Re: Clarification (was: Re: A82: PROPOSAL: TI-82 "Enhancement" Project)
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Re: Clarification (was: Re: A82: PROPOSAL: TI-82 "Enhancement" Project)
In a message dated 98-02-23 19:25:54 EST, you write:
<snip>
> > Nathan suggested that the ROM was rewritten from scratch. I believe that
> > is not possible, unless you only plan to include a few functions.
>
> Hmmm, why not? We've got the info for interfacing with most of the
> hardware, it seems, so that's not a problem.
I think what he means is that it wouldn't be feasible because of memory
limitations on the calc, impossible to test, etc, blah, blah
>
> > Therefore the best solution is proably to modify the existing ROM, so it
> > supports assembly, and things like that. The developers of the "new" ROM
> > would then release a program which modifed a ROM dump so it included all
> > the new features.
> [snippage]
> > A lot of the functions included in the TI82 ROM are slow, and it would be
> > easy to write functions which where faster. If the project was done like
I
> > suggested, all the slow functions could be rewritten, giving you a faster
> > TI82.
>
> OK, no, this is not how it should be done. Let me explain why not, and
> what I had in mind in the first place.
>
> First, we can't just go messing around with TI's ROM, enhancing it, and
> then just handing out copies of our enhancements to everyone. This
> would violate copyright laws.
correct
>
> Now, if I understand your proposal correctly, what you are trying to say
> is that to avoid the copyright issue, we would release a program that
> would modify a person's ROM dump instead of distributing the ROM dump as
> a whole. Sort-of like a patch file. This would STILL not work as 1)
> our code is still based on TI's and 2) even if TI agreed to this, we
> couldn't get it to cooperate with ALL the ROM versions out there because
> it would be necessary for us to come up with patches for ALL the ROM
> versions. Puke. :-(
<huge snip>
>
> I really am not sure what you mean when you say that it would be hard to
> write up a ROM/OS from scratch, Dines. We've got most of the docs for
> the hardware we need, most of which were supplied by you. :-) The only
> real complications here are a) the hardware upgrade to accommodate the
> new OS and b) the dual-boot stuff, because two OSes can't share the same
> memory space for data, so I suppose to do that we'd need to upgrade the
> RAM capacity of the TI as well. The Z80 can definitely address more
> than 32K, so it's possible. :-) We just gotta figure how to do it. ;-)
>
> TTFN,
>
> --
> +-----+--------------------------------------------------+-----+
> | | Nathan Anderson - nathana@blarg.net 15 yrs old | |
> | | -== NUMERUS UNUS DOLATOR SUM ==- | |
> | +--------------------------------------------------+ |
> | |
> | +----------------------------------------------------------+ |
> | | UNITY: Just Think(tm) | |
> | | http://www.blarg.net/~aerie/Unity/ | |
> | | | |
> | | Webmaster, 4-H Computers of Snohomish County, WA | |
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> +-+----------------------------------------------------------+-+
The Z80 can only address 64K of memory, and the calc allocates 32K for the ROM
and 32K for the RAM
~Adamman
PS sorry for the late post, aol wouldn't let me read this mail (don't ask)
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