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Emu8x Released
Posted by Jon on 30 October 2005, 17:07 GMT

Michael Vincent has released "Emu8x," a new emulator that emulates the TI-82, 83, 85, 86 calculators. What makes this new emulator unique is that it is designed to run on the TI-83+ SE/84+/84+ SE calculators, as opposed to running it on your computer. You can now choose which one of your favorite Z80 calculators you would like to run, and now be able to run it anywhere you go! The included manual provides lots of information for setting up and using the many features of Emu8x.

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Re: Emu8x Released
CajunLuke  Account Info
(Web Page)

This may be the one reason that pushes me over to buying that 84+SE I've been wanting. I've seen this on the Upcoming… page on DS's site, and it's certainly a breakthrough.

Reply to this comment    30 October 2005, 17:30 GMT

Re: Re: Emu8x Released
KermMartian Account Info
(Web Page)

MV has done it again...nice job.

Reply to this comment    30 October 2005, 17:45 GMT

Re: Re: Emu8x Released
redsoxfan  Account Info
(Web Page)

I never could get VTI to run on my computer, so this is great.

Reply to this comment    30 October 2005, 18:42 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Lewk Of Serthic  Account Info
(Web Page)

Why not? It's just an executable, not instalation involved.

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 20:03 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
KermMartian Account Info
(Web Page)

I'm guessing he probably had ROM issues.

Reply to this comment    1 November 2005, 14:26 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
dMb Account Info

VTI didn't work on my win98 either... It has nothing to do with ROM issues, in uploaded the rom of my 83+ fine.

Reply to this comment    25 November 2005, 00:44 GMT


Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Timmc Account Info
(Web Page)

Alas, if it's anything like the Beta - it wont work on my 83+ (standard) :'(
*duh*
Viva la 83 plus! Nifty emulator :)
I only hope that USB related apps will somehow be ported to 83+ (standard) with use of the i/o link in the future (ie: Thumbdrive Explorer)

Reply to this comment    1 November 2005, 01:27 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
CajunLuke  Account Info
(Web Page)

>> I only hope that USB related apps will somehow be ported to 83+ (standard) with use of the i/o link in the future (ie: Thumbdrive Explorer)

No chance in hell.

Reply to this comment    1 November 2005, 02:07 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Timmc Account Info
(Web Page)

*cries*

Reply to this comment    1 November 2005, 22:54 GMT

Re: Emu8x Released
Coolv  Account Info
(Web Page)

This is a very interesting developement... Now make a Z80 emulator for the 68K calculators.

Reply to this comment    30 October 2005, 20:50 GMT

Re: Re: Emu8x Released
CDI_  Account Info
(Web Page)

YES! YES! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would LOVE THAT!!! Michael_V you hear us?!?!? :P This would make it so I could carry my 83+ and 89 all in one :D

Reply to this comment    30 October 2005, 21:34 GMT


Wrong
JcN  Account Info
(Web Page)

The program is designed for the TI-83+/SE and the TI-84+/SE to emulate the other z80 calculators. The TI-89 is a 68K calculator (different chip architecture...)

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 03:02 GMT

Re: Wrong
Coolv  Account Info
(Web Page)

Yes, I understand, but you must agree that it could very well happen, if at a slow rate...

Another thing that would be interesting is a TI-BASIC emulator that emulates, say, 84+ TI-BASIC for the 68k series.

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 03:46 GMT


Re: Re: Wrong
majykbob  Account Info

actually I've been thinking about doing that... does MirageOS have a BASIC interpreter in it? I wouuld like to learn form it to make my own

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 20:36 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Wrong
Coolv  Account Info
(Web Page)

Even better would be a BASIC compiler, but that's just a dream...

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 21:53 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
anykey  Account Info
(Web Page)

There wouldn't be much of a difference. :^)
I don't know much about assembler or low-level calc stuff, but I'm pretty sure that the OS just converts the code/tokenized text into bytecode.

Reply to this comment    2 November 2005, 01:33 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
Coolv  Account Info
(Web Page)

OK, what's the difference between a For loop in BASIC and in C?

There goes your difference...

Reply to this comment    3 November 2005, 00:44 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
JcN  Account Info
(Web Page)

A compiler would make a world of difference. If BASIC could be compiled into native z80 code, the execution rate (and code possibilities) would most likely increase, depending on how well the compiler optimizes (i.e. some BASIC tokens may compile into bloated code).

Reply to this comment    4 November 2005, 01:52 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
Snave2000  Account Info

Exactly, thus saving you the time to convert each line while running the program, at the very least. As the program gets longer, this becomes more of a time-saver. Of course, error-trapping would become a really big issue...

Reply to this comment    4 November 2005, 16:12 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Wrong
CajunLuke  Account Info
(Web Page)

I think it uses TI's interpreter.

Reply to this comment    2 November 2005, 00:51 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
burntfuse  Account Info
(Web Page)

Well I didn't write MirageOS, but I know it would be serious overkill to write a whole new BASIC interpreter. I'm sure it just uses the API call to run a BASIC program.

Reply to this comment    2 November 2005, 19:59 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
JcN  Account Info
(Web Page)

It does. It invokes TI-OS to interpret BASIC code.

Reply to this comment    4 November 2005, 01:53 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
Snave2000  Account Info

Yep!

Reply to this comment    4 November 2005, 16:09 GMT

Re: Wrong
srunni Account Info
(Web Page)

Beep the chip architecture. Someone (I don't remember who) managed to emulate the Game Boy on the 68k series, right? So why isn't it possible to emulate the z80 series on the 68k series?

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 22:14 GMT


Re: Re: Wrong
JcN  Account Info
(Web Page)

The emulation isn't flawless, though. The problems not only occur in the different screen sizes, but in the completely different chip architectures. I'm not sure you fully appreciate the differences between the 8-bit z80 RISC chips and the 32-bit 68K CISC chips. To fully emulate the TI-OS, you would probably have to rewrite the entire API from scratch into 68K code, and RISC code doesn't port very well to CISC code.

Reply to this comment    2 November 2005, 04:13 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Wrong
Reno  Account Info

The Z80 isn't a RISC architecture; it's a CISC architecture.

Reply to this comment    4 November 2005, 08:08 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
JcN  Account Info
(Web Page)

Interesting. I was so sure it was a RISC!

But still, z80 emulation on a 68K chip is *still* problematic in that the instruction sets are totally different. The fact that z80 chips are CISCs only furthers the complications associated with providing a runtime environment capable of translating instructions. Emulating a CISC on another CISC introduces the problem of parsing instructions of variable size, which would reduce execution speed further! *sigh* If only TI used RISCs...emulation would be a lot easier.

Reply to this comment    5 November 2005, 06:22 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrong
Kevin Kofler Account Info
(Web Page)

But assembly programming would be a lot harder.

Reply to this comment    8 November 2005, 03:37 GMT


Re: Wrong
CDI_  Account Info
(Web Page)

duh. but if you write a program to run the 83+'s arcitecture OVER the 89's (this would have to be EXTEREMELY fast though :( ) then you could run the ROM over that, 83+ ASM would be stupidly hard to do, but BASIC is easier to token to run on the 89

Reply to this comment    2 November 2005, 20:42 GMT


Re: Re: Wrong
JcN  Account Info
(Web Page)

That's the problem! The 68K chips used by TI are too slow to FULLY emulate a completely different architecture at the software level.

Reply to this comment    4 November 2005, 02:08 GMT

Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Andy Janata  Account Info
(Web Page)

There already is one. GB68K. Granted, it's for the GameBoy, but it's (more or less) a z80 emulator.

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 01:15 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Ben Ingram  Account Info

The gameboy uses a stripped down Z80 (no IX/IY registers), so adapting gb68k to emulate the 8x series of calculators wouldn't be trivial. It'd be a pretty good place to start though. I don't think I'll do it, but if someone else wanted to give it a shot, I'd be happy to help out.

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 07:44 GMT


Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Morgan Davies  Account Info
(Web Page)

Everyone is always so demanding in the TI Community. Good to see an atricle written by Jon tho :-p

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 03:26 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Coolv  Account Info
(Web Page)

Yes, I understand that this would be quite a project, but it would be very rewarding if it actually worked.

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 03:47 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Jonathan Katz  Account Info
(Web Page)

Yay, someone noticed :)

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 05:06 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Kevin Kofler Account Info
(Web Page)

That's probably because some people here are paranoid about news editor bias, so Michael doesn't post news items about his own programs.

Reply to this comment    31 October 2005, 14:04 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Emu8x Released
Morgan Davies  Account Info
(Web Page)

Hehe...I know ;-) Used to work with him!

Reply to this comment    1 November 2005, 13:33 GMT

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