You must be getting pretty desperate to post a news article on this. Just teasing. :)

Does anyone know about the assembley functionality of the 83+ yet? Will it support regular Ti-83 assembley progams? It looks pretty smooth.

The 83+ has built in asm support like the 86.
All 83 asm programs will need to be modified to
run on the 83+. The mechanism for using system routines has changed, a normal 'call' is not used
anymore. A macro is used to access system routines
through a 'rst' instruction. This was done to save
us ROM space. Asm program will be limited to 8k in size. I will post some information as soon as I can get it together in a usable format. Like the 68k side we are trying to get the documentation together.

Will the TI-83 plus be faster then the TI-83? I heard that it uses a Z180 instead of a Z80. Is that true?

They are the same processor. The z180 is just an updated z80 with a couple of added instructions.

is there a spec page for the z180?

-KAKE
IP
"!--0"

Why is a new file directory necessary if the TI-83 and TI-83 Plus are essentially the same calc with identical functionality? Unless it is for ROM version reasons (which it shouldn't be, since every calc has multiple ROM versions) this doesn't make sense.

Well, we don't know enough about it yet to say for sure whether a separate archive will be necessary. Personally, I expect it to be to the 83 what the 86+ is to the 86, in which case we won't have to make a new directory.

Sorry if this confused people -- we don't know for sure whether 83 and 83+ programs will be interchangeable or not.

Chris

A couple of things...

1) What is an 86+?
2) I was the first one to order and 83+ of off Dim-Ti. Hahahahaha.
3) A couple of weeks ago, Dim-Ti put up an announcement about a new calculator that looked like a ti-92 with a plus module, but had a bigger screen. Does anyone have info on this?

Thanks
Nathan

The TI-83+ is just like the 83 with a few enhancements. The screen is the same size (number of pixels too I believe), but it has the new "up front" look of the 89's screen.
There is added functionality (ie a few new functions). There is flash memory (I think that is obvious). There is supposed to be a folder system (similar to the 89/92 -one level deep). The Ranger or CBL data collecting programs are also supposed to be built in.
The keypad looks like the 89 keypad (fatter keys).

It is intended to be backwards compatible to the 83 (unless TI ended up not being able to do it for the asm).
That is all I know.

That's not what i mean. I already know what an 83+ is. The post that i replied to said an 86+. I've also seen this in other places. I just want to know about the 86+.

Well, TI hasn't announced the TI-86+ yet. But, in viewing the current trend with FLASH technology upgraded graphing calculators, I'd expect to see the TI-86+ announced around or after the next T3 convention or sometime the 3rd or 4th Quater 1999. And it would be released around the spring of 2000. But, I'd also like to see an update to the TI-92, like a TI-92x or TI-93. Something with a nice QWERTY keyboard, larger and better screen overall, updated features (like the TI-92 w/ plus module), easier to use QWERTY keyboard AND be smaller in overall size (slightly wider and taller than a TI-89 on its side) than the TI-92.

you know what would be phat?
have a calc the size of the 89
you can turn it on its side for a qwerty kbd - at the top (right) of each key is the letter

ha ha ha... hell yah that would rock. :-)

-FlyAgaric

I was thinking that it would be pretty cool for someone to create a sort of word processor that would map out the keys allowing you a psuedo qwerty keyboard.

well, you'll at least need a folder for any asm programs that may come out as it was said farther up that there's some differences.

-KAKE
IP
"made fat stacks out on the corner with #&$^!"

Whoa. I am way confused here. Please forget about this post -- I've got my calculators mixed up. There is not, alas, a TI-86+ (though I wouldn't be surprised to see one pretty soon).

Up above someone has posted about a change in 83+ assembly programs vs. the 83, so that's a good reason to keep them separate.

Chris

the 86+ talk came out about the same time as the 83+ was announced. allegedly, someone from ti told some people about it over irc. to the best of my knowledge though, a "flash 86" is still in the conception phase over at ti.

Well... First off, The ROM Version of the newsest regular 83 is 1.10, which includes a z180 processor... I'm not sure if the 83 plus is like this but if it is, a lot of ASM Games don't work right... Therefore most games on the regular 83 will have to be ported to the 83 plus with special delays in the coding... I don't know why TI did this... To piss off us Programers? Maybe, but we will have to adjust to programing for a faster processor... The z180...
(KSA)Tekken

How fast is the Z-180?? Or is it still the same old 6mhz?

The Z180 if available in 6Mhz and 10Mhz versions, with the 10Mhz version being more easily available so I would have thought TI would use the faster version. According to the data sheet, it's completely code compatible with the Z80, and has seven extra instructions. It also executes many instructions in fewer machine cycles than the Z80, which should make it even faster. It can address up to 1MByte of RAM through the built-in MMU, although quite how this works is unclear. I suspect it uses a similiar method to that of the 80x86 processors when running in real-mode. The rest of the spec. is:

- 2 DMA channels
- On-chip wait state generators
- 2 UART channels
- 2 16-bit timer channels
- On-chip interrupt controller
- On-chip clock oscillator/generator
- Clocked serial I/O port

I doubt the actual variation ti would use would have half of those specs. Too bad though, DMA would be nice for game programming.

Then why are there problems with games on the regular 83 v1.10 if z80 code can be run on the z180? Do these games need simply to be recompiled with the same source for the z180 to work on the z180?