ti-emu: Answer
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ti-emu: Answer
Thanks for the email. I really enjoy anwsering questions.
The TI-EMULATOR project is a third party project that some independant
students are working apon. It has no real ties with the TI company and
is really just for fun and education.
The definetion of an emulator is the "simulateing of hardware based on
software" This means that people are trying to simulate the TI-graphing
calculators functions, on a computer.
This usually involves the remaping of the different microprocessor
instructions and hardware ports of one set of hardware, to the
microprocessor insturction set on another set of hardware.
Example: The TI-8x calcs use a processor called the Z80. One
insturction might be written : LD A,B in opcode and transalated into:
"y" bytes you understand? But PC's use a PC processor that has a
different instruction set that do different things. The PC has a
simaler instruction: MOV AL, BL or "y" bytes, that might do similar
things as the LD A,B of the Z80. Either system cannot understand the
others instructions.
The emulator reads the "x" bytes and transalates them into "y" bytes
that can be used by the other microprocessor used. This is actually much
more complicated than this.
The Calculator also has different hardware ports (link port, LCD,
keyboard, etc.) and memory mapping than the PC. So the emulator must
also transalate these.
The bennifits of haveing an emulator are preaty good. The main one is
programing. If you program and you don't want to transfer your program
over to your calc every time you want to try it out, risking a crash
that will erase all your other stuff, is very slow and ineffishiant. But
if you try your program out on the emulator before you actually link if
over, you are in a crash free emviorment. It also allows the use of
DEBUGGING tools that you might not have on the calc. It also lets you
modify the workings of the calculator and experiment with different
stuff in a more forgiving enviroment.
And, people make the emulators to learn more about the system they are
emulating.
Emulating is more than just playing calculator games on your computer.
It's a powerful tool. It also lets you develope software for
calculators that you might not own, to benifit others.
The Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Gennisis, Gameboy, N64, etc.
gameing systems have also been emulated long ago. So now it is possible
to use their games from your own computer.
Blackhaze
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