First of all, I am an 89T newbie, as I've just got mine 4 days ago. I was aware of the lack of support for files (esp. games hehe) at the current time, but I realized that the 89T is the future and every programmer will patch his/her work to be compliant with the Titanic.

The first game I wanted to download and which I followed closely even before I bought an 89(T) was Arena 3D by Malcolm Smith (that game has 50000+ downloads or what!?). Fortunately the game was patched for the 89T. However, it required a HW3Patch to run. I looked all over google for one, and only came upon it 3 days ago as an 'accident', as I was browsing calcgames.org (btw they started working on the StarCraft89 game again!!).

Then 2 days ago I decided to download TIGCC, so I could finally begin learning/applying my knowledge in game form. I was instructed that ticalc.org does not have the latest TIGCC in their archives, so I went right to the source, tigcc.ticalc.org. There I downlaoded TIGCC v0.95 Beta 15. However, in order for TIGCC to compile Titanium-compatible programs, I needed to apply TIGCC v0.95 Beta 16 over some of the include/bin files of the previous installation. So now it works.

Oh, and by the way, LONG LIVE THE TITANIC!

I find that recompiling programs with the latest TIGCC lets them work without ghostbusters help.

Even if you have access to the source code of the program, recompiling it does not always work in case of hard-coded uses of the RAM ghost space.
GhostBuster should work with most programs. Please report any problem with GhostBuster, we try to make it as efficient as possible.

Yes, please report all programs still not working after patching them with GhostBuster to us.

ExtendeD, have you read the complaints over at TICT HQ? http://p080.ezboard.com/ ftichessteamhqfrm13. showMessage?topicID=536.topic (remove the spaces). I'll look at these issues when I get back home in September, but if you can look at them before, please do so.

I should also like to add that I've released a Titanium compatible version of Super Start. Super Start is a FLASH applciation that automatically launches programs/games on a calculator. With Super Start, you don't need individual launcher programs for each ppg program.

This program is 1 of the programs that I use most often (Command Post Plus and KerNO being the other two). It hasn't made it into the ticalc.org archives just yet, but you can download it from my website (see above link).

Slow news?

-W-

Not really, as one of those who contributed to this news article, I feel that this News Post was needed for those who have an 89Ti.

Where is my head? I consider this old news, but because I frequent the tict boards, I already knew. You are right, this is very important to be in a news item for all those who do not know.

-W-

I think it's appropriate to point out that all these compatibility issues must be taken with a grain of salt. Remember, the same (officially released through TI) FLASH Apps that run on TI 89's will run (exact same file) on a TI 89ti. Ditto for the TI83+ versus TI 84+. Notice that there's only one like to download the files for both the 89 version and the 89ti version. I've successfully tried running the same APP file on both harwdare calcs just to be sure.

That suggests to me that most of the problems encountered with compatibility of programs, have arisen because the resources being used for development have been 'hacks' that access resources through channels outside TI's officially supported means.

Now, I'm not going to advocate going back and re-inventing everything according to another standard; that may require too much effort working on too little officially released information.

But remember, so long as one does not deviate from the sandbox that TI has provided for us (BASIC and no-stub ASM/C written with Flash Studio), the compatibility issues seem rather minor, if they exist at all.

First paragraph, fourth sentence, sixth word should be 'link' not 'like'.

Too bad there aren't any TI-supported means for lots of things we want to do, such as grayscale.

Granted, the sandbox TI has given us to play in is really pretty small. Especially when you have a chance to glimpse outside the box at the rest of the potential in the hardware.

>But remember, so long as one does not deviate from the sandbox that TI has provided for us (BASIC and no-stub ASM/C written with Flash Studio), the compatibility issues seem rather minor, if they exist at all.

Basic programs written for AMS 1.0x may not be compatible with AMS 2.09 and AMS 3.00 (and all the basic programs I wrote were incompatible) because of new functions (sec, ...) and new names for old functions (internationalisation).

I second what PpHd says. Incompatibility issues are much worse than what you seem to be aware...
TI-BASIC, ASM, FlashApps all suffer from incompatibilities (different behaviour of a number of ROM_CALLs between AMS 1.xx and 2.xx, necessary hacks broken again and again).

True. But that is comparing two different OSes on one hardware device.

Here we are comparing two different OSes on TWO DIFFERENT hardware platforms.

I am perfectly comfortable with the fact that an OS upgrade may require me to update some of my software programs. (Example: Win16 programs trying to access the (non-existant) 16-bit TCP/IP stack on a Win32 platform. Won't work.)

What *is* important, is that when the OS of an older calculator (AMS1.x) is upgraded to AMS2.09, all of TI's official support goes with it.

I just want to know, will TI provide an upgrade path that will allow current HW1 and HW2 calcs to retain forward support with officially-supported features (as hardware allows*) in the Titanium machine.

* Note that when HW2 came out, a RTC was added. The fact that the RTC is not available on HW1 machines does not inhibit compatibility of *all the other* TI officially-supported features. HW1 calcs just gray-out any references to the clock in the menu structure. So, the fact that the USB port is supported now should not preclude support for *everything else* on a new OS for the HW1/HW2 calcs.

How do I get Iceberg to work? I installed it but the Shift On combo doesn't work for me...

Well, Iceburg was meant as a special edition of PreOS. So, I suggest that you download PreOS and run the Stdlib.89z on ur calc. BTW this is in addition to the iceberg installation. If you need any extra help contact me.

The problem is that the currently available PreOs (0.67) and its libs won't run on a 89 Titanium. Untill the next PreOs, the only kernel and libs for 89 Titanium are Iceberg and its libs.

Well that is why you need the HW3 Patch, that makes the old 89 prgms compatible.

I fear that's not that simple.

Indeed it isn't.
As we're discussing on the first page of those comments, some kernel-based programs have been using unsafe hacks broken by AMS 2.xx for a long while, and the AMS 3.00 in the Titanium, which is even more poorly optimized, breaks more hacks (even the few used in AMS native programs and SuperStart, which we need though, such as the hack to get the handle of the Home Screen Author Line or the hack to get the address of the last executed program).

The hack to get the home screen author line was broken? When I updated complete I did not have to update this hack, (another hack I did have to update because a short address was compiled as a long address)

I have the HW3Patch

If you need any libs not included with Iceberg, try to get them from a PreOs distribution (genlib from PreOs 0.67 works fine on the Titanium, for example) or from ticalc.org. If it doesn't work, try patching the lib with GhostBuster.

Shift+ON in Iceberg expects the TICT Explorer, but Lionel still hasn't ported it to the Titanium. :-( You can rename any shell that does work for you (such as the PreOs browser in the PreOs 0.67 distribution) to main\tictex and it will work though.