TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

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Summary:

Will this wiki expand its scope to the new model?

TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

DJ Omnimaga 16 Jul 2013 05:47

I was wondering if TI-BD has considered expanding their scope to the new TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition calculator and its OS 4.00 MP in the near future? The calculator features a backlit screen (resolution can be changed from the default 320x240 to 160x240 via ASM programs), Z80 ASM, decent TI-BASIC support (with color support), the ability to disable asymptote graphing and it came out in March 2013 (there are already some BASIC, hybrid and ASM games available on ticalc.org, and there are Celtic 2, xLIB and Doors CS ports in the works). Yet, even as of today there is absolutely no reference to it on this forum nor the wiki. Not even a single related result in search results.

Is it because TI-BD plans to stick to the older calculator models for any reason? I thought it would make sense to not single the new color screen model out, though, since that might be the future of the TI-84 Plus line. Until recently, most info about the extra commands was only available in French via a news article on TI-Planet. WikiTI had already started expanding to the new calc before it even came out.

Most TI-BASIC commands for it are identical, but there are some extra arguments for colors, there are extra line/pt/circle types, fast circles no longer work (although Text(-1 still does), some commands behave slightly differently (eg white is no longer transparent in pics and pics are always archived) and there are some extra commands such as TextColor(). Most ASM programs need to be altered in the same fashion as we had to do when porting TI-82/83 games to the 83+, although the only large differences are the screen and RAM areas. 8xp/8xm/8xi/8xl/etc files are used, but Flash APPs are now 8ck. It is entirely unknown yet if the Flash ROM can be weared out from Garbage Collects resulting from over-use of the Storepic command.

This is an (shameless plug) example of what can be done in 160x240 mode (shifted 27 pixels right) in TI-84+CSE BASIC (not fully optimized) using no picture:

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Last edited on 16 Jul 2013 07:21 by DJ Omnimaga Show more

Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

Xeda Elnara 16 Jul 2013 13:44

It might be that none of us have one yet to explore :/

Also, excellent screenshots, DJ_O :D

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Z80 Assembly>English>TI-BASIC>Python>French>C>0

Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

burr 17 Jul 2013 09:23

I think Xeda is right that there aren't many people who own the TI-84+CSE yet, so it is going to take a while before much documentation is written for it. As far as TI|BD goes, unfortunately the site is basically dead when it comes to writing new documentation — there's a reason why less than half of the 68k commands have been documented, even though DarkerLine was working on them all the way back in 2009.

Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

Negative_Commando 18 Jul 2013 01:45

I saw this calculator at Staples today. I'm planning on getting one next year just to experiment with.

Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

stefan bauwens 16 Jul 2013 15:21

Wait, how did you get it into that zoomed modus?

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סטיבן

Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

DJ Omnimaga 17 Jul 2013 00:45

I used a small ASM program by Calc84maniac called LCDTOOL. It's included with Legand (sic) of Zelda: Sord of Atari (sic) but it wasn't released as standalone.

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Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

L1k3awh15p3r 18 Jul 2013 04:55

Ha, one of my friends has this. I tried making a simple guessing game, and I had to really slow down in inputting little commands like Prompt and Disp. The processor may be a lot stronger, but I had to press buttons almost twice as slowly. Really annoying, as I am really fast at typing things into the calculator (older versions, at least). I was still impressed by its ability to use color. It was a huge jump from the old calculators, despite the fact that its processor still isn't fast enough.

And yes, the new syntaxes of the commands were slightly befuddling. I had to fiddle around with them to figure out how they worked. I think once enough people get the Color edition then some admin should put a new forum category.

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Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

Xeda Elnara 18 Jul 2013 12:52

Most of the commands are the same, I believe. I think the main differences are anything that deal with color, so maybe we only need to update pages like Pxl-On( by offering the monochrome syntax and the 84+C syntax.

As to the slowness, that has been a major complaint. They are still using the same processor as the TI-83+/84+ calcs, but with a much larger screen. On the other hand, from an assembly perspective, the screen is much faster to work with (there is no delay between writes), but there is so much of it.

To give an example, a good LCD updating routine on the monochrome calcs will take around 50 000 clock cycles to update because there are only 768 bytes to update. Even with the 50 to 60 typical delay needed between writes, this is still manageable. On the 84+C, there is a 16-bit color mode and an 18-bit mode. The latter requires 3 bytes per pixel, so we (and the OS) use 16-bits (2 bytes). That is 16 times as much data to write to the same area. I wrote a routine a while ago for anybody that will be porting old games that updates a 96x64 portion of the screen in monochrome, but that still required over 300000 t-states (6 times as long). The 'no delay' thing really helps offset things.

That being said, updating a full, 16-bit color image on a 96x64 screen can be done at just over 200 000 clock cycles which is close to what the OS does on the monochrome calcs. In fact, full color sprite drawing is much faster in non-trivial cases (2148 for an 8x8 sprite to render it— easily 2/3 the time needed for the fastest, best hacked routines on the monochrome calcs).

Even though TI really needs to be using something like the eZ80 processor, that is still not a nice excuse for having such a slow interface. (the eZ80 is backwards compatible with the z80, so they wouldn't need to change any code, and it can run at 50MHz and the tunneled setup means that instructions are processed in one clock cycle instead of 4 to 23 (average is 6 or 7) making it about 20 times faster).

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Z80 Assembly>English>TI-BASIC>Python>French>C>0

Grant (guest) 21 Aug 2013 20:37

I have a TI 84 color and am trying to figure out how i am supposed to program games using color. Does anyone know? Like how to make a pixel, line, or circle a certain color for my programs?

Mr Dino 22 Aug 2013 01:57

It's the same as normal graphing commands, with one extra argument of color - it's an extra menu in the program editing menu, or you can find it somewhere else (catalogmenu?). EX:
Line(1,1,2,2,BLUE

HMS3 (guest) 27 Aug 2014 20:08

Can you change line thickness? How do you do it?

HMS3 (guest) 27 Aug 2014 20:26

Nvm, found it.

Re: TI-84 Plus C (color) Silver Edition

Da Coder 26 Sep 2014 01:17

On ti color how do you shade in different colors, I've tried :Shade X,Y,A,B,color and I hasn't worked any help?

Infra_Rogue (guest) 13 May 2015 19:20

I have been trying to figure out how to start an assembly program, but have only figured out how to start TI-Basic programs. Somebody please help me.

Infra_Rogue (guest) 13 May 2015 19:26

It might help to know I have a TI-84+ CSE.

12Me21 13 May 2015 20:25

Asm(pgrmNAME

and have Asm84CPrgm before the code in the program editor

Last edited on 13 May 2015 20:29 by 12Me21 Show more

Infra_Rogue (guest) 13 May 2015 22:06

It keeps giving me a syntax error, is there something I'm doing wrong?

Electromagnet8 13 May 2015 22:10

Please keep in mind that assembly programs for the monochrome calculators might not work on the color calculators. This is because some of the addresses have been changed.

Infra_Rogue (guest) 13 May 2015 23:01

I appreciate the thought, but I am trying to create programs on TI-84+ CSE, not trying to import from old versions. But thanks anyway.

Electromagnet8 13 May 2015 23:17

Sorry, I had thought that you may have been using the hex of the monochrome assembly programs.

Where are you getting the updated hex from?

Infra_Rogue (guest) 13 May 2015 23:20

I haven't, I need all of the help I can get. I'm trying to move up from TI-Basic, and I'm pretty lost.

Electromagnet8 13 May 2015 23:43

Have you had a chance to experiment with Hybrid Basic? There are currently two libraries that are available through DoorsCSE 8: Celtic and xLibc. These libraries offer a multitude of functions. Check out http://dcs.cemetech.net/index.php/Main_Page for the download and more information.

Usually, typing the code in hex can be a pain. There is currently no table for the TI-84+CSE. It might be easier to write and compile the code on a computer. There are SDKs available to assist this process. Plus, Cemetech is a great place to post any questions you may have about assembly.

Infra_Rogue (guest) 13 May 2015 23:56

I will try that, thank you much!