so storing in the appvar indeed looks like →{R}, except when you have two bytes to store, which is likely if you have more than 255 bytes of free RAM, and in that case you have to use →{R}r (and be sure that your appvar has a length of 2 at least, and that you won't store anything else in {R+1}).
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@clrdraw
Nope but i think i found the problem, because its not messing up any more.
@hayleia
Thanks for the clarification on that!
Update: Really close to being done. Should roll out a release by the end of the week, or early next week.
Im going to call it Version 0.00.01 so that I can make lots of room for optimizations.
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Update:
This version will be released tommorrow 2/28/14. It well ve in source and will only be posted on this topic (not in the downloads section). Depending on the reaction and reviews from everyone I will decide whether to continue with the project or not.
The post tommorrow will be the read me.
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Well the idea sounds pretty interesting but since I could crack it in seconds... :P (Assuming open source here)
However a gCn based version with a server you can't mess with would be nice.
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Well the idea sounds pretty interesting but since I could crack it in seconds... :P (Assuming open source here)
However a gCn based version with a server you can't mess with would be nice.
The point is not to crack it. And yes this version will be open. One thing that I would like to say is this is more like a protocol, or set of rewards for using your calculator. So if you use your calculator and you end up with lots of coins then great! Theres never been a rule against using only cheating.
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LOL I agree. Cracking in itself can be fun by the way. :P
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And here it is.
Download it and compile it!
Press any key to exit, you get 1 Tic just for opening the app. If you find bugs post it here and pm me.
Edit the link is new.
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I get error: invalid token at
?@"->Str0S03
I take it that that first thing should be a quote too, instead of a question mark, but when changing I get another invalid token error on
If T>-20000
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I get error: invalid token at
?@"->Str0S03
I take it that that first thing should be a quote too, instead of a question mark, but when changing I get another invalid token error on
If T>-20000
I fixed it!
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still getting it on that If T>-20000, i guess you meant a negative sign.
Did you actually try to compile it yourself?
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still getting it on that If T>-20000, i guess you meant a negative sign.
Did you actually try to compile it yourself?
yes its a negative
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Aspiring pokes josh...hey josh did you get this to work?
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How do you mean?
At the moment its incomplete and development is stalled for the rest of spring.
The only thing that works is a rounded ram to coin reward system and display. It needs to be debugged as well.
@still getting it on that If T>-20000, i guess you meant a negative sign.
Did you actually try to compile it yourself?
Yes but with the original. I had to manually type it to source coder and reached some bugs.
For thoes interested in this projecct please vote so I know to start working on it.