Blar.

-TrumpetMan

Hi, I had a quick question. I am trying to get VTI 2.5 Beta 5 on my computer. So far, I have it on my computer, and have downloaded the ROM Dump Program to my calc. So, I try and execute Asm(Dumprom) on the home screen, and it doesn't work!!! I have a TI-83+ SE, and all the home screen says is, "0k out of 512k" forever. I tried leaving it on for over 3 hours, but all that did was drain my batteries. I tried holding the on key, but that didn't work. So, everytime I had to remove the batteries while it was on, erasing my RAM. I have a computer running Windows 95 (It was a hand me down!!!), and it has a Celeron (Pentium 1) processor, with 32 MB or RAM (computer does not calc!!!) so the specs are fine. I am using the black cable from TI that comes with the SE. I also tried it on my Windows XP, Pentium 3 128 MB of RAM computer, but it didn't even download the program! I have checked the right ports (or COM as the program calls it). I am writing this in this forum because the 2.5 beta 5 is closed. Also, I downloaded Alpha 3 version, and I can't open it. It comes up with a message saying, "EA Access Violation." What do I do??? Thanks!!!

I have both of these problems too! I'm trying to get the VTI to work on a Smart Board for school, but the 83+SE isn't wanting to cooperate with my computer. I read on page 3 here that having the ROM in the folder as the TVI would make it work, ok, but how do I get the ROM there if I need to get it off my calculator? I tried the RomDump program, but it doens't seem compatable with my XP computer.

AH! *bangs head on desk*
*murmers*How did I get the 86 working...

I have the EAccessViolation problem as well. I tried VTI 2.5 beta because the romdump2 program doesn't work for 83+. Apparently a black, parallel, serial, or silver non-USB was required to romdump in VTI 2.5.(I have an incompatible silver graph link USB cable.) To avoid all of these problems I tried VTI 3.0 alpha. Once I had read some reviews and decided that this was the solution to my problem, I downloaded it, unzipped it, and when I tried to use it I got some error message before the program could even completely load. I have a pentium 4, 512 megs RAM, and Windows XP (computer). Is it a problem with my OS? With a firewall? Please respond if you know why this happens.

CORRECTIONS TO PREVIOUS POST:
Instead of "EA Access Violation," it's, "EAccessViolation." Also, when I asked what I should do, I meant for the VTI 2.5 Beta 5 Version. Thanks!

I have VTI v2.5 beta which works great.
I recently downloaded VTI v3.0 Alpha and each time I try to run the program it gives me the error "EAccessViolation"
What is wrong? This error occurs when it tries to load the ROM image.

Finally, they have a new release. Maybe this time it will work with the 83+ rom. I have the flash debugger just to have a 83+ on my computer. I'll download it later.

As the news article says, it will support wriiting to flash. This means that you can (presumably) use the archive and add applications to the simcalc without adding them to the real calc and reuploading the ROM. As an owner of a nonexistent TI-83+ and TI-92 (I downloaded the ROMs from TI's site) and a physical TI-89, I applaud this project.

I loaded apps in to VTI successfully, e.g. Mirage.
But I did not find a way to load other files, e.g. 8xp files.
Is there a way to do that?
I kind of want to find a way to quickly test my asm progs...
My link is kind of slow...

All links are slow. ;) It's an artifact of the hardware.

If you use TIGCC, then you can set it to automatically transfer, but I don't know of any similar IDE for the 83+.

Sorry, it's a flash alpha version, there's a lot that was changed and regular files weren't added in yet.

GOB WOULD THEY PLEASE UPDATE!!!!!

All I know is that TI is abandoning all calcs
except for 83+, 83+SE, 89, and V200. I hope that
Rusty includes support for other calcs, as I
know there are certainly many people who own other
calcs... the TI-86 is still alive and well, and
many people still own them, but TI is abandoning
them and no longer is supporting them. In fact,
TI's website includes *games* for TI-83+ and TI-89,
but no games (or any apps for that matter) for any
other calcs. Let's just hope that by the time the
final version of VTI3 rolls out that support for
many more calcs are available.

VTI 3 is fully compatible with standard programs! They just haven't yet implemented the linking-in of programs yet. Try this: when you sent a ROM dump from your calculator, your calc would have had files in the archive, right? Well, go into you VTI 2 folder and copy into the VTI 3 folder you '.from' files. Now, rename the '.from' to a '.rom' - load up VTI 3, go to select OS, and select one of the dumps you just copied. There you go - VTI 3with programs! Something I haven't checked is whether emulating the link port and using the Link>Receive option works...
BTW, if you copy an 8xu file (such as the OS1.15 file) and run it as a ROM in VTI, it says (on the calc) 'Install software now', in other words there is no OS. What is the way around that?

Yes I agree.

About the link:
The "Enable Cable Link" option is grayed-out, so the link won't work.
Remember however, that this is just an alpha release. All the "old" options we know and love will probably be back when the VTI 3.0 is released.

This is THE best news I've heard in so long... VTI is still being worked on? Rusty didn't abandon us? This is so great... Is the new version stable?

Well, VCalc doesn't seem to work for the SE, but... :p

I don't know if that's standard/kosher code. Maybe it uses an undocumented feature of the 83+ SE's hardware?

VCalc uses extra RAM that *is* in the calc (in the SE, that is), but TI-OS never uses. It is very possible that it isn't (yet?) in VTI either.

WHy in the world does the TIOS not use all that RAM? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

Yeah, I've always wondered what 27K-32K (TI-83)/24K-32K (TI-83+) is used for...

Hey, don't you think it's odd that the TI-83+ can't function properly if the available RAM is low? You can't properly go through the Memory/Mgt/Del menu. What is up with that?

That's not the RAM I was refering to. Those bytes *are* used (call stack, floating point stack, buffers, VAT, flags, ...).
The 83- and 83+ have a RAM chip which allows for the storage of 32 KB of information; all of that space is used for some purpose or other.
The 83+SE has a RAM chip that is actually 128 KB in size. However, TI-OS only uses 32 KB of that (and 9 KB are "reserved", see above, leaving 27 KB for you). The other 96 KB *are never touched by TI-OS*, as far as it cares, it wouldn't matter if it wasn't even there.
Programs like VCalc, the VCalc-like feature of Omnicalc and Omni's ram recovery use this extra mem to provide useful features. (Which goes wrong if that extra mem isn't emulated.)
(Note: I haven't yet verified whether that's actually the problem.)

Maybe they will allow this RAM to be accessed in a future TI-OS upgrade. The last AMS (v2.05) upgrade increased the available TI-89 RAM memory by 3x. Its probably a limitation of the existing TI-83+ firmware. As far as I know, they are still using the TI-83+ software on the 83+SE (or a slightly modified version of it). I'm using a TI-89 now, so I don't pay attention to 83 stuff anymore.

Probably something compatibility related. :( If you really care, you could always try asking ti-cares...

So, you want to run an emulator ... on an emulator of its intended platform ... why? It /would/ make an interesting benchmark to see if the emulators in question can hit real-calc speed, but it lacks control.

And why is it, the bigger a site gets, the more difficult it is to get access? I took me a good 10 minutes to log in, after waiting for two confirmation mails (note that this is with an existing account) and then I still had to scroll through a full screen of warnings about the horrible things they'll do to me if I misbehave!

You obviously haven't been here in a LOOOOOOOONG time. ;-) The confirmation mail is to make sure the owner of the account still actively uses it. The "warnings" are just guidelines for posting (you've never seen them before?). The site loads as fast as any other one for me. Could be your connection.

it prbly is his connection, after all he has evil comcast.

I've been here regularly. Its just that I haven't wasted the time to go through the confirmation process till now. And I realize that warnings on content are necessary, but a full page of them is just a bit of overkill. Generally you sum it up to 'No flames or illegal stuff' and leave it at that.

And as for Comcast, I'm happy with my service. I hit 215Kb/s on big downloads, with regular page transfers peaking at 24Kb/s.

But about the emulator thing ... perhaps I will try to get VCalc to run under VTI3 under Wine ...

Since I can't visit the Internet very often, I have often gotten the confirmation mails, especially if I don't remember to post when I have the chance. I can understand the reason behind them, although they are a little annoying at times. Actually, that's the main reason I'm writing this post now, so hopefully no one will get upset about this fairly useless post. :-)

Camcast is great i cn get at the highest about 500-600 and once got 20mbps

Hmmm, VCalc is not really an emulator. It's a program that allows you to have two "instances" of your memory.

He was in long-term hibernation, maybe? Or possibly his calculator died. :-(

Probably just school or something.

Could be... I really did think he died... I mean, if one of us died, how would you know? It's not like it's going to be in the local calculator news paper. Well, if you don't see me on the boards in three days, then either MV is deleting too many posts, or I'm dead. ;-)

You're right, no_one. There SHOULD be a calculator newspaper (perhaps a module of ticalc.org). Maybe we should ask Magnus.

Yeah, but even if we did have a calculator newspaper, there would still be no way of finding out if somebody was still alive or not. You can't just e-mail all the senior members everyday asking them "Are you dead yet?" :)

And speaking of dead programmers, what ever happened to Bill Nagel? Remember him? He wrote all the really great fast-paced ASM games back in mid '90s, most notibly Penguins, Nibbles, Pong, Turbo Breakout, and even Tetris! He has 59 files released under his name, all of which are sleek, professional, and ingeniusly written ASM programs. And he's ranked #7 in the most downloaded authors of all time (at ticalc.org, of coarse). It seems so eerie look back on the reminescence of the mid 90's, back when ASM programming was at an all time high, and all the TI-legends were still active.

But it seemed like Bill Nagel just popped out of site in only a matter of days? What happened? I can only infer a sudden death, or perhaps he just gave up programming altogether, or just moved on the bigger and better things. In any case, he's sorely missed, and I think this is a case should be looked into. There must be some sort of explanation for such a sudden and unexpected relinquishment from something he seemed to love so much.


Dying is an art,
like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

Most of the "greats" have seemed to disappear after some time. I don't know, I guess they just lost interest in programming, which really is a shame.

Perhaps they lost interest in just CALCULATOR programming. I think that programming for calculators appeals mostly to middle/junior high school and high school people. After that, people's interest just dives.

(How should I know, really? I'm 19 now and still trying to write a great asm game for my TI-86! It's going to be the best game ever, and it'll be done Real Soon Now!</sarcasm> I am still working on my game (for those who are wondering), and I like to think it'll be a very awesome game too.)

Hey! Long time no see.

Perhaps they do. After a while, it seems, the excitment of programming seems to disappear. At least for calculators. If it's your job, that's a different story. But with stuff like freeware, they put hours into and just get it trashed, no wonder the good ones leave. Oh well. But stuff like this is great. Keep it up!

People do not generally lose interest in things that the like so much in so little time. It is most likely that he (like many good programmers) was hired by a company and programs for different platforms than TI calculators. That's what seems to happen to the Application authors. They are in the intermediate phase between calculator hobbyists and real-time programmers. That is probably what happened to Bill Nagel.

ok here is what WE DO! hire a P.I.! or you can have your local courthouse look for all deaths under the name that was the one we call rusty :) but use his real name of course :)

I think you would be suprised just how quickly some of us loose interest in things...

But that's really sad... to lose your programming like that.

Yup. Very sad indeed. How can one live without programming?

Exactly what I was thinking... it's really fun.... Poor Rusty ;-)

A calculator newsletter! Now that would be cool...
Lol!

Ticalc.org had a newsletter going for a while.

Yeah... then they stopped... just like they stopped archiving files... just like they stopped paying attention to the site altogether...

Isn't there supposed to be a new archiver recruited by new? The due date for applications was over a week ago.

They're working on it...

Maybe Ticalc should be more open in recruiting. they do need more people. Why just one archiver, one editor, etc?

Very good point... the more, the better!

See link, it's funny.

I don't think their talking about this Rusty, are they? And other than the odd grammar, I don't see the joke (unless that's it). :) (I'm a bit slow, in case you haven't realized that yet)

Hey, I think it's funny. Just think...some 86-year-old guy writing programs for TI calculators. OK, so it's not that funny.

It made me laugh :)
Oh well, I'm just a sad geek...
Good news on VTI though...