I have an idea that I would like to bounce off you guys. Is it a good idea to try to create an exhaustive guide to programming in ASM? The plan would be to take existing resources, and create a manual that addresses every aspect of every command in for the z80 processor, and every rom call that can be used with TIOS(84+ and up). This project would take a long time to complete (especially considering I know almost nothing of ASM quite yet), and help from our more experienced ASM programmers would be greatly appreciated.

To be honest, there are already great tutorials around at the Internet, and if you combine that with WikiTI, I think you have enough information to become pretty experienced. Also, you said you know almost nothing of ASM yet, so I really wonder how long it will take, to get a full tutorial ready. I'm learning ASM for about a year now, and still don't know every aspect of it. Also, you sure you want to document every OS (b)call? There are a LOT of them

It would be useful for yourself though, because when you can explain ASM things, you understand them well (hopefully), which is a great experience for learning

Well, it would be useful for people who don't have access to the internet enough to use the online resources - like me

I think this will be helpful, as an all-in-one resource. Maybe we could even publish it, like Kerm's guide to Ti-Basic.

There is a massive need for this.

The problem isn't "the resources don't exist" - it's that they're all over the place. Learn TI-83 Plus Assembly In 28 Days, as much as it is a great resource for starting assembly, is too old to include any comparative documentation on the 83+, 84+, CSE, and CE. These platforms have both subtle and significant changes from their predecessor, and these small footnotes and asterisks are hidden inside several development forums and wikis.

We also have people coming in with a range of technical competence: those who are already experienced with programming, and just need an adaptation to the workings of (e)Z80 - and those who hardly understand anything about ASM at all. We must organize such resources so as to cater for the needs of both types of people.

There's also hybrid BASIC - again, with its own manual filled with information about several libraries, but without a concrete explanation on when to use each library (xLIB, xLIBC, Omnicalc, Celtic, Celtic 2, etc.). Not bashing on Kerm at all for the Doors CSE SDK - it just needs to come together with everything else.

Then there's the new eZ80 stuff. Of course, this is a C guide, and there are already a number of resources on where to learn C. Mateo's toolchain is in the process of being documented, so there's little point in trying to continuously copy that to a unified edition. However, we still need to list all of the differences in eZ80, as well as include a short guide on how to port programs from Z80 to eZ80.

Again, these resources exist and Google still exists. However, it's better for me to have one big PDF open rather than a couple of tabs of WikiTI, z80 Heaven, dcs.cemetech.net, the Doors CSE PDF, 83in28, and whatever other references I need all open at the same time.

Although I completely agree with oldmud0; the issue is that literally everyone has thought this the entire time I've been here Then we get sites that are broken, out of date, and no longer are applicable because people get bored and wander away to more interesting things. This is always the case; simply because there is no incentive to put together documentation. TI's documentation is nice because someone is getting paid to write it.

This is why you don't host important documentation, files and resources on a personal site or unmaintained site. For example, PT wanted to make his personal website to host ICE documentation at first, with no sign of an offline copy being planned. Guess what would have happened if he moved on to bigger things? He would have forgotten to renew his domain name and everything would be lost, just like what happened with Aichi's Axe tilemap/sprite editor, FastRPL, GFA BASIC and many others. Don't forget also what happened to Revsoft and Dimension-TI. I insisted non-stop so that PT_ includes either an offline copy of his doc or a copy hosted on an established calculator site that is still being maintained (Cemetech wiki, for example, or TI-Planet/CodeWalrus) and preferably, with admin access to backups. That way, the documentation would be almost guaranteed to remain online and be useable for the foreseeable future.

Well, no From the beginning on, I knew it was important to have an offline copy of the documentation and the commands list, and I didn't even try to host it somewhere online

Yeah, offline documentation is a must!

I would just like to point out that actually using a documentation engine (such as doxygen) also is a must. It will also for easily exporting docs to any format you desire, such as pdf, or html which can be hosted online.

Well, I think both forms would be really nice.

I vote that we take a vote
(add a poll)
Also, I think that we (as a community) should create a pdf file or something with documentation for at least the commands that are used the most/are frequently asked about. I also think that it should include tutorials on basic things, and explain line by line what the program is doing. Perhaps we (also as a community) create even more documentation on the C libs. (jk on that last one, there's plenty of documentation)

Create a 84+CSE manual!

Not a good manual for that yet...

As I said, there's a large demand for it, but the question is who will put it together, what resources the compendium will "consume", where the development will begin, and how we will initially typeset the compendium (TeX? Markdown? HTML? Doxygen? Jekyll?). It's no question this will be a rather large project, but we do need the usual experts to pitch in to correct and clarify, and we do need people to copyedit and gather more information.

If people would feed me info and re-teach me ASM, I could create tutorials/help with documentation.

[idea]
What about we have competitions for tutorials?

Or a thread where one says "How do I explain [...]" and several others suggest explanations.

Yes, but I feel like a reward system would be cool. Like say that you get a cool sig banner for 5 submissions to the project, a different one for 10, and so on. It would attract more people to help that way.

Edit:
I would be honored to make the banners

Edit^2:
Want me to take charge and get started making this a reality?

Well, we still need some more input from other people in order to determine the right approach. I envision this will be a GitHub project you will be able to contribute to, and GitHub automatically tracks how much time you've wasted excellent work you've contributed to the project. Your help would definitely be appreciated.

Github also has support for hosting pages under the 'gh-pages' branch in repos. Super handy.

Yes, that's why I mentioned Jekyll and HTML/Markdown. However, exporting to PDF becomes a not-so-trivial process, and Jekyll is very Ruby-oriented. Perhaps one could export LaTeX to GitHub Pages?

Hmm... if we use Jekyll, then editing is very easy, but then we lose a large degree of control in formatting with Markdown. But, if we use TeX, only two people will know what they're doing and how to add stuff.