This program, if working like a TI92+, would really be a major step forward in the visualization of math on the TI83 series. When you include the powerful Symbolic functions, it is almost as good as solving symbolic equations on a TI89, or am I wrong here? If there's any way to 'simplify' equations on a TI83, you should add it to this and it will be an unbeatable thing in math class :)

Nice job on creating this program.

Actually, there is a way to simplify equations on an 83+. All you need to do is head over to our friends at detached solutions (www.detacheds.com), download symbolic 1.6, and use the simp command (press [math] [math] [<] [ENTER]). It takes one argument, a string containing the equation you want to simplify.

What is Symbolic capable of simplifying? Its simplification capabilities seem quite limited to me.

Great Job! Maybe Michael Vincent will add this feature into OmniCalc.

We have plans to leave both Symbolic and Pretty print compatable with Omnicalc. You'll need all 3 apps if you want all the new features.
Also, the news article makes it sound like Symbolic 1.6 is not out yet, but you can download it from www.detacheds.com. We all know how ticalc can be slow with their archives.
One more thing... I spoke with ACT on the phone today and they told me that since Symbolic is an external CAS and not built into the calculator, it is permitted on their tests. They said they may have to change the rules in the future but as of January 14, 2002 you can use Symbolic on the ACT.

For those who want a bit more specifics, Omnicalc will "link" to the Symbolic functions, which includes the pretty() function. So if Omnicalc detects Symbolic on your calc, then it will allow MATH,MATH to show a menu of the most useful Symbolic functions, which includes pretty(). By loading all 3 apps eventually on your calc, you then have access to all three's functions via Omnicalc.

Where can you download omnicalc

I do not think you can as of yet.

You can't download it yet because it's still under development (www.detacheds.com/upcoming)

How many application blocks do you think it will take up? (I don't really care how many 'cause I've got an SE, but I'm just curious...)

It will take one (so it's 16KB). I despise multiple page applications :)

if these new programs will *need* each other to run, why not incorporate all three applications into a single file? i mean, each one is going to take up at least 16K of memory apiece... anyone who doesn't have a silver edition will have trouble fitting three different apps on their calc

-Brad

These apps are stand-alone, they by no means need each other. We are merely providing cross-compatibility so you could use the features of all 3 at once if you wanted.

...and besides that they probarbly all make full use of there 16K, so you wouldn't save any memory and couldn't choose which features you need...

alrighty, it was only a suggestion
btw, Symbolic is an amazing app :)
PrettyPrint is cool, but the ability to solve eq's will make it about 50 times more useful... you think you could get it to work with ALL of the TI-83's functions (i.e. everything in the Catalog)? that would be perfect :)
cant wait for OmniCalc!

-Brad

Download Symbolic 1.7, too. It just came out today, and 1.6 gave some incorrect answers.

Does this program produce any sort of output? I edit expressions, but I cannot do anything with them. I have tried pushing [Enter], and Quit with everything selected (no clipboard data), nothing selected (no clipboard data), everything selected (with clipboard data), and nothing selected (with clipboard data). I cannot seem to be able to do anything with this program.

I'm confused too. Pretty Print looks lovely, but it's a bit useless if it can't be used for calculations! perhaps i'm missing something obvious.

You can type your calculation into the home screen, enclosed by quotes. Hit enter to put it into Ans. Then go to Pretty Print and use Get Ans to dump the equation into Pretty Print. That way you can check your equation and see if it's correct. When you're done, you can either use 2nd-Entry to get the equation back or use Expr(Ans) and evaluate it.

It would also be fairly easy to hack together a program that would use Symbolic and Pretty Print to display equations and solve them. Simply make it give you an input line to enter your equation on, use pretty() to display it, then ask if it's correct. If it isn't, go back to the beginning. If it is, evaluate it with expr() and display the answer.

You can use symbolic to do calculations then use pretty print to display the results. Pretty Print really speeds up reading of complicated expressions and decreases the likelyhood of mis interpreting answers. lots of parenthesis do get confusing.

That's right. Up to now PrettyPt only makes sence in cooperation with Symbolic. But if you ever used the differentiation with something more complex than "x^2" you'll see that it makes sence. Besides that PrettyPt is still under havy development (this release is just version 0.91!). It will be able to use Symbolics d( and simp( inside the app and also evaluate expressions by hitting Enter. Maybe I'll list the planned features on my website if I find the time (please be patient because I have to write some exams in the next month)...

BTW suggestions / wishes for new features would be greatly appreciated. Please email to feedback@softheiss.de...

You guys all misunderstood him. He was trying to figure out if there was any way to return the equation you build *in Pretty Print* to the home screen, so you can use it. He's not saying he wants to convert an existing equation to Pretty Print.

I suppose I was a bit ambiguous as to what I was trying to do. Really, I was trying to find out if this can be used like EQW on the HP-49G. EQW lets you type an equation into the HP and watch as it is formed in pretty-print. When you hit [Enter], it saves the equation and pastes it wherever the cursor is.

PrettyPt is a nifty tool, and all, but I would like to be able to get the equation so that I can use it in any way. Just pasting the inputed string to the cursor location would be great. It would be _very_ nice if it integrated into the OS so that you could have pretty-print on the home screen, but I do not see TI giving out the necessary information any time soon.

I also think that the Select, Cut, Copy, and Paste would be nice in the OS possibly assigned to [Alpha] shortcuts of [Mode], [Del], [Stat], and [X,T,O,n] (Yes, I know that that is a theta) respectively. In alpha mode, [Del] could behave normaly unless something was selected, and if something is, [Clear] could get rid of it without dammaging the clipboard.

All of this is just dreaming, however. I am not nearly good enough to write that.

As far as I know Michael Vincent's OmniCalc will realize all your "dreams" about that copy and paste thing.
It think it will be more useful when PrettyPt evaluates the expression rather than moving it to the homescreen. But perhaps I'll also implement this (It depends on how big the app will be when I finished all the planned features)

About OmniCalc: WOW. If only some operating system extensions could be built into an 89 like that...

In theory, they could be. The 89 is just another calculator, and I am betting that TI built the same software expandability into it, they just have not told us how to access/use it. Even the 86 has the ability to be expanded by software. AsapXCmd adds many new commands that are recognized by the OS just as if they were built in, and I think that TI has put this capability into all of its newer calculators.

The problem with installing those commands was that most assembly programs would crash, but having the chr() and ord() functions was nice.

Above url is my webpage. It is fairly crappy but that is sort of the point. So crappy in fact that calc.org will not even link to it. There you can find a lot of 'extensions' to the operating system.

The biggest extension I have written is called complete. It builds an auto completion feature into the home entry line. If you can type it then complete can auto finish it for you.

Secondly there is bestview. It will watch your position as you scroll through the home screen histroy and if you press f2 while in the history it will devote the entire screen to the display of the selected history element.

There are many others like shortcuts which will let you map user programs to be executed by some unused keypress like shift-on.

That's quite enough plugging for now Sam.


-Samuel

Or did you mean functions that take arguments?
In this case ti makes it very easy to make such extensions. it is the simplest of things to get access to the arguments that are passed. But returning values is hard because ti decided that only flash apps should be able to do so and removed this ability for normal asm programs to return values. thankfully this has been worked around.

yeah... stupid TI and their AMS "improvements".

althought I must admit some things are better on the 89. Two things, in fact, that I noticed.

1. You can "wrap-around" the end of a list box.
2. Folders can be expanded and collapsed.

Bah. Not really anything major, but helpful sometimes nonetheless.

Developers are waiting for a freeware appsign utility that is.