TI-83 Basic was the first programming language I really felt like I had mastered. For a while in my first CS college class I was writing code in TI basic and translating it to C++. Drugwars and Bowling were the two really impressive games written in TI-Basic.
But discovering z80 assembly was like magic. It was incredibly exciting to go to my dad's office at the university where he worked (where computers had 2 T1 internet lines) to download and try assembly games when they first burst on the scene (I was in 8th grade). Bill Nagel blew my mind with Turbo Breakout and Snake, and later AShell, Penguins, and grayscale Mario... but the best executed and most replayable games I think were Sqrxz and ZTetris on the TI-86 by Jimmy Mardell. Honorable mention to Galaxian and Falldown. I once downloaded the z80 assembly source for a game, printed it to about an inch of paper, and carried it around for weeks trying to understand it...
It was also really cool for some reason (and would often brick the calculator until you took the batteries out) to type random hex pairs into a program and execute it as assembly. "C063" run as assembly - syntax was the random looking Send(9PrgmA where PrgmA is where you typed the hex code - on a TI-83 would scroll tons of random text in an infinite loop.
Does anyone remember the TI website wars? TI Files (later TI Philes) was "so much more awesome" than "the lowly weak ticalc.org"... but look which one is still around :-)
I'm amazed ticalc.org is still alive and kicking. So much nostalgia. Joltima was what convinced me to learn assembly. So far ahead of its time on the TI-86. Full featured RPG with turn-based combat on a graphing calc. Glad the history is still accessible online.
This game is a really big deal for me! I was addicted to it in high school and it left a lasting impression. Drugwars directly inspired my passion project, Farmhand: https://www.farmhand.life/
I loved this game. I played this game instead of learning math, unfortunately. It was only by the grace of other apps on my TI-83+ that I was able to pass my exams...
I feel vindicated by the rise of AI. Soon nobody else will know how to do anything without a small computer either.
My "fun fact" that I always tell is that I got my start by reading the manual of my TI-83+
I spent most of my 9th grade making a stick figure clone of Street Fighter, using TI-BASIC and graphing functions.
Eventually I switched to coding with pencil and paper because the calculator screen can only show you 8 lines at a time. No idea how I made something that could support 2 players playing on the same calculator, all with GOTOs and LABELs.
My favorite optimization of all time was turning their heads into hexagons instead of circles since drawing 6 lines was so much faster.
I had a friend in ninth grade in the late 1900s who was a talented artist. He used his skills to make beautifully expressive pixel-art hardcore pornography on the TI-82.
He crafted a few different scenes, where for each one, he set it to loop back and forth between two frames -- and the implied motion was fantastically realistic for the resolution and fps he was working with...
Wow - what a blast from the past!! I remember once in 9th grade when the science teacher called me up to ask me what I was doing on my calculator, and I quickly deleted the game because it could result in a suspension. I had been working on a game similar to Wing Commander Privateer, and I showed him that instead and got away with it.
Oh man, I ported this to the TI-89 back in 7th grade and made it slightly more school appropriate calling it “pop wars”, trading soda from different machines at different schools instead of drugs.
I remember playing this all the time on my TI-83+. That calculator is where I really learned to program. I wrote programs in TI-BASIC - mostly to solve equations for my math/science classes, but some games too. It's been so long that I don't really remember TI-BASIC, but I was quite good at it in high school.
I was curious why some expressions in the code used the character ù, such as “If Zù500”. It looks like a character encoding error, but the code presumably works correctly. ChatGPT says the byte value for ≤ in TI-BASIC is the same as ù in ANSI/Windows-1252 (0xF9).
I'm a little older so I missed these models of TI calculator.
I loved programming my TI-81 my freshman year of high school. Having a programmable computer on my person-- even one as weak as the '81-- was so cool. I made a bunch of crappy games and graphical "demos", but being that the '81 didn't have a link cable I couldn't pass them around.
I got my '85 my freshman year of college but, by that time, I had a laptop and was much less interested in programming a calculator. I ended up misplacing my '85 in a move. Now that my daughter is old enough to appreciate it I wish I still had it.
Man I loved programming TI-82s. So many fun ways to build things. I really didn't learn much math that year - I was too enthralled with writing programs to answer the problems for me.
15 years ago I had a Pocket Street Fighter game (Street Fighter characters in their baby version) and it was running fast even on a TI-89! You had 6 characters or so with Riu etc… It was really impressive. For sure the most well crafted back in the days.
Essentially been trying to make it modernised with updated events, skill sets, locations etc. Just to make it a bit more fun for me to play around with.
I also have no doubt there's bugs as this is very new and only put a few hours into it over the past few weeks.
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But discovering z80 assembly was like magic. It was incredibly exciting to go to my dad's office at the university where he worked (where computers had 2 T1 internet lines) to download and try assembly games when they first burst on the scene (I was in 8th grade). Bill Nagel blew my mind with Turbo Breakout and Snake, and later AShell, Penguins, and grayscale Mario... but the best executed and most replayable games I think were Sqrxz and ZTetris on the TI-86 by Jimmy Mardell. Honorable mention to Galaxian and Falldown. I once downloaded the z80 assembly source for a game, printed it to about an inch of paper, and carried it around for weeks trying to understand it...
It was also really cool for some reason (and would often brick the calculator until you took the batteries out) to type random hex pairs into a program and execute it as assembly. "C063" run as assembly - syntax was the random looking Send(9PrgmA where PrgmA is where you typed the hex code - on a TI-83 would scroll tons of random text in an infinite loop.
Does anyone remember the TI website wars? TI Files (later TI Philes) was "so much more awesome" than "the lowly weak ticalc.org"... but look which one is still around :-)
> Bill Nagel
now there's a name that inspired awe in my 12 year old mind.
i didn't know at first how he was able to make those incredible games, only understanding TI Basic myself. mindblowing stuff.
That opened my eyes to the world of Assembly, which in turn turned me on to the demoscene, and off I went into a truly magical subculture!
I'm so happy to see this pop up here! :)
Luckily I was ahead a year and didn't need to retake that class LOL. Went on to calc and discrete math.
I feel vindicated by the rise of AI. Soon nobody else will know how to do anything without a small computer either.
I spent most of my 9th grade making a stick figure clone of Street Fighter, using TI-BASIC and graphing functions.
Eventually I switched to coding with pencil and paper because the calculator screen can only show you 8 lines at a time. No idea how I made something that could support 2 players playing on the same calculator, all with GOTOs and LABELs.
My favorite optimization of all time was turning their heads into hexagons instead of circles since drawing 6 lines was so much faster.
He crafted a few different scenes, where for each one, he set it to loop back and forth between two frames -- and the implied motion was fantastically realistic for the resolution and fps he was working with...
https://www.hpcalc.org/details/911
All hail RPN!
MirageOS was the iPhone Home Screen of that time.
https://detachedsolutions.com/main/
I loved programming my TI-81 my freshman year of high school. Having a programmable computer on my person-- even one as weak as the '81-- was so cool. I made a bunch of crappy games and graphical "demos", but being that the '81 didn't have a link cable I couldn't pass them around.
I got my '85 my freshman year of college but, by that time, I had a laptop and was much less interested in programming a calculator. I ended up misplacing my '85 in a move. Now that my daughter is old enough to appreciate it I wish I still had it.
I found it! It was called Texas Fighters: https://youtu.be/zZIqFJHe3yU?is=sVowojfWws9uwwRl
this was such an amazing way to learn programming
Here it is if anyone is interested: https://dopewars-flutter.web.app/
Essentially been trying to make it modernised with updated events, skill sets, locations etc. Just to make it a bit more fun for me to play around with.
I also have no doubt there's bugs as this is very new and only put a few hours into it over the past few weeks.