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

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I haven't written any Z80 code as of yet. I have looked at the info TI has provided for the TI-86. Memory mapping. I had heared that the 85 could be programmed in ASM, but I didn't know about how it could be done until I came to TICALC.ORG. I would like to do it without using any of the shells. Stand alone type code for use with BASIC. I haven't grasped the concept as to how the code in a string in enter through the custom menu. I understand better about the TIMEX Sinclair putting the code in a REM statment. But I can see it is simular in that quoted strings are used as remark statments in TI Basic on the calculators. I do some programming on the TI-99/4A in assembly, but it is primarily to support BASIC programming. BASIC uses less memory. None of the assembly programs I have written are nuch over 1K. The last thing I was working on (not finished) is to allow TI Extended BASIC to use the 1 MAG AMS Card. I figure at the rate I am going it will be three years before I write any ASM for use with one of my calulators (two TI-85s, TI-86, TI-92(v1.11)). The TI-92 I believe will need the plus module. I will probably write code for my TI-86 first. The code for the TI-85 (both ROM's version 9.0) seems more intreguing.

When I first got interested in assembly programming, I went to http://ti86.acz.org and went to their tutorial section, printed them all out, and read all of the documents. It wasn't until nearly a month or two until I actually sat in front of my computer and made a decent program. I think what the question refered to is "how long did it take you to create a program that you feel is some what decent and is almost all your own." that's how I interpret it to mean, because it took me about 3 months to create a decent ASM program.

HEllo
I can program in ASM for the 86 89 92 92+ I have an idea to write a program or a shell that will convert on calc between rom versions and if anyone is willing to help e mail me! IT will help everyone with an 89 92 92+

AJ

Man i have tried to learn asm, but not really hard. I have a Ti-86. I know a little in basic programing but thats it! IF somone could tell me where there is a good tutorial, i could probly learn...

I learned these 68k commands in maybe a few days:
pea lea move.b move.w move.l
add.b add.w add.l sub.b sub.w sub.l
bra jsr bsr blt ble bge beq

In maybe a week or two:
muls.b muls.w muls.l mulu.b mulu.w mulu.l
divs.b divs.w divs.l divu.b divu.w divu.l
lsr.b lsr.w lsr.l lsl.b lsl.w lsl.l
and.b and.w and.l eor.b eor.w eor.l
or.b or.w or.l clr.b clr.w clr.l

In about a month:
movem.l adda.l suba.l dbra

That's about all I know of 68k assembly.

WOW! I don't even know 68k (well, I looked at it 4 years ago for one day and never rememberd anything since) and I still figured out just by looking at those commands what most of them did. If anybody wants to know a really great way to learn asm, go to Cornell and take cs314, you get to build a processor,and afterwards you get to really understand how processors and assembly language works. this shit is amazing@!

I guess I learned the the basics in about a day, and a few other things under a week. Would it be enough to make anything worthwile? Probably not, but doesn't have to do with assembler but with the OS. Every OS has its perks just as much as every processor, and assembly definitly has less instructions and is more strict than OSs and their funtion calls, if nothing more bacause they can be upgraded...

My two cents... (and my first post)

So I voted on this topic and looked at the results. I couldn't believe that !10% of people who votes said it took them only a week to learn asm! I'm a CS major at Cornell University, and I'll lend you all a little piece of advice, I'm STILL learning assembly. There are a lot of things you don't know about the asm you might be using, wether it be z80, 68k, MIPS, x86, or whatever. The point is, you will never know everthing there is to know (just like UNIX, Sigh). You can learn alot, but there will always be wizards (ala Andreas Ess) that will code circles around you. And even for those people out there their are others who are even better.
I'm currently a part of a team that writes AI for a bunch of robots that play soccer. The professor that is in charge of the project (robocup) I just found also programed for the z80 in assembly, WHEN HE WAS 13. "No biggie" you say? Well figure this, he did it in HEX, he started doing it on paper, then translated it by hand into hex which he typed into his computer. I know another guy who did the same for his Commodore64 back when we were all in dipers. Just a word from teh wise, it's cool to be sure of yourself, but don't get cocky. There are some wizards out there, and if you are lucky enough you just might me a few. I've been very lucky to meet 5-10 in my years so far, and I know I'm nothing like them....

will stokes, youre the best. ive been trying to learn assembly since my freshman year of high school, and i still dont know exactly what every piece of the ti92 rom does! can you believe it

actually i think you're kinda -lame- if you've been messing around with calculators for 5 years, and still participate in these meaningless conversations. and by the way, i think you looked sexier in your picture humping the tree with your tennis racket. ;-)

I am an EE major. I had to take Assembly for the 8088 and 8086. At the time i was learning it i didnt like it. I didint like it until we got to the hardware part of it and i was able to see what the hardware was doing. And I must agree it is pretty amazing stuff. It is mind boggling what is going on inside of the processor. Well I dont program in Asm at all. After that semester I have been so busy that i just didnt continue learning it. Since I am not a CS major the teacher i had for the class was not the greatest and i guess his only real concern was for us EE majors in the class to see the hardware aspect of it. I took the second part of the class where we built the actual board and then burned EPROMs with different programs in assembly. and it is sooo amazing. I just wanted to encouarge you all to continue on with your programming whether it be Basic or Assembly or C or whatever...keep it up and have fun...and listen to what Will Stokes said it is so true....

Wizards, huh? Ok, try this. Within 8 hours of buying my TI-86 (thus, this is complete time total) I had written a 3D Demo in BASIC (Basic = easy)

I started learning Z80 assembly, I wrote a simple GUI based SHELL in about a week. (no, I'm not lying)

About knowing everything about the assembly, I'm currently able to program in Z80, x86, and Motorola HC68 or something-like-that assembly. How well do I know the Z80? Well, I wrote my own emulator, (unlike VTI, I wrote my own Z80 core) I _KNOW_ the processor. I can code simple programs in HEX, without the assistance of an opcode map. (fairly easy when you learn where the commands fall) What about the x86? Well, the Z80 core is written IN x86 assembly! (runs the fastest I know of) True, I have things to learn about instruction ordering to take advantage of pipelining... blah blah blah... ja, there's more to learn, but when you're writting a dynamic recomplying emulator (current project) is there really THAT much more?

Sorry to rant and rave like that... but you assume no one can best your situation. There are people out there.

Also, I like to program in Assembly, it's fun! Plus, I like to get my hands dirty. (call me psycho)

Oh, well, uh, just you wait until we can plug computers into our brains, and be able to use programming language like spoken language.

I'll be the first to sign up!

Ill be the second!

Arcades

You know the only problem with this awesome site is there are so many people use it that the comment boards get overflowed with messages, and only the first 10 or so are replied to. I estimate not many people will read this comment and even fewer will reply. Oh well, the problems that come when a site has tons of traffic!

amicek

I see you, and I know what you mean. Does anyone know of any site that's as good as this one that doesn't have quite so many users?

I mainly program BASIC for the 82, later for the 89.
I feel so embarrassed. It took me, now that I've thought about it, 4 years to learn BASIC for the TI-82. Yes BASIC for the TI-82. Finnally I mastered it and am good at it, but now the TI-82 is almost "obsolete". I downloaded and downloaded tutorials, tips, etc. I could find on ASM for the 82 and I never could place into my head all those opcodes, words, letters, etc. By the time I learn ASM for the 82, there wont be a such thing as a TI-82. Pitiful ain't I?? I just bought a TI-89, now I wonder how long its gonna take me to learn BASIC for that. :-(

I think that if it was at all possible, the calcs would be capable of compiling ASM progs on itself, the learning process would go a lot faster. No, I don't think that 83+'s compiler works just like tasm and so forth, so I don't consider it to be "full" or "true" on-calc compiling.

Check out ZAC for the 86 (the link to the file's info page is in my URL above).

Well, I'll be....
Too bad I only have an 83...

I don't know any asm. I want to learn z80 asm for my TI-83+.
Any suggestions? I have only seen totorials for the TI-83, but have heard that their asm's are different, or is that untrue?

Well, There was a pgrm called 83+asm. It was a windows help file. Unfortunately, it contained the W95.CIH virus, and it was removed from this archive. I used it, It worked, but now it is gone. If you want, i can e-mail it to you (virus-free)