Re: A92: Re: Shells and assembler

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Re: A92: Re: Shells and assembler


I'd prefer to do my own IO, but if someone wrote a module for 3D graphics...

Noah Medling
http://xp.calc.org/


---- "Aaron Hill" <serac@lightmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm sure Ellsworth knew what he was doing.  The TI-92 is a graphing calculator.
> That is its only purpose in life--perform mathematical operations and visualize
> the results.  David, knowing this, figured that most people would need to use
> the calculator for both assembler programs and for its original design.  With
> that in mind, he considered how the TI-OS would deal with assembler code.  By
> encapsulating assembler inside of "BASIC" program, the TI-OS would automatically
> deal with file transfer and file management.
> 
> Of course no one is perfect.  David never figured out how to prevent the TI-OS
> from re-writing the program if you accidentally tried to edit it.  We just knew
> never to open an assembler program.
> 
> I don't follow how writing our own OS will help us.  The TI-OS is implemented
> in ROM.  Our OS would MOSTLY be in RAM (assume we borrow SOME functions of the
> TI-OS).  This will take up our most valuable and most limited resource--memory.
> I personally would never want to program file management or file transfer!  It
> is hard enough for me to read the stupid keyboard matrix!
> 
> . . .    . . .    . . .    . . .    . . .    . . .    . . .    . . .    . . .
> 
> I was thinking about my old Amiga 1000 sitting near to my Pentium II 400MHz.
> (The Amiga was one of the first multi-tasking systems.)  If we had a multi-
> tasking system for the 92, we could simply "console" applications by providing
> a "stdin" and "stdout".  The kernel would deal with reading the keyboard matrix
> and rendering the text.  Or better yet, one module provides text output and a
> different module does tile/sprite graphics.  Your program switches to the other
> module to do graphics output.  Since only kernel modules are rendering to the
> screen, you can ensure that only the foreground app's graphics are displayed.
> The last module you could add would be for 3D graphics.
> 
> Assuming this system was already built, would you programmers use it?  Or do
> you prefer to do your own I/O?
> 
> 
> ====
> Aaron Hill (Redmond, Wash.)
> Electronic Mail: serac@lightmail.com
> IRC Nickname: serac (on EF-Net)
> ActiveWorlds Citizenship: serac
> 
> 
> 

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