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Crabcake Released
Posted by Ryan on 17 June 2011, 14:37 GMT

Here is a piece of news that should make any ambitious TI-83+ and TI-84+ programmer perk up in their seat and start the weekend with a smile. About a month ago, resident user Rickie "Hot_Dog" Malgren released Crabcake, an assembly library that allows for the development of software larger than 8 KB of pure code. The solution is both elegant and uninvasive, making it a very viable solution for those of you who wish to be less fettered by size constraints.

Included is documentation about Crabcake's usage, which contains some very straight-foward instructions, some warnings on coding practices that should be avoided when using the library, an example, and even a version for the Axe Parser with all of the same amenities. The impossible is now possible.

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Re: Crabcake Released
Kevin Ouellet Account Info
(Web Page)

Nice to see this featured. I was wondering if it would, because at first it just sounds like just another ASM utility, but then you remember the 8 KB limit was something people wanted to break for so long.

Hopefully people aren't forced to use apps all the time now, especially Axe programmers.

Also I like hot dogs. :P

Reply to this comment    17 June 2011, 20:18 GMT


Re: Re: Crabcake Released
Someone Someone  Account Info

Why has it taken so long for someone to write an include file to allow programs to exceed the 8k limit?

Wish I had this back when I programmed the ti-84 and didn't want to dynamically move memory myself. XD

Reply to this comment    20 June 2011, 17:56 GMT


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

Because coders have been writing their own little hacks for ages. :) Some people do swapping out from AppVars, others do SMC-style swapping, etc. Hot-Dog has codified a more organized tool for it, which should make things faster for beginners.

Reply to this comment    20 June 2011, 21:06 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabcake Released
Hot_Dog Account Info
(Web Page)

Exactly. This is an "all-around" solution.

Reply to this comment    21 June 2011, 14:49 GMT

Re: Crabcake Released
elfprince13 Account Info
(Web Page)

Is it fair to assume this uses extra RAM pages rather than manipulating ports in some way to break the $C000 limit?

Nifty either way.

Reply to this comment    19 June 2011, 01:04 GMT


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

Read the source codeā€¦ :-)

AFAICT, it modifies some ports on the original (non-Silver) TI-83+ and swaps pages on the TI-83+ Silver Edition and all the TI-84+ series models.

I don't know why 2 different methods are needed, I'm no expert of the Z80 calculators.

Reply to this comment    19 June 2011, 01:46 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Crabcake Released
Kevin Ouellet Account Info
(Web Page)

Because the 83+ lacks the extra 16 KB RAM page that is available on the 83+SE and 84+ series. Actually, on 84+ models made from 2004 to 2007 there was even 80 KB of extra RAM pages.

Reply to this comment    19 June 2011, 01:52 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabcake Released
Hot_Dog Account Info
(Web Page)

It would have been nice if I could have used the same method for all calculators. On the 15 Mhz calculators, however, page swapping was the only option, as there is no way to unlock the default RAM page.

Reply to this comment    20 June 2011, 01:39 GMT


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

So they hardcoded the execution protection in hardware? I guess they did that after seeing how easily Julien's HW2Patch (and my HW3Patch, which is little more than a refreshed HW2Patch) mess around with the 68k hardware's OS-controlled execution protection mechanism. Thankfully, you found another loophole. :-) (TI is very bad at thinking of the implications of their hardware's memory mapping, see also the ghost-space-based attacks on the HW2 execution protection.)

Reply to this comment    20 June 2011, 03:33 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabcake Released
calc84maniac  Account Info
(Web Page)

We've just discovered that the execution protection is not hardcoded, so I think Crabcake should be seeing an update soon :D

Reply to this comment    29 June 2011, 13:00 GMT

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