PROPOSAL: TI-82 "Enhancement" Project


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PROPOSAL: TI-82 "Enhancement" Project



Basically, the purpose of this message is to see if anyone is interested
in this proposal.  I want to get some feedback on whether this idea is
feasable, if anyone is interested on working on it, etc.

Now, before you get the urge to flame me for what I am about to say,
just please listen (er, read) the whole thing first, okay? :-)

What I propose that we do is to code a new ROM (from scratch) for the
TI-82.

The way I see it, most of the assembly stuff that people have managed to
do with the 82 (and even 85) is "kludgy" in terms of the ways that we've
managed to gain access (read: "hack") to the hardware level of things.
The way I envision the new ROM to work would be to provide the "bare
necessities" of functions that ASM programmers use (get key functions,
etc.) and allow you to build on up from there.  Also, we'd most likely
want a shell and such built on top of that so that we'd be greeted with
_something_ when we turned on the calc, but this shell would be separate
from the actual ROM.  In other words, the basic ROM "kernel" would not
be permanently "bound" to any particular shell, so that the shell could
be replaced by another shell if desired.  In fact, this shell would then
be no different from any other ASM program except it would be the first
to execute automatically by default.

And most important of all, this ROM would be both free and "open
source", meaning that the source code would always be availible for
anyone to use/add to/modify for their own use.

Granted, this idea does have severe implications.  We first would have
to deal with the calculator hardware before anything else.  The most
likely way that any new ROM could be incorporated into the calc would be
for some enterprising person to successfully integrate a EEPROM unit
into the calc, replacing the existing ROM.  I myself don't know if it's
possible to do that.  I've even heard (though I've not verified)
that the TI-82 ROM may not be a single chip, but may be part of a
multipurpose IC.  Would it then be possible to bypass the TI-82 ROM
somehow?  Again, I don't know.  I must admit that I have not done any
extensive research on TI-82 hardware before writing this message.  And
again, the purpose of this message is to _find_ some answers to these
questions, not answer them. :-)

Now, back to the actual ROM.  Why, besides superior ASM support, would
there be a reason to write up another ROM when the one we currently have
serves its purpose just fine?  Well, here are a couple of reasons that
I've come up with:

 1) *WE* would be able to control _everything_.  You could write up your
    *own* on-calc interpreter if you liked (HAL, anyone?).  Or you could
    optimize things you couldn't before 'till your fingers fell off. :-)
    Whatever you wanted to do, you could do it.
 2) Elaborating a bit on #1, we could change anything about our current
    calc's functionality that we don't like or even add functionality
    that doesn't exist currently.

Well, okay, so there's only one _main_ reason. ;-)  Control.  The
ability to add to the functionality of our calcs.

And just think: we could end the TI vs. HP wars for good. ;-)  "Well,
HPs are better because they use RPN."  "Uh, so does TI..." ;-)

Seriously, though... :-)

One issue that will come up, however, is that of compatibility.  Many
people who might be interested in using the new ROM might not be able to
because the main reason that they may have bought their particular
calculator was because their school required that model.  And others may
just wish for compatibility because they've already got many programs
for the "old" system that either they wrote and don't want to re-write,
or that someone else wrote and isn't planning to re-write it, or for
any other number of reasons.  Also, the TI-OS isn't inherently _bad_.
It's just not the best. :-)  It's also not "open source". ;-)  I see a
couple of possible ways to address the compatibility issue.

 1) Emulation.  This would undoubtedly require the most work as we'd
    have to try and come up with a comparable TI-BASIC-compatible
    interpreter.
 2) "Dual-boot".   I'm not sure if it's possible, but another solution
    to think about would be a "dual-boot"-like solution where we'd
    "partition" the ROM into two distinct parts.  One would house the
    new Enhanced-OS and one the old TI-OS.  Then we'd have a "stub"
    assembly program which would load the old TI-OS.  The one problem
    with this method that I can forsee is that both ROMs would be
    sharing the same memory (RAM) space to store their data.  The only
    solution to THAT that I see is to somehow "partition" the RAM so
    that TI-OS has some, and Enhanced-OS has some.  But that would not
    be a Good Thing(tm). ;-)  It would be a Bad Thing(tm). ;-P  Also,
    I'm not sure that "partitioning" RAM would work anyways since the
    82 ROM may be expecting a certain amount of memory starting at a
    certain address.  So, the only solution would be to increase the
    RAM of the 82. :-D  Anyone up to task?

Well, I feel like I've raised more questions than I've answered, but
that was to be expected.  But now I would like *your* imput.  What do
you think about this whole idea?  Do you think that it is possible?
Would it be a Good Thing(tm)?  And if not, why not?  I _do_ want honest
answers, but I would like some honest answers that have some sort of
"meat" to them.  Not the useless and totally juvenile "You suck"
messages that I've seen thrown around in the past.  Something to back
up/prove your claim.

And, as always, flames will be re-directed to /dev/null . :-)

Thanks much!

TTFN,

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|     | Nathan Anderson - nathana@blarg.net   15 yrs old |     |
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