A86: Re: just wondering


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A86: Re: just wondering




No!  ROM stands for Read Only Memory.  This means that you can only read
from it, you can't write to it.  So, of course, you can't dump your friend's
rom to your calc.  The reason the newer calcs (73, 89, 92+ module) have
upgradable ROMs is that they have FlashROMs.  The roms use flash memory,
which is or is like a type of eeprom, a non-volatile read many, write
limited memory.  This is the type of memory your computer's bios has in it
to save your bios settings.  Non-volatile means that it won't be erased like
normal ram when power is cut off.  You can read from it an unlimited number
of times, but the number of times you can write to it is limited (I've heard
between 10,000 and 100,000 times, but if you really care you should visit an
electronic supplier's website...I know enough about hardware to program it,
nothing more).

An interesting idea concerning the Flash Rom calcs.  People have talked
about making their own OS to replace TI's.  I'm not going to question why in
the world you'd want to spend $140-$200 on a symbolic calculator just to
turn it into a very expensive display screen with lots of buttons, but
anyway...  If the code to flash the rom or at least the code to "start up"
the calc and call the code to flash the rom was messed up (by you writting
your own rom), then you couldn't ever reflash the rom.  Interesting idea,
huh?  You'd have to make darn sure that no matter what you screwed up, the
code to flash the rom worked.

-----Original Message-----
From: StealthEMG@aol.com <StealthEMG@aol.com>
To: assembly-86@lists.ticalc.org <assembly-86@lists.ticalc.org>
Date: Saturday, November 28, 1998 4:16 PM
Subject: A86: just wondering


>
>I don't know a lot about how ROMs work and stuff, but I was just wondering
>this.
>If you have a 1.4 rom and let's say a friend has a 1.2 rom, could your
friend
>dump his/her 1.2 rom onto your calc to make yours a 1.2 rom, or is that
just a
>stupid question?