I am officially announcing my intention to create an Android TI-68k emulator, to be based off of TIEmu 3.03 -gdb, found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtktiemu/files/tiemu-linux/TIEmu%203.03/tiemu-3.03-nogdb.tar.gz/download

At this point I'm just calling it Android TIEmu, or maybe ATIE for short, although when the project is actually ready for release we ("we" being everyone who contributes) will probably come up with something better.

This is basically a port of the PC/Linux TIEmu, and is intended to look, feel, and act as close to that program as possible, although there will obviously be some major differences, considering the medium it will live in, i.e. Android devices, as well as the unfortunate necessity of having to rewrite the C source of TIEmu into Java for the Android app.

Obviously the most important thing is that the app is capable of successfully running TI-89(T), TI-92(+), and Voyage-200 ROMs, and having an as-close-as-possible-to-the-real-thing UI, but the other features of TIEmu, such as file transfer, macro recording, etc., are also desired as well.

At this point, seeing as how I've only barely started, exactly three things are done:

The original C code for TIEmu has been downloaded.

The absolutely horrible TIEmulator app, which inspired me to do this, has been mostly decompiled. (The purpose of this is to have a reference point when making ATIE, in case we need some kind of clue on how to do a certain bit. There is no intention of stealing any of the actual code itself- mainly because it really sucks. Smile )

An Eclipse project for the app has been created.

At some point I intend to create a git repo on Google Code, once I figure out how.

I would love help. Any kind. Programmers and testers especially.

In order to test, of course, you need at least one Android device. I personally have a Sanyo Zio phone, running AOS 2.2, and a Toshiba Thrive tablet, running AOS 3.1, so those two devices will obviously be getting tested on. However, the larger the variety of devices we have to test with, the better, for somewhat obvious reasons.

Oh, and for anyone curious about the awful Android app I was referring to, here's a link to it's page on the Android Market: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.TIEmulator

Ugly, isn't it?

Update: I'm pretty sure I successfully made the GIT repo: http://code.google.com/p/android-ti-emu/
eyeonus wrote:
Oh, and for anyone curious about the awful Android app I was referring to, here's a link to it's page on the Android Market: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.TIEmulator

Ugly, isn't it?

That's an understatement. I wonder what possessed that author to use a yellow on red LCD color scheme when the real calculator screens are black on pale green.... (It kind of reminds me of the "Hot Dog Stand" theme for Windows 3.1 Smile)

Anyway, good luck on this! I don't have much time to contribute actual coding, but I have a couple of Android phones that I can test it on once you get to that point.
christop wrote:
eyeonus wrote:
Oh, and for anyone curious about the awful Android app I was referring to, here's a link to it's page on the Android Market: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.TIEmulator

Ugly, isn't it?

That's an understatement. I wonder what possessed that author to use a yellow on red LCD color scheme when the real calculator screens are black on pale green.... (It kind of reminds me of the "Hot Dog Stand" theme for Windows 3.1 Smile)

Anyway, good luck on this! I don't have much time to contribute actual coding, but I have a couple of Android phones that I can test it on once you get to that point.


Yeah, I'm planning on this thing looking more like Andie Graph: https://market.android.com/details?id=net.supware.tipro

That guy actually knows what he's doing.

Thanks, be sure to watch this thread, then- I'll be announcing on here when it's ready for testing.
I don't think I'll be able to help with the programming, but I do have a rooted phone with 2.3.5 Gingerbread if you need anyone to beta test.
Um, you can use C/C++ to develop for Android... Because of that, you can directly port the emulation code, and write the interface using SDL. If you do use SDL, I could port it to webOS devices.
Sorry, what's SDL?
"SDL is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, 3D hardware via OpenGL, and 2D video framebuffer" (Too lazy to restate myself)

Basically, you can do direct drawing to the display quickly and have control over the pixels. Works great for drawing the calculator LCD and such. Using SDL will allow portability between many OSs.
I second this project, and I am willing to contribute coding as well as testing, although this is a rather ambitious project for my relatively inexperienced skill level with Android programming.

However, I do know that you can use NDK to program directly in C/C++ (in fact, they specifically recommend it for use in cases where you want to port existing, already written code over--because supposedly it doesn't offer a huge performance increase in most cases).

My target platform would be a 32GB HP Touchpad running CM7--Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Specifically, I want to see a really nice interface on this thing since I'd be running it on a 10" screen.

I found the (empty) Google Code project; let me know what I can do.

By the way, NDK overview can be found at http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/overview.html
It's not empty. I just haven't done much work on it yet, in hopes that other people will volunteer to help.

I've found the NDK thing, I'm currently in the process of reading it over so that I know how it works and how to use it correctly.

If you want to contribute, you'll need Eclipse with the Android plugin, the Android SDK, and familiarity with Java. There's instructions on how to get contribute access to a GCode project- all I know is it involves emailing the owner. My email is eyeonus@gmail.com, so send me a message and I'll see about figuring out how to give you permission.

I don't expect this'll be done quickly- I'm a sophomore in college, and I'm thinking about making this be my senior thesis, so you can imagine how long I expect to be working on it.

EDIT: You'll also need a Git client. I believe Linux comes with one, and for Windows the recommended one is TortoiseGit.
This sounds like a great project, and I'd love to help, now that I have an Android tablet that I can test with Smile I'll try for the 500th time to get the Android SDK set up when I get home, but no promises.
There's also Wabbitemu that you can try porting over, if you want to get ahead. Wink (I believe TIEMU has an issue with CPU usage at the moment, but I may be wrong.)

For the NDK, I think you still need to use Java, but most of the code (especially emulation) can go into the importable native library.

If you ever use Wabbitemu (unlikely since you seem to be set on using TIEMU), let me know and I can help as much as I can. Smile
alberthrocks wrote:
There's also Wabbitemu that you can try porting over, if you want to get ahead. Wink (I believe TIEMU has an issue with CPU usage at the moment, but I may be wrong.)

For the NDK, I think you still need to use Java, but most of the code (especially emulation) can go into the importable native library.

If you ever use Wabbitemu (unlikely since you seem to be set on using TIEMU), let me know and I can help as much as I can. Smile


I've never even heard of Wabbitemu.

EDIT: I've just looked at this wiki page on it, and no, I can't use it.

Wabbitemu if for Z80 calculators.

The TI-89(T). TI-92(+), and Voyage 200 calculators are not Z80 calculators, they are 68k calculators.

Wabbitemu does not emulate those calculators.

The only existing 68k emulators I am aware of a VTI and TIEmu, and they are actually basically the same emulator- TIEmu started with VTI's code and improved upon it.
AHelper wrote:
Um, you can use C/C++ to develop for Android... Because of that, you can directly port the emulation code, and write the interface using SDL. If you do use SDL, I could port it to webOS devices.


Only if you can also build SDL for Android, which I'm not entirely sure you can.
Kllrnohj wrote:
AHelper wrote:
Um, you can use C/C++ to develop for Android... Because of that, you can directly port the emulation code, and write the interface using SDL. If you do use SDL, I could port it to webOS devices.


Only if you can also build SDL for Android, which I'm not entirely sure you can.


Android app interfaces are built using XML.
  
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