make a .8xk file?

TI-82, TI-83 (plus, silver..), TI-84, TI-85 and TI-86
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rbmj
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Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:47 pm

make a .8xk file?

Post by rbmj »

Is it possible to make a .8xk file with z88dk? I know i can make .8xp, but i'm not sure otherwise. Thanks!
stefano
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Post by stefano »

I don't think so, or to be honest, it is the first time I here this extension.
What is it for ? Which target calculator you do have in mind ?
rbmj
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Post by rbmj »

.8xp is a program, while .8xk is an application. It's all ti83p/84

I've always thought it looked more professional for a program to be in the apps menu. When i see something in the programs menu i think hacked-together TI-BASIC. Ugh. The syntax is aweful and there's no way to get a string literal without doing crappy stuff through LinReg and Equ->String().
jdstroy
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Post by jdstroy »

A bit late to the party here...

I believe it is possible to make an 8xk from z88dk, but you'd need to take the output of the assembler and feed it into appsign from TI to digitally sign the program (after converting it to hex, iirc). Furthermore, you cannot call to shell routines (e.g. select the startup library for native TIOS, e.g. 9 or 10), you cannot use self-modifying code, and your scratch space must be relocated to RAM only (e.g. you might run into trouble with routines that write to C-variables that are memory locations in the program; static vars, I think?). An app runs directly in flash, and takes up an integral number of flash memory pages (e.g. every flash app takes up a multiple of 16384 bytes at a time, plus the VAT entry size). You also need to add a header to your asm program (e.g. for the name and other things that TIOS needs to know). Finally, the multipage apps need a bit of extra work ("branch table entries" according to the sdk; I never wrote a multipage app, so you're on your own here).

Page 121 of the ti83psdk (http://education.ti.com/downloads/guide ... pguide.pdf) lists out everything that's different.

Since the z80 ti's are constrained memory devices, in general, it's a Bad Idea to turn 8xp asm programs into 8xk apps (apps taking up whole pages). But sometimes, it's desirable to have apps, especially for big programs, or programs that install hooks. Additionally, 8xk's have support from the calculator to enforce copy protection (e.g. digital signatures for non-freeware apps).

Might I suggest downloading the TI SDK to use with z88dk to develop apps?

(lol, nice scribble art on the wiki; who did that, by the way?)
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