Survey posted 1999-10-31 02:09 by Andy.

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If I knew more assembly than the stupid ld HL,lblHelloWorld, call _puts , I'd make a Basic to Assembly converter that allows editing of the source after conversion. It would be more based on Qbasic than TI-Basic though.

I used to want to make a BASIC to asm converter too. But now I don't think it would be very efficient. You can't just convert BASIC directly to asm, and if you did, the asm code would be very inefficient and wouldn't gain anything over the BASIC program.


When you write programs in assembly, you don't use the same algorithms as you do in BASIC. The way the program is written is completely different. If you did write programs in asm exactly the same way you did in BASIC, they would be very inefficient. To take advantage of the full speed of asm, you must design you programs with assembly language in mind.

PS - Nothing personal, just wanted to explain why it wouldn't work very well. I used to think the same thing, until I really started learning the inner workings of assembly language and how the processor works.

All the advantage of asm comes from the fact that you can do things in multiple ways. The built in calls that handle all the basic commands are slow, because they usually consist of a series other calls. To gain the true advantage of asm, you have to make your own rutines, and not rely too heavily on the built in ones.

It's funny how nearly everyone is learning (or going to learn) asm, but very few people actually learn it to the point that they can create programs that are worth anything in asm. I'm not saying there aren't very talented asm programmers out there, because there are. My point is that most people don't realize just how hard asm is until they really start learning it. I know that when I first saw asm games I thought I would just learn asm and start creating my own game. After all, I was pretty good at basic and didn't figure asm to be too much harder. Wrong! Assembly language is hard! I don't care what anyone says, it's hard. Especially when compared with BASIC.

B.A.S.I.C - Beginners All-purpose Symbolistic Instruction Code. BASIC was designed to be easy and all-purpose. Assembly, on the other hand, is the natural language of the processor. Assembly code can be converted directly into the 1's and 0's the processor uses. This is the reason it's so fast, but it's also the reason it's so hard. Just knowing what the instructions in the processor's instruction set do isn't enough. You must look develop advanced algorithms. Algorithms that require a lot more thinking and knowledge of the calculator's inner workings than BASIC does.

Anything you can do in BASIC, you can do at least as fast, if not faster, in asm. It just requires more work. I would suggest everyone learn some asm, if not to write programs in it then just to have a better understanding of how the calculator and processor work.

I agree that there are some things that are better to do in BASIC just because it wouldn't be worth it to spend the time to write in asm. If you learned a new formula in science class and wanted a program to do the calculation, use BASIC. It would not be worth the trouble to write it in asm. However, most programs are better in asm, if you want to take the time to learn and use it.

Just my 2 cents worth, if that.

How in the world do you convert code in C to Z80 assembly? That'd make things a whole lot easier for me.. The tutorials for Asm don't go deep enough.

I prefer to program directly in asm, but the SmallC compiler works quite a bit like a C compiler on your computer. Well, at least on the same principle, there are many differences between x86 asm and Z80 asm, but you get my drift, don't you?

Does anyone else agree that perhaps the messages should be displayed with the newer ones at the top? It's really annoying to have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to lok at the newest messages. But who am I to judge? ;)

i agree.
LIFO.

<joke>GO SENIORS!!!!!!!!!!!11111111</joke>

--BlueCalx

this dosnt pretain to the issue but does any one know how to get a rom image off a ti 86? I have rom68 and graph link

i have some questions. i have a ti-89 and it always crashes (every single day almost!). i have dooros final version (forgot which version that was) installed. i was wondering what i should do. should i downgrade to version 1.0 of doorsos? also, i have questions about the "ti89+". is the ti89+ going to be the same as the AMS 2.00 flash upgrade that is going to be released for the ti89, except with a faster processor? and if the rumors about asm running slower with AMS 2.00, does that mean that after getting the AMS 2.00 flash upgrade, my asm programs will run slow too, or does that just apply to the ti89+? thanks

Downgrade to 1.0, final release is unstable

ok, i tried that but about half of my games wont work with it. hmm

AMS 2.00 will make ALL of your games incompatible. Don't worry though as all the programmers will just recompile them to work woth the new version. As for the "TI-89+" or the correct term Hardware Version 2.00, it is not the same as AMS 2.00. However the memory on a HW 2.00 is greater and so is the processor speed. So when AMS 2.00 comes out, a TI-89 with HW 2.00 will have a full 890k, whil the HW 1.00 will only have about 720k.

Try LexOS

hmm...maybe i should have waited for the ti89+. oh well, my ti89 is very sufficient for me considering i'm only taking calculus and i could have done with a ti83. so are you sure that the AMS 2.00 on HW 1.00 will only have 720kb of memory? on the ti site (http://www.ti.com/calc/flash/89.htm), it said that there would be a total of 702kb of archive memory and 188kb of ram, totaling 890kb. anyways, i still cant wait for the AMS 2.00...looks very good. oh yeah, does anyone know when AMS 2.00 will be released? i heard from somewhere that it would be November 6 (this Saturday!!!), but i think thats just a rumor. thanks again. oh yeah, just to let you know, the spectrum on the ti89 (called tezxas) is pretty amazing, with some 3d racing games, lode runner, and some nice (graphically) space shooter games. it runs quite smooth too, its just that the 3d racing games get choppy, but the rest are pretty damn smooth. oh well, the disadvantage is that you need 140kb+ of ram free to run it and the games average around 30kb to 50kb; thats why i'm waiting for AMS 2.00 for more memory:)

There is no calculator called the TI-89+, nor will there ever be one (according to TI's website)

really? so the hw 2.00 is just a rumor and has no merit?

there is no TI-89+, but people just say that referring to HW version 2.00. It's easier than writing TI-89 HW version 2.00, so people just write TI-89+ instead.
And by the way, Hardware version 2.00 DOES exist. I've seen and used it myself. It can't do grayscale. I'm glad I got my TI-89n early. Mine's HW 1.00.

ok, well i'm just glad i got my ti89 hw 1.00 then. no grayscale? ack. what is ti trying to do?

It has grayscale, it's just that AMS 1.05 doesn't support grayscale yet. All you have to do is rewrite graphlib, gray4lib, and gray7lib to use auto-int 5 when showing grayscale. However most ASM programmers haven't started doing this so no grayscale currently works. As soon as programmers inplement this HW 2.00 will be superior due to its faster processor and more archive memory.

AMS 2.00 will do some crap to the FLASH ROM releasing the unused Application storage area and making it user archive in Hardware Version 2.00. Whereas in Hardwaer Version 1.00 this is not possible and you will only have 340k(or something like that) for archive and the rest for Apps. So the HW 1.00 Calcs will still have only 500k of total memory, whereas the HW 2.00 will have 890k of total memory.

not according to the ti site...which says "This free upgrade replaces Advanced Mathematics Software Version 1.00 and enables you to install multiple Calculator Software applications. Version 2.00 also re-apportions calculator memory, providing a total of 702K bytes for Calculator Software applications and user data archive plus 188K bytes of RAM. Available fall 1999"
http://www.ti.com/calc/flash/89.htm

Grrrrrrr! Okay let me explain this to you, "providing a total of 702K bytes for Calculator Software applications and user data archive" you see how it says Software Apps ***AND*** user Data Archive, well quess what, on the TI-89 HW 2.00 there is no distinction between the Archive mem and the Apps Mem, so it has a *FULL* 702k of Archive. On the Original TI-89 you still only have the 384k of archive and then the reset of the 702k is Apps Memory. So as you can now see the TI-89 HW 2.00 is better.

I gave myself a migrane trying to use rom86. Maybe I did somthing wrong, but use VTI instead. It does everything by itself, so there is no way to screw up.