Difference between revisions of "Programming cross z80 calculators"

Revision as of 12:00, 20 April 2010

Introduction

It is a nice feature to do in your games and other programs to be able to use them across all the z80 calculators. Or this topic will help you in porting some programs to your calculator.

The difficulty to port depends on every case. In some games, it is enough changes in some graphics routines, safe ram locations and to bcalls to make it work. Some cases might be a nightmare (in practical too difficult) or simply impossible.

Calculators Series Current Interest

Note that the TI-83+ series (TI-83+, TI-83+SE, TI-84+, TI-84+SE) are the most common worldwide. Most development is done to this series. Most times ports were done to this series.

The newer Nspire calculators are getting popularity but z80 developers will keep their audience because Nspire (non CAS) has a TI-84+SE emulator and in the future it will probably get released a 3rd party TI-84+SE emulator for Nspire CAS.

There are in less number TI-82 and TI-83 (Regular) users. They will rejoice with a build for them. TI-83 is the easiest to port from TI-83+ source code.

TI-85 and TI-86 are no longer produced, long discontinued, there is few visible development and very few interest on them. TI-86 has TI-85 compatibility, but not sure about ASM.

By any means feel unmotivated or constricted by the current interest, there are still old calculator enthusiasts who enjoy new stuff for their legacy calculator. And assembling for more models can be an important feature.

Porting Help

General Advices

• avoid b_calls (when possible, of course)
• use a assembler that supports #if #else #endif directives (give a example on how to use)
• use a linker capable to output all z80 calculators format (notably SPASM)
• See in Z80 Routines a set of graphic routines to all calculators (not right now...)
• If you need memory in assembly programs in RAM, place variables in the program

Safe Rams

Safe ram is simply some portions of fixed ram (re)usable to programmers without any conflict to the TI-OS. But their location and existence depend from calculator to calculator model. Because of this may be preferable to keep variables inside your program. The obvious disadvantage is your program will take more space.

This table illustrates what safe ram locations are available in the various calculator models.

The conclusion is using APD_BUF (savesscreen) because it has a good size, is present in all calculators and doesn't need to be restored after use.

bcalls, icalls (system calls)

There are two suggested ways here to solve the bcalls across calculators: - first, simply do not use bcalls (or just a few) - use complete include files with bcall macros for each calculator model and #ifdef directives when bcall names differs.

The system calls definition changes in different calculator models series:

• TI-82 - icall(xxxx) = call xxxx
• TI-83 - call xxxx
• TI-83+ - bcall(xxxx) = rst 28h \ .dw xxxx
• TI-85/86 - ???

Shells

While TI-83+ series run assembly programs without shells (called no-stub) all others require some shell or exploit to run assembly code. So knowing the shells is important for testing on emulator and release to public.

TI-73 only shell is Mallard TI-82, there is ash and CRASH TI-83, has Ion v1.6, Venus, AShell83 v1.0 and SOS v2.0. (ZShell compatibles?) TI-83+/84+/SE - Ion and Ion compatible shells (MirageOS, DoorCS, CrunchyOS) TI-85 AShell and Usgard TI-86 AShell v1.1, Rascall v0.9, and Yet Another Shell 2.21

I suggest Ion for 83 and 83+ series because is popular and has a nice set of routines (mainly for games). For TI-86 most people do no-stub (no shell, just from the TI-OS).

Assemblers and Linkers

I strongly suggest SPASM because it outputs all program file types. For TI-83+ linker there is DEVPAC8X.

Use the assembler #ifdef, #ifndef and #endif directives. For example if you want specific code for TI-83:

 #ifdef TI83
 ;this code will only be assembled when TI83 define is defined.
 ;so define TI83 to assemble for TI83 and the code inside the #ifdef only gets assembled for TI83
 xor a
 #endif
 

Also writing your shell scripts (batch or bash) or using an IDE can help assembling program files for all calculator models. A example of a batch for SPASM:

spasm -DTI83 source.asm output.83p
spasm -DTI83P source.asm output.8xp

 

Just copy the text and save in a name.bat file, this for Windows users. Now to assemble for TI-83 and TI-83+ just double click the batch file and see it assembling. If you want to see assemble errors, edit the name.bat and put "pause" in the last line.

If you do not use SPASM, see your assembler manual for information.

Calculator Differences Resume/Reference

Here you have the important aspects of z80 calculators, mostly hardware and OS differences.

All calculators have a 96x64 pixels screen except TI-85 and TI-86 which have 128x64 pixels.

TI-73

• just APPS programming (?)

TI-81

• unfriendly calculator to code (no emulator, code must be typed on the calculator, hard to hack)
• note again that few people own one and very few use it

TI-82

• No Hooks

TI-85

• memory mapped LCD (great but others don't)

TI-86

• memory mapped LCD (great but others don't)

TI-83

• Link port is different from TI-83+
• No Flash Memory for user storage
• there is no bcalls, just normal calls

TI-83+

• Most usual z80 platform, compatible with TI-83+SE and TI-84+ calculators
• APPS programming

TI-83+SE

• CPU is around 3x faster (16 MHz) (good but not always)
• time crystals
• APPS programming

TI-84+/84+SE

• CPU is around 3x faster (16 MHz) (good but not always)
• time crystals
• APPS programming
• Some bad LCD can screw your beautiful graphics, use a safefastcopy routine
• Newer calculators do not have most of the extra RAM pages

Emulated TI-84+SE by Nspire

• Does not support any undocumented z80 instructions
• USB software is not correctly emulated (USB8X should fail)
• extra RAM pages emulated?

(until a better 3rd party emulator is released, you have to make to mind this)

Useful Tools and Utilities

Various

• SPASM
• Dwedit's large include file
• this set of most complete include files
• this routines

Source Code Template Program in RAM template

#ifdef TI73
#include ti73.inc
;TI73 asm execution normally is on a APPS
#endif

#ifdef TI82
;#include ti82.inc
;depends on shell (?)
#endif

#ifdef TI83
#include ti83.inc
 .org userMem
#endif

#ifdef TI83P
#include	ti83plus.inc
 .org userMem-2
 .db t2ByteTok,tAsmCmp   ; .db $BB,$6D tokens for ASM program
#endif

#ifdef TI85
;#include ti85.inc
.org asm_exec_ram-2
 .db $8E,$28
 nop
 jp lblStart
 .dw 0
 .dw tTitle ;no idea of what this is
#endif

#ifdef TI86
;#include ti86.inc
.org asm_exec_ram-2
 .db $8E,$28 ;no idea of what this is
 nop
 jp lblStart
 .dw 0
 .dw tTitle
#endif


Start:
#ifdef TI83P
	b_call(_RunIndicOff)
	b_call(_GrBufClr)
#endif
	
	
	ret
End:
 

Source Code Template APPS template

 .org $4000

;Free APPS header

Start:
	
	
	
exit:
	bjump(_JForceCmdNoChar)
 

Related Topics and sources of info

• THE TI-82/83(+) UNIFICATION FAQ by Guillaume Hoffmann
• UTI topic about shells http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=3702
• ticalc articles