TI-81 1.8K ROM port for the TI-84+CE
As a bit of a mini side project I patched/ported the TI-81 1.8K ROM to run on the CE in z80 mode.
Yes that's right, the OS from a 30 year old calc running on the more recent TI-84+CE :).
There isn't really much to it as the only differences to the ROM are port read/writes have been patched since they can't be used on the CE and even if they could be, the connected hardware isn't the same anyway. The whole ROM is only 32KB so no need to mess with paging etc, so the whole thing was reasonably straight-forward. One thing to note is that instead of patching a call to a routine (which would be 1 byte larger and thus require recalculating of all relevant ROM addresses, not to mention make the ROM larger) I patched with RST $00 and took over that address since it's used rarely.
The LCD is scaled 3x which seems ok size wise and left room for a small 81 style border theme. The actual LCD rendering is kind of hacked in and requires interrupts to be running ... which should normally be the case. Also since this is not emulation, the speed is not consistent with the real thing. Not sure whether to try and restrict it, but I don't see the harm for now.
I hacked in RAM saving to an appvar on exit which seems to mostly work though I need to test it properly.
No other reason than just because, and perhaps a good way to preserve the 81 experience since they are becoming rarer now.
The release is split into multiple binary blobs that can be joined together with your 1.8K ROM file.
makeprgm - (drag & drop 1.8K ROM file here).bat
TI81CE - TI-84 Plus CE (Native).8xp.001
TI81CE - TI-84 Plus CE (Native).8xp.003
Simply drag and drop your 1.8K ROM file onto the makeprgm - (drag & drop 1.8K ROM file here).bat file and it will create TI81CE - TI-84 Plus CE (Native).8xp for you. The resultant file should be exactly 38,405 bytes.
This is to avoid any complications with distributing my personal ROM dump.
The SHA1 of my 1.8K ROM is: ba915cfe2fe50a452ef8287db8f2244e29056d54
This program is a native assembly file and can be run as such:
Asm(prgmTI81CE
WARNING: If you have updated your calculator to an OS version > 5.5 then you will need to use arTIfiCE to run assembly programs. I suggest using it to install the Cesium Shell for the best experience.
They keypad is quite similar, though there are some minor differences. One to note is that 'Quit' is actually 2nd + Clear on the 81.
To exit the program HOLD the ON key for 3 seconds.
This works with ROM version 1.8K ONLY. A different ROM will likely crash (since this is a port that means the host system will crash).
You cannot install Unity on it the traditional way (since IM 2 interrupts aren't possible on the CE) ... but perhaps I should build similar ASM support into it. The best bit is that I'd store it outside of usable RAM so you'd get ~400+ bytes of precious RAM back. That being said with ASM you wouldn't be able to access ports since this is not emulation, it's a patch/port. No sending files, though it would be entirely possible to modify the RAM/register state stored inside the appvar instead of typing it all in (todo?)
Dumping your own ROM is quite a difficult process since the 81 has no link port. There is some very valuable information here: http://tiplanet.org/modules/archives/downloads/dump81.pdf
This was a very quick hack-job of a project so there is the potential for bugs. The release is only alpha so please be careful and let me know if you find anything ...
The source can be assembled with SPASM-NG
To build you will need to copy your 1.8K ROM file into the res\ directory. The source (main.asm) expects it to be named ti81v18k.bin but you can change it to whatever you want.
Note that the release binaries use a custom windows command tool for splitting files (split.exe in the res\ directory) - there are other ways to do this however, plus the source builds into a complete binary anyway, which will be copied to the bin\ directory if all goes well.
Special thanks goes to the amazing work by the pioneers of the 81 scene and those who helped me along the way:
RANDY Compton (Zeroko)
Benjamin Moody (FloppusMaximus)
Matt Waltz (MateoConLechuga)
Adrien Bertrand (Adriweb)
Jacob Young (jacobly)
Fred Desautels (mr womp womp)
Brendan Fletcher (calc84maniac)
Xavier Andreani (critor)
The creators of TilEm
Everyone at Cemetech
Everyone at TIPlanet
And anyone else I forgot (please remind me)
TI81CE is licensed under the The Unlicense, see LICENSE for more details.