TI-Chess Team HQ

Thanx to kaizer_911 and Mikael P. Johansson for beta testing the new version. The new version is available now here: TI-Con45 v1.20 for TI89/92p (45kB)

What software can you expect in the new year? At least this one:

TICT-Explorer (screenshot of v0.29)

features of the TICT-Explorer:

NOSTUB program (runs on any AMS version without any kernel installed)
full C source code release
all usual file functions like copy/move/rename/delete/archive/lock etc.
starts exe-packed programs directly (no launchers necessary)
viewer for PIC variables integrated
support for ebooks
support for quill files (don't ask now what these are, you will see it soon)
variables for which no viewer exists will be displayed in an hexcode viewer

If nothing goes wrong beta tests can be expected in the middle or the end of January.

At least 7 hours and 30 minutes here in Austria till the new Millennium starts. It's time to "run" for some drinks ;-)

posted by KiLLRoY on 31/12/2000 16:30 (MET)

I have finished a new version of TI-Con45 (1.20) and I'll need some help testing it. You can download the release candidate of the new version at: http://tict.ticalc.org/downloads/ticon45rc.zip.
If you want to participate in the beta tests just download the new version and post your comments to the "TI-Con45 1.20 Beta Test" thread in forum Bug Reports on our Messageboard (the included readme.txt file explains what's new)

BTW: Puzzlize 1.00 for the TI89/92p is now available here!

And last, but not least: A Happy New Year in Previous to Everyone Out There !!

posted by KiLLRoY on 27/12/2000 20:00 (MET)

Due to the fact that I have reached Place 25 of the Most Downloaded Authors at ticalc.org now, I want to thank everyone who helped me in the last 10 months to let this project grow and prosper.

Especially my thanxs belong to:

Marcos Lopez (marcos.lopez@wol.es) for his neverending critics and his graphics works
Zeljko Juric (zjuric@utic.net.ba) for our very interesting mail conversations and, of course, for all his work related to the TIs

And last, but not least, the TI-Chess Beta Testers:

Sorrily I cannot list here everyone who helped me in the last months. My address book contains now at least 300 new entries related to my TI-works and this is, of course, too much for a news article.

I have to apologize for projects which gets started with some of you, but never gets finished. Additionally I have to apologize for help which I have promised (especially to Zeljko Juric and Sebastian Reichelt), but which I have never fulfilled due to a lack of time or due to some periods of illness this year.
I'll hope that I can coordinate my time better in the future.

The rough statistics below are not just plain numbers. I interpret them as mission to proceed ...

Foundation of TiCT (TI-Chess Team)	21/02/2000 (10 Months ago)
Hits on Website	22.903
Released Files at ticalc.org	100 (Place 9 on ticalc.org)
Cumulated Downloads at ticalc.org	104.974 (Place 25 on ticalc.org)
Downloads of TI-Chess (TI89 version)	21.681 (Place 37 on ticalc.org)
Reads on MessageBoard	10.836 (since 15/09/2000)
Posts on MessageBoard	618 (since 15/09/2000)

posted by KiLLRoY on 19/12/2000 01:10 (MET)

I think I haven't to say more about the following updates:

... and additionally to the updates there is a new TICT game available now:

TI-TiltMaze v1.00 for TI89/TI92plus
use the cursor keys to position the both balls on both destination fields (41 levels)

posted by KiLLRoY on 10/12/2000 18:52 (MET)

The problem with the option dialog should be solved now. IT looks like that the OPTIMIZE_ROM_CALLS feature doesn't work in all cases with interrupt routines. You can download the release candidate 3 of TI-Chess here.
If you want to participate in the beta tests just download the new version and post your comments to the "TI-Chess 3.05 Beta Test" thread in forum Bug Reports on our Messageboard.

posted by KiLLRoY on 06/12/2000 00:30 (MET)

Since today the release candidate for TI-Chess 3.05 is available here (no longer available -> see below).
Version 3.05 is just a maintenance version which incorporates some new features of the TIGCC standard library 2.22 like the interrupt handler support and better grayscales. Now keys F2 and F3 can be used to adjust the screen refresh rate to supress flickers.
If you want to participate in the beta tests just download the new version and post your comments to the "TI-Chess 3.05 Beta Test" thread in forum Bug Reports on our Messageboard.
Especially I'm very interested if the F2/F3 screen refresh rate adjustment will work correctly on HW2 calculators.

UPDATE (03/12/2000): Due to a very strange problem with the option menu I have to stop the beta tests for a while until I have figured out what's going on (the program crashes randomly).

Thanx to all who have tried the new version especially Kaizer_911 and LimitedWisdom.

posted by KiLLRoY on 02/12/2000 16:40 (MET)

Some users have reported "random" crashes using TI-Minesweeper 1.00 on AMS 2.05. After many hours of boring and indeed unsuccessful sourcecode reviews Lafazar informed me that TI-Minesweeper is reproducable crashing after Queue (a very good looking Tetris clone) was started once before.
This was the breakthrough: if you know your "enemy", it will be easy to beat him! The final discovery and bugfix was done in about 15 minutes ....

UPDATE (02/12/2000): Joey Merfalen informed me that TI-Minesweeper v1.10 states it's version number incorrectly as v1.07. You can get the corrected version of TI-Minesweeper (v1.11) here.

posted by KiLLRoY on 29/11/2000 23:59 (MET)

Sorrily I received not enough crazy pictures to release TI-Puzzlize this week. So I will re-open the contest again: new contributions are accepted till December 5th.

For everyone who had asked how to make sprites usable with TIGCC I wrote a tiny tool called TTTiler (6kB) and a corresponding tutorial: S1P4: Generating Sprites for C-Projects.

posted by KiLLRoY on 26/11/2000 23:30 (MET)

This is a screenshot of the game I did today.It's called TI-Puzzlize and will be released in a few days.

But before I can release this game I need some crazy (!!) pictures for it. The game itself should contain around 10 different motives. So if you want to contribute some pics just send them to me. I will select the "top 10" I'll get for the final release.
The pictures shouldn't be too large, because I have to render them down to 160x96 pixels with 4 grays.

Contributions are accepted till Saturday 23:00 (MET). Looking forward to see your crazy pics ;-)

posted by KiLLRoY on 16/11/2000 21:30 (MET)

TI-Mahjongg Solitaire (TI89/TI92p)

TI-Memory (TI89/TI92p)

TI-Mahjongg Solitaire is a clone of the well-known Mahjongg Solitaire game, where you have to clean the complete board by removing pairs of matching stones. If someone haven't played this game on the PC, press F5 within the game to get some instructions.

I don't think I have to say much about TI-Memory. Almost everyone should have played this game in his early childhood.

As you can see from the screenshots TI-Memory is an act of self-piracy. It build upon the source codes of TI-Mahjongg. PLEASE don't report this violent act to the anti-piracy agency!
I ensure you that I won't do this again (... too often).

Both games can be downloaded from our Projects Page.

As usual both games are NOSTUB programs (you need no kernel installed), they will run with every AMS or HW version and contain their complete documented TIGCC source code.

posted by KiLLRoY on 14/11/2000 20:00 (MET)

Here is the next brainbuster!
It's called TI-LIDS (Leckfett'n-Is-Des-Schwa).

If you wonder what the subtitle means: it's a styrian slang phrase I have used heavily during my tries to solve it ... ;-)

... and always remember: if it's too hard, you are too weak ;-)

You can fetch the new game here.

posted by KiLLRoY on 05/11/2000 19:00 (MET)

The first release is again a tutorial (S1P3). It focus on TSR programming with the TIGCC environment and show how to write a TSR clock which outputs its time constantly on the statusline.

The tutorial can be downloaded here.

The second release is another demo program for people who wants to learn coding. This program demonstrates a nice screen content shuffle effect.

You can find this demo program (shuffle) on our project page.

posted by KiLLRoY on 04/11/2000 21:00 (MET)

This tutorial will show how to utilize an own interrupt handler as clock.

The tutorial can be downloaded here.

posted by KiLLRoY on 01/11/2000 11:55 (MET)

You can download a script which builds the TIGCC Tools Suite v 0.95 on Linux Systems here.

NOTE: The Linux support is in complete alpha state, so I need your help!

The script itself should work fine, but I cannot say if the tools work correctly on a Linux system.
Please report your experience to the Linux Thread in the TIGCC Tools Suite Forum on the MessageBoard.
Thanx in previous!!

posted by KiLLRoY on 03/10/2000 11:00 (MET)

You can download the TIGCC Tools Suite v 0.95 here.

Beside the programmer's tools and their source codes it contains:

the ebook reader
the ebook generator
and a tool to generate and use packed NOSTUB executables

Sorrily I haven't had enough time to complete the documentation. But it shouldn't be too complicated to figure out how to use the tools.
If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, please use the TIGCC Tools Suite Forum on our Message Board.

Zeljko Juric has updated his great TIGCC Tools Library to version 2.2. Beside some excellent extensions to the library itself the documentation is heavily extended. A MUST-DOWNLOAD for every TIGCC programmer!
You can fetch the new version here.

posted by KiLLRoY on 01/10/2000 18:15 (MET)

Due to some requests I have added a C Programming Tutorials and FAQs section to the Links Page.
The links will focus on C programming in general (not C programming for the TI calcs), but should be useful for beginners to learn the language itself.

posted by KiLLRoY on 20/09/2000 12:30 (MET)

If you examine the shortcuts bar at the top you can find now the new entry Message Board which will bring you (nomen omen est) to the TICT HQ message board. There you can post comments, suggestions, bug reports or read answers to "common" topics.

If the board becomes useful depends completely on you!

Additionally there is a forum for common TIGCC programming related topics on the message board.
Everyone is invited to post questions about TIGCC programming as well as answering posted questions. Hopefully we will see Zeljko Juric or other experts on this board in the future.

posted by KiLLRoY on 15/09/2000 13:01 (MET)

For those who are waiting for new eBooks: You can download now the first 4 volumes of the Edgar Allan Poe Series in the eBook Section.
These books will also be available from ticalc.org within the next few days.

posted by KiLLRoY on 14/09/2000 20:15 (MET)

First of all: A big "thanx" to the responsible guys at ticalc.org for the hosting especially Magnus Hagander for the fast setup!

Due to many problems with our previous webspace provider (XOOM.com) the TI-Chess Team HeadQuarters Site has moved to ticalc.org.
Almost all links on these pages are rewritten to point now to the file archives of ticalc.org, because it doesn't make any sense to mirror the files on the same machine.
New files will be released as separate links until they get available via the ticalc.org's file archives. So for new TICT stuff these pages are still the better choice.

The new subdomain name is: http://tict.ticalc.org

The redirector addresses (http://go.to/tict and http://go.to/tichess) will point now to the new pages.

Maybe there are some problems during the first days, but the routing should be stable afterwards.

posted by KiLLRoY on 13/09/2000 18:30 (MET)

Netscape Users may have noticed black text on black background almost through the complete site yesterday.
This was caused, because the Netscape Browser (like the MS Browser) is still not fully compatible with CSS1 (Cascading Style Sheets Level 1). The Attributes of some elements are not correctly inherited from their parents. Its fixed now.

posted by KiLLRoY on 13/09/2000 08:35 (MET)

The new Site Design which was started a month ago is finished now.
For those who are waiting for new eBooks: an E.A Poe Series is in preparation. I have just to "beta-read" the books first. The new books will be released in about three days.
I'm very sorry if you have had problems connecting to the TICT HQ in the past few weeks. The persistent problems with the webspace provider (xoom.com) forces me to move the TICT HQ to a different hosting service. The new service will be hopefully better.
And last but not least: the schedule of the TIGCC Tools Suite is fixed for October 1st, 2000.
Beyond other tools the TIGCC Tools Suite will contain the eBook Generator as well as a tutorial how to make eBooks.

posted by KiLLRoY on 12/09/2000 23:45 (MET)

If you will look at the navigation bar above there is now an entry called eBooks. There you will find the newest eBooks for your TI89 and TI92p calculator as well as the fitting reader software. If you are not comfortable until now with the TICT eBooks Series just download the TICT eBook Reader v1.50 and read the included readme.html file for more details.
I hope you enjoy the new books.

posted by KiLLRoY on 23/08/2000 01:10 (MET)

TI changed something in AMS 2.04/2.05 which prevents programs to run correctly if they are not archived. In TI-Chess v3.01 the start start utility gots modified to force the user to archive the program if AMS 2.04/2.05 is detected.
Additionally a FAQ (frequently asked questions) is added to the distribution to keep my indbox free ;-)
The FAQ can be viewed here.
I'm really sorry for the crashes!!!

posted by KiLLRoY on 18/08/2000

The TIGCC Tools Suite is a collection of some tools to support programmers who are using the TIGCC development environment for TI89 and TI92.
The actual contents should just be seen as "preview" of the upcoming full-blown 1.00 release which will contain not just tools for the PC, but on-calc tools, too. The contents of the 1.00 release is not completely fixed until now, but the major feature will be the support of the ExePack Technology, which brings WinZip-like compression ratios to your calculator.
The release of v1.00 is scheduled for 01/10/2000.

Anyone who has ideas which tools should be in the Suite or who wants to contribute a tool to the Suite can contact me at:
thomas.nussbaumer@gmx.net

Additionally two tutorial series are started. Part I of Series 1 can be downloaded here.
The tutorial series will be extended from time to time and will focus on topics I'll get the most requests.

posted by KiLLRoY on 13/08/2000

Its time to start a new chapter on Chess Playing on the TI89 and TI92+. We proudly present TI-Chess v3.00 which comes with a complete revised user interface.

What's new in TI-Chess v3.00?

two real grayscale piecesets
pulldown menus
chess clocks
info boards
"export to textvariable" feature
handling of APD (auto-power-down after 5 minutes)
improved key layout
Boss Key (F5) for quick exit
Improved Grayscales on almost all TI89 HW2 (not all, sorry)
No screen distortion anymore by [DIAMOND] and similar keys
... and many minor improvements I don't remember now ...

Here are some screenshots of the TI89 version:

I hope you enjoy it!

posted by KiLLRoY on 11/08/2000