| Author | Comment |
threefingeredguy
Ghost
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
14:26 GMT
Total Posts: 1189 | Pat Milheron wrote the operating system for the z80 calculators. I met the guys son. He is in 2 of my classes. Any questions you have will be typed up and given to him. Ask any question you want and assume that there are no Non Disclosure Agreements. I will give them to him and his son, Mikey, said he was sure that his dad would answer all of them.
Post your questions.
EDIT: change the topic, it got messed up somehow...
[Edited by threefingeredguy on 24-Aug-05 23:31]
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Someone call for an exterminator? |
Andy
Administrator
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
14:52 GMT
Total Posts: 939 | Please see the comments here as I'm too lazy to type them up again. |
greenorange
Goliath
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
17:40 GMT
Total Posts: 199 | Ask him how long it took his father to write the OS, and how much he spent debugging it versus writing it. Also, kudos to you for the typo resulting in the very funny topic line. |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
18:42 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | Ask him if he can put a BASIC sprite command in the next OS version for a calc :) . Also, I'd love to hear about all the undocumented stuff, so e-mail me if you get the chance/answers. |
Xero Xcape
Marine
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
19:02 GMT
Total Posts: 29 | I want to know why he didn't put EVERYTHING in the catolog in the calc...
And I want to know why he decided to use 2 diffrent sizes of text and not just have it all be graphscreen size text...
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BASIC flames are for n00bs, you don't want to be a n00b do you? | My other calc is a Porsche. |
zkostik
Carrier
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
19:11 GMT
Total Posts: 2486 | Two text sizes is obvious as its much easier to ourput text to the home screen since coordinate dimensions are smaller and thus easier to work with, the two have various properties too (like you get line overflow going into the next line on home screen).
Though, the catalog question is a good one. I guess that was to make people know their command menus or something :).
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allynfolksjr
Administrator
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
19:13 GMT
Total Posts: 1892 | Of course, I'd like to know about any easter eggs. |
zkostik
Carrier
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
19:32 GMT
Total Posts: 2486 | Oh yeah, good point allyn. Some cool easter eggs would be awesome. Especially if we get to feature them or something like that. Though, I have a feeling that he as a programmer may have restrictions by TI as far as content he may release publicly. I guess we'll wait and see.
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Xero Xcape
Marine
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
20:17 GMT
Total Posts: 29 | @Z - but see... I have made a little basic program that will "output" text in the GS size and uses not pxl marks but small numbers like on the HS text... (i.e. 1-24 wide and 1-10 tall) and it works fantasically... in ASM or C or something else it'd be awsome... especially for game makers wanting to get more on the screen...
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BASIC flames are for n00bs, you don't want to be a n00b do you? | My other calc is a Porsche. |
BullFrog
Wraith
Posted: 24 Aug 2005
20:27 GMT
Total Posts: 623 | Umm, what's up with the topic line? I'm lost on that...
[Edited by BullFrog on 25-Aug-05 05:27]
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"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds." -Franklin D. Roosevelt |
JcCorp
Probe
Posted: 25 Aug 2005
03:39 GMT
Total Posts:
Edit | Typo, I believe.
What if the font size was small for everything? Wouldn't that work fine, like the 68k calcs? |
threefingeredguy
Ghost
Posted: 25 Aug 2005
08:43 GMT
Total Posts: 1189 | Topic line said "Questions for the man who wrote the z80 calcs operating system", but i must have had a fruedian slip and written "man [w h o r e] the the" . Bad typos.
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Someone call for an exterminator? |
greenorange
Goliath
Posted: 25 Aug 2005
10:06 GMT
Total Posts: 199 | which reveals a bug in the censoring system in this forum. Topic is censored everywhere except active topics. It's even censored in the forum it belongs to. |
zkostik
Carrier
Posted: 25 Aug 2005
10:16 GMT
Total Posts: 2486 | Oh yeah, good point on that one XX. That's one of the undocumented features I seemed to forget about. Could be a design of flaw or maybe they have their explanations regarding that. Possibly lower skilled users were included in consideration for that feature. Thugh, it'd still be interesting to hear out the actualy programmer of the OS to know exactly why it was done so.
To greenorange: I guess its a forum bug! *reminds TFG to check spelling before posting*
EDIT: Anyway, I went and edited the topic name for obvious reasons. Technically, I should have done it sooner but oh well.
[Edited by zkostik on 25-Aug-05 19:22]
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threefingeredguy
Ghost
Posted: 26 Aug 2005
08:43 GMT
Total Posts: 1189 | Thank you. Any more questions?
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Someone call for an exterminator? |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 26 Aug 2005
19:53 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | What would he do for a klondike bar? |
Ray Kremer
Ultralisk
Posted: 29 Aug 2005
11:43 GMT
Total Posts: 310 | Hmm. I'd be interested in hearing anectdotes about the creation of the TI-82 and the reasoning behind it as compared to the already existing TI-85. I've always just assumed TI was catering to teachers who complained that the 85 had too many feature. |
