USB mouse on 84+

blueskies · Post by **blueskies** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 2:56 am

I do like how your 'new webspace' just has that cool bunny.

when will you add the rest of your programming feats?

Post by **Kozak** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 7:50 am

Michael playing the matrix on his calculator is pretty cool to look at, but for now I don't see much extra use for USB support for gaming other than extra storage. Can anyone tell me other new possibilities?

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 8:43 am

Sure... No lack of fantasy here

- USB mouse as game controller; all kinds of games could benefit from this, from arcade to adventure, from duck hunt to zdoom

- USB keyboard for text editing or a typecursus
- USB WLAN stick to connect to other calculators or even the Internet for more multiplayer fun and automatic game/level updates
- USB speaker support for those who don't have earplugs that fit in the link port
- Robot projects could perhaps benefit from USB webcams or microphones to analyse the environment or to follow orders (clap twice to make the robot come your way

)
- Finish a game level and earn a nice printout on your USB printer to put up next to your bed

Jim, I'd like a peek at such a program

Do you have a demo or source that I could look at? Just being curious here, I don't plan on making something similar...

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 8:44 am

blueskies wrote:I do like how your 'new webspace' just has that cool bunny. when will you add the rest of your programming feats?

Revsoft is likely to be moved there soon, plus a real domain name. I also want to write some coding guides specific to the 83+ family. Right now it's serving as hosting and backing a few things up.

kozak wrote:Michael playing the matrix on his calculator is pretty cool to look at, but for now I don't see much extra use for USB support for gaming other than extra storage. Can anyone tell me other new possibilities?

Let me think of a few things, and we'll see which ones Andy thinks are impossible.

Flash drives
*File manager
*Maybe backup if power consumption is low enough
*Media playing (PCM or video or maybe both)
*Holding levels and graphical data.(unreasonable, but maybe)
*Just holding games.

Keyboards
Mouse
Game pads

Printer!
*when your dog at you essay and you need a copy NOW!!

Wireless (maybe, but I'm doubting it.)
*Calc to calc
*pc to calc?
*MORE CHAT PROGRAMS

Sound??

External display

Really I think the flash drive is the most useful. I have to say, it's good to have a handful of guys who aren't into game coding, and more willing to do the more tedious coding.

Edit:
Arrrgggghhh...timendus beat me to the post.
The sound thing I did is here. It's SE only.

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 9:01 am

Jim e wrote:Printer!
*when your dog at you essay and you need a copy NOW!!

:P:P Why didn't I think of that?

The sound thing I did is here. It's SE only.

SE only..?

Guess that's why I remembered that it was impossible...

Andy_J · Post by **Andy_J** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 2:33 pm

Jim e wrote:Let me think of a few things, and we'll see which ones Andy thinks are impossible.

Flash drives
*File manager
*Maybe backup if power consumption is low enough
*Media playing (PCM or video or maybe both)
*Holding levels and graphical data.(unreasonable, but maybe)
*Just holding games.

Keyboards
Mouse
Game pads

Printer!
*when your dog at you essay and you need a copy NOW!!

Wireless (maybe, but I'm doubting it.)
*Calc to calc
*pc to calc?
*MORE CHAT PROGRAMS

Sound??

External display

Really I think the flash drive is the most useful. I have to say, it's good to have a handful of guys who aren't into game coding, and more willing to do the more tedious coding.

OK then.

I have a feeling printer drivers would be huge. No clue, as I've not looked into it, but I don't know. You might be able to get decent generic line printer support into your 84+'s RAM, but that's probably it. Again, I haven't looked into how complex USB printer drivers are so I don't have a clue.

Networking? It'd have to be slow... As someone (MV?) said on a ticalc comment, Bluetooth would probably be better than 802.11x/802.3. What programs could you do with this? HTTP would *probably* not be worth it on that small of a screen, but what do I know.

Unless you just use it for downloading new files from calcgames. Then I'd make a back end for that in a heartbeat. IRC is a very good possibility. Perhaps so would be AIM/MSN/Y!, but those protocols aren't as easy as IRC (imo).

USB Speakers, you say? Well if you're using your USB bandwidth for sound, I guess that means you already have the data on the calculator (unless, of course, I'm grossly overestimating the cpu time needed for both mass storage, hub management, and sound at once).

Webcams for anything... HIGHLY unlikely... They spit out WAY too much data per frame, at a very high rate. Let's take my cam for instance. It's a Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX (it also has a microphone in it, but that's not important for this discussion). It can go at any of 5 resolutions from 160x120 to 640x480. 160x120 using I420 color compression generates 28,800 bytes per frame. Considering that it spits out very many of such frames in one second, you'd have to do a lot of juggling. I suppose you can take one frame and shut it off for a bit, but... Anyway, you do have a lot of color data you can't display. If you're just looking for objects, go ahead and spend an hour or two doing so -- even decently fast computers (~1.5 GHz) that have multimedia extensions JUST FOR THIS PURPOSE take a while to do analasys like this -- so yeah, it'll be a very slow robot.

I think I can safely say webcams won't be doing much anytime soon (unless you're just snapping a picture and storing it to either the calc's mem or a mass storage device. I can feasibly see that).

Microphones, well same thing about analyzing the sound -- of course just not as long. It'd still have to lag a few seconds while it analyzes it.

And I just now realize I was somehow looking at Timendus's post as well, but I spent so much time typing that runon paragraph it's staying.

External display? Hmm... *probably* would use too much bandwidth, not to mention a whole bunch of calculating for what to put on it.

Here's an idea! Hook your 84+ up to a computer and, hey, now it can play CounterStrike!

I really do want to go get one to play with this stuff, but as it is I'm barely able to afford college this semester so I really can't...

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 3:03 pm

Andy wrote:External display? Hmm... *probably* would use too much bandwidth, not to mention a whole bunch of calculating for what to put on it.

Someone has already done it.

Either there is some special hardware involved or Ti may have code crammed in with display code. Either way the presenter cost to much for me to buy willingly.

.....

I truly doubt that there is a need for a printer driver, if you happen to have a printer on hand theres a pretty good chance that you got the PC with you. Now perhaps a method to make the 84 act like a usb flash drive(that even possible?) would be nice but even then I don't see a big need for it.

Wireless....I don't think I've ever link with another calc for any reason other than transfer games. That just seems like a gimmick to me.

threefingeredguy · Post by **threefingeredguy** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 3:14 pm

Wirelss could be used for maximum cheating you fool. CalcSys's chat program??? Even a basic chat program would work. You could also play BombKids, ZTris, SPACESTATON PHETA 2, from across the room!. It would be marvelous. Plus with silent linking and careful aim or a clever program, think of the viruses that would spread. Remember bluetooth cellphone viruses infecting entire airports? That kind of magnitude would be fun

.

Post by **benryves** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 3:19 pm

Jim e wrote:
Andy wrote:External display? Hmm... *probably* would use too much bandwidth, not to mention a whole bunch of calculating for what to put on it.
Someone has already done it.
Either there is some special hardware involved or Ti may have code crammed in with display code. Either way the presenter cost to much for me to buy willingly. .....

If it's anything like the one for the 83, then there's a chuffing huge socket under the screen that it plugs into. (Special calc as well as special external LCD).

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 3:28 pm

Actually it plugs right into the usb port. Atached to the adaptor is a chuffing huge socket forthe viewscreen and what not.

What's chuffing mean?

Post by **benryves** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 3:30 pm

Jim e wrote:What's chuffing mean?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chuffing

Andy_J · Post by **Andy_J** » Thu 18 Aug, 2005 5:14 pm

oh ble jim, i thought you meant those USB vga adapter/card thingies... but the viewscreen doesn't count really, cuz... idk it just doesnt, for reasons i just forgot.

3fg, well, you can't silent link or really ANY of that via wireless usb, the program providing wireless has to provide the application-level stuff as well, unless you make it as a driver, but you'd still need specialized programs, which would have to be on the destination calcs already.

Seriously, though, this is more a novelty than a practicality...

threefingeredguy · Post by **threefingeredguy** » Fri 19 Aug, 2005 1:35 am

Andy: Oh, nuts. *gets rid of his virus*. I actually wrote a virus that when coupled with StartUp cant be removed unless you clear ROM (not RAM, ROM). It fills up the screen with blue fluid. YOU MUST take your batteries out to get rid of it, it wont turn off otherwise. Then when you replace the batteries, the RAM doesnt clear and StartUp runs the virus again. I ruined my teachers calculator

, but luckily TI came by the next day ( I live about 1/4th of a mile from the headquarters) and gave her a new one and some other people won some. They also gave away 84silver.com shirts and my friend was wearing it today. I told him I've been to that site and he told me that was sad

.

Back on topic now kids.