Re: A89: TCML Proposal

To: <assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org>
Subject: Re: A89: TCML Proposal
From: "Miles Raymond" <m_rayman@bigfoot.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 15:54:04 -0600
Delivered-To: assembly-89-outgoing@towerguard.unix.edu.sollentuna.se
Delivered-To: assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org
Reply-To: assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org

First-
That was one of the things talked about.  There will be a cgi script on ticalc.org or someplace that
will allow the translation from HTML into TCPL binary.

Second-
There is a reason to have two versions of TCPL: text and binary.  The reason to have a binary
version is obvious- to make the calc process and display the page as fast as possible.  The reason
to have a text version is so that the page could be edited in the TI-89 text editor and so that the
page can be written specifically for the calculator.

Writing an HTML browser shouldn't be a problem, but you'll sacrifice the speed on your calc that the
cgi could be doing for you on the server.  That's more than ~50Mhz difference, at least.

-Miles Raymond      EML: m_rayman@bigfoot.com
ICQ: 13217756       IRC: Killer2        AIM: MRayMan
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_rayman/

-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Mårdell <yarin@acc.umu.se>
To: assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org <assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org>
Date: Sunday, January 17, 1999 1:40 PM
Subject: Re: A89: TCML Proposal

At 12:38 1999-01-17 -0600, you wrote:
>>I don't agree with this. "Not enough processor power"?? Parsing a textfile
>>takes no time whatsoever, even on a TI-8x calc with a Z80. The speed problem
>>might be the output of text if you want it in different sizes, but I
seriously
>>doubt that as well. TCML might take less memory though - that's about all.
>
>I don't doubt the 89's ability to parse large text files, but HTML is a
>very complex language.  Imagine how many instructions you would need to
>look at each character if you were displaying an HTML file.  With my TCML
>it would take less then five instructions _per_line_.  Weather or not the
>89 can handle HTML, TCML will be much faster and easier.  You should note
>that TCML is designed to support TCML/HTML browsers with the <TCML> tag.  I
>aggree that it would be nice to view HTML docs, but I'm not willing to
>write that browser.

First, what's the point of making a browser supporting only TCML when
all webpages on the net are in HTML? Should it only be possible to go
to special sites made for ticalcs...?

Second, you said you would convert the textform of TCML to some binary
format so a tag took one byte. I assumed this convertion would be
done on the computer. Why not make a program to convert a HTML document
to some binary form, omitting the tags that are too complicate...?

Writing a simple HTML browser, like Lynx should't be any problem. Lynx
doesn't support much... not even tables IIRC.

//Jimmy Mårdell

E-mail: yarin@acc.umu.se
Homepage: http://www.acc.umu.se/~yarin/