[HN Gopher] Porting 8-bit Sonic 2 to the TI-84 CE
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Porting 8-bit Sonic 2 to the TI-84 CE
Author : farmerbb
Score : 72 points
Date : 2024-04-19 16:23 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| aidenn0 wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/768/
| boricj wrote:
| That XKCD comic is more than a decade old at this point.
| Nowadays, graphic calculators for the most part have 32-bit
| MCUs (or even SoCs for the high-end), color IPS displays with
| backlights, USB connectors... On the software side, the
| NumWorks firmware is programmed in modern bare-metal C++.
|
| Even Casio scientific calculators have an on-calc programming
| language and a spreadsheet nowadays.
| easton wrote:
| At least in the US, most schools are still on the TI train.
| People have others, but most of the the time they suggest you
| get a TI-84, which is still super expensive and still a Z80
| Dwedit wrote:
| 8-bit CPUs like the 6502 and Z80 are much better for
| teaching assembly language than something monstrous like
| the x86. ARM and MIPS are probably okay too.
| toast0 wrote:
| TI made assembly officially available for a while
| (starting on the ti-86, I think), but they've walked it
| back and current calculators need help to get to it.
| Dwedit wrote:
| TI83 had a hidden "asm(" command, it was
| "Send(9prgmXXXXXXXX", which takes in a hex file then
| packs it to address 9327. But because it kept two copies
| of the program in memory (one double size, one half
| size), people went on to make assembly shells to relocate
| the program to 9327 without the need for a double-size
| program. The final assembly shell Venus manged to be
| absolutely tiny, and did not need to "install" itself (by
| intentionally creating a memory leak).
| nuc1e0n wrote:
| Tools exist that can reassemble 8080 assembly language
| code to run on the 8086 or later x86 CPUs. The opcodes
| aren't quite the same, but they're close enough feature
| wise. Indeed it was one of the original design criteria
| for the 8086 to be source compatible with 8080 code.
| buescher wrote:
| Maybe I will check this Sonic port out.
|
| I had to get a TI-84 Plus CE for a college course I took a
| few years back. I'm an RPN guy so it pained me, but it's a
| nice step up from the 1990s style TI calculators. It has a
| fast Z80 family processor, plenty of RAM, a decent 320x240
| color display, and a built-in battery that's rechargeable
| by USB. Usability for everything I used it for is quite
| good (matrix functions and some root-finding) and almost
| self-explanatory.
|
| I take it out of the drawer it's in about once a year or so
| and standby battery life is extremely good. It must cut off
| power completely in standby.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| The TI-84+ battery life was bananas. I used it constantly
| during university and almost never had to change them.
| Dwedit wrote:
| The TI83+ CE (color edition) was made because they couldn't get
| the crappy LCD screens anymore, so they were forced to upgrade
| the screen, and also upgrade the CPU a bit (now it's an EZ80)
| because of the higher-resolution frame buffer.
| boricj wrote:
| Technically there's the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition before
| that one, where TI put a color LCD screen on a calculator
| powered by a Z80, the same one as the TI-84 Plus.
|
| It is reportedly slow as molasses.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| What is "8-bit Sonic 2" ?
| foobarbaz321 wrote:
| Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Master System or Game Gear.
|
| The SMS had an extended life in places like Brazil which led to
| certain Genesis titles, like Sonic, receiving ports to the SMS.
| Dwedit wrote:
| The 8-bit sonic games were originally made with the Game Gear
| in mind. Because the Game Gear and Master System have nearly
| identical hardware (except for a different screen size and
| palette), Master System ports were made as well.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| There was even the "Master Gear" which let you play master-
| system games on the game gear. I played the first Phantasy
| Star game that way.
| Aissen wrote:
| It is true for Sonic 1, but Sonic 2 is infamously difficult
| on Game Gear, because the levels where designed with the
| Master System in mind, and it didn't port well to the
| smaller Game Gear resolution (160x144 vs 256x192): the
| assets are the same size, so the effect is almost like a
| truncated viewport.
| yr1337 wrote:
| Where were you in 1999 when all I had was a crap snake on my
| TI-89?
| codetrotter wrote:
| Heck, even in 2005 Snake was all I had on my TI-84 Plus. (Not
| the CE, just the plain old 1-bit display version.)
|
| And it was a version of Snake that I'd written myself, in TI-
| BASIC and I used some kind of matrix to store the segments of
| the snake and when the snake grew in length the operations to
| move the snake around took more and more time. Until eventually
| it crashed.
|
| It was, admittedly not the greatest Snake game ever. It may
| even have been one of the worst ever. But it _my_ Snake and
| that made it okay
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