Is there any information/code on writing to the LCD yet?
"My world is Black & White. But if I blink fast enough, I see it in Grayscale."
tr1p1ea wrote:
Is there any information/code on writing to the LCD yet?
Yes, tons, mostly from reading the datasheet. I managed to create a program that directly manipulates the LCD to make balls bounce around the screen, which I will post tomorrow. I will also have to understand the datasheet very well if jsTIfied is to have TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition support. 
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Also correct. FloppusMaximus found that screenshots are RLE'd over USB and I/O, but they are stored RAM
That seems kind of odd. Though it makes sense if the compression/decompression takes a significant amount of processor time, given that it's already time-consuming as it is.
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How does the OS work now without a RAM graph screen buffer?
Mostly the same as ever. It always used the buffer a lot less than we did.[/quote]
Does it have to redraw the graph screen every single time it's called up, then? Or does it have some space in Flash or some off-screen buffer to stuff it?
I'm trying to review the data sheet but am not used to digesting rather dry hardware-oriented explanations like this
The source code to the clock speed program is now in the file archive.
I suspect that the lack of screen buffers will strongly incentivize the creation of tilemapped backgrounds for most games.
DrDnar: Thanks for uploading that!
Elfprince: I definitely agree.
GinDiamond wrote:
No LCD buffers will mean that the Axe Parser will have to be overhauled to be ported, right?
That's the case for every program. I suspect that Axe programs aren't really going to be feasible anymore, though, at least in their current form.
Elfprince: I definitely agree.
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So in other words this device is a slow piece of crap from 15 years ago.
Indeed, TI could have made it much better.
@Kllrnojh: Yea, it looks that way. The only difference is they dressed it up with a shiny color screen. Hell, at least the Nspire has a decent (and more modern) processor to drive it's display. I've no idea what TI was thinking here. 
Well I mean really the calc works OK "as a calculator" from what I can tell and the colour screen does add cosmetic improvement for the series, at face value at least.
I was a tad disappointed but I do like a challenge and the low expectations of whats achievable on calc is still very much there
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I was a tad disappointed but I do like a challenge and the low expectations of whats achievable on calc is still very much there
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"My world is Black & White. But if I blink fast enough, I see it in Grayscale."
Well, it's TI; what do you expect? 
I'm not really surprised from what I've seen before, personally, though I do wish they would have gone just a little step above and beyond.
If DrDnar mentioned the 83+SE originally intending to support a 20–25 MHz CPU speed, I wonder what kind of chance they may up the processor speed later on if there's enough feedback.
I'm not really surprised from what I've seen before, personally, though I do wish they would have gone just a little step above and beyond.
If DrDnar mentioned the 83+SE originally intending to support a 20–25 MHz CPU speed, I wonder what kind of chance they may up the processor speed later on if there's enough feedback.
Travis wrote:
Well, it's TI; what do you expect? I'm not really surprised from what I've seen before, personally, though I do wish they would have gone just a little step above and beyond.
If DrDnar mentioned the 83+SE originally intending to support a 20–25 MHz CPU speed, I wonder what kind of chance they may up the processor speed later on if there's enough feedback.
It wouldn't be a big change; I know that I for one suspect they tried it and found that the ASIC was unstable at those higher speeds. We believe the original supported speeds were supposed to be {6,15,20,25} MHz; instead, the top two speeds are both around 15.1 MHz by DrDnar's program's measurements.
I'm not really surprised from what I've seen before, personally, though I do wish they would have gone just a little step above and beyond.
If DrDnar mentioned the 83+SE originally intending to support a 20–25 MHz CPU speed, I wonder what kind of chance they may up the processor speed later on if there's enough feedback.
tr1p: Indeed, exactly, as I said in my review. It's a great calculator for math, and I think teachers and students will like it. It's not quite as great from a programming standpoint. Let's be glad that TI didn't try to lock us out of any programming, though, and added the new color features (albeit with a few bugs) to TI-BASIC for us.
KermMartian wrote:
Let's be glad that TI didn't try to lock us out of any programming, though, and added the new color features (albeit with a few bugs) to TI-BASIC for us.
Why should we be glad they gave us something unusably slow? Your comments reek of Stockholm syndrome, as did your review. By all accounts this thing is garbage, TI clearly isn't trying in the least. And at $150 (or thereabouts) it's a complete ripoff. A used 83/84 is better for students, *anything else* is better for programmers.
Kllrnohj wrote:
KermMartian wrote:
Let's be glad that TI didn't try to lock us out of any programming, though, and added the new color features (albeit with a few bugs) to TI-BASIC for us.
Why should we be glad they gave us something unusably slow? Your comments reek of Stockholm syndrome, as did your review. By all accounts this thing is garbage, TI clearly isn't trying in the least. And at $150 (or thereabouts) it's a complete ripoff. A used 83/84 is better for students, *anything else* is better for programmers.
I agree with Kllrnohj (not quite as rabidly, but still strongly nonetheless) -- this new device is starting to look like a half-cooked TI response to Casio's Prizm line. This really just looks like an 84+SE with a few tweaks and a color screen slapped on top of it; the Prizm was also in many ways an fx9860 with a color screen gimmick as well, but the prizm at least had some decent hardware that could reasonably support the upgrade. Plus, the Prizm offered essentially the same functionality as an 84+SE, at a significantly lower price. This is just looking like a huge ripoff.
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