I think you should update Mallard (or at least try to, I don't know how badly this upgrade breaks it). Maybe there will be higher interest at some point. Now I know where you stand (ever heard of TitaniK? No? Thought so...), but in the case of Mallard, there is really no "better alternative" (whereas TitaniK got discontinued in favor of Iceberg, which got discontinued in favor of PreOs >=0.70, and of course there's the native ASM support on the Titanium which I recommend using instead of any of these), and the chances of an ASM development community ever forming for the TI-73 drop even closer to zero if the only available shell gets discontinued.

IMHO, one serious handicap Mallard has for taking over the ASM development scene is that it came out so late. If something like Mallard had been available when the TI-83+ ASM development world was at its apex, at least part of the TI-83+ games would probably also have had TI-73 versions (just as they often had TI-83 and sometimes TI-82 versions). Now we have a huge set of games which could potentially be ported, and an uphill battle to actually get them ported, especially given that many calculator developers come and go and don't always leave source code.

Several Ion games have been ported to Mallard. In facy, a PHP coded "Source Adapter" would be VERY easy to make. I was one of the few authors who bothered doing anything at all for the Mallard shell, but am glad to have given 7th graders something more to do. :-)

I'd like to see a TI-87; a ti-86 with CAS and / or flash. However, interest in the calc of highest grayscale quality will get a boost soon, gauranteed! Did anybody realize that when dangerously overclocked it can generate 512 greys! - but that story's for another day. This new 73 OS seems better though - more details once people dump the rom's hex, of course.

512 GRAYS?!!?!?!? thats insane, i mean, they have 4, and eight grays can be done, 16 is posible but doesnt look good, but 512? thats a lot

16 can look good and 32 is normally possible with new batteries. I'm mostly curious how this'll effect support for the Mallard shell and supported files.

I guess one of these days I will fix Mallard and make it work across all OS versions including future ones.

You could just make it a Flash App and the asm files could be user defined types. Let's not forget, even the 85 has ways of determining ROM version with asm.

I think you'd have to sign it (non-free) to make a 73 app. Don't quote me on it, though...it's not like I ever touched one.

"Non-free", not necessarily, but I doubt TI would sign an ASM shell for the TI-73, after all they intentionally left that feature out.

(But then again, they did sign Super Start for the 68k calcs...)

Non-free in one very important sense: even if you have the source, you can't actually use a modified version without TI's blessing.

Right, this sucks big time, and is the main reason we don't support FlashApps in TIGCC.

if you ask TI for a developer certificate (at least for the 89) you build flash apps for your calc without TI's blessing.

wow... the 73 even has an os? theres actualy some bonus to owning a 73 over a normal 83...
i feel ashamed

Only if you like using an onscreen text selector instead of [ALPHA][key]

Is it really so hard for TI to actually provide descriptive changes to their OS upgrades? Other companies would be ripped apart by their users if change logs were provided at TI's quality.

Well, they do have to appease two groups:
1) the teachers/administrators who use the calcs. in class
2) us.

We would like to see an OS release that says "Improves compatibility with MirageOS by adding new BASIC-running bcalls and a TI-81/2 emulation system. Also adds greyscale calls, side-scrollign calls, and support for custom operating systems, as well as user-defined functions, building in Omnicalc and Symbolic." But any principal that saw that would have another reason to look at grants for HPs or Casios instead of TIs. They would like "Prevents the use of unauthorized programs and APPs, such as games, during teacher-defined class periods." We simply wouldn't use that OS at all. So, they say nothing ad keep everybody upgrading.

I agree about technical details, but they could at least put in things like "fixed bug in equation solver" or "increased speed of graphing" or "added tangent line graphing function".

Nonsense! 125 people have downloaded Joltima for the TI73!

Wow, you better make sure ticalc.org can handle the bandwidth load! :D

lol speaking of which.....my site normally transfers about 150 megs per month. yesterday I had a spike and it transferred 48!