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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) ."

10 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. Obg. by deutschemonte · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, but does it run linux?

    *Dodges Tomato*

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  3. I must be old. by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 5, Funny

    I must be old. I remember the time where calculators were used to do calculations and even plotting a nice graphic of a function.

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    1. Re:I must be old. by superyanthrax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They still do. It's just that they have much more features now and that the original purpose of a graphing calculator has been obscured. Now for most they are either cheating implements or a glorified Gameboy. Honestly, for mathematical applications I'd rather use Mathematica, because I'd rather have my 2.66 GHz P4 crunch numbers rather than a Motorola 68000 10 MHz processor (this is the processor on a TI-89).

    2. Re:I must be old. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      *gasp*

      Then we must BAN MATH IN SCHOOLS!

      Won't somebody THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!?!?

    3. Re:I must be old. by freitasm · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes... Calculators are Weapons of Math Instruction.

  4. In other news by superpulpsicle · · Score: 5, Funny

    Student was expelled from school when he accidentally played loud porn in a classroom during an exam.

  5. my EYES!!! by John.P.Jones · · Score: 5, Funny

    It looks more like the Matrix than the Matrix...

  6. Preview version by SuperBanana · · Score: 5, Funny

    For those of you tuning in on your TI calculators:

    N=NEO
    G=GUY
    T=TRIN

    Act One:

    N          G
    |-R ~~~~~~*X  <- Bullet time
    /\         /\

    Act Two:

    |---Nice shot.
    |

    T
    B  <----- N
    /\         |
              /\
               |---"Whoa. Nice Latex"

    Act Three:

    >-Z
      |---- "Whoa.  Nice punch"

    Could've done it in 3 lines of RPN, incidentally.

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  7. Comments and Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hi all, thanks for the comments. I'll make a few myself:
    * First: Thanks Google. usb8x is a Summer of Code project. Google's support meant I didn't have to find a real job.

    * A greyscale movie would definitely have been better than a B&W one. But the point of Michael's demo was proof of concept for a mass-storage device driver. That's pretty darn impressive as it is, in Z80 assembly with no OS support. I'm sure someone will come along and write a pretty version soon.

    * Some more details about the hardware platform: The TI84 Plus has a 15 MHZ Z80 CPU and a 96X64 monochrome display. You can fake greyscale pretty well by swaping planes. It has a 2-bit serial port, and a full-speed On-The-Go USB port. Unfortunately the OS doesn't provide any support for USB device drivers.

    * OK, so I'll admit: this was mainly done for the "it's cool" factor. But there are useful applications. As silly as it may sound to you, students these days do plug in keyboards to their calculators to take notes on. Or at least TI would certainly like them to, and now they don't have to buy the ridiculously expensive TI branded keyboard to do so. And TI calculators are actually quite useful if you're in the field collecting data with a Vernier probe. Now you can carry along a USB thumb drive and not worry about running out of space for your data.

    * Besides, it's cool :)

    -Dan Englender