Author Topic: Outpost 2: Calculator Edition (Read 7211 times)

TRIX Rabbit · « **on:** December 05, 2005, 02:52:50 PM »

I was sitting in school today, doodling outpost 2 stuff, when i realized "Hey, why dont I make an Outpost 2 for my TI-84+?" Its probably going to be free form, and maybe an expansion program with a campain. i cant decide weather to use 1 or two teams. I also may need some help too. I have the start menu down and I gotto list all the buildings i want. What do you think?

Stormy · « **Reply #1 on:** December 05, 2005, 04:25:15 PM »

haha, I could probably help you with that. I have a TI-84 + Silver Edition, I did get DECENT at coding in TI Basic, but hmm, is there any way to do graphics themselves on the computer? If so, we can just scale the images down, and save them in B/W.

How about you have them manage a colony using a Text based Interface. Eventually you could make some units (in the next version of the game) that you move around by moving a cursor and clicking on where you want the vechs to go. They go there, and you can tell them to attack enemies just like in OP2....

Sounds like a plan!

By the way, we COULD do it in ASM (assembly language) but, that's above my tiny level of knowledge of coding

. Thing about ASM though, is that you could KILL your calculator if you code it wrong.... There isn't a shell for the ASM to operate in, so you could essentially permanently overwrite the system data!

BlackBox · « **Reply #2 on:** December 05, 2005, 04:58:51 PM »

ASM (in any system) really isn't that destructive as people think.

I'm sure the calculator has some sort of privileges or memory protection system to prevent code from damaging other stuff in the calculator's RAM. And again, it is ram. replacing your batteries would undo any damage.

By no means could it damage the calculator hardware itself.

Not that that would happen. If you wrote a normal program I see no reason why you'd have to worry about that.

ASM routines would be the fastest way to access the graphics. You could probably write some graphics code in ASM and then write basic code to call the ASM routines. (So most of the program logic is inside the basic code, the nitty gritty logic code in ASM)

HaXtOr · « **Reply #3 on:** December 05, 2005, 05:36:32 PM »

Quote

ASM (in any system) really isn't that destructive as people think.

I'm sure the calculator has some sort of privileges or memory protection system to prevent code from damaging other stuff in the calculator's RAM. And again, it is ram. replacing your batteries would undo any damage.

By no means could it damage the calculator hardware itself.

Not that that would happen. If you wrote a normal program I see no reason why you'd have to worry about that.

ASM routines would be the fastest way to access the graphics. You could probably write some graphics code in ASM and then write basic code to call the ASM routines. (So most of the program logic is inside the basic code, the nitty gritty logic code in ASM)

Ive actualy killed my Ti 83+ with asm.... i literaly destroyed the flash

zigzagjoe · « **Reply #4 on:** December 05, 2005, 06:03:44 PM »

check out ticalc.org, and mroe specificly tigic i belive its called. i havnt messed with it lately, but it s at v.96 and extremly stable. many great progys have been written with it. Im not sure if its the 68k calcs only or not, tho.

Hooman · « **Reply #5 on:** December 05, 2005, 07:19:13 PM »

Lol. I have no idea how you'd even play such a game. But the idea is quite amusing.

I don't think ASM really poses much of a risk. Mostly just crashes stuff when you screw up. To overwrite flash memory generally requires you to know what you're doing, and to do it wrong. It's really not easy to accidentally overwrite flash memory.

Stormy · « **Reply #6 on:** December 05, 2005, 07:46:13 PM »

I think it is pretty easy to mess up your calculator with ASM. lol, I have read from TI themselves that there IS NO shell to protect the calculator from what you do in ASM, so It's the (highest level?) of programming. You can basically program your own OS if you wanted to in ASM!

For instance, in Basic, there is no key # thing for the on button. In ASM there is one but I dont' remember what it is... If you accidently put the On button as your keycode instead of the correct key, you WILL mess up your calculator because it thinks that the on button does whatever you assigned it to.... and it no longer serves the "On" purpouse it was origonally for. So, once your calculator shuts down... I doubt it will come back.

TRIX Rabbit · « **Reply #7 on:** December 05, 2005, 09:29:57 PM »

I'll put what i have up to now in the file forum

BlackBox · « **Reply #8 on:** December 06, 2005, 04:23:45 PM »

Quote

I think it is pretty easy to mess up your calculator with ASM. lol, I have read from TI themselves that there IS NO shell to protect the calculator from what you do in ASM, so It's the (highest level?) of programming. You can basically program your own OS if you wanted to in ASM!

For instance, in Basic, there is no key # thing for the on button. In ASM there is one but I dont' remember what it is... If you accidently put the On button as your keycode instead of the correct key, you WILL mess up your calculator because it thinks that the on button does whatever you assigned it to.... and it no longer serves the "On" purpouse it was origonally for. So, once your calculator shuts down... I doubt it will come back.

I'm sure the key interrupts are handled by the firmware first. Changing the action of the on button would probably only affect the calculator after it had started (firmware loaded).

Same thing with a PC. The boot sequence is hardcoded into bios. Only after this has been run will the bootsector be loaded, to allow the OS to bootstrap.

Again, it's very unlikely that you would cause any permanent changes or damage. At worst you might have to take your batteries out and put them in again to clear the memory.
You couldn't accidentally overwrite firmware unless you were trying to (I'm sure the memory is protected). You'd have to "accidently" allow writing to that area of memory, then push data into the memory. That is, if the ROM chips used are even programmable that way (they could be standard EPROMs with the window on top, requiring UV light to clear their contents)

leeor_net · « **Reply #9 on:** December 10, 2005, 12:49:03 AM »

ASM is a very low-level language. The only thing lower is to use the binary codes (or opcodes) in the processing unit.

A high-level language is BASIC, C++, PASCAL, etc.

Just want to make that clear.

Starfox00000 · « **Reply #10 on:** February 18, 2006, 07:47:04 AM »

I was thinking about this in math before, for a mouse you could have a cursor in the middle of you screen that moved with the screen and you moved both with the arrow keys. I just though op2 would be to big for my TI83+. This would be so awesome.

If this were possible.... Just think, people would have something to do in math class! (thumbsup)

thablkpanda · « **Reply #11 on:** February 18, 2006, 12:26:48 PM »

Yeah it'll turn out to be a huge file if we incorporate all the variables that OP2 offers - however, depends upon what we're talking about here.

I'll go out and buy a data cable if this'll really work - because I definitely need something to do when I'm in math class (lol this is my last year of school before college, and god knows I'm playing $32k to play with my calc all day

)

Chris

zigzagjoe · « **Reply #12 on:** February 19, 2006, 12:55:05 AM »

to the cursor concept-- its near impossible, it never works good in real games.

there is nothing a hard reset wont clear up on a calc. you can crash ur calc in wicked ways but that's just about it when it comes to fuxoring something. although with the newer flash-based calcs you can overwrite the os, but thats what the firmware is for (loading os). the firmware is in rom, read only and unerasable.

and a tad of a reality check here- on the z80 series(es)(ti-73,81,82,83,83+,84, 85,86) the max program size is 24k, on a tiny screen with _weak_ processing power. on the 68k series(ti89,ti92+, voyage 200 etc) it is 64k, but there is ways around this. but keep in mind that the 68k series still is not much more powerful, although it has a larger screen.

bottom line: keep dreamin =/

BlackBox · « **Reply #13 on:** February 21, 2006, 02:44:42 PM »

Yeah, moving a cursor with the arrow keys is too time consuming. (ever played console games like that, where you don't have a mouse but it expects you to move a cursor?)

Also, yes. It's near impossible to 'accidentally' overwrite the operating system in ROM. You have to know what you're doing. (For example, you'd probably have to access a different segment of memory, put the CPU into supervisor mode, etc)

A 64k limit could be bypassed. (For example, Palm OS has a limitation that each record in a database (a database is what holds any piece of data in the operating system, apart from scratch memory) has a max of 64kb. This can be bypassed by writing a small loader in the first code segment that unpacks the rest of the code segments contiguously in memory.

I wouldn't say that a game couldn't work - you would have to put a lot of thought into HOW it would work. However, personally i'd find an RTS hard to play on a calculator that doesn't have a color screen.

CK9 · « **Reply #14 on:** February 21, 2006, 02:48:05 PM »

Quote

And again, it is ram. replacing your batteries would undo any damage.

unless you archive it all..

thablkpanda · « **Reply #15 on:** February 21, 2006, 02:59:24 PM »

Quote

bottom line: keep dreamin =/

And ZZJ strikes down yet another great idea with his pro computer skills

.

It's a great idea, but I guess once all these people prove it 'impossible', then It must be pretty impractical.

Chris

Dennis · « **Reply #16 on:** February 24, 2006, 12:55:11 AM »

To save everyone some time(and maybe damage), this is what you do, go out buy the like 10$ silver usb cable, get a rom of your calc, and use a ti-83/4 emulater to emulate the rom.presto chango calc on the pc.

Links:
One Ti emu:http://www.zophar.net/calc/ti.html
Rom Dumping:http://www.ticalc.org/programming/emulators/romdump.html
Emulaters:http://www.ticalc.org/programming/emulators/software.html

(thumbsup)
(It's like 2 am and im posting wth?)

Edit by op2hacker -- Although I haven't removed the contents of this post, I do need to make it known that emulation / ROM dumping might be illegal in some places. Proceed with caution if you want to do it.

CK9 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 24, 2006, 09:55:53 AM »

(try posting when you're completely hysterical at 3:15, it's fun)

TI has a free sownload of a program that is the calculator on their site for developers to test progams on.

siqueule · « **Reply #18 on:** April 04, 2006, 05:44:32 AM »

op2 on a calculator? :blink:

the processor is too slow! but my calculator is a casio, I don't know

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Author Topic: Outpost 2: Calculator Edition (Read 7211 times)