speed of the TI-86


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speed of the TI-86



The TI-86 is a TI-85 with more RAM and updated functionality. The processor
used on both the TI-85 and the TI-86 is a Z80 which only has an address
space of 64k. The TI-85's RAM used 32k of this space, the ROM used the other
32k, 16k was "resident" and 16k was "paged" or "swapped". In order to expand
the amount of RAM for the TI-85 we had to "page" the RAM, 16k of the RAM
on the TI-86 is "resident" and the rest is "swapped" in 16k chunks. This is
where the slow down on the TI-86 is generated. TI users have asked for an
85 with more RAM for years, and for TI to provide this at the least amount of
cost to our users we had to stay with the Z80 processor. We knew that we
would be slower on the TI-86 than the TI-85, but with the updated functionality
and increased RAM we believe that our users will accept this trade off.

Later,
Pat