Re: A83: Shells on the 83+
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Re: A83: Shells on the 83+
In a message dated 1/30/00 5:04:15 PM Central Standard Time,
kaypictures@clara.net writes:
> Since it came on the market... *clip* =)
>
> --Robin Kay--
Hehe, I somehow feel that this message applies to me... I say that because
currently Dan Englender and I are developing a Shell for the TI-83 Plus that
will be in the form of a Flash Application... We had planned to keep this
away from the public for a while longer, until we made significant progress
on it, but since the issue has come up, I might as well announce it. Btw,
this has also been made known in the February Edition of ticalc.org's
newsletter, which I was interviewed in, and should be sent out to the public
within the next few days... I must say that much of the ideas you presented
in that email, would be impractical in most respects. I will address each
topic individually...
Multi-Tasking is not feasible due to the lack of Ram that the 83+, same as
the 83 (~24K), and it would take more than saving the registers of a certain
program. May I remind you that each program uses saferam locations for
temporary variables in their execution, and it cannot be predicted for what
to save and what not to save. Copying the data from the commonly used saferam
areas to variables, and archiving them temporarily, would cause the system to
be unstable on rare circumstances, and would call for too many writes to the
FlashRom. Also, the Stack would become very messy, and certainly cannot be
kept track of for many programs...
About the interrupt and event handlers, we were thinking of giving the
ability for a user interrupt, and the OS already gives the function of Error
Event Handlers. Your idea about a mouse graphic being interrupt controlled,
is just rediculous, I dont know what more to say about that...
Having the shell control a Public Data Manager is impractical, due to the
fact that we cannot restrict programs from using program write-back, it is
just such a nice feature that needs to be kept for many of the existing
programs, and saving Highscores back into the programs is one of the most
common uses of program write back. If the variables were saved into a
seperate file, how would you keep track of the data in there, save program
symtable entries along with the data? That is a waste of memory... Am I
starting to sound too pesimistic yet? =P Also, we had accepted the idea to
have files arranged into Folders, but a different system is being organized
for that, as opposed to keeping track of the program names...
The Archive space on the TI-83+ is Not reserved for Applications, what do you
think most people use it for right now? Its so they can put a helluva lot of
programs on their calc, which will reside in Flash when not in use, be moved
into Ram to be executed, and rearchived for storage again. Yes most 83+
owners have Apps on their calc as well, and the shell itself would be a 16K
App, but whatever archive space that is left over, is used for individual
programs. I think you mentioned something like this in your second to last
paragraph...
Perhaps I am wrong to say that you seem to be confused and too idealistic of
what is practical to do on the 83+, so correct me where I am wrong in this
whole response. However, I feel that Dan Englender and I are capable of
developing such a shell for the 83+, and we have the ability to make
FlashApps, as you can see from Calcsys and PuzzPack that were released. We
have been making this in the best interest for the 83+ community so far, but
now that the topic is brought up, Input from the programming community on
what the shell should have, is greatly appreciated...
Jason_K
tcpa.calc.org
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