Re: SD: RE: New operating system...

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Re: SD: RE: New operating system...


>Well, that is kind of impossible, since the TIOS is stored on the ROM,
>which means Read Only Memory. That's right. You can't wright to it. And
>the 86 doesn't have a flash ROM, so it can't be erased and rewritten 
from
>scratch.

True but you could write a program(OS) so with it's own powerup and 
powerdown routines that would be TOTALLY independant of the TI-OS


>Windowing APIs are available on other calcs (well, the 85 at least), 
and
>if there was a demand for them, they could be ported to the 86 easily.

True

>The TIOS isn't hindering us in any way. It is still "quitting" and your
>machine code is still taking complete control of the calculator. That 
is
>why you can't break your assembly programs the way you can a BASIC
>program.

I beg to differ with you on this point.  It is true that your program 
has complete control.  But any program written for the calc, must take 
great care not to mess up the TI-OS.  The program must stay confined to 
certain area's of memory and it cannot use the ram in any way that will 
interfear with the TI-os, or else things well get messed up.  And there 
is a lot of "stuff" int he TI-OS that can be messed up.  Out of pages 0 
and 1 of the system ram, only 10K is alloted for program space???  This 
is rediculus.  Sure good programs can be made in 10K, but this is not 
using the resources to there full potential.  And sure you could 
probibly get more than 10K out of this ram, but you have to go pooking 
around to make sure youdo'nt mess up ti_system stuff to do it.  There 
has to be a better way.

>Anyway, that is what ASE, Rascall, YAS, etc. are. New OS's for the
>calculator. When they are running, the TIOS exists only in the ROM.

Once again, I beg to differ....All these programs are, are "SHELL's"  
They must adhear to the TI-os like any other program.  They use the 
built in font, the built in memory access routines, and the built in so 
forth and so on.  All "on top of" the TI-OS.  These Shells cannot 
provide any more the TI86 system resources than the TI-OS already does.

Here, this is a "raw" memory layout of the core OS that I am advocating, 
and working on designing.  Assign pages 1, 0 to be "program ram" and let 
them be loacted right beside each other in memory.  The top 6kbytes of 
ram would be left alone to provide double buffered 3-bit grayscale.  The 
next segment of ram going down the ram, would contain the OS-kernel.  
And as soon as the kernal is brought online, it automaticall boot-loads 
a "default" shell out of ram-disk(pages 2-7).  This default shell would 
be very minimal... analagous to a unix box, or dos shell.  Anyway, I'm 
thinking a good kernel can be made to fit ~6-8kbyes at the most.  And a 
default shell
should be possible in about 2-3k at the most.  So 6kbytes for video, 
8kybtes for kernel, 3 kbytes for shell (and when a program is run, the 
shell will be replaced, so its size it not really relevent)  But that is 
at most only 14kbytes...  The rest of the 18Kbytes of program ram is 
left to the use of the programer.  Plus a full 96Kbytes of ram-disk 
space.  No shell provieds that kind of flexability.  Of course this 
would require an incompatible platform, but I'm not afraid of that.

>Hope this cleared up some stuff.
>
>--James


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