IMHO, one problem that plagues the 92 is the awful speed of TI-BASIC programs. As I understand it, the programs are interpreted and are stored as text. I suggest that, in the 92+, the interpreter be wiped out of the ROM and that the now-free space be replaced by a compiler. A compiler, producing lightning fast ASM code from a TI-BASIC program, would bring the possibilities of TI-BASIC to a new level. Some will say, it will be possible to program the same thing in ASM, and it will run much quicker, but most people won't learn ASM. Most people would prefer a fast TI-BASIC allowing you to make a situation specific program in minutes.
There is a problem with what I suggested: both the uncompiled TI-BASIC and compiled ASM program would have to be kept in memory, which is bad. I also have solutions to bring, that could solve this. Three of them, actually, that could be used together or separately, only one, two or even all of them.
1-Tokenizing: Tokenizing a program consists in assigning each instruction a specific value. For example, solve could be tokenized to ASCII 135. solve(x=2,x) would stored in memory as <token code><ascii 135>(x=2,x)<end of line>. Then, when the user would want to access back the program, it would be detokenized on the spot.
2-Compressing: LZW and/or Huffman compression can be used on both the uncompiled and compiled programs, or only one of them, and can save a lot of space as well.
3-JIT Compiling: Just In Time compiling consists keeping only the uncompiled version of the program in memory, and compiling it only when needed. While it delays the start of the program, it allows to completly eliminate the compiled version from the memory.
Even though 500k of memory seems a lot, I am certain that it will sooner or later become a limit. Having compression/decompression algorithms built in ROM would allow us to maximise efficiency of that memory. Be it implemented in a DoubleSpace kind of way (seamless automatic compression/decompression of everything) or zip kind of way (you must compress/decompress files manually), it would be very interesting to have.
It would be quite convenient if the TI-92 ASM support would be compatible with Fargo, as there already is a large amount of fargo programs and programmers.
A major upgrade to VAR-LINK. It just plain sucks. Get an User Interface specialist on the job and come up with something better. Please.
Redefinable keys in the text editor. I'm tired of pressing [2nd] e e to get a é or [2nd] a e to get a è. Half the functions key are sitting there doing nothing. I'd like to be able to press F9 to have the é or something like that.
Please comment/provide contructive critics. And bear my awful english. I'm a french canadian and english is only my secondary language.
Francois Bradet