Ramping Up to CALCnet2.2 & DCS 7.1
Published by KermMartian 13 years, 4 months ago (2010-11-13T03:08:18+00:00) | Discuss this article

As I get ready to release Doors CS 7.1 to the public, containing the first full set of publicly-released, fully-functional, fully-cross-platform CALCnet2.2 calculator networking libraries, there's a lot of preparatory work that needs to be done. All of the documentation on CALCnet2.2 and Doors CS has been updated, partially to take into account several mistakes found since the original versions, but mostly to integrate finalized, proofread information about CALCnet and the support routines that Doors CS contains for working with the protocol. Various Cemetech users and fellow programmers have been key in beta-testing and debugging aspects of CALCnet, particularly the poorly-documented field of z80 ISRs, so with fixes and benchmarks gleaned from their assistance I believe Doors CS 7.1 will be ready in at most a week or two.

Documentation-wise, the CALCnet2.2 Whitepaper has been finalized, including additional information on how to avoid TI-OS routines disabling the CALCnet interrupt. You can find the CALCnet2.2 Whitepaper below, hopefully appealing to users, programmers, and those who merely want to know the nitty-gritty details behind what makes CALCnet possible. In addition, the Doors CS 7 SDK, also available and linked below, has been updated with a new chapter on CALCnet, and has had several errors from the first version found and fixed, both in its documentation and included software tools. The online Doors CS SDK has been similarly updated, including a section on Interfacing CALCnet2.2 abridged from the CALCnet2.2 Whitepaper.

Finally, the previously-announced NetPong has been optimized, bug-fixed, and upgraded to version 1.1 to go along with the upcoming Doors CS 7.1. Note that this game for networked calculators does not work on Doors CS 7.0.1 or earlier, and must be used on at least Doors CS 7.1 Beta 1. However, it is strongly recommended that it be used with at least the full release of Doors CS 7.1. It offers a classic Pong game with a twist: with the power of CALCnet, a network of between two and nine calculators can be used as one very wide screen.

Please review, enjoy, and help me make Doors CS 7 and CALCnet even more popular by writing awesome games and applications for it! I have a variety of ideas for fun or useful games and applications for Doors CS and CALCnet, so if you're a bored ASM programmer, be sure to say hello.

Downloads
CALCnet2.2 Whitepaper
Doors CS 7 SDK
NetPong v1.1
Doors CS 7.1 Beta 1



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