Hello, everyone... I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but a very useful asm library for use with Basic is Zapi, for 83 and 83+. It does unlimited sprites, all contained in one neat little program, that you draw yourself on the computer. Unlike Omnicalc, you don't have to use up a picture variable. It also does instant graph or text inverse, scrolls the screen horizontally and vertically, stores one picture without taking up a pic file, or any memory at all, does unlimited pics in one asm program, does maps (again in one program), and does patterns. This program just plain owns! Also, sound routine for 83 and 83+ allows sound, and Rigview allows greysclae pics that can be run from basic. So, with these programs, Basic can (almost) be as fast and graphical as Asm! Check out my website, www.geocities.com/mightyg16, to see screenshots and inf about my upcoming game, Ender's Game.

OK, well. I'm a VB programmer, and I love the way VB lets you make GDI32 calls. Otherwise, I'd have to make all this bloated sprite stuff and junk...nasty. I think that there should be some ways to make calls to some ASM that would let us add MORE flexibility. BASIC isn't very flexible, but ASM is so...low level. I'm not saying it's difficult, no, but it's...cryptic. Atleast in BASIC one can always figure out what's going on. And I've been able to apply ALL of my knowledge from programming in QBasic on computer to TI-BASIC. Tell me you can apply EVERYTHING from Intel ASM to Z80 ASM...

That's why they make ASM libraries.

My main complaint about TI-86 BASIC is that large programs take around 5 minutes to compile themselves on the calculator every time you make the smallest change. And on programs that are newly written and being debugged, this is a time-consuming hassle. The only way to get around the problem is to divide up into many small programs. Then you have problems with transferring to other calcs, having to make sure all parts are sent. I use ASM for text-based programs simply because it can't be beat for a simple, large scale database type program. It actually takes less time to type in, runs faster and takes up less space (about half) on the calc.

I use multiple sub-programs in all my BASIC programs, and it's not hard to transfer them to other calcs, because i give every program a 3-letter name that I prefix to the sub-programs, example:
War
warHIT
warDIE
warNXT
warNEW
warCONT
warINST

or

Graph3D
gtdPOLY
gtdSTAT
gtdSETUP

And when I go to send them, the prgms are all right together.
And when you run them, only the main program's first letter is capitalized, so u see those first on the PRGM menu! The sub-programs don't get in the way of the main prgms when you're trying to run a prgm, and they're easy to find, and send when you're giving them to someone else!
(All my prgms data uses the same scheme, warDATA for instance.)

It works, and cuts down on size too (using multiple subroutines instead of having a dozen copies of the same code scattered throughout one big prgm)

Also, i've noticed that whenever i try to edit a BASIC prgm that's larger than 15K, my calc crashes. I've got a ti-86, rom 1.2 (i think, maybe 1.3) Does this happen to anyone else? NOTE: It still does that when I've got NO asm programs on it, and did a full reset, because it kept doing that before i'd gotten any asm prgms or a graphlink, and it's taken me a year to figure out why it kept crashing! That it crashed is really why I started using subs, and I've noticed it slows down just a little with sub-prgms instead of one big prgm, and not from tokenizing.

Plus, with small prgms, tokenizing time is cut down, you modify one sub-prgm, you don't have to wait 5 minutes for the whole thing to retokenize.

I do believe that a ASM translator needs to be written. That or creat a little notefolio description of ASM.

I would just like to say thatBasic is great (though ASM is much better).it's easy and faster to program and because of that i was able quickly able to make a program to findthe answers on on exam within very little time (yes i know i cheated)