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TI Calculators Play Movies

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the bridging-the-gap dept.

ipapusha writes "TI Calculator enthusiasts rejoice. A few weeks ago, Dan Englender released a new flash application usb8x. Usb8x is a driver that interfaces with the On-the-Go USB port in the TI-84 Plus and TI-84 Plus Silver Edition. It is designed to be used by other programmers to create drivers for a variety of USB peripherals, including a keyboard and mouse. Already, ticalc.org's own Michael Vincent has interfaced his Lexar JumpDrive to play The Matrix's famous lobby scene. (mirror) ."

12 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Another mirror if necessary by XaXXon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's another mirror if necessary:

    http://xaxxon.slackworks.com/2005-08-16-usb.wmv

  2. Nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    ...TI calcs have been able to play movies for a long time now. TItanium MultiMedia (TIMM) encodes a movie file to a native format for playback on TI calcs. Of course, this new project is much more impressive if it is decoding standard .avi / .mpg files on the fly.

  3. Re:almost obligatory... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    No, there's nothing obligatory about it. It's not funny, and you're a karma whore. Period.

  4. Been there, done that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I wrote a program years ago that would convert videos to a TI calculator assembly program. That didn't end up on Slashdot, but if you want to check it out (with screenshots):

    http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/150/ 15079.html

    Remove the space from the URL I guess.

    Of course, USB is nice and all, but the video-on-calc thing has been done before. By me :)

  5. Re:what cpu? by Script_God · · Score: 2, Informative

    For the record, the 84+ uses a dual-speed 6/15MHz Z80.

  6. Re:Hrm, no greyscale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    No, it's not quite that simple.

    The 85 and 86 have an LCD controller which uses the main system RAM, which means that (a) all you have to do to display something is write it to the correct RAM buffer, and (b) you can change the address of this buffer with a single output instruction, and the LCD will update to use the contents of the new buffer.

    The 82 and its successors (73, 83, 83+/84+) use a different LCD controller which has its own internal RAM. To access this memory you need to output one byte at a time to the LCD data port. What's more, the controller requires a delay of about 10 microseconds between outputs. So copying all 768 bytes to the screen will take at least 7.68 milliseconds. This is already slow enough that if it's poorly synchronized with the LCD refreshing, there's visible flickering. (See, for example, Phoenix III.) It is possible to get some reasonable-looking grayscale by playing with the interrupt timers, though it obviously requires a lot of the CPU's attention.

    Anyway, I think the point was to show off Michael's FAT driver, not to display the most beautiful video possible.

  7. Re:I must be old. by Repton · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is some truth to that --- however, a good calculator, that fits in your hand, and has all the calculator functions available as keypresses, can still be more efficient than your laptop+CAS..

    --
    Repton.
    They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
  8. Re:I must be old. by thatnerdguy · · Score: 3, Informative

    from that page, a link to a new calc being developed:
    http://www.hpcalc.org/qonos.php

    eCos, running in 512KB SRAM and providing one month of battery life
    Linux, running in 64MB of SDRAM and providing considerably more than a day of battery life
    A day of battery life??

    --
    I saw the Sign, and it opened up my eyes
  9. Re:Comments and Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Because of the small monochrome screen there's a ton of ported/rewritten old games available. Some examples:
    * Alien Breed - http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/204/ 20452.html
    * Tetris Attack - http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/94/9 428.html
    * Lotus Turbo Challenge - http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/96/9 682.html
    * Bubble Bobble - http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/235/ 23536.html

    Some of these are *really* impressive. It's amazing what you can do even with very limited technology if you code in assembly and optimize code :)

  10. Re:Obg. by Script_God · · Score: 3, Informative

    The 83+ Silver and 84+ Silver have 2MB of ROM, and 128 KB of RAM, all done via page swapping in a 64KB address space. To get technical, $0000 to $3999 are fixed on ROM page 0, two of the remaining 16KB chunks can be mapped to any of the RAM or ROM pages, and the last 16KB chunk can be mapped to any of the RAM pages (can't do ROM as this is where the stack is; hardware prevents it anyway). It *might* be possible to run linux, but it wouldn't be very practical unless you build USB Mass Storage drivers into it (and that would restrict it to the 84+ only). You know, that's a project idea...

  11. Re:Never wanted to see this day by BlastM · · Score: 3, Informative
    mencoder 2005-08-16-usb.wmv -ovc xvid -fps 24 -xvidencopts pass=1 -o 2005-08-16-usb.avi
    There you go.
  12. Re:I must be old. by AnyoneEB · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wikipedia to the rescue. The TI-89 had two hardware versions (three if you count the titantium). HW1 had a 10 MHz processor. HW2 and HW3 (titanium) have a 12 MHz processor. HW1 and HW2 appear identical, except they show a different version number on the about screen ([F1]+[A]).

    --
    Centralization breaks the internet.