Re: A83: ION and new batteries VERY WEIRD
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Re: A83: ION and new batteries VERY WEIRD
I would deduce that the cause of the garbled graphics is due to the Fastcopy
routine of ION, which ION and its programs use often. It was timed and tested
to gain the fastest speed while keeping stability, and I would think the
power supplied to the LCD Driver is a factor of this stability. With fresh
batteries, perhaps it has too much power than needed (despite the existance
of voltage regulators), and then it becomes out of coordination with the
Fastcopy routine, writing either too early or too late to when the LCD Driver
is ready to do another write, therefor giving you garbled graphics. I cant
propose a solution for this possibly rare case, except to say to slow down
the Fastcopy routine slightly to accomidate all cases, however, the benefit
of the speed in normal cases outways the losses of this one case. I can say
That since you say the problem has gone away, and thats good, and I dont
recall anyone else reporting this problem (except when the routine had to be
slown down in an earlier version of ION), but it should be left alone now I
suppose.
Jason_K
In a message dated 9/17/00 1:41:15 PM Central Daylight Time,
hamster1000@theglobe.com writes:
> I have a TI83 (not plus), its batteries were running a little low so I
> decided to change them. I took out the old batteries and put in new ones.
> After having done this, I ran the ion program (A) on my calculator. The
> graphics in the ION program (ION v1.6) select screen were garbled, the
> graphics are disfigured into diagonals. Like this:
>
> normal line:
>
>
>
>
> ------------
>
> disfigured line:
> -
> -
> -
> -
> -
>
> The graphics seem to form 12 columns, the first column in place, the
second
> placed higher, the third placed higher, etc. You can still use the arrows
and
> choose programs with enter. When you run a program, its graphics are
garbled
> too.
>
> I then put back in the old batteries and tried ION again. With the old
> batteries in the calculator, ION was fine, the graphics were normal. I
found
> this to be really odd, so I did some experimenting, this is some of what I
> found,
>
> -Only ION gets messed up, non-ION programs work fine.
> -Besides one set being old, and the other being new, the batteries are
> almost identical. Both sets are made entirely up of AAA Energizer Alkaline
> Batteries that have self-test strips on the side.
> -When mixing in the new batteries with the old, the more new batteries in
> the calculator, the more garbled the ION graphics get.
> -I had thought this might be the problem since the new batteries put the
> calculator at a lower contrast than the old ones but changing contrast
> without changing the batteries did not mess up ION.
> -I also have a TI83plus, I put the new batteries into it and ION was fine.
> -I tried resetting All Memory before I changed batteries and before i
> installed ION, but it didn't help.
>
> I've actually had some problems with ION having garbled graphics in the
past,
> but I was never able to link the garbled graphics with anything I had
done.
> The problem later went away by itself somehow, and ION worked fine.
>
> In this instance, however, I am almost absolutely positive that the
problem
> has to do with the batteries, but I'm not sure exactly what the problem is.
>
> Has anyone else experienced a similar problem with ION? Can anyone tell
me
> how to fix this problem?
>
> Sorry about making this message so long, but I thought this problem was
very
> interesting and quite strange.
>
> Hamster1000