A89: Re: WindowsTI

To: <assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org>
Subject: A89: Re: WindowsTI
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Rapha=EBl_HUCK?=" <philhuck@club-internet.fr>
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 20:19:31 +0200
Delivered-To: assembly-89-outgoing@towerguard.unix.edu.sollentuna.se
Reply-To: assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org


When will Windows TI and TI-IE be released ?

MP <philhuck@club-internet.fr> <http://mp.i-france.com>


-----Message d'origine-----
De : Miles Raymond <m_rayman@bigfoot.com>
À : assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org <assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org>
Date : vendredi 25 septembre 1998 00:48
Objet : A89: WindowsTI


I have been inspired by WinShell for the TI-86 and the column about Telnet
83 to come up with WindowsTI OS and TI-IE app for the TI-89.  I have
included pictures that I made wednesday night.  Justin Karneges has said
that he is going to try to make the PPP protocol part of an ASM program, and
my ideas rely mainly on if this comes true.

WindowsTI is like the "Ultimate OS" described on ticalc.org.  It will be
module-based so features can be included or left out.  A few of the
different features that have been described are: built-in RAM compression,
false multi-tasking, icons/descriptions, and others.  ASM programs will
exclusively run in WindowsTI with a text/graphical interface.  Special
commands in the WinTI-API will allow the use of the "taskbar" as the menu
system (as demonstrated in TI-IE).  This will result in better use of screen
space.

TI-IE (Texas Instruments Internet Explorer) will be exactly what it sounds
like: a graphical browser.  The problem with this is that the current
graphics available on the web are larger than that of which the TI-calc can
contain.  This can be solved in two ways:
1) The graphics can be left alone, and not downloaded
2) The graphics can be selectively downloaded, and changed to a monochrome
format, to take up less space.
I know that this sounds very optomistic, given the TI-calc's memory and
processing power.  I do not know if a decompression scheme can be programmed
in a small amount of memory.  I think that GIF support is necessary, and
JPEG support would be appreciated.  This is why I chose the TI-89 for this
project, because it has more memory and is faster than the other TI-calcs.
TI-IE would have the basic ability to view web pages.  File upload/download
support is very considering, but the only practical use of uploading is to
play a multiplayer game over a web page with another TI-calc hooked up to
the Internet.  TI-IE would not support encryption because I was told that
this was way over my memory budget.  My dad cringed when I told him how much
memory I had to do this in.

Thanks for any comments.  Again: I am not a programmer (yet), though I will
do graphics.  I plan to draw more pictures of WindowsTI and a few programs
for it, such as mTIRC and TI-Explorer.

-Miles Raymond