This is the official release of my HP Prime port of my HP 39gII Tunnel clone written in BASIC, now adapted for the larger screen and color display. It is probably the first ever game ever made available for download for this calculator model. It might require some optimizing because I'm still new to HP 39gII/Prime BASIC programming, but it still shows how fast the HP Prime on-calc language can be compared to their TI/Casio counterparts.



Because of how incredibly fast this calc is, this is why I manage to get such high framerate even with redrawing the entire screen rectangles and score text every frame.

As for the multicolor and 3D-ish text effects, they are possible because the HP Prime lets you use text with no background, so all you have to do is superpose multiple copies of that text, gradually changing its color and position through a FOR loop. This also lets you use bold text.

Note: This game was coded using the HP Prime emulator and tested on a real calc by Critor, before the calc's release. As a result, I do not know what method this calc will use for file transfer yet. However, I know that if you ever want the source code, just open the hpprgm file in Wordpad, then you'll see the source in weird format. It is still somewhat readable, though, so you can use it to copy the game by hand or for code use (give me credits if you do, though!)

To play, just use the UP and DOWN keys and quit with ON.

Here is a Youtube video by Critor of it running on a real calc, but the text color is different:


The animated screenshot above was adjusted to run at the real calc speed, since in the emulator the game ran too fast for me.

Download the game here

(Cross-posted from original file page)

Thanks for sharing this, DJ_O; this is very impressive indeed. I also didn't realize that there was already an HP Prime emulator available, and I'll definitely have to find out more about that. I continue to be impressed with the speed of HP's on-calculator (interpreted) programming language compared to what I'm used to dealing with with TI-BASIC, and as you noted, I wonder whether this is due to the much faster processor, a more efficient language implementation, language design choices, or some combination of those three.

Available here : http://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=19496


I guess a combination of the 3, however, probably more on an efficient implementation, since other HP calcs have been praised for their fast BASIC.

In addition to those three likely causes, possibly the 2D accelerator mentioned in the user manual of the S3C2416 chip (itself mentioned by Tim Wessman on Omnimaga), if the firmware is using it (it would be foolish not to !).

The calculator's firmware was leaked publicly as well (and HP doesn't seem to be censoring the link, they're fully right not to): http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/forum.cgi?read=247985#247985

Well - I didn't know the Prime was now available to purchase. Could somebody post a review ?

http://www.arm.com/community/partners/display_product/rw/ProductId/2255/

It appears it can run at 266MHz or 400Mhz, and it's a ARM processor (not z80 or SuperH), which means that if the software is optimized well enough it can easily beat any Casio or TI calculator in terms of speed. The 2D accelerator may help too.

Apparently it can run Linux and Windows CE, and has USB host functionality (though I don't know how well it is exposed in the calculator's PCB). How interesting.

It's not available yet. Some prototypes have been sent to testers for review

And, my hands-on review (with Critor) is here : (Fr + En)
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=12805&lang=en

The detailed hardware is here :
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=12821&lang=en

Summary :
Touch Color Display 3.5 "diagonal with a resolution of 320x240px
Processor (U101): Samsung S3C2416XH-40 - ARM9 clocked at 400 MHz maximum.
RAM Memory (U200): Hynix H5MS2562NFR - 32 MB
Flash Memory (U201): Samsung K9F2G08U0C-SCB0 - 256 MB
Battery: Li-Ion 3.7V, 1500 mAh (5.55Wh)

Thanks - most interesting review. Looks awesome but it is a little disapointing that only "HP-Basic" is supported with no mention of an official SDK or ASM abilities. Maybe the released product will also resolve some of the other deficiencies. Hhmm...you know - I am not sure how it will be received.

Hp basic is fast and programs run faster after off/on they seem to be like compiled code. I like the hp39gii its powerful and fast but has a tendency to freeze up. I transfer all my programs to the virtual calculator on the pc quite often, there are a few things that dont make sense matrices and lists can only have a limited dimension range and strings still not worked out how its done. Looking for any information on hp39gii using assembly code would be nice but i dont know where to begin...confused but persistent ... tunnel game is very fast... i put a wait command in there...

It's not because Hp basic is faster, HP just put WAY faster processors in their calculators (compared to TI)... The HP Prime has a processor clocked at 400MHz, and the hp39gii has a processor clocked at 300MHz, both with 32 bit architectures, which is kind of overkill for a calculator...
For comparison, the ti-84 plus CE has a processor clocked at 48 MHz, and the ti-84 plus has a processor clocked at up to 15 MHz. Both have 8 bit architectures. They are understandably much slower.
As for the limit in size for matrices and lists, it is probably based off the amount of RAM available, which is really the fundamental limit... On the HP Prime, I would assume the limit is much higher given that it has a lot ore RAM than the hp39gii.

EDIT: Tunnel is also not an incredibly heavy game to run, have a look at this version written in ASM for the CSE (which has a color screen and a 15MHz processor, and is therefore very slow relative to other calculators) It still manages to run at a descent speed

Yes, like that, looks very 800xl,
the hp39gii i have runs at about 80mhz when plugged into usb power and slows down depending on the batteries. i like the look of the ti84cse, access to syscalls can make a lot of difference when writing code.

So many color calcs came out that I ended up only making 1 HP Prime game, and it's this Tunnel game. I am mostly a Z80 calculator guy so I spent most of my time making CSE/CE games. I definitively want to dabble into HP PPL again at some point, though.

Also while the HP Prime is mostly helped by its processor speed, HP PPL also has commands such as BLIT_P and RECT_P, which lets you use sprites (that can be scaled up and down at will) and filed rectangles, something that is impossible in CSE/CE BASIC without having to rely on ASM/C libraries such as xLIBC, CE Textlib and Sprite 3.3. Not having to draw sprites pixel by pixel or line by line is a big advantage.