That is bogus! I want a USB cable hookup. The transfer speeds are quicker and the hassle is even less than a serial. How lazy can you get not to produce a PC version also?

I think that USB graphlink can be used for several interesting things. Even if you do not connect it with PC or Mac, TI calcs can now be directly connected to USB printers, scanners, ZIP drives, modems, speakers, keyboards, monitors etc.

Probabbly Linux sources can be guidelines for writing drivers for USB devices. If we analyse them, it will be possible to write ASM programs for TI calculators that use any pheripherals. Or, I am just a dreamer ...

*Salavates about the thought that he could hook his 92 up to a printer*

ti-92 + prineter... i want one

What on earth for? Besides the possible challenge in getting it to work, what would be the useful application?

Make sure that a TI-92 printer works with the 89 ;)

and the ti 83 plus and silver edition even though i don't think that it would make any difference since the silver edition only has a faster processer and for sure soooooo much more memery. i have a friend that couldn't aford a silver edition calculater so he got a regular 83 plus and he wanted me to put a few programs onto his calculater and i put marigos and 3 games on there and it was full not to mention everytime he went to play a game it would kick him out to do a garbage collect and it ran slower then mine does. right now i have a couple of programs over 160 and i still have half the meory in my archive so if you want to get an 83 plus then i strongly suggest a silver edition. and besides the fact it's got a cool see through case on it even though it sucks having that shield or what ever it is hiding the chips and all that from view.

In response to "now they can be hooked up to USB printers."

The calcs haven't changed at all. If you wanted to hook it up to a printer, you could have done that without the USB GraphLink. The only thing USB offers is a different way to get data to or from your computer to or from your calc.
If you had the time, tools, and appropriate knowledge, you could rig up a parallel cable for your calc and connect a scanner to it, but not without noticable problems, mind you.
<thinking to self>
Hmm... Not a bad Idea...
</thinking to self>
You could even invent your own port called the Afro port and hook up Afros for all TI cares. You just need to be able to plug a standard link cable plug into the calc.

it would be exelent if you can hook up a ti calculater to a moniter becouse then you would finally have pixles small enough that there is no way that you can see them and on top of that you would have a full collar screen for collar programs and all that but the downside to that would be that you would need a compuer screen to play those game but the upside to that is that for i think it was 160 or so you can get some sun glasses that have a tiny computer screen in each lens so you could figure out a way of hooking it up to that but you have realy made a good dream but it's just a matter of if it will come true or not :( and i hope it does.

If you think about it, how long does a link cable transfer usually take? About three minutes, maximum to send a large backup? If you get USB, it might not be worth the improvement to do it in two and a half.

The OS transfer speed might be a setback if you keep your link cable, but an extra fifteen minutes doesn't hurt. The USB cable is probably for people who don't have a cable and have been waiting for one that takes up less ports on their system.

you are partley right on that but there is still people who would rather spend that extra 15 minuts playing a game or they might want to get a usb and get rid of the old one becouse you can get a mini usb hub at radioshack for just a few dollars and it's small enough that you can eather hide it anywhere or simply put it in a space tat you have abaut a guarter of an inch by maybe 3 inches to the most by a half inch space and you have a usb port that went from 1 to 4 within a matter of 3 square inches by a quarter inch thick space and that way you don't haveto take up valuable ports that you can use for other things.

About the TIGraphLink USB, it seems that TI will release it about the end of the year...
Else, I have finished to develop my fastAVRlink (a link cable compatible with the Grey TIGL but up to 5 times faster). Now, I am currently developping a TI/PC USB link cable. I have just finished to develop its support in GtkTiLink. My first prototype works but could be improved a lot.
This link cable is based on a low cost CY7C63001 Cypress microcontroller which is the reference as USB µCs.

Samir Rijbic: for writing device drivers, I have all necessary doc and templates (and an example, even) for writing one under Windows and there are also some informations and kernel source code for Linux.
In conclusion: a USB link cable is possible.
If you want more informations, you can look at my homepage.

i don't really see the point of a usb link. the calculator itself can only transfer data so fast.

how can a usb cable be not compatible with the os? i mean, a usb cable is a usb cable, right? the only incompatibility i see is that the cable's clear so it might clash with anything but apple's clear cases.

unless it's ti's software, i don't get it...

The problem with Windoh!s and the USB cable has nothing to do with TiGraphLink or your calc. Windoh!s doesn't support USB as well as Mac. In fact, there is so little support for USB in Win95 that it is almost non-existant. Win98 has a moderate amount of support (just enough for my Handspring Visor. THANK THE HEAVENS!), but still not as much as Mac. WinME is anybody's guess. As for the new FireWire technology -- Let's not go there....

You might have the port and the cable, but if Windoh!s doesn't support it, there is no way to fix it.

Win98's usb support is excellent, all it requires is that the company that makes the hardware supply drivers for the device.

Even win2k's USB support is excellent, assuming the lazy ass hardware companies write compatible drivers.

I think the issue here is not that mac supports usb better than win98/winme/win2k(hell, my pc can use an iMac hockeypuck), but that TI is just too lazy to write the drivers.

Actually, The USB cable is compatible with Window$, It is just the software. If TI or somebody else released software for it there would be no problem.

i have no problem with mine but i did receave the usb link with my ti 83 plus silver edition calculater even though the program on the cd didn't work but the peogram that i downloaded does work perfect.

you just now answered why the usb works on my non mac pc and that's becouse i'm runnin off of windows xp and not the 98 that i do have but it sucks compared to the windows xp profetional so if you want to get a usb link for a pc then get windows xp.

Whatever happened to "Universal" in USB?

I think it's because TI doesn't want to spend the time and money to update the software.

The reason they made it only for Macintosh is because all new Macs dont have serial ports, all USB and FireWire.

he's right you know

yeah but they have taken the time and money to make hardware... so why not make software that is compatable with the more popular OS. Someone else should make a program that does the link in windows.

Go ahead.

Hey... You have the cable, but you need a driver and and software...

Transfer speed should not change with a USB cable, since the bottleneck is the calc's 9600 bps(?) linkport.

Actually the Calcs can handle speeds up to 57600. (If i remember correctly) Thats why it's 4x faster to flash update an 89 when it's calc to calc then when it is pc to calc.

the reason that the PC links are so slow is becasue Ti for some strange reason limits the speed to 9600 Baud physically in the cable. The little plastic part in the middle of the black and USB cable and the plastic extension on the parallel plug of the gray cable contain the chips that handle the transmission and keep the transmission at 9600 baud

My guess is that they want to keep the graph link software compatible with Windows 3.1 and 386 serial ports, but then again the black cable only works with win95 and above and it's limited to 9600 as well. I would also bet that the USB cable will suffer the same 9600 baud restriction as well but I could be wrong.

The reason TI limits the speed of the cable is because the data gets screwed up when going at a fast rate (I believe that is what I heard) and 9600bps was a good, stable speed. It's possible to go much faster (as with avrLink) but I'm not sure you get the same stability (you may get alot of linking errors).

your comment was overall quite good and accurate, but i think that the speed limitations in the black link and most likely the usb link too come from ti limiting the transfer rate within the graphlink software itself, since the black link option merely tells the software and therefore the computer to do streaming translation from the native computer data protocol to ti's proprietary protocol before the data heads for the serial port. the gray link, however, has a pic microcontroller in that big boxy thingie on the computer end of the cable; this microcontroller is what handles the conversion between the industry standard rs-232 computer serial port protocol and ti's proprietary protocol. despite the high cost of the usb cable and its (momentary, i hope) system specificity, it would seem most likely that ti uses a similar method for the usb cable that they developed for the black link for windows. i hope this is accurate (its 4:19am local time) and informative.

eofpi

A little bit off the subject, but do you know if the black link will handle talking to a modem like the grey cable will? I got a black link because they were cheaper but I might buy a grey link for I can hook it to a modem if the black link won't.

It won't, see my other nearby post for why not.

Uhhh, the black cable ISN'T limited to 9600, it's basically the same thing as the home made serial cable and transmits much faster than 9600. Still not as fast as calc-to-calc though.

The grey cable converted the signals from the calculator to actual data that would be send over the serial port. If you hooked the calc up and started hyperterminal you would start seeing strange stuff appearing (at 9600).

If you hook the black cable up, in hyperterminal it would do apsolutely nothing. Basically the serial lines like RTS/CTS, etc are hooked straight to the wires on the calc. Those blink on and off.

Remember: Black cable much faster. And cheaper!

Ehhhhh, kwitchyer bellyachin! It's about time we Mac users got something for just ourselves. We've been stuck with the crummy gray link cable for the longest time, while Windows users get their very own black link cable that doesn't suck. It's been that way ever since I got my first calc (about a year ago) and now the PC side is complaining that now the Mac folks also have their own cable? Gimme a break. TI didn't address us Mac people when we plead for a better link. Besides that, the new cable still costs half as much as the calc itself! Now that the link cable situation is now equally balanced between Mac and Windows, I wouldn't complain about it regardless of which platform I use.

Thank you! I agree wholeheartedly, even though I just got my first graphing calc and didn't buy a link cable right away. Its about time we Mac users get something to ourselves as far as TI goes. Heck, I'd like to have some awesome software game for Mac only for a while. Just to laugh at the stupid PeeCee losers (Oops I mean users).

Brandon
-------------
Get a life, get a Macintosh!

i believe the word you are searching for is "luser", however i can't really endorse that being applied to *all* pc users... (me, for example ;)

i doubt you would either, especially since technically even macs are Personal Computers...

BLASPHEMY! Prophet of doom! How dare you suggest that a Mac is a PC! You take that back! I can't believe anyone would speak such lies! Be gone!

PC stands for personal computer. Is it yours personally? I thought so.

LOL! Yes, actually most all computers (with the exception of supercomputers and whole room computers) are personal computers (!PCs!) regardless of the platform. I think a mac would make an awesome PC if it weren't for that damn MacOS crap! User friendly but no power! The hardware is awesome, though. Apple is holding the computers back. That is why linux is made for the mac also. On this mac (not mine, thank god!) I am using right now, MacOS uses 73mb of the memory (128mb total mem) !BAD!

you have an exelent point there on the mac and sadly enough you are right i use a mack (at school only) for my photography class and it sucks, you have only one mouse button to do stuff with and that limits the way that you control stuff at least for me personally i enjoy having 2 mouse buttons along with the scroll in the middle and the joy of a cordless optical mouse and a cordless keyboard, and most of all i enjoy having the wide selection of add ons like sound cars, video cars, so many processers that you can eather have a 700 mhz computer or a 2.3 gigahrz processer. but speaking of what's a pc your ti calculater no matter what type it is just as long as it's a graphing calculater then that is a pc and all palm pilots are pc's and even cell phones are starting to be pc's with all the stuff that you can do with it. but if there is anyone that want's to argue abaut the calculater and all that being a pc then go ahead and i'll make it clear that they are pc's

Macs aren't even computers, what are you talking about?

you really need to work on your history becouse the fist computer that was ever made in the history of computers was a huge pice of metal with so many gears that you would need to use it just to keep track of the geers and the only thing that it ever did was add and subtract any number you gave ut no matter how big or how little it was, and i take back what i wrote down at the bottom any calculater (weather it's a graphing or not) it is a pc, a scale is a pc, a thermomiter is a pc, and sadly enough a mac is a pc even though it''s a discrace to a pc but it's a computer (that sucks) and even if it is owned by a company it's personally owned but in a company it's just used by people but still owned by who ever bought it so there you have a computer of any kind no mapter how big or small or if it's ran by power or not it's still a computer if it can do anything with numbers and no matter what it is it's all personally owned so there you have a personally owned computer otherwise known (for a short turm name) as the pc (personal or personally owned computer).

"Think different". Or if you are a mac user: "Think".

even though this add on is a little late but i havn't been on this sight sins the day that i got my ti 83 plus silver edition calculater and for your info. it did come with an included usb cable and of corse the software for it and since that same day i was using it on my Hewlett Packard PC that i enjoy becouse it's not a mac or apple since they are the same thing and i enjoy pc a lot better and we do have thinggs on here that the mac doesn't but the mac still does have the worse viruses then we do. but on top of it all there are more pc users then mac users and that is why you never see any comercials or anything for mac and besides the fact there is only 1 company for mac and more company's making pc that you have a more wider selection for the pc then you do the mac and there is no way that you can tell me that a mac has better graphics then a pc does becuse that is wrong i havve used mac pc's in school that were top of the line and i have a computer (not currently hooked up to the net yet but i just finished building it last week) that has just as good of graphics as the mac does.

i have a usb cable for a non mac pc and i have had it for a couple of years now (at least since the 83 plus silver edition calculater came out) and it came with a usb cable inside with the software for it and it has worked the best that i have ever seen in cables for the calc and it is the fastest yet to come. but if you don't want to spend 137 dollars on a ti 83 plus silver edition calculater then you can go to best buy and get a usb cable for 20 dollars.