Installation, the programs included, and how to use them: See usage.html, which explains it all nicely. (Then look at the FAQ below, if you want to)
FAQ
- I'm curious about the file format of .89t files. Do you have any documentation on that?
- Yes, I made some while I was figuring it out in preparation for making the 89t-from-txt converter. It's
named '89tformat.txt' and is included with the source. You can also find some more detailed TI-89 file format information
(and more, such as link protocols, tokenized characters, etc) online here, which I looked at after mostly figuring out the format
myself - I was nowhere near an Internet connection when I was figuring it out, or I would have searched before trying to figure it out myself, though I thought it would be harder to figure out than it was - There were only two things I hadn't figured out when I did check that page. First, what the two bytes starting at position 0x58 were for, and second, how to calculate the checksum
(the two bytes at the end of the file). Of course, I didn't know what all the constant stuff meant, like the two bytes at 0x08, or the 6 bytes at 0x3a, or the 0x0B at 0x48, or the 8 bytes at 0x4e, etc, but those didn't differ in any of my .89t files. The two at 0x58 were often 00 01 - but not always. 89t-from-txt just writes 00 01 all the time, which works fine. If you're curious, it turned out to be the cursor position, and 00 01 is the start of the file, which is why that always works fine.
- Is it doing anything? I see a black dos box opening when I click it, and then immediately closing!
- Yes, it finished. It's wicked fast. If running the To-Txt program,
check to see if it made some folders named after the folders on your TI-89,
and placed your .txt files in them. If running the From-Txt program, it should have
made .89t files if they don't already exist, or replaced the existing ones if they did already exist.
Check the timestamp on those .89t files to see that they've changed. The update script won't close automatically, however, since it shows a list of files that had changed since the last run and got their other file rebuilt (I mean that when you change a txt file and then run update, update will build an 89t from it and report that that txt file had been changed and its 89t file rebuilt).
- If it can't write to or create files, it will give an error in a message box, and then exit (after you close the message box).
- If it crashes, let me know.
- Why is the .txt->.89t converter named 'FromTxt' instead of 'To89t'?
- Which sounds better to you? I think FromTxt sounds better.
- When I have a folder open which contains 300+ files, one of which is named 'FromTxt.exe' and one of which is named
'ToTxt.exe', in Windows XP, I can start typing the filename and Windows will jump to it and have it selected, so
I can hit enter to run it. Now, if they were both named 'Tosomething' I'd have to type more than just two letters,
whereas the way it is now, I only have to type two, unless I happen to have a .89t file whose filename begins with
'Fr' or 'To', which, ATM, I don't, since I don't have any folders on my TI-89 beginning with those letters.
(And I have & use a USB graph-link cable now; My old grey graphlink cable
had gotten to the point where it only worked about 10% of the time. Or less.)
- Why in Bill Gates' name is there a LINUX version of this program?
- Because I was using linux for a while. I tried Mandrake for a few months, then Gentoo, and really liked Gentoo,
and then I got
a new computer with XP (The sound card thing on the old one died again, and Best Buy was obligated to let me get
a new computer under the No Lemon clause of the warranty. I essentially got credit towards a new computer, and
the amount of credit was the original price of the computer, and seeing as I got it almost 3 years ago, and
we're in a recession, I got a *much better* computer this time), and I haven't installed Linux on this one so far,
since XP does pretty much everything I want it to do, and does it well - After I fiddled with the options and control panels to fix some annoyances (like hiding extensions, hidden folders, system files, 'simplifying' the control panels, etc).
And it boots up wicked fast, too - After I killed the crapware and spyware which came preinstalled, most of which was being started whenever the computer started, adding 10-20 seconds or so to the startup process, which now takes less time than it takes for me to walk across the room and back.
- Why was this written?
- Because I write ideas, documentations, c++ code, notes, keep lists of bugs, and such,
on my TI-89 calculator, and when I'm coding on the computer, it's useful to have access to those as a regular
text file I can have open in my text-editor along with other things, which I can copy and paste, etc.
- Why was this released?
- Because I didn't see anything similar on ticalc.org,
and it's useful to me, so it might be useful to others. And judging by the fact that people keep downloading it,
it must be useful or at least interesting to somebody! I did a cursory search to see if anyone had written anything to convert .txt files back to .89t files in
the year or so since I originally posted the To-Txt program & source, but all I found was a post on some forum
(on ti-89.org, if I remember?) wherein a person asked about such a thing, and if I read the date correctly, it was
posted only two months ago, so that would tend to imply that that problem still hadn't been solved. Mind you, I don't
hang usually around in TI-89 forums or IRC rooms or wherever else everyone else gathers, so I wouldn't have a clue if
something was released unless it was on ticalc.org or if I had stumbled onto it while googling.
- Why did your previous readme's FAQ say "Why this was released?"
- Good question. Every time I read it, I saw "Why was this released," not what it ACTUALLY said. Heh.
- Why is the source included?
- In case anyone just learning c++ (or python) wanted to take a look at a small yet useful program (or three or four).
In case anyone wanted to extend/modify this to make a program to convert .txt to .89t (This is being updated because I just did so myself, having finally gotten sick of having to fiddle with the old graph-link program.)
- For the curious to read and play with, if they want.
- The source is not that complicated, any IMHO any decent c or c++ programmer could have written it, but not
everybody is a c or c++ programmer (Or a programmer at all), so... (Of course, now you'd need to be a python programmer too to have written this, since the update script is in python)
- If anyone's curious, the c++ source files have a total of 699 lines in them, and update.py has 137 lines, not counting the lines for the license, at the beginning of each of those files. Those files are, all total, 24.9 KB in size (again, not counting the license) - Not very big. (With the license, 811 lines, 150 lines, and 38.2 KB, respectively)
- Why don't you use a PDA?
- The TI-89's batteries last several months, even with frequent use (Using the text editor, NOT playing assembly games! Well, other than ztetris (occasionally).).
- The TI-89 has an actual keyboard. Yes, I know you can get a folding keyboard for PDAs, but what fun is that? And I can type pretty fast on my TI-89.
- It can do math stuff too, i.e. I can test out code, do statistical analysis, etc, to see how something I'm planning will turn out and whether I need to adjust it to be more balanced, etc.
- Why does the ToTxt program ignore the header, and why do you call the couple of bytes at the end of the file a 'footer?'
- All I needed was the foldername and filename and the actual
text contents of the file, and since there's an obvious ending mark, and the text starts at the same position
in every .89t, I could safely ignore the header and the last few bytes.
- FromTxt doesn't ignore the header, by the way, since it has to generate it (and the 'footer' too), heh heh. ToTxt still ignores it though.
- Why doesn't the program have a GUI?
- Do you really think it NEEDS one? I don't!
- Why does ToTxt convert spaces at the beginnings of lines to tabs?
- Because I use spaces at the beginnings of lines on the 89 where I would use tabs on the computers, particularly
in code I'm writing.
- Why wasn't there a FromTxt program in the previous release(s)?
- I didn't need it to for my own use at the time, and I primarily wrote this for my own use (and posted it on the internet in case anyone else wanted something like this).
- I didn't know what the stuff in the headers and footers were for, and wasn't inclined to try to figure them out until I needed that functionality (I eventually did).
- Why isn't there a TI-92 version?
- I don't have a TI-92. Theoretically, the file format should be the same. In practice, it probably has a few minor differences. You could modify the source to make it also convert TI-92 text files as well, or make a script which renames all your .92t files to .89t prior to running ToTxt, and try it if you want. (For some odd reason, the old TI-89 graphlink program writes "**TI92P*" instead of "**TI89**" in the beginning of text files you create within the graphlink program - Perhaps that means TI-92 portable?)
- What symbols does ToTxt change, and what does it change them to?
- The small - (the one which means 'negative' instead of 'minus') is changed to "-"
- The Pi symbol is changed to "PI"
- The Not Equal To symbol (= with a / through it) is changed to "!="
- The Store symbol (a right-pointing arrow) is changed to "->"
- The Less Than Or Equal symbol is changed to "<="
- The Greater Than Or Equal symbol is changed to ">="
- The Square Root symbol is changed to "sqrt"
- These changes are primarily done since I occasionally write code (c++ for instance) on my TI-89.
- FromTxt does not change those specific strings back into the characters they used to be. It *could*, but it would be slower if it did (and it'd take more time to code that). I'd consider doing it, and/or adding options to disable the conversions ToTxt does, if requested (But if nobody wants that I'm not going to waste time implementing it).
- Does Sync89t need FromTxt or ToTxt to work?
- No, it doesn't. Sync89t already contains the same functions which FromTxt and ToTxt use to do their work.
- But I should remind you again that you don't run Sync89t directly, you run update.py (or update.bat on windows).
- What happens if I run Sync89t directly?
- If the update script hasn't been run previously, it will tell you to run update instead.
- If you've run the update script previously, then sync89t will exit without saying anything, unless it crashed the last time, in which case it will try to do what it was supposed to do last time, which means it will probably crash again. It *hasn't* crashed during my testing, and *shouldn't*, but that doesn't mean it *won't*. Of course, if it does, I'd appreciate being informed so I could fix the problem (or at least make it display a proper error message).
- It knows if it's been run before, and what to do, by looking for 'files.lst', which is created by the update script and basically contains instructions for sync89t. Sync89t clears that file (but leaves the empty file there) after doing everything files.lst says to do.
- Hey, wow, this is really useful! I think it might be worth paying for - why aren't you selling it? Why are you giving it away for free?
- If I sold these programs instead of giving them away for free, then less people would benefit from them.
- In 2004, I wrote: "If you do want to send me money because you think these programs have saved you time, I would certainly appreciate it. And don't worry about sending "too little" - A thousand people sending $1 is better than only one person sending $100." In the four years since then, this program was downloaded 8446 times from ticalc.org, and I received one donation for $2. So much for a thousand people sending $1. :P
If you have comments or suggestions, you can email me at shadowlord13 AT users.sourceforge.net (or dig my email address out of the paypal button form and email me there).