TIMM for TI-83: Movies on Calculator?
Posted by Eric on 30 September 2000, 15:42 GMT

In what could be the most wacko thing to hit TI calculators since sliced bread (err, wait, that hasn't happened yet), Frank Schoep and Sherman Cahal have released TItanium MultiMedia (TIMM), a program for Windows which produces movies for the TI-83 by taking in a video file in any format your computer supports(mpeg, avi, mov, asf, divx, etc) and outputting a compiled TI-83 assembly program. Yes, that's right, movies on your calculator! Pretty nifty stuff.

Unforuntately, there's no grayscale, but TIMM is pretty interesting nevertheless. It includes compression of up to 85% of normal size, FPS control, and brightness control, among other features. Download it now, here.

Frank has also indicated that he'd welcome any help modifying the program to work with other calculators as well, so email him if you're interested.

Update (Eric): In case you were wondering, TIMM does not work yet on the Windows 2000 operating system due to an issue with devpac83. This will be resolved in the next release.

Does this program function on a TI 83+. I can't get it to work. Is there something I'm doing wrong or is it just for the TI 83? If so, could someone port this program or revise it so that it is compatible with the TI 83+? Thanks

Shawn Woods

   30 September 2000, 16:16 GMT

I can't even get the program running because I'm missing so many files!

   30 September 2000, 17:14 GMT

What did you do wrong? It works fine. Read the readme and follow the instructions throughly. You need AShell to work BTW.

   30 September 2000, 17:16 GMT

Hey dude, two things... one, I use a TI-83+.
two, I CANNOT FIND ASHELL for TI-83+!!! It's impossible to find a working one! Help! Email me at LonMelJr@aol.com for the url or file please.

   2 October 2000, 20:39 GMT

"Hey Dude" the main reason why you can't get the program to work is...
Because it's for the 83! That's why under the downloads section it falls under "83" and not "83+". If the program did work for the 83+, then it would be listed as such. So, stop trying because you won't get anywhere.

   5 October 2000, 05:12 GMT

You need MSVBVM60.DLL . You can download it from http://www.milori.com/developer/runtimes . I hope that will get it working! -Sean

   4 October 2000, 15:48 GMT

We are currently looking for porters. This will not work on ANY calc except for a TI-83, but this could change soon.

   30 September 2000, 17:16 GMT

Oh, man, this looks so cool! I hope you can port it to the 89 soon1 :)

   30 September 2000, 18:10 GMT

Obviously, the first calc you should port this program to is the 83+ for two reasons:
1. 83+ would be the easiest calc to port it to
2. 83+ is a really popular calc!

   1 October 2000, 01:34 GMT

and most importantly, 3. "mikey d" has an 83+ :)

   1 October 2000, 02:04 GMT

But, the 83+ has less available RAM than does the good ol 83. (And DO NOT tell me about archive, you can't have the movie in the archive and run it!). This means that, along with the shell ,you'd probably be stuck with 21xxx bytes of movie. OK, so maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion, but I like having 24xxx bytes for a movie better.

   1 October 2000, 19:07 GMT

Split up TIMM into two parts the Movie Player program itself, and the movies files (AppVars naturally). You can't run programs from Flash but you can stream data directly from it using _FlashToRAM.

--Robin Kay--

   1 October 2000, 23:00 GMT

Actually, if you use MirageOS, you would have 24xxx bytes free on the 83+ becuase MirageOS resides in Flash.

   5 October 2000, 05:14 GMT

I agree, this would be a good development for the 68k calcs. There already is a "movie player" called picviewer and picmaker by Ablan? Grevise or something. This player can support 8 level gray, but is so inefficent that a 5 sec clip of hover tanks in Star Wars EP.1 would take almost 100k.

   1 October 2000, 17:54 GMT

This makes movies for A-shell, a ti83 program. I know A-shell can be made to work for the ti83+ (someone got it to run on my friends calc). But I don't know how, if someone does, please reply.

   30 September 2000, 20:02 GMT

Great! Now I can watch ChuChuRocketCommercial.mpeg all day at school!

But it takes Joltimafree to play that thing.

Yet another reason to use ZES!

   30 September 2000, 21:09 GMT

I want to know why everything good comes out for the 83+, and then the 86. The 86 has a bigger screen, and although some will disagree, it also has plenty of program space. I have 10 games on my 86 at the moment, with room for another 20. Despite this, all the good games and general apps come out for 83+, even though it seems slower then the 86.

   30 September 2000, 22:54 GMT

Since more people have 83s than 86s.

   30 September 2000, 23:39 GMT

how good is the 83 emulation on the 86?

   1 October 2000, 02:06 GMT

Its been a while since I used my 86, but I believe that emulation for the 82/83/83+ should be rather simple to do, with the possible exception of changing the resolution of the programs. Centering the screens for those shouldn't be all that hard to do, compared to the rest of the task of emulation:)

I personally would like to see this ported to the 89, but the 86 would certainly work (I actually also own an 83 and 85, but the 85 doesn't really have enough ram, and my 83 is rarely used anymore).

eofpi and the unimatrix's 45.599850351139 cents

   1 October 2000, 03:40 GMT

Hmm. This program came out for the TI83 first, because I own a TI83 and it didn't make sense to me to write a program for a calc I don't have. The source code can *easily* be ported to the TI86, I only need to know a few things. Someone e-mail me to answer my questions:

- What's the size of the TI86's screen? (WxH)
- What's the starting address? (.org XXXXh)
- Is there a saferam location with the same size as the screen? (Y/N)
- If there is a saferam location, what's its location? (XXXXh)
- Is the graphbuf steered with a lcd driver (like the TI83), or is it memory mapped? (give me info on both questions, please)
- How can you get shell compatability and what's the maximal program size?

That's all I need to know. Now go, answer.

Greetz,
Frank

   1 October 2000, 15:59 GMT

- What's the size of the TI86's screen? (WxH)

128x64

- What's the starting address? (.org XXXXh)

.org? Programs are copied to $d748 (_asm_exec_ram) before being executed, so that is what you use for the .org at the start. The screen starts at $fc00 and goes to $ffff.

- Is there a saferam location with the same size as the screen? (Y/N)

Yes. Lots. Plenty. Much free ram. Free ram is good.

- If there is a saferam location, what's its location? (XXXXh)

You can use most of ram page 1 for scratch space, which is loaded into the $8000 area when a program is first executed. Start at $8100 and don't go past $bf00 and you should be fine.

- Is the graphbuf steered with a lcd driver (like the TI83), or is it memory mapped? (give me info on both questions, please)

No, it doesn't suck like on the 82/83. It's memory mapped. You change a byte, and the screen changes immediately (well...to you, anyways). This is why you can have nice grayscale on the 86.

- How can you get shell compatability and what's the maximal program size?

The is why the 86 is the best calculator for assembly. There is no such thing as shell compatibility. Shells are optional if you want a nice interface to load programs. Your code gets copied from where it's stored in ram to $d748 and run from there. The stack starts at $fc00 and grows downwards. I have had no problems with a 256 byte stack max, but 512 bytes would be optimal if you want to be totally safe (or just see how big it is when your program starts, and know how much your program needs). So you have from $d748 until wherever the stack is, and after the stack is video ram. That gives you a little less than 8k. Not enough? Write a small loader program that loads a string to ram page 1 and jumps there. Bomber Bloke is an excellent example of how to do this.

   2 October 2000, 09:09 GMT