A86: Willy DO BE DO BE DO
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A86: Willy DO BE DO BE DO
I was snooping around the ROM and found a routine at $1AC1 that clears
the screen and prints
Willy DO BE DO BE DO
right in the middle, pauses a second or two, then does some other stuff (I
haven't investigated the rest yet). I can't find a place where this
routine is called, and I haven't noticed any strange goings-on in my calc
since I called the routine. If you want to try it, the fast way is to
edit an AsmPrgm with "CDC11AC9" in it.
This brings up some important questions:
1) Who, or what, is this Willy? There is no one of that name mentioned
on the title page of the TI-86 manual. Could he be a pet of one of
the programmers? Is there any connection between this Willy and the
groundskeeper of Springfield Elementary? Is Pat Milheron nicknamed
Willy?
2) Why is he singing, and what significance, if any, does his song
hold? The capital letters indicate strong enthusiasm, yet the
subtle lack of an exclamation point suggests feigned joy, and adds
an air of futility to the mood.
3) Why is this even in the ROM? Was it a piece of code used to debug
the ROM, but inadverently kept in the release version? Perhaps it
constitutes some kind of a meaninless joke, placed there purposely
as a stumbling block to cause people to ask questions for which
there are no answers.
If you know the answers to these important questions, or if you know
someone who does, please enlighten the rest of us. The sanity of the
entire TI-86 user community depends on you! I implore you, act now while
there is still hope!
--------
Dan Eble (mailto:eble@cis.ohio-state.edu)
(http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~eble)
P.S. - Whatever the case, the TI-86 team made a really cool product. :)
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