LZ-Adv: Clearing up some TI-82 confusion.

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LZ-Adv: Clearing up some TI-82 confusion.

I used to own a TI-82 until I gave it to my sister a few months ago when I
got my lovely 85 and created the extremely popular Meister Mind ZShell
Edition (DOWNLOAD IT TODAY!), so I can answer any questions from the user
perspective.


To clear up one point: it does NOT have named variables.  This makes
programming suck.  The variable handling is very inconsistent.  The real
variables are fixed as A-Z and theta.  The list variables (1-dimensional
array) are L1-L10, I think.  And the matrix variables (2-dimensional array)
are A1-A6, I think.  The picture variables are Pic1-Pic10, etcetera.  Very
annoying.  The only things on the calculator that you can name are programs,
and these only A-Z, 0-9, and theta.  We'll get to lowercase later.


So howdafuck do you store binary programs on the stupid piece o' turd?
Goooood question.  I think it's probably impossible without some sort of
funky rom patch.


Furthermore, I'm not sure if Mattias' method would work on the machine.
Because of its inflexibility and general balkiness, I don't think you could
store something like E145 to a real variable.  There is no variable that you
can store anything you want to besides a Program variable, but those
variables are probably handled strangely and tokenized or something.  


But here's the final nail in the coffin: I think EVERYTHING is tokenized.
This is evidenced by the fact that you cannot type in your commands as
letters like you can on the '85.  You must choose them from a menu.  For
example, on the '85 you can type sin 90 and you get 1 (if in degree).  But
on the '82, if you type SIN 90 on the keypad, it will balk.  You must press
the button labelled SIN, which will spew out "sin " onto your screen.  If
you attempt to backspace it, the whole thing will blow up as soon as you try
to eliminate the first character.  Tokenized!  Yech.


If you're already grimacing, here's something worse: you can't even type in
lowercase letters, yet they are present in the font!  For example, "sin " is
in lowercase.  To put stuff in lowercase, you must cheesily use Output
(identical to Outpt on the 85; you choose coordinates on text screen and can
spew anything you want there) and overwrite other stuff.  For example, if
you want to say "taco", you could do this:
Output(1,1,"tan ")  <- To generate, type ["] [TAN] ["]
Output(1,3,"cos ")  <- To generate, type ["] [COS] ["]
Output(1,5," ")     <- This is to erase the "s" in "cos "
(In case you're wondering, Output appears as the token "Output(" and you
supply the terminating right parenthesis.  Please turn your head to the side
before you vomit now or you might ruin your monitor.)


Weird, eh?  So I definitely do NOT recommend that Mattias, or anyone else
for that matter, get an 82, or even touch one for that matter.  We can just
leave it alone.
 _______________________________________________________________________
|Martin Hock   -  oxymoron@aimnet.com   -  Oxymoron at #irchelp on EFnet|
|"I'm influenced by television?  That's a load of rich creamery butter!"|
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