Survey posted 2000-04-05 01:54 by Andy.

Contribute ideas to surveys by sending a mail to survey@ticalc.org.

I can program in BASIC pretty good and could program in C since I got an A in AP Computer Science. However programming in assembly seems rather difficult to learn.

It is. I would never have learned assembly if there was a wrothwhile C compiler for the Z80 calcs.

i don't know about you, but i think it would be really great if there was a QBasic compiler for the 89. reply if you have any thoughts on the situation.

Chris

http://www.qbasic.com/basm286.zip

I doubt anybody is gonna read this but is there a java compiler for the 83+?

Never mind :)

Actually, Chris Dannemiller and Jeremey Scoggins have a C compiler for the TI-83 and 86. But I wouldn't call it worthwhile.

Yeah, yeah, replying to the same post twice in a row.
Just wondering, do they mean learn or master? It takes days to a week to LEARN Z80 asm, if you just mean all the opcodes, and the simple stuff like that. but it takes months to figure out how to do things with it. After a matter of hours, i was writing all kinds of stupid stuff, but its taken 6 months for me to make something worthwhile, and itll be another month before i get that working.

I see your point. I for one can do simple assembly, and currently working on simple things to get used to it. However, to 'master' it would take a long time!! Hopefully one day......

I took it to mean "learn" not "master". Obviously it takes much longer imho to master anything at all, whether an instrument or spelling or programming. To even get a "good" takes longer (most of the time) than a week. I'd also rather had the option to reply in the number of hours. For me, a week of time isn't very many hours (mostly during school when I'm not reading or paying attention) since I do a lot during the week (I have over 1500 community service hours last year alone...hmmm). But basically, I took the question to mean learn and not even get better'n'average.

- -: Joey :- -

Hey Joey, I didnt know you knew to program in ASM...

you are probably wondering who I am... Well, Ryan knows me, and I went to that math thing with you, and rode in the same car (I do hope this is the joey mavity who I know).

Actually, Mastering it isnt hard... You just have to know how to manipulate things first, For example, if you always used variables in your basic code as flags, then, you wouldnt have to learn how to use flags, and the same is such for most of the commands, it isnt hard to learn and do well in ASM, yet, mastering does take at least a month, since not only must you know the commands, you must be able to know your calc and everything you can have it do for you, that is just as important, otherwise, you have major problems with the size of your programs...

I completely disagree. I have been programming ASM for four years and I still do not consider myself a master.

Yes, and in many of the tutorials, you seem to be considered as a "god" of some sort in ASM...

four years and Harper Maddox is not a "Master"? Can I ever even hope to be good? Wow...unfortunately I am totally in the middle of the raging battle of 83 Plus assembly programmers. there's just no non-Ion support for us dudes that can't understand half of the technical stuff from TI...sigh. so anyways, I started MegaHelp...if you have or know of any good, helpful tutorials...please e-mail them to me! because I am collecting as many (worthwhile) compilers, emulators, and tutorials for every TI-model...just to make it easy for the next guy who follows in my wake (which would be hard because it is not big). Go Michigan State baby!! (that's where I'm from)
Steve
mystic_calx@yahoo.com

Man, it took so much time learning assmebly. I finnaly understand how Z80 commands work, I don't think I can handle 68k anymore (Unless they're really similar!!!). Still, I don't get the romcalls, and I wonder how SOS supports libraries, Well, I'll learn it one day and create my verision of Windows or something maybe,

Actually...if you read tutorials CAREFULLY and read A LOT of source code that someone already made...it's pretty easy. I read many tutorials many times. I also printed out source codes to read over them many times and understand what everything does. My tip to you future ASM programmers is to read some nice tutorials and read over a lot of source codes that have detail info in them as to what everything does.

Later,

-Brian
blackknight34@hotmail.com

Thanks for the tip. There are a lot of BS replies further down, but this is the kind of practical advice I, and many others just learning ASM, are looking for. I've e-mailed some of the ASM FAQ writters for advice like that and gotten no response. Thanks again.

I thought that was what this site was for, you guys do the programming and we reep the benefits.

That isn't a bad idea, but sometimes it would be nice for those people who do write all the programs to get something back for it.

I've tried, but I've been so busy I don't have the time to learn assembly. I'm great with BASIC, but I haven't had time to make anything worth uploading, unfortunately.

I know exactly how you feel--not enough time.

Apparently you thought wrong - this site is a place where programmers can post their programs and gamers can "reep the benefits." The actual staff of the site doesn't program for TI calculators often.

Some of the staff has programmed calculators in the past. Specifically, Magnus worked on Zshell, David worked on Fargo, and I programmed SpaceWar and Fargonoid. Niklas and Ahmed (both staff members) program actively now. I haven't programmed in assembly for TI calculators, though, in about three and a half years. I just don't have time, and of course my interests have drifted.