Author Topic: A new z80 calc... in color?  (Read 61390 times)

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Offline Juju

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A new z80 calc... in color?
« on: November 08, 2012, 11:03:15 am »

Yup, seems there's a new TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition coming soon with a color screen akin to the Casio Prizm and the Nspire CX. This morning, Cemetech member 0rac343 leaked the first known picture of the new calculator, saying his school got 2 full sets (24 calcs) to test it out. Outside the color screen, not much has changed in terms of functionality, it runs the latest Mathprint OS. Not much else is known, like app compatibility, if the programs written for older versions of the 83+ series will work correctly, if the z80 processor stayed the same, if there's still ASM support, etc. The screen is believed to be 340x240, according to Kerm Martian. A page on TI's website about it also have been discovered, confirming the news. Critor, who often get insider news directly from TI, also confirmed the news, saying it's not fake. He can't confirm anything else and points out those questions:
  • hardware used (it might be a z80, but it might be a TI-Nspire CX/CM with a permanent TI-84 keypad, which would explain why the TI-84 emulator was removed on these Nspire models)
  • compatibility with current z80 applications
  • compatibility with current z80 assembly programs
  • is there going to be a TI-84 Plus C model ?
  • is it going to be released in all countries when we allready have non-CAS TI-Nspire CX and TI-Nspire CM CAS with similar prices ?
  • will we have to update TI-Connect and TiLP?

This is a pretty interesting move from TI, they likely wanted to offer a better competition to the Casio Prizm with CX-like functionality brought to their 83+ line, or to maybe even update their old outdated hardware with modern one. As I said, not much is known outside the fact it's a TI-84+SE with a color screen. We are eager to get more news about this, and we hope tons of new color games and utilities such as a color port of Reign of Legends 3 and color support in Axe will appear soon on Omnimaga :P
« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 11:31:22 am by Juju »

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Offline Yeong

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2012, 11:08:06 am »
wat O.O
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Offline aeTIos

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2012, 11:16:30 am »
Wohoo!
I might put this on deviantart :p

edit: figured that's not really smart or so XD
« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 11:16:59 am by aeTIos »
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Offline Hayleia

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2012, 11:22:16 am »
The xkcd no longer applies :P

But if there was compatibility with current calcs, maybe Axe will exist in color *.*
That would be AWESOME :D
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Offline aeTIos

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2012, 11:25:36 am »
It seems there is. But that's not my greatest concern. The biggest question to me is
« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 11:30:40 am by aeTIos »
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Offline Keoni29

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2012, 11:32:36 am »
A bigger resolution screen would be nice. 96*64 is just too small for games. Give us at least 240*128
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Offline Eeems

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2012, 11:35:15 am »
What I want to know is how hard is it to work with the screen now? Displaying to the screen etc on the 83+/84+/SE was a PITA. Most programs were slowed down due to displaying to the screen and not due to their engine being slow.
In TBP I decided to skip 4 frames in order to get a good speed out of my game. So "physics" is perfomed 4 times before the screen is updated.

So, how big is the screen buffer going to have to be now? How long will it take to update the screen. How hard is accessing the screen memory going to be? All questions I want answered :P
/e

Offline aeTIos

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2012, 11:36:45 am »
well since it's at least going to be faster displaying stuff should be less PITAish.
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Offline Juju

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2012, 11:38:59 am »
I assume since the screen is bigger, the processor will be faster to deal with this, pretty much like how Casio moved from B&W to color. The Prizm is similar in functionality to the fx-9860, IIRC, only with a color screen added. Looks like TI is doing pretty much the same.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 11:39:36 am by Juju »

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Offline Keoni29

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2012, 11:42:20 am »
Any chance of an NES emulator on this thing?
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Offline aeTIos

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2012, 11:46:05 am »
We don't even know how it is to be programmed, but seeing how stuff sounds I'd say yes.
And calc84maniac GBC emu+sound gogogo :3
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Offline Eeems

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2012, 11:46:16 am »
aeTIos: That is assuming it actually is faster at displaying on the code end. Most of the wasted cycles are us waiting for the screen to tell us it's ready for more data.
Keoni29: No idea. We don't know enough about the hardware and how open it will be.
Juju: That brings into question, will it still be a z80 chip or will it be a new ARM chip?
/e

Offline Juju

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #12 on: November 08, 2012, 11:50:29 am »
Yeah, as Critor pointed out in the news, it might be a Nspire with a 84+ emulator and a permanent 84+ keypad.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 11:51:10 am by Juju »

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Offline Keoni29

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #13 on: November 08, 2012, 01:01:07 pm »
Are these gonna be cheaper than regular nspires? If so: we might be able to hack it into a regular nspire for less money!
« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 01:02:02 pm by Keoni29 »
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Offline pimathbrainiac

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Re: A new z80 calc... in color?
« Reply #14 on: November 08, 2012, 01:03:46 pm »
The TI link was discovered by moi... Anyway, ME GUSTA!!!!!!
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