I dont know if it would be posible but i think it would be to have some kind of USB powerd light so you can use your 84p in the dark. I was thinking something like my light for my old Game Boy Color.

I did something like that actually, GBA afterburner plus a battery pack and now I can WFRNG in the dark!!! :)

Link above.

You could POSSIBLY just take a USB laptop light and plug it into a plug adapater and it SHOULD just work, they don't communicate to the host, just draw power from it. If it would draw too much power, it MIGHT crash the calculator. It's worth a shot if you already have an adapter and a light, otherwise I wouldn't bother.

*cough* and if i could get rights to a video (either the one y'all got or the program to make my own) (or hell just screw a video and direct them here... meh) then i'd fulfill my eating my words bit and i could test that *cough*

I hooked a LED up to the USB power on the calc and it only powered it for a short time. I think that it only suplys power if it is talking to the device

Yeah, and putting a microcontroller with a USB interface in the lamp to keep up a steady stream of data so the power would stay on would just be serious overkill. :-)

<< I think that it only suplys power if it is talking to the device >>

No. This is because TIOS doesn't support the device, so it immediatly disconnects it from the bus. You will need to write a driver on top of usb8x, even if it is a dummy driver (no data transmission) in that case.

i was just wondering whether TI meant for this to happen? I mean the TI Links seamed perfectly capable... Then they came out with the USB port, perhaps they wanted to broaden their calcs capabilities?

or maybe to make people say "wow!! USB I should buy one even though it is basicly the same calc that I alredy have."

It's a new business model for Texas Instruments and its partners. For example see Vernier EasyTemp (http://www.vernier.com/ easy/easytemp.html) and EasyLink (http://www.vernier.com/ easy/easylink.html).

Wow! The Matrix Lobby Scene made it onto slashdot!

Yes but they missed the entire point of the article. The movie is meaningless. I don't plan to release a movie player; other more interested people can. The point was that a USB flash drive was working and reading FAT16. Oh well, that's slashdot for you.

awesome, I'm cosidering starting a similar project to utilize the usb port on the 89 titanium. I'm also working on a device to have usb draw power from a seperate battery pack for the 84+

ExtendeD is already working on it for the 89Ti. The external power supply is a good idea though.

They probably didn't even realize that it couldn't before. At least it's reconition...

Just out of curiosity, how fast can you pull useful data off the flash drive with your driver?

Just to clarify, is this the correct adapter cable (URL)?

Yes.
BTW ticalc.org's URLs starting with https seem to be buggy.

No, that was just the URL itself. BTW, I did end up purchasing that cable and all went well. Awesome!

A suggestion:

Try using the mini-A to mini-B cable to connect to a PSP ...

I've done it with my zaurus (Which also uses an otg usb port) using the cable...

Ok, what about splicing 2 USB cables? I have plenty of extras laying around and it would be kind of a waste to go hunt down the right type and order it when I could just throw one together at home.

If one of your cables has a MINI-A on one end and another has a FEMALE A on the other, it would work. You would need to get connector pinouts (wikipedia has an entry on USB with the pinouts), a multimeter, continuity tester, or ohmmeter to find which wire corresponds to each pin, and then a soldering iron to splice the cables.

I was thinking along the lines of splicing the female ends of 2 extension cables and using this as an 'adapter' on the provided TI cable.

I just tried this and it doesn't seem to work on my optical mouse. I checked continuity and pinouts, but nothing seems to work.

Ya gotta have a male or else it won't work right.