I am wondering if TIcalc staff took new screenshots of the games or attached the 2006 POTY thing to the alerady existing screenshots? because the one who did F-zero screenshot (which i voted for btw) may need a bit more practice playing XD

Its actually harder than it looks :S

I do the screenshots. You should try to play in an emulator. It's not so easy :)

F-Zero is just too hard, emulator or not.

the screenshot I made (with vti of course) wasn't so bad I think..
It's not too hard, it's just that you need a little more practice :)

Delete this branch of the thread?

Kevin, why do you bash so hardly Lionel?

It's a pity I forgot to vote for the POTY 2k6 by the way :(

Because he isn't following any sort of best practices, neither for coding nor for usability, nor for any efficiency metrics other than the "almighty fps".

About the speed: it's not so bad on a real calculator actually. I've been playing it for a while (it's pepzipped on my calc now) and you can get used to it. As for memory, yes that is an issue, but the gameplay is simply too much to pass up.

it ran incredibly fast compared to the original, but not enough to make it unplayable. Try to play a game with only a keyboard though, even with lotus turbo challenge z80 i had problems controlling the car in an emu with the computer keyboard. There is also the fact the cars are too big in f zero compared to the road but its not that bad, at least it was the best 68k programs i've played in a while

There are .deb packages for TILP2? And I compiled it by myself on my ancient computer. *push-head-against-wall*

It says to check the LPG site for them, and if you go there, you'll notice there aren't any.

I think that both programs were good. :)

<font size=".001">The reason KTIGCC didn't win though was because of a lack of binaries. Just kidding.</font>

<font size=".002">Linux binaries were produced :P</font>

Er...hmm...er that's what I meant by "Just kidding."

*bfr hides*

*bfr also wants the binaries*

you're gotta avoid mentionning the word "binary" on ticalc comment pages. ;) I have bad memories about binary in here x.x (ppl flooding with binary/hex crap)

Binary Code is sometimes used in 8x programming. It became very tiring after the 5oth line, so I managed to move to assembly. The horror... the horror...

00101110011100010010111001110101

That's 68k code. ;-)

That binary code appears to be the

MOVEA.L (117,A1,D2.L*8),A7

instruction. D2.L has a scale other than 1, so it's not even a legal instruction on the MC68000, '08, or '10 processors. It's legal on the rest of the family, though.

It would be nice if the '00 supported scales of 2, 4, and 8, which would make accessing some structs and arrays easier and faster. Of course, it would be nice if it also supported other instructions like bit field instructions (e.g., BFSET), PACK, etc.

By the way, if A1 contains an even address (which is most common), that instruction will cause an address error exception. :)

No, my code is not a MOVEA, it's a NOP and an RTS.

Awwwww... The horror of coding for these calculators! I cannot see anyone build an entire engine out of binary! Sure, anyone can use Basic or QBasic or Visual Basic on a computer, so why can't coding for calculators be that easy??? I seen many games for the 89 Titanium that are built around a 3d engine, such as Arena 3D. Why can't anyone code Duke Nukem or Doom for the 89?
I'd try, but I cannot keep a project going for longer than a week, it gets very tedius (Kinda like Precalculus! :P). I am surprised that you are that patient, Kevin Kofler! Keep up the good work!

Generally speaking, people generally program the z80 and m68k calculators with their respective assembly language as opposed to pure binary. As for easier ways to program calculators, you have TI-BASIC, or if you have a m68k calculator, you can program it in the C Programming Language using TIGCC (currently maintained by Kevin Kofler) to compile it on your computer.

While Doom or DukeNukem3D might be stretching it (they both used extremely advanced raycasting engines), an accurate clone of Wolfenstein3d is certainly not out of the question (one has in fact been made for the 83+/84 series and the FAT engine for the m68k series could easily do it). For a faithful Doom clone, you're looking at hight differences and non-perpendicular walls, both of which are no small feat.

Higher level languages such as Visual Basic are just far to inefficient to run on calculators. They may run fine on your home computer, but you must remember that your home computer is many times faster than your calculator. TI-BASIC is slow, just imagine something even slower. Lower level languages such as Assembler or C are efficient enough to run fast, but the calculator simply doesn't have the hardware that would be needed to run higher level languages I have always about Fortran on m68k calcs though...

"Generally" is an understatement, you'd have to be crazy to code any nontrivial program directly in binary or hexadecimal machine language. ;-)

When I was learning Z80 assembly language, I coded it directly in hexadecimal on my TI-86. However:

* Z80 machine code is simpler than 68K (most common instructions are one byte each)
* it was a trivial program (draw a small picture on the screen)
* I am half crazy

Also, it gave me something interesting to do during those boring classes in high school. :) I can't tell you how many times I crashed my calculator while experimenting with different instructions in hexadecimal (I didn't even know which instructions they were, let alone what they did).

Yeah, I said "generally" because I knew that if I didn't, someone would come up with some crazy instance where I was wrong.

I speak in generalities to avoid being wrong. :)

Hey nybody?!? i'm a sorta nOOb at programming (fairly competent w/ BASIC) and am writing a game in BASIC for 83+. It runs like: output * here and u can move around (no problems w/ that part) but i'm trying to integrate 2nd as an attack command. Do u have ny hints/tips/tricks 4 me? tyvm if u respond at all (even with criticism or things i shouldn't do)

This isn't the right place to ask. Also, could you not leave half the letters out of your words? It'll make it possible to read what you're saying - thanks.

Sorry... So where is the right place to ask?

There isn't really one here, for all I know. There are forums, though, such as MaxCoderz (www.maxcoderz.org), Omnimaga, (www.omnimaga.org), TI-Freak Ware (www.tifreakware.net), TICALCS2 (www.ticalcs.net), and others.

OK, thanks. I'll try those sites.

Well, I'm back again...

Does anyone know a link to a good tutorial on making a games using tiles? If you could post the link I'd be really greatful.

I'd like a tutorial on tile-based games for the TI 83+... (somewhat obviously) and in BASIC if possible. Sorry for not clarifying in my 1st post :(

I'm really sorry for posting so many times, but I can't seem to be clear enough. If anyone knows how to make or knows a tutorial on tile-based games (like Block Dude, its coding would be exactly what I'm looking for.) Sorry again

You'll want to look in the archives ^link^ and see if there is anything in there that you can use. There's a lot of stuff in there so it may take a while, but you should be able to find something.

Thank you so much. I looked in the archives annot one, but *two* relevant (I think) programs. Again thank you. ;P

By the way, you all might be wondering why I need so much help... the answer is POKEMON! Yes, I plan to make Pokemon for the Ti 83+. I have a decent start, but will most likely need quite a bit more help. So keep your eyes open guys (and girls.)

yes, I know its been done before... *coolprogrammer568975 hides in shame*
hey, check out my first ever file upload! Program "Coolprogram" should appear under Ti 83+ Basic grafix programs in a short while!

Pokemon: Poliwhirl is nearing completion!!! So far you can input your name, move around, and fight Poliwag. Battle screens mimic those of Nintendo's Pokemon franchise!!! Final game should be ready in less than 2 weeks. Btw, I'm coming up with a domain err. when I try to output something at coordinates 'R,C' (where R+C are variables) on the homescreen. It might be because I'm overwriting those variables somehow, does anyone have any wisdom/experience with this err.?

I was thinking about porting Forth to the 68k calcs. It's an RPN language, so it's relatively easy to interpret or compile. Of course, I don't know if many people would want to program in it (in comparison, BrainF**k is also very easy to interpret but fairly difficult to program in).

True... True... They aer just too slow, but if you have experence in microelectronics (not saying I do)you can replace the resistor leading to the CPU of the calc to overclock it, as seen in this website somewhere...
The BIOS and memory is a bigger issue though. You cannot simply stick a 1GB stick of ram into a 89 Titanium expecting it to work (although it would be interesting to see what catches on fire then)
I wish I knew someone who can overrun a BIOS to read memory values differently, then I could hardwire an internal SD drive, or MSD8X needs to be compiled on an 89. With an overclocked CPU, enhanced memory and BIOS, possibly we could run a greyscale Doom, but that is way too much upgrading.
A Fortran compiler may be intersting also, but my Titanium is WAY too unstable with Kirby and Arena 3d running off of PreOS
I see possible entrances to next years competition though!
<Anything on the TI-Nspire CAS? There has to be a crack around that rig!>

I have the same problem with finishing projects ;P

A NOP and RTS in binary is:

0100111001110001 0100111001110101

but you wrote (with a space between words):

0010111001110001 0010111001110101

which is MOVEA.L (117,A1,D2.L*8),A7.

What a difference a 1 in the wrong bit position makes!

Oh, you're right. That's why we don't program directly in binary. :-) (At least in hex I wouldn't have screwed it up. ;-) )

Dude hex and binary suck. Octal is totally the way to go.

Nah, hex has pretty letters and binary only requires two keys. :)

Octal is obsolete in most cases, having been surpassed by hex in popularity, though there are some niche areas where it is still used, you don't see it nearly as much.

68k opcodes are an area where octal is useful, though, because the instruction set uses groups of 3 bits a lot. For example, the register numbers for both source and destination operand are clearly visible in the octal representation. Thus, the GNU Binutils use octal everywhere in the 68k opcode tables.

Wow, I was just kidding, but I actually (kind of) turned out to be right about octal.

Octal is used on machines that have 18-bit words (and 9-bit bytes!), like the PDP and VAX series of computers (PDP-7, PDP-11, etc.). Octal became obsolete about the same time as those machines.

Also, octal is sometimes useful in obfuscated C programs, such as those you'll find on www.ioccc.org. :)

00000000 -The horror... Most coding stinks,
00111100 although octal coding opens up more
01000010 oppurtunities in visual performance,
00000100 instead of 7 digit hex or 8 digit
00001000 endless binary.
00000000
00001000

This is sort of off topic, but I must say it...

This discussion is just like the episode on Star Trek The Next Generatoin when the Binars take over the enterprise and make the changes to the holo-deck! That was a really good episode...

The programs at ioccc are just evil.

Sometimes it's fun to decode them and figure out how they work. I also wrote an obfuscated program to submit to the ioccc. The 19th International Obfuscated C Code Contest closes on February 28, 2007, so I need to submit it soon.

>By the way, if A1 contains an even address (which is most common), that instruction will cause an address error exception. :)

That's not true. The '020 and later can handle long operations on odd addresses - they just take longer to execute. Since the instruction isn't valid on the '000, '010 or '008, it will cause an invalid opcode exception on those chips. It won't ever cause an odd address exception.

Hm... I think you're right. The 68020 and later can access memory from an odd address, but slower than from an even address.

I think it would be possible to emulate 68020 instructions on the 68000 by writing handlers for the "Illegal Instruction" and "Address Error" exceptions and for the "Line 1010" and "Line 1111" traps. The '020-only instructions would execute very slowly on it, of course, so I don't know how practical this would be.

I don't know of anyone ever emulating an '020 on a '000, but people did write FPU emulation by writing handlers for the F-line traps (SoftwareFPU on the Mac is a good example). And yes, it did execute a lot slower than a real FPU.

Do you know where I can get a Free (as in BSD license or GNU GPL) implementation of the floating point emulators for the '000? I looked at the F-line emulator in the m68k directory of the Linux source, but it uses instructions that are not legal on the '000; in particular, it uses scales other than 1 in MOVE and other instructions (as I pointed out above).

"Line 1111" traps, I have been a victim of this programming emulator. This causes my calc to spiral into an endless loop that can only be resolved by taking out ALL my batteries out of my Titanium, and wait an hour. This is VERY inconvienent when you aer in Calculus, and you cannot use your calculator because you forgot your screwdriver at home! PreOS isn't kind to Line 1111, so we need to find a way around this massive problem to my calc!