Glad to hear it! One question - what platform(s) will this be written for?

Since it's written in Delphi it will be for Windows. I personally think Borland C++ Builder would be a better choice.

True, Borland C++ Builder would have been a better choice, but I am at a summer program known as Governor's Honors Program in Valdosta, Georgia, and one of the classes I am taking is a Delphi class - and rather than make "Hello World!" applications, I got permission to work on this editor.

Why would C Builder be a better choice. I have written in almost every Language/Enviroment for the x86 platform and happen to think that C++ is not the way to go for the project. I would definitely have chosen VB or Delphi for that kind of App. If I were to use C, I happen to think MS Visual C++ would be the best choice for most non-games. There's no reason to complicate the project and add unnecessasary dev time

Borland C++ Builder is like VB or Delphi except that it's based on C++. Borland C++ Builder is so simular to Delphi that it will even compile Delphi's source code modules.

That's good to know, I was thinking of another product. It seems to be supported well enough(at least in the underground community) so I'll have to take another look

I've used both Delphi and C++Builder for several professional applications (machine vision for some automatic assembly applications). Delphi is a well thought out language and is quite capable of doing a project such as this. It would be really nice if the author posted the source code as well as the executable. I'd also like to see someone adapt the small C compiler to a Windows environment and possibly add PL/M to the mix. The CP/M archive site

http: //www.mathcs.emory.edu/ ~cfs/cpm/

contains the source code for the PL/M-80 compiler for the 8080 chip (PL/M-80 was Intel's suggestion for a "high level" language for their 8080 chip. Anything written for the 8080 will also run on the Z-80 that TI uses in their calculators.

I must be missing something here. Why would 8080 code run on a Z80 chip. It would be great though. I have a very optimized and easy to use c lib from my 286 days. I would be more than willing to port it to the 68k platform, useing ASM were needed. I could then port over about 4-5 games that should run nice. They include FlyBoy(like JetPack), HoverBall(futurestic sport), StarCon(awe but simp spc shooter), and a vehicle war game(forgot name). I could also finish a great demo-derby game I was working on with 6 collision areas and 4 physics attributes for cars. The working title was "Chip'd Paint"

Because the 8080 instruction set is a subset of the Z-80 code. Although the mnemonics for the two microprocessors are different, if you assemble a ld a,b instruction on the Z80, you'll find that it generates exactly the same machine code as the mov a,b instruction on the 8080. Intel was out first with their 8080 chip. Frederico Fagin, one of their designers, then proposed an improved 8080 chip that would have a superset of the 8080 instructions. Instead of producing the chip, Intel opted for the 8085. Fagin went on to found Zilog whose first chip just happened to be the Z-80, which was an 8080 compatable chip with a superset of instructions. When the CP/M machines ruled the desktop (or personal) computer kingdom, most of the chips were Zilog's Z-80 (because it required only a 5 volt power supply and ran at 4 Mhz) but most of the software was written to the 8080 instruction set so that it could run on either processor. Hence, providing an environment that would generate 8080 code for the calculators would fit right into the capabilities of the Z-80.

>Glad to hear it! One question - what platform(s)
>will this be written
>for?

To semi announce this, me and a few others are working on an ASM IDE for the mac. If you want to find out more info goto my webpage.

Ben

Great job Ahmed! It's cool to see that people are developing such great software. I look forward to trying this out in a few weeks.

Good! Sounds like it'll work a lot nicer than notepad :)...

Ahmed El-Helw: rock on dude.

First off, kudos to Ahmed! I can't wait to try out this program and see how well it works.

Also, who just released all the TI-85 strings? They appear to have originally been for ZShell but were modified for Supernova.

Well, looks like ACZ is moving down in the community. With the recent resignation of 3 members they have lost a lot of production i would imagine. All they have left is a few good (very good tho) programmers. They pretty much dominize the computer utilities though. In fact, the only non-ACZ ustility I use is ASM Toolbox, but now they have iStudio which works better...
Looks like they have some competition!
BTW, can we send Ahemd suggestions that we would like?

Suggestions are welcome and very much needed actually. When you email me, however, email the message to ahmed@ticalc.org AND ahmed_ghp@hotmail.com because I cannot check my ticalc.org email very frequently from where I am now.

I'm not sure what you mean by moving down in the community. The productivity might be a little decreased, we are very busy with jobs, school, and for some of us, college. But we still are working on huge projects, one of our projects have span over a year. I also have a couple plans myself for the TI-86 community.. I am working on a new, completley rewritten 86 central and I also have a game I will continue pretty soon. Utilities like iStudio are simple.. I finished it in two weeks..

Delphi is a pretty good tool. With good compilers, there is no real speed difference between pascal and C. Plus Delphi, from what I heard, compiles very quick.

Delphi is excellent. I used Turbo Pascall for DOS for years (a friend wrote an entertaining if simple game on it and I spend a little time on the code of that).

I do have a bone to pick, though. When I encode mp3's I use a Fraunhofer codec: slow but thorough. I'd much rather wait an extra hour and have something perform better.

-KAKE
IP ()

No offense was intended. But when your productivity goes down, you go down with it. I have seen the rpg coming up, it kicks ass. But 3 ppl just resigned from ACZ. Including one of your best programmers, Clem! Your little utilities like iStudio (which i have used for my upcoming program btw) are really good. But you are no longer begaining to dominize the market and "competators" are coming up. Depending on how good Ahemd's editor will be, you will have lost your best 86 application! I really don't mean any harm at offense at all.

Ahmed's compiler won't have an assembler or built in calculator transfer. If Jeremy wanted too, he could have Asm Studio 86 work with all calculators in a week, if people took the time to port the documentation over also.

Anyway, an IDE is an incredible amount of work. Hell, it takes a lot more then a couple weeks to get a good IDE working... especially with all the features of assembly studio. Our "little utilities" are a lot more code then what meets the eye. Image Studio is 10 pages of code, I got it done in like a couple weeks. But something like Assembly Studio is a hell of a lot more complicated.. I bet version 1.0 took Jeremy over a month and a half to complete it.. depending on how much free time he had to work on it (and the fact he is a genius).

Will it have a build-in assembler/linker? If it does please make the MC68000 assembler accept spaces after the commas. A68K doesn't and that sucks.

That is something I'll have to work on after I finish the part that I am doing now - namely syntax highlighting [from a text file] and the size/clock speed counter. After that, I'll work on the assembly/link part. By the way, does anyone have a list of sizes and clock speeds of the instructions for the 68k? The 68k version of the assembly editor will be a little harder because I don't know 68k yet, but I think I can handle it...

ahmed:do u have a icq uin?

Yes, I do but I can't use it until I get back home the first week of August. It is 3350394.

-Ahmed

I know that a file like that is out there, but I don't remember specifically. I think ticalc might have it in their document archive, and www.technoplaza.net used to have it, and may still. If all else fails, you could probably get the information directly from motorola's website.

Yes, this file is on ticalc.org :
/pub/text/68k/timing.txt

Thank you for the information, it will be beneficial!