was it just me, or did the FAQ say that you can develop a program with the Professional Edition that is up to 160k for the Ti-83. Im thinking I could write a Final Fantasy type game the way it should be. This would enable a map of 8x8 sprites that takes up, 41x42 Ti-83 screens. With a little compression, Im thinking this is the equivalent of the FF2-SNES overworld.

Dragon Warrior 1's overworld only took up about 200 bytes, due to RLE.

I think that the article is a little off. It claims that all programs must be 'stamped' by TI in order to work. As I understand it, only the Flash Applications need to be 'stamped' -- normal ASM programs will work just fine. Although, I could be wrong.

You are quite correct. Only Flash applications must be signed by TI, regular programs don't have to be.

-Dan

I'd like to know what it entails to have your Flash ROM program signed by TI.

It probably takes a credit card with a high limit :)

--BlueCalx

It says tht to submit a flash app. for signing, you have to have the professional eddition, wich they will probably charge for. So to make even a freeware flash app, you need to pay TI, so you might have to charge for the programs, and then everything goes downhill from there.
(The 89 was probably made by the CFO. you pay gor the calculator, you pay for the system software, and you pay to have TI sign programs. What next? ti-graphlink infects your calculator and you need to pay $75 to fix it?)

Is it just me, or is there no way to do much in Ti-GCC? I mean, there isn't even the familiar printf! If anyone has some examples, or would like to start a site (i have one in the making) on Ti-GCC, contact me: 10837117 on ICQ, MicroLITH on EFNet.

You can do *plenty* in TIGCC. Prosit apps will be able to be made in C in the near future, and I've got about half of a football game done (completely in tigcc), and it should be easy to finish, if I ever get around to it.

And actually, it does have an sprintf function. Just do this:
//********BEGIN CODE**********
#include <romcalls.h>
void sprintf(char* fmt, char* buf, ...); // prototype the ROM call
//...
void _main(void)
{
char buf[100];
sprintf(buf, "I am %d years old", 100); // format the string
DrawStr(0, 0, buf, 4); // print the string

while(!GKeyDown() ) {} // Wait for key press
GKeyFlush(); // flush the buffer
}
//******** END CODE ************

Mark Leverentz

Thank YOU!

Does anyone have an example of how to invoke functions in say the graphlib library where variables have to be copied into data registers?

Thanks!

Why does TI have an 8k limit on the programs that will be developed? There is no reasonable thought process for that decision.

But, there might be 1 possibility. If TI plans to sell the Professional SDK, do they plan on removing that limit to get people to buy it? When I asked myself that, I thought nah, TI will not be able to enforce that because someone will surely crack the code. But I thought a little bit longer, and it hit me. If TI is also redesigning the ROM for a more "open structure", are they also adding a hidden feature that will not allow < 8k programs unless they have a specific attribute turned on? Is this also the reason why TI doesn't want people posting previous ROM versions on their websites because they could revert back to a more secure ROM without the support?

Just a little paranoia for you guys...

The 8k limitation applies only to regular ASM programs run from RAM. The 8k limit has to do with the way the OS loads and runs asm programs (and there are usually ways to get around it), it's not like there's some special crippling code in the ROM or the free version of the SDK.
The professional version is required to develop Flash ROM applications, as you need a special developer certificate to test apps on your calc.

I'm pretty sure I have seen (and created) bigger programs... the limit should be 32768 bytes, since the branch distance is stored in a signed word... I think it can even be in a longword, which would mean that there's no practical limit.

Besides, how would TI prevent us from jumping around in larger-than-8k programs? They'd have to put the limit in the compiler/assembler... :(

I don't know much about hardware of embedded systems. How exectly does Flash Rom work? I thought the whole idea behind ROM is that it can't be over written.

Flash ROM is not completely a standard rom. you can erase it and write it again, but unlike ram, it keeps data if power is lost, so it should be called a ROAM or something.

Not really. Read Only memory is the intended use of the memory, not necessarily the function. Traditional ROM can be written to (it has to be when it's created, or nothing will be on it), although the process is very difficult. Flash ROM just makes the process easier.

The 8k limit for the 83+ is on RAM based asm programs.
The Flash Applications can be as large as 160k. The Application
and Data Archive both reside in that 160k of flash space.
Applications grow in chuncks of 16k, an App that was 17k in size
would use 32k of flash ROM.

I've got to get back to documenting now.

Later,
Pat

This is great !

Today, ROM 1.00 programs don't work with ROM 1.05 because the system functions called by the programs have moved. This would be a fatal error to any good SDK, as the programs would not work with future ROM versions, and people would be mad at TI.

It is apparent that, starting with ROM 2.0, the locations of all the functions will be stored somewhere in memory. Your program simply has to look it up and use that address. Your programs will work with ALL future ROMs !

Hopefully, the SDK will make programs that support ROM 1.00 and ROM 1.05, as the locations of functions in these ROMs are known by TI, and can easily be supported.

Finally, someone else who sees that old programs and games won't work with ROM v1.05. I guess we'll just have to live with it until v2.00 comes out. Does anyone know if you can re-install v1.00 so i can play my games until v2.00 comes out??!!! i'm so bored in math class now :-)
Thanks

Gif

Um, we all know that v1.05 is incompatible with v1.00. ticalc.org posted a news article about it. There's a file patcher in http://www.ticalc.org/pub/win/ and the FAQ points you there. :)

Um, we all know that v1.05 is incompatible with v1.00. ticalc.org posted a news article about it. There's a file patcher in http://www.ticalc.org/pub/win/ and the FAQ points you there. :)

Oh, and yes, you /can/ install any version of the ROM, regardless of what version you already have.