The new-style 83 differs from the old-style 83 in the overall appearance firstly:

New 83: http://education.ti.com/images/ products/graphing/83.jpg

Old 83: http://www.ticalc.org/ images/calcs/83.gif

The link port on the new 83 is on the side, and internally it is rumored to be a Z180 as opposed to the Z80. (The major difference between the two being a few extra instructions such as MUL). However, the LCD controller also runs a bit faster, which because of the precise timing of the ionFastCopy library, causes the LCD to not receive all of the commands properly. The result is the "underwater effect" where the screen is shifted if the LCD outputs are not slowed down sufficiently.

Wow... we posted that in the same minute :)

So, does the blueLCD waterfall effect thing work on both the old and new TI-83's, or is that just for TI-83+'s?

just for 83+ (no SE)

Phantom Star is teh best game ever! The only problem: it's too hard. Also, I wish you got weapons more often. I would rather play this than Warcraft III (in case that says anything about my life :)

Does it really turn your screen blue? Does this work on Ti-84? How? MirageOs can't open it. Ion can't be downloaded on the Ti-84

One slight correction: Although there are some new TI-83's that have a linkport on the side, there are some that do not. The TI-83 that I have (ROM v1.10) looks almost exactly like the TI-83+ (except for the color of the buttons). However, the display driver is all messed up. (Bleh.) Now that Ion works, it would be nice if some of the games that don't work, such as Phoenix, were fixed.

Well, that's an old new style, but why would you buy a TI-83 at the time when TI-83+'s were already widespread?
Also, didn't dwedit (or maybe someone else) make some sort of modified Ion as well?

Great, cool! All my friends at school with TI-83/+'s will be glad to hear this. Will this fix some game bugs? I'll have to look into this. Maybe I could get some of them to try it out.

Whoa, Phantom Star sounds kind of cool... I REALLY want to get my friends with TI-83+'s to download it so I can play it ;) *idea* ... I could use VTI! I'll do that now.

Heh, I just tried it... pretty cool, it's like a sideways Phoenix. VTI is always slow and clumbsy, so I'm sure it's much better on the real thing :)

The actual game runs quite slow on VTI because it makes use of the interrupts to regulate it's speed. The files phantom_VTI.8xp and phantom_VTI.83p *should* work ok on VTI, but I recommend playing it on an actual calculator :)

Something I need to know - do more people use ION or Mirage? I program for Mirage (I think it is better) but it is a bit big... should I start releasing for ION as well? Please reply!

NOOOO! Never program for ION. Whenever the calc crashes, you have to re-install it. With Mirage, you can just keep going. I would never use ION unless I couldn't use Mirage. Stick with MOS!!!!

..or you could keep ION.8xg in your archive and ungroup the files whenever you need to install Ion..

I do that...but only for games that absolutely require ION to run, and I have few of those on my calculator. And, I don't keep it out and about all the time. I just install it when I want to play the game, then delete it once I'm done. *shrugs*

Can there be a game made that uses ION only but not MirageOS? Ohhhh wait, a game is coming back to mind.... ChessMaster83 lol. I fixed it though, using CalcSys, something about changing some header info to BB 6D, instead of whatever it was (BB 6A maybe?)... I'm sure the post is still on the Detachedsolutions.com forum, under Calcsys probably, and if you want to see if this works for your programs enough and how to do it, then you'll look for the post because I sure don't feel like going there right now lol.

The only game I ever came across was GlassCars. That cannot detect that you have crossed the finishing line under MOS for some reason. It works fine under ION though.

I stick with ion programming because it spits out 83 and 83+ versions :)

Yeah, I heard it's really good. Can't wait to try it on VTI! :)

Why not on your calculator? I thought you developed for TI-83(+)?

Yeah, but my calculator is currently in several pieces being tici 1.0-ed, etc.