When I came back from my vacation, I was surprised to find five e-mails from ticalc in my e-mail inbox. (For some reason, I subscribed to both the HTML and text newsletters) Anyway, I was glad to see that the newsletter came back.

I was hoping the newsletter would come back someday. Great job, Jon!

-TrumpetMan

I'll wait and read it from the newletter archive. BTW: 2 each month should allow ample time to interview more authors of featured programs. Also, a guide to other sites would make an interesting permanant article.

crap, 1 every 2 months, not 2 every month :(

This is simply great. However, I was confused at first. I remember August being the last one for last year, and when I saw ticalc newsletter August, I was going to come here and complain about getting last year's news letter out of nowhere.

Now, I am glad, because it is new. However, I seem to have subscribed twice.... And I got one the was "uly/August 2004 ticalc.org newsletter corrections" in addition to my two correctly titled corrected newsletters.

-This is great, I am W-

Whatever happened to just '-W-'?
-AnyKey-

I think he uses that too.

-I am not W-

He uses a ton of sentences in that line...

I do. Sometimes I will just use "-W-" but if incllosing I would like to diliver a one-liner, I will use that line for that.

-W-

WWLND?

What Would Lord_Nightrose Do?

(it's spelled "in closing" and "deliver.")

<< Editions will now be published bimonthy >>

Is that supposed to be "bimonthly" or stay at "bimonthy"?

Bimonthly. It was a typo.

Speaking of the newsletter, I was looking through the newsletter archives and came across one from September of 1999. In it was a really cool idea about the whole TI community getting together and making one giant "super-shell", perfect in every way and optimized to the fullest. If you want to read the idea, click the link. I was just wondering if this idea ever got off of the ground, and if not, why don't we try it? It's the sort of thing that could be set up fairly easily. What do you all think?

Looks interesting. The biggest problem I can see, is trying to coordinate everyone. I would think that everyone would have different ideas about what is needed... and you know what that can lead to.

IMHO, everything would need to be done with ZMASM, not TASM. ZMASM's relocateable modules would greatly help avoid conflicts.

MWM

It's like trying to make the "perfect math prog". Everyone has their own opinion about what features should be included, and that's part of why the BASIC archives are clogged with "do-it-all" programs.

Well, if this was for the 83+, I think there are a few things that people could agree on: for it to have a GUI along the lines of mirage, full ion/mirage support, perfect BASIC support (not yet achieved by any shell), and the error handling of crunchyOS. I don't know how many people have used Crunchy before, but it is masterful. There are no leaks EVER, and whenever there's a problem, it creates a program to clean everything up and fix the problem. The only thing about Crunchy is that it only has partial mirage support. It would also definitely have to be an app. If the TI community could actually pull this off, it would be amazing, and the result would be something to bow down to :)

That's true...CrunchyOS-compatible compression would be nice, since there have been programs written for it.

A shell like that for the 86 would definitely have to be based on YAS.

Man, I could write a whole book on the perfect shell. It would need, as Caboose said, a good GUI and BASIC Compatibility. It would also need awesome graphics like a little icon in the top corner like AOL has. Then, it would need an awesome intro screen, and exit screen that could be turned on or off. Also, it would need different programs running at the same time...if that could be accomplished. When the user switches from one program to another, the inactive one is paused. Then, when they come back to that program, it is back where they were. This shell would also need to be super fast, and have like 30 options to turn on or off like setting certain system flags.

Ok, I'll end my wishful thinking because with the people at this website, we won't be able to do nothing... jk.

I don't think something like that could ever work. As you said, everybody as different opinions of what would be good, and it would be really hard to coordinate everybody's code together. I'm speaking for myself here, when I say this, but I find it almost impossible to work with somebody else on a program. When you say "You do this and I'll do this," things never come together just they way you want them to.

ZMASM's relocateable modules REALLY help to fit everyone's code together. All the symbols are unique for each module, so you don't have to worry about conflicts in that way.

MWM

If it doesn't work, that's simply bad coordination and management. If people aren't programming consistently, agree on a standard, get reliable people, and regularly solicit input from people as to whether it actually is working.