So, I recently built a CALCnet hub, and have decided to start working on a chat program for it. With quite a bit of help from Kerm, I've gotten the GUI basically in place:

Hopefully, once Kerm gets CALCnet out there, I'll be able to move forward with this and get something up and running (btw, Kerm, work on re-randomizing backoff). I still need to add a GUI at load that asks for username and all that jazz, but this has been just a few days work (which was spent mostly learning the DCS GUI system, and basically learning z80).
O_O wow, this looks awsome

though, I will nevar replace TI-Mail Razz
Nice program! Very Happy BASIC or ASM?

Also (you probably know it already), you should put "Me:"/"Other:" before the message when receiving and sending. Wink Better yet, since this IS Calcnet2, allow the person to assign themselves an ID (aka nick in IRC terms), and then use that for prefixing. Wink
It's ASM (hence basically learning z80). My understanding is, at first (at least) that CALCnet will not have a BASIC API.
Quote:
I still need to add a GUI at load that asks for username
Once that's up, it'll prefix the output.
Will there be a user list of any type? It would be nice to maintain a user list based on broadcasts of username, have a new name be added when it's first seen in a message, or when it's first seen as a broacast, then have names "time out" just like on IRC if they haven't broadcast themselves for a while. Smile Just some random thoughts. Maintaining the list of connected clients is probably going to be the hardest part.
Hmm, I hadn't thought of a GUI-side user list yet. I'll probably make it so that you have to press a key to see it (like Y= or something); that way it won't take up any screen real-estate while you're chatting.
As far as maintaining it code-side, I've got a few thoughts for how that might work. We'll see how it goes.
merthsoft wrote:
Hmm, I hadn't thought of a GUI-side user list yet. I'll probably make it so that you have to press a key to see it (like Y= or something); that way it won't take up any screen real-estate while you're chatting.
As far as maintaining it code-side, I've got a few thoughts for how that might work. We'll see how it goes.
That sounds good. I look forward to the ideas that you have regarding maintaining the list of users to take care of things like people pulling out the cord from their calc, cleanly leaving the program, and of course connecting to the network using the chat client in the first place.
Not a huge update, but here's some more GUI stuff:

A big part of this is just leaning the DCS GUI system, which, while intuitive, is a little strange sometimes.
Looking amazing so far, Merth! Some of the strangenesses are probably you finding things non-intuitive that I find intuitive, and some of them are awkwards workarounds for much more awkward technical obstacles. Smile
I think the biggest thing has been screen- vs. gui-coords, which is just me, I imagine. The other big thing (which has hung me up quite a few times) is when to do a call ResetAppPage. That is technical stuff I assume.
merthsoft wrote:
I think the biggest thing has been screen- vs. gui-coords, which is just me, I imagine. The other big thing (which has hung me up quite a few times) is when to do a call ResetAppPage. That is technical stuff I assume.
In DCS7 I had learned enough to have found a way around that, but since all the DCS ASM programs already did that, I elected to just leave it in. It's a side-effect of the combination of how the GUI/mouse system works and DCS being a multi-page app.
Alright, so I've got most of the infrastructure set up or at least designed, so once I actually get CALCnet, it shouldn't be too much to get it working Smile!
merthsoft wrote:
Alright, so I've got most of the infrastructure set up or at least designed, so once I actually get CALCnet, it shouldn't be too much to get it working Smile!
That's great to hear, Merth. The Doors CS integration is rapidly progressing, although I'll need to remember to re-integrate the various switches for faking the CID for the sake of testing on emulators (which don't support CIDs natively), the long-suffering random backoff, and the reported Nspire problems. Oh, and force 6MHz mode in the interrupt.
Don't forget to re-randomize backoff.
merthsoft wrote:
Don't forget to re-randomize backoff.
Thanks for the reminder, Merth. Rolling Eyes
Bumpity bump! How's this going? We were just talking about it tonight on the Have Calc, Will Program show.
Alright, so, due to the help of the awesome Kerm, it's actually sending between calcs now. It's not perfect, and still needs quite a bit of work, but I was able to send a message from one calc to two different calc (it didn't make it to the fourth). Tomorrow I will get some screenshots and some pictures.
Cool stuffz Very Happy
merthsoft wrote:
Alright, so, due to the help of the awesome Kerm, it's actually sending between calcs now. It's not perfect, and still needs quite a bit of work, but I was able to send a message from one calc to two different calc (it didn't make it to the fourth). Tomorrow I will get some screenshots and some pictures.
Yay Merthsoft! Merth has put the lion's share of work into this, and I'm proud of what he's done so far. Unfortunately, he'll probably need to maintain a list of network users the way NetPong does, but that's a discussion for another day.
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