So is there any hope for game programmers?
Because I’m actually getting into this programming stuff, and I’m starting to see it click in my mind. Suddenly, my prospects for this thing are dashed.
Dapianokid wrote:
So is there any hope for game programmers?
Because I’m actually getting into this programming stuff, and I’m starting to see it click in my mind. Suddenly, my prospects for this thing are dashed.

As far as I've observed, it is really only the 15 MHz z80 processor's fault - a mix up of priorities back at HQ. It should be relatively easy, then, to swap out the processor with a compatible ez80 - hopefully before they release the calculator to the public, but more likely for some TI 84 Plus C Silver Edition II (or TI 84 Plus Gold Edition, which would have been a much better name for this thing in the first place).
Zilog does not appear to license the eZ80 design for incorporation into 3rd-party designs. However, TI is fairly major corporation, so they probably have the influence to make it happen. Unfortunately, TI is far more concerned about profits. They obviously think that the extra dollar or two per unit it would cost to license a new CPU design won't pay off. (Remember, the Z80 design was licensed royalty-free, meaning that once TI obtained a license to put it into the ASICs, they never have to pay a penny to Zilog again.) They might well conclude that they were right if the TI-84+CSE fails to do well. But as I've said before, they could avoided needing a faster CPU if they had instead chosen a 120x160 display, which they might as well have done anyway, since the OS scales full-color background images up 2x.
DrDnar wrote:
Zilog does not appear to license the eZ80 design for incorporation into 3rd-party designs. However, TI is fairly major corporation, so they probably have the influence to make it happen. Unfortunately, TI is far more concerned about profits. They obviously think that the extra dollar or two per unit it would cost to license a new CPU design won't pay off. (Remember, the Z80 design was licensed royalty-free, meaning that once TI obtained a license to put it into the ASICs, they never have to pay a penny to Zilog again.) They might well conclude that they were right if the TI-84+CSE fails to do well. But as I've said before, they could avoided needing a faster CPU if they had instead chosen a 120x160 display, which they might as well have done anyway, since the OS scales full-color background images up 2x.

Fair enough. Of course, since the LCD is an external decision that affects end users, they would not be able to rescind it unless they did so right now (and that'll just never happen unless the systems needed to be recalled for some reason), while the processor is internal, and really just needs to be something with a higher clock rate that's backwards compatible with the z80.

I also wonder how much it would help to start writing other OSs so that we have all of the calculator's resources under our control.
Compynerd255 wrote:
[...]Of course, since the LCD is an external decision that affects end users, they would not be able to rescind it unless they did so right now (and that'll just never happen unless the systems needed to be recalled for some reason), while the processor is internal, and really just needs to be something with a higher clock rate that's backwards compatible with the z80.
I could see a higher clock speed on a later TI-84+CSE calculator, but I'm almost positive that the TI-84+CSE models to be soon released will be identical to the review models.

Quote:
I also wonder how much it would help to start writing other OSs so that we have all of the calculator's resources under our control.
I'd say that shouldn't be one of our first projects, for the sake of getting some flashy programs and games written first. Besides, what don't we have control over? Smile

Quote:
but more likely for some TI 84 Plus C Silver Edition II (or TI 84 Plus Gold Edition, which would have been a much better name for this thing in the first place).
A Gold Edition would have been amazing. I love the name.
Numbers are:

13800 33194 33213 33229
Same clock speed, then.




In regards to that last one..

Shh, I'm Batman. >.>
I'm the batman!
That looks great, tifreak8x! I'm glad you're already starting to get your feet wet with some TI-84+CSE TI-BASIC programming; I'm sure TI will like more educational programs getting written for the device. You said that the included CD didn't have TI-Connect, or that was no CD? Is there a manual, or only in electronic form? I see you got the same cables as me. Nice retail packaging! Does it reveal anything interesting?
Not really, and I got no CD or anything, really. There were a couple of sheets of paper, but I of course didn't bother looking at them, was too busy playing with the calculator and letting it charge, which took nearly an hour off the computer from around 15% of charge left.

I'll try to look at them when I make it home later Smile

And yes, I'm hoping they will appreciate the fact that my first program was a super inclusive converter program. Just want to show them that not all of us only want to write games for the thing, we do recognize and acknowledge the educational nature of these graphing calculators.
Yes, I'm sure they will. Let's see if we can't manage to continue to write some interesting educational TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition programs in the midst of our game-making. Actually, I have an idea for a very impressive ASM program to make, but I need to make sure I have all my ASM-programming ducks in a row for the new calculator first.
tifreak8x wrote:
Not really, and I got no CD or anything, really. There were a couple of sheets of paper, but I of course didn't bother looking at them, was too busy playing with the calculator and letting it charge, which took nearly an hour off the computer from around 15% of charge left.


The sheets of paper do mention a URL where the download will be in the future, sadly the TI-Connect for Mac 4.0 is the only one that's been updated.
Thanks for the great review.

Quote:
Statistics: All of the new Stats Wizards from the MathPrint operating systems are present on the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, in more or less the same form as on the previous black-and-white TI-84 Plus calculators.


I'm curious if "more or less" included tweaking the Stats Distribution Functions. The TI-89 Stats App and the Nspire added Inverse Chi Square and Inverse F functions. Also, added was the ability to specify lower bounds for the Binomial, Geometric, and Poisson distributions.

Did the 84+ CSE OS by any chance add these features?

-wes
Welcome to Cemetech, Wes. Still no inverse Chi-Square or inverse F functions, and still no lower bound for those other three distributions. Sad Sounds like a TI-BASIC program that would be helpful to statisticians and teachers of statistics, though. By the way, care to Introduce Yourself if you get a chance?
Moved from general topic.

After messing with the 84+CSE for a day here is what I have noticed so far.

TI-84+CSE pros and cons coming from an average user (not quite a programmer yet)

Pros
-----------
Kept the same 84 design that feels so good
Color screen is a nice addition to an already great line
Nice that the plastic covering the screen is flush with the case
The extra resolution seems like it will be nice for doing math and also for when games get updated
OS has been updated but not so much so that any previous user would feel out of place
The extra flash memory
Fast graphing (after disabling asymptote detection)

Cons
-----------
Screen update is pretty bad. Something as simple as 2nd-Mem-7-1-2 takes more time because you have to wait for the screen to refresh.
3 less KB of user accessible RAM
Slow graphing by default. Seems like a bad first impression for people who don't know about the asymptote detection yet.
Thanks for moving this, ParkerR. I'd say that my general observations are not far from my own when I tried to look at the calculator from the perspective of a student or teacher. I too like that the screen area takes up the entire screen aperture in the case, if that's what you meant. I agree that even if the screen looks unfamiliar, it's nice that all the keystrokes do the same thing they always have. I agree that it's annoying to wait for menus to be drawn, and worse still that any keys you press during menu rendering are not stored and played back when the menu finishes drawing.
KermMartian wrote:
Welcome to Cemetech, Wes. Still no inverse Chi-Square or inverse F functions, and still no lower bound for those other three distributions. Sad Sounds like a TI-BASIC program that would be helpful to statisticians and teachers of statistics, though.


Thanks for checking on that. I teach Statistics (along with Precalc, Calc, and Physics) and I have my students use some BASIC programs that I put together to get around the limitations. For the inverse Chi-Square & F distributions, my program just calls the solve( function which can find the answer in about 5-10 seconds. It would have been nicer for students to have those functions built-in.

-wes
That makes sense. I should mention that the solver is a little better now, in that you can define both sides of the equation instead of having to set one side equal to zero. I'm glad you use TI-BASIC programs to fill in the missing functionality; do you ever teach your students some TI-BASIC programming?
KermMartian wrote:
I'm glad you use TI-BASIC programs to fill in the missing functionality; do you ever teach your students some TI-BASIC programming?


Our seniors have an annual week-long senior trip. During that time, I take one day to teach the remaining students in Precalc the basics of programming their calculators.

My first programmable calculator was a TI-55. Well, it was barely programmable, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I try to pass that enthusiasm for programming on to my students. Most don't ever do touch it again, but a few really get into it.

-wes
  
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