Bell release v0.2!

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Thu 09 Nov, 2006 9:11 pm

Bell release v0.2
(Binary data Exchange Link Library)

http://bell.timendus.com/

Timendus wrote:My point of view here is that I want things to work, be simple and preferably be fast. Or at least fast enough to be useful.

I think I'm going to have to make two versions of the library (and the protocol); one that is optimized for simple data transfer between two(!) calculators, mainly aimed at game programmers who need speed and don't care about the theoretical possibilities of networking [...]

I want to make a simple, small and fast library using some implementation of TI's protocol that can exchange bytes, data blocks or strings fast from one calculator to another to accomodate game programmers [...] it uses known technology in a welltried manner and only the wrapping is more shiny than TI's version (it should be more easy to use, better documented, and perhaps a tad faster, but that's about it). I hope to be able to release that rather soon.

So, it's here

Download latest version - Thursday 16th of november 2006
(Library and manual only, no demo software included)

Things it can do

Set up a connection between two calculators, uniquely identifying the two and checking if they are running the same program
Swap data without the user having to worry about who goes first
Send data from one calculator to another in the form of a byte, a block of data (max 255 bytes), a large block of data (max 65535 bytes) or a zero terminated string
Autodetect the calculator model you're compiling for (currently Ti-82, Ti-83 and Ti-83+ series are supported and tested for, Ti-84 "should work" but I don't have a rom image for it) and configure it's hardware control routines to match at compile time
Alert the coder about errors by always returning a status flag in z (nz is always an indication that an error has occured)
Be compiled with your requirements only (by commenting what you don't need)
Use a user-definable timeout duration (you can even turn the feature off)
Output the selected hardware type (or an error if it wasn't able to detect it) and the number of bytes that the library takes up in your program to the compiler output

Things it can't do yet

Compile for Ti-85/Ti-86 or other calculator models
Detect a connection "on the fly" (without having to wait at the "waiting for opponent" screen) - though I'm not sure if anyone would want/use this
Detect data transfer corruption (I plan to implement a simple parity bit check, but I doubt it's neccessary..)
Detect if the other calculator wants to send anything before going to receive mode (I'm not sure how to implement this yet)

Things it will never be able to do

Connect more than two calculators; that's what the CLAP project is for, this project didn't get it's own name for no reason

Why the name?

Alexander Graham Bell may not have been the inventor of the first telephone, but it was Bell who made it popular and who, through his company, made it possible for ordinary people to make phonecalls. That's pretty much what this library should do; it's not really anything new, nothing that hasn't been done before, but it should make a different kind of electronic communication more popular and much easier to use.

Apart from that, the word "Bell" nicely fits with the word "Clap"

Documentation

The source code is heavily documented, and you can find the manual here or in the download zip file.

Speed

The speed of a transfer routine is always difficult to determine, so I'm not even going to try to be accurate, but the routines take approximately 7 and a half seconds to transfer 10000 bytes from one calculator to another in PTI. Seeing that PTI nicely reports the calculators to be running at 100%, I guess I could base my calculations on that. 7.5 seconds for 10KB makes 1.33 kB/s or 10.66 kbps. According to this website that pretty much rivals the Ti-OS routines, or it may even be a slight bit faster. Anyway, I think the demo speaks for itself.

The connect routine is a bit slow though; as you may be able to see in the second screenshot it takes almost a third of a second to conclude that the programs aren't compatible. It's slowness is probably also the main reason why I can't reduce the timeout any further in the demo in the first screenshot (which is why it takes a while before the "connection lost" message appears). It's not really a problem as you only have to go through that routine once, but it would be nice if I could improve it.

kv83 · Post by **kv83** » Thu 09 Nov, 2006 9:23 pm

wow nice. I'll make good use of it, in my next project

KermMartian · Post by **KermMartian** » Fri 10 Nov, 2006 12:14 am

Cool deal, sounds like a helpful tool for the people who have been laboring over MV's Tachyon forever.

Post by **tr1p1ea** » Fri 10 Nov, 2006 2:38 am

Awesome! I am adefinately going to do some testing with this. I need some nice, easy and quick linking routines ... Bell just might be the answer

.

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Fri 10 Nov, 2006 9:33 am

kv83 wrote:I'll make good use of it, in my next project

tr1p1ea wrote:I am adefinately going to do some testing with this

Please do give me some feedback on your findings!

I've been thinking about speeding it up a bit further, and I think it might be possible to get just a little bit more out of it. I will probably not have time to work on it untill somewhere next week, so you'll have to do with this version for the time being

kv83 · Post by **kv83** » Fri 10 Nov, 2006 11:50 am

Yeah, with me... could be some time. I have to rewrite EM first :'(

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Fri 10 Nov, 2006 11:55 am

No problem

What projects are you (both) planning to use this for?

kv83 · Post by **kv83** » Fri 10 Nov, 2006 12:12 pm

It's a secret... A SECRET *evil laughter*

... I don't know yet

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Mon 13 Nov, 2006 12:04 am

Improvements soon to be released in v0.2:

Send or receive zero terminated strings
Swap datablocks or strings (only single bytes can be swapped at the moment)
Compile for Ti-82

Known bugs (in both versions):

"Connection lost" sometimes results in a total crash (RAM clear) on Ti-83+ (not on Ti-83). Reason unknown.

kv83 · Post by **kv83** » Mon 13 Nov, 2006 11:32 am

I thought of a nice little project for me, making good use of this

It's a topdown "shoter" with support for 4 players (2 "real" player, 2 CPU's)

Different modes, like detahmatch, capture the flag and hunter

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Mon 13 Nov, 2006 12:18 pm

Sounds cool

Version 0.2 is going to take a while longer than anticipated, because my (300GB) harddrive seems te have crashed this night, taking the last version of Bell in it's grave...

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Mon 13 Nov, 2006 12:32 pm

Timendus wrote:Version 0.2 is going to take a while longer than anticipated, because my (300GB) harddrive seems te have crashed this night, taking the last version of Bell in it's grave...

We never learn the lesson, right?

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Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Mon 13 Nov, 2006 1:34 pm

@CoBB (crosspost)

I wrote the string and swap routines yesterday evening in one go, and they all worked... No debugging for hours, no stupid typos, no mistaking z flags for nz flags, it just all worked. I was amazed, and I thought "it can't be this simple"... Turns out I was right...

If I hadn't left my PC on during the night because I was too lazy to add a few websites as bookmarks it would probably still boot... *sigh*

I hope I can get it to boot when I get back home this afternoon, not that it has all too much irretrieveable data on it (some photos, some logs, some work that's mostly backed up, and Bell), but I don't have my trusted desktop environment to work on now, and my laptop is slooow...

@CompWiz: I don't want to send all my data over the Internet, I don't want other people to have access to all my data, if I wanted to backup my data automatically bad enough, I'd do it myself to my own server over an encrypted connection. But as I said; data-wise not much is lost. It's mostly that I can't use my computer now, and I've probably lost my carefully set up preferences for dozens of programs...

kv83 · Post by **kv83** » Mon 13 Nov, 2006 5:07 pm

How many bytes is the compiled version of Bell?