ticalc.org
Basics Archives Community Services Programming
Hardware Help About Search Your Account
   Home :: Archives :: News :: A Map-based TI-81 RPG: Illusiat TI-81 Remake

A Map-based TI-81 RPG: Illusiat TI-81 Remake
Posted by Travis on 30 May 2010, 20:16 GMT

Illusiat TI-81 Remake screenshot

Created before the TI-81 ASM exploit became public, Kevin Ouellet's remake of Illusiat for the TI-81 is an RPG that pushes the TI-81's incredibly limited TI-BASIC programming capabilities beyond anything I've seen for that calculator. Using every one of the 37 available subprograms to save every last byte of space, it just manages to fit inside the TI-81's 2400 bytes of program memory and takes advantage of the matrix variables to store map data without counting against the program/statistics storage limitation. The game is necessarily input-based (enter a number followed by Enter for every input) since the TI-81's only input instruction is Input, but for this platform's extreme limitations, it is nonetheless impressive.

Because the long-discontinued TI-81 is becoming increasingly rare and entering the game into an actual TI-81 involves a great deal of typing due to the lack of a link port, ports of the game are available for the TI-73, TI-82, TI-83, TI-83+/84+, TI-85, and TI-86 to give a wide audience a chance to see what the game would be like on the original calculator.

  Reply to this article


The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.


Re: A Map-based TI-81 RPG: Illusiat TI-81 Remake
Compynerd255 Account Info
(Web Page)

You know, I was looking at the sheer power of this program and looking at the old way that TI used to store data on the 81 (fixed allocation). I couldn't help but imagine the old days when those kids who were stuck with the old 81's getting new, hacked 85s rubbed in their face, much like kids with new cell phones brag about them. "Oh look at my new TI-85! I have ZShell! I can play these cool games! And look, you don't even have a link port! Boo hoo." Kids can be so cruel.

However, this face rubbing probably encouraged ASM programmers to get 82s and 85s in order to truly get better power. If this game had come out 18 years earlier, we probably would not have link ports on todays calculators, since the 81s could counter the 85s being rubbed in their face.

Reply to this comment    3 June 2010, 14:33 GMT


Re: Re: A Map-based TI-81 RPG: Illusiat TI-81 Remake
Steve Randle Account Info

Nowadays, it's no different, except people are rubbing 68k calculators in the faces of us 83+/84+ people. The good part is that there are more people that program for 83+/84+ than anything else.

Reply to this comment    6 June 2010, 19:07 GMT
1  2  

You can change the number of comments per page in Account Preferences.

  Copyright © 1996-2012, the ticalc.org project. All rights reserved. | Contact Us | Disclaimer