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A few of my friends and I are trying to connect some form of a disk drive (floppy, Zip, mini-disk, MP3 player, etc.) to a TI-86. So far, we physically hooked up a minidisk player to the 86. However, does anybody know if it is possible for us to create a program that will let us hook up a calc to a drive?

It probably is possible to hook up a disk drive to a calculator. The only problem with your hook up with a minidisk is that it wouldn't work. Well...I don't think any form of audio equipment would work. I *think* TI calcs send data digitally. Not by sound. Also your minidisk is probably a player and not a recorder. So by that you could only read data therefore making your hookup useless. Then, with zip drives I bet you could do a hookup somewhat like the parallel link but would require massive programming and the calculator is not big enough to hold a program to control a zip drive therefore making that useless. Your best bet is just to make a memory enhancer in the hardware section of Ticalc.org. This will give you more than enough memory to fiddle around on your calculator. Also, hooking up a calculator to a disk drive isn't practicle. Hope this answers your question

xPridEx

Audio data could be sent over a link cable, but in 2 bit format at 9.6Khz/sec max making the sound almost unrecognizable compared to the minidisk 256 bit, 300+Khz/sec. As for drives, once a protocol could fit on the calc, remaining space is not much of a consideration since files could just be switched out(unless your playing a huge game). The protocol program should be able to fit, but the bitrate is again a problem. This might be able to fix by modifying your calc with an external connection to the bus and external device to convert the 8 bit format into 32 pin, but not many people would want to go this far.

What are you talking about? It wouldn't be difficult to program a protocol to communicate between a floppy/zip drive and a TI-86 calc. An experienced ASM programmer could fit it easily into the 96k available on the calc, with room to spare. The difficult part would be fashioning the interface cable between the calc and the drive. Good luck getting it to work!

You could even put a microcontroller in between to interface.

Actually, just connect a microcontroller to the drive, then have a simple serial interface between it and the calc, having the firmware on the microcontroller handle all the processing.

My new program locker 2.0 will provide all of the calculator security you need including, guest and user password, ability to display property of [your name], an APD lock, prevention of memory deletion linking, and memory resetting and other options, to read more about it and to see screen shots goto my homepage. Relese should be before april.

Does anyone read these things?

Anyway, im about done with Autoexec86. I need to get my calc back from TI to test my last version. Does anyone care/want/love/hate/whater this program? if so, email me, as i most likely will not come back to this page anytime soon.

Sounds interesting. A shell? Also, people do read these things.

Hello,
Some kind of crazy idea was born in my head to create a simple TCP/IP protocol for TI calculators so they can be plugged onto ethernet netowrk (Lan/Internet).

I would apprechiate any links to documents that are relevant to this idea. (Please don't send me tcp/ip docs, I have enought of those.)

Thanks
Mayo

You could use RS-485, the (mostly) standard instrument protocol. It's already well established. I've also been thinking about the same calc networking thing.

Sorry! The standard instrument protocol is IEEE 4888! RS485 would still be better. I was thinking about calculator wired networking and I realized: Why come up with yet another protocol that needs drivers, etc? TI calcs have the silent link protocol drivers built into the ROM. All that you would need to do to easily transfer files is to write a small program that calls the code in the ROM that's used for communicating with the "silent link". Silent link would have to be used instead of the normal Link menu, because otherwise, the other calc would have to be in recieve mode to recieve any files. Also, you would need some kind of simple protocol to address a router, which would directly connect the ports from two calcs, making it appear to the calculators that there's just a normal link cable between them. Using this system, you could play network games too, with games that supported them (only 2 calcs, of course), because the network would "look" to the calculator just like a normal link cable! Unfortunately, this would only work for small networks (1 house size-at that point, everyone can just use normal link cables!), but you could do WANs by using an embedded modem chip to get a dial-up calc connection. (Play ztetris against a TI-86 owner in China!) It wouldn't be so hard to do, but wireless networks are better anyways. If anyone has 802.11b specs, would you please send them to me?

Though I doubt you'll read this, here are a few TCP/IP projects for 8-bit microprocessors:

uIP - The uIP TCP/IP Stack for Embedded Microcontrollers (www.sics.se/~adam/uip), Z80 port of uIP (linked from uIP homepage) (www.dcc.unicamp.br/~massia/uip)
lwIP - A Lightweight TCP/IP Stack (www.sics.se/~adam/lwip)
uC/IP - TCP/IP for MicroControllers (alpha state) (ucip.sf.net)

I have constructed the framework for a computer algebra system for the TI-86. The reason this is in the miscellaneous section is because the system is a hybrid BASIC-Asm structure [meaning, most of the program doesn't involve mathematics overtly]. Currently, I have a complete and fully functioning frontend and kernel; right now I am in the process of writing effective, efficient definitions for operations/functions. The only currently operational function is the plus operation. The system is quite flexible, but slow. I am writing this to enlist any help I may receive in translating the system to assembly. Should anyone wish to help, e-mail me.

I have BROKEN the 9kb limit for ASM programs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yet another TI-86 ASM revolution...?)

But I won't release it yet!!! Muhahahahahaha!

I have written two new concepts:
*Libraries (Scott Shannon has made a shell)
*9kb limit BROKEN! Will release on 2nd of June...
On the other hand..... I'll release it NOW!!!

And I 've made the first 16-level (f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-flickery) grafix viewer!

Can Some Experienced 86 ASM Programmer Make A Screen Saver That Is Triggered By The APD? Try It!

yeah, it's possible. you could exchande the code that makes it apd with the code for a screen saver, but it would be pointless because it would waste the batteries. what you could do is change the code so that after 4 minutes, the screen saver kicks in, then a minute later (5 minutes total), the calc then apds.

I am done with a TI-86 Calc <-> Calc Link-Testing Programs. I need some beta testers for this software, so if you have a TI-86 (preferably 2 to link together), a link cable (calc<->calc) and a graph-link (CPU<->Calc), e-mail me: pg0rd0n@xoommail.com, and Iwill send you a BETA Version of my program. If you need the graph-link software, include this request in yopur email. THANX

yo, so im writing this ti-basic compiler. yup, youll now be able to compile basic into 1's and 0's. problem is.... need help writing the actual compiler. ive got a bunch of commands converted and crap like that, but uhh need help. do damn slow doing it by myself. if anyone has ideas ,comments or ya wanna help, email me. i probably wont check back here. so far its 86 specific but we all know how easily that can be changed. ok, im done

how large would a program that would allow you to write in C++ language be? Would the programs made in C++ be larger than asm? I know almost nothing about these languages.

A program compiled from C++ would be quite a bit larger than an assembly program, because the compiler uses general-purpose functions that are not optimized for the job, and the compiler also doesn't use the registers as well as an experienced asm programmer would. It would use the stack in most cases to store variables, and then it would have to use the address of the variables to access its value or to store new values. The compiler doesn't even know what the best use of memory is, as it needs to be sure that the program works properly by not taking any shortcuts or the like to make small code. You'd be better off using asm for small and fast programs, but C or C++ would be better, I suppose, for non-asm programmers or for large, complicated programs that would be scary to even imagine making in asm. That's my two cents' worth.

A very good C compiler, such as the TIGCC IDE (tigcc.zip) for the TI-89 and 92+, can optimize your code very well. But for the TI-86, there's SmallC, which produces big (relatively) programs for the calc. SmallC is not a bad compiler; it's the nature of the 8-bit processor that causes the code to be bloated when doing simple 16-bit data movements, which the 68k processor can do very easily.
That's all