[TI-H] Re: Which calc should i buy???

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[TI-H] Re: Which calc should i buy???


I have owned an 82, 83+, 86 and 89.  The 82 was my first calc, so I didn't
know any better, and the 83+ was free.  I still have the 86 and 89.  The 89
isn't a bad little machine.  It's got a pretty decent cpu (for a calc) and a
fair amount of ram.  I never did much programming with it.  I bought it
specifically for programming.  I got it within a month of it coming out,
didn't get into it right away, and never did anything with it later.  The
whole kernel versus nostub thing is really annoying, and TI's support sucks.
If those doors guys hadn't ruined everything, it probably would have been
much better.  Rusty never liked the idea of a kernel, and plusshell
originally didn't have one.  He mentioned that he wished he hadn't given in
to them, and maybe none of this mess would have occurred.  It's a much
harder calc to program for, given it's complexity and the whole kernel mess.

The 89 can be very useful, if you need symbolic manipulation.  However, it's
too easy to use it as a crutch and not learn your algebra.  It doesn't
nearly do everything, so if you don't learn algebra, calculus will be quite
tough.  It's very clear that the OS was designed for the 92.  The homescreen
history thing is nice, but everything else sucks.  The menus are very slow,
and annoying.

The 86, on the other hand, is great in every way.  The only thing I dislike
is that TI decided to end that line of calcs, and never produced a version
that had flash.  I'd love to be able to reprogram the OS and have more
memory.  But overall it's fine the way it is.  Shells are optional.  Every
program can be run from the homescreen.  You don't have to worry about
things not working with each other, what shell you have, getting a bunch of
libs, etc.  It just works.  It's very easy to program for.  The display is
memory mapped, and doesn't completely suck like on the 82 line.  You can do
nice looking, flicker free grayscale very easily.  The system design is easy
to learn.  Programs are relocated before running, so you just write code,
and know exactly where it will be.  There is a huge number of system calls
that are well documented, and you just call them, no hassle.  Programs are
copied before being run into an 8k area.  You also have 16k of completely
free, scratch memory for things like tables, buffers, levels, etc.  This is
more ram than the 82 series has altogether.

If you want an example of a nice looking game for the 86, check out Zelda
86.  I didn't do the graphics or the maps, so I can say that it looks good.
Let me see you do something like this on an 82 series calc.  Yeah, right:

http://david.acz.org/zelda.gif

>  >Any 82/83 series calc sucks.  The 89 is cool, but overall, 86 rocks.
>
> A motivation would be nice.
> This line just leaves me with one question "why does the 86 rock? because
> thats the calc he owns?"
> I hope you have a deeper reason then that :)
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