Re: A89: LinuxTI & Memory Expander

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Re: A89: LinuxTI & Memory Expander


Great idea! Yes it was mentioned earlier, and i kind of put it aside. That 
should probably be a priority, since we would likely have to cut out 
functions and features of the programs to reduce size. Also this would act as 
a separate "partition" or perhaps drive which you could mount and unmount, 
and either store user defined programs or other things. If we end up making 
our own calc linker (we will probably have to, if we want to send .exe or 
.txt files), we should make it so that we can send files directly to the 
extension to make sure that we dont have to load files on the the calc which 
are too big, then have to send them to the expansion.
Here are the Top 10 Concerns of this project : (note that i am getting ahead 
of myself...but linux took a long time of planning too, so why not?)

- People who use the original TI-OS will get cheesed off because current 
games such as SMQ and SF2T etc... will not work on this OS

- TI will be angry if we break there key (and we might have to use parts of 
their OS for mathematical purposes.)

- There won't be enough memory and people will have to purchase memory 
expansion kits (hopefully you wont charge us _too_ much :)

- We may not even be able to get it up and running with/without ditching the 
TI-OS

- We will have to be able to have a BASIC programming language, otherwise non 
ASM people can't contribute

- More likely than not, we will have to rewrite any software to include grey 
scale, floating point, and black and white (sigh), as well as, the link port, 
odd networking hardware (Mark, maybe you could make some Networking adapters 
too?) as well as stuff i wont argue about (like the ROM, i enjoy learning 
about it from you guys rather than explain it:-)

- We need to create drivers and such for our keyboards and link ports and 
LCDs (not a big problem i dont think)

- Other calculators will want this Linux TI for Z80 - could we write ROMs for 
that? I'm thinking not.

- EXTENSIVE bug testing...of course this is the ROM and shouldn't be cleared, 
but then again...how did we get it on there (talking from the future :-)

- Hmm, okay i didn't make it all the way to 10, but i don't want to diss this 
project at all...nor do i want to waste valuable time (i still haven't made 
any ASM programs :-(. 

Lets go onto the good points...

- We have much respect for getting such a tremendous task completed

- Every could learn about programming who would like to contribute

- Our calculators aren't any longer "a waste of skin"...not that they are if 
you need it for math, but TI doesn't exactly push the hardware's limit...its 
too easy i guess...(let me know what you think, even though they are probably 
all flames :-)

- Make this mother WORK!!! AHAHAHA!!! (excuse me)

- Networking capabilties, with file sharing and permissions

- Much better application development 

- The source code is freely free, if we all agree to this lets have it be a 
GNU program/OS

- We could do plenty with the different memory types...the ROM is for the 
Kernel
  The RAM is just that- the RAM, and the extension (hopefully we get one) is 
for programs, like a hard disk

- Okay, this is very very long...(at least it looks like it) so ill sum it up

I dont think it really likely to happen on this calc, but im not in the 
position to judge that yet...its real hard to say.
Nothing has been done to work with the ROM except AU (archive utility) and im 
not sure if thats even ROM?
Hopefully we DO get passed this issue...if not i have a back up plan!
Perhaps there is some bug waiting to be found in the TI-OS that lets us go 
straight to the processor (or am i living in the past...help me out here, the 
TI OS handles the ASM and you can't directly program for the 68K...its more 
or less programming for the TI-OS?, whatever any way what i was saying) and 
we can comletly ingore, disable temperarly, whatever to the TI OS. Then we 
can have the program be stored in RAM for the TI part of it, then Load it 
self into the expansion, and whatnot...then go from there. (that was most 
likely the stupidest sounding thing i have said...or maybe not :-)

Well, I wish you all the best of luck and i hope this opens up to be a great 
"hack" that TI wont be happy about, but we will be going around like nerds 
with Linux on every thing we own...including our watches (yes im over 
exagerating...but you never know..they do run some smart VCRs)

With any luck, we will be discussing this developement for a good long time, 
perhaps we should start our own list so the people that dont want to help 
dont have to listen to our rambling (I feel like a spammer or something) but 
i really hope to see every one in on this...after all, its our calcs, lets 
customize!!

And if we get a large enough expansion...(im still not real certain on that 
idea...its a great idea but i have a strange feeling that i can't 
understand...a bad feeling that this isn't going to work and we will be come 
the the village idoits, but i wont care as long as we all try at it...you 
really can't say at this point though)...like a few megs...5 or 10...then we 
really could start something revolutionary here!!

This has got me all revved up...and i hope it goes as well as i think it can

Regards, 

Kyle