Those are some good points that reflect my own experience. My first language was TI-BASIC, self-taught during high school study halls on the TI-83 Plus. My second language was Z80 assembly on that calculator. I think the self contained nature of the programming and running environment in a portable device, along with limited features and power, is really what got me started.
And it ended up helping me choose Computer Science as my college degree and put me on the career path I'm on now. TI has its faults, but I'll be ever thankful for their roll in my job satisfaction.
Same here. I was programming "demos" with animations in class all the time. They were running really slow, so I even learned a bit of z80 assembler, and had to learn how to solder together diode + resitor to create a SERIAL cable to transfer programs (didn't have the budget to buy an official one). Good times.
I’ve recently been thinking of learning assembly, but I’m struggling to find resources. For those of us who don’t have an old TI calculator lying around, can you recommend anything?
(Honestly, what everyone’s saying about programming with the TI calculators sounds amazing… I wasn’t alive then, and it’s a pity I never got to have that experience.)
First off I want to note TI calculators are not anything special when it comes to assembler. It was more of a limitation of the platform (in order to get games that are fast, you had to write them in assembler because TI-BASIC was too slow).
Note also that assembly code is different for each CPU architecture. The TI calculator I had contained a z80 chip, so it was z80 assembler (Motorola assembler?). The x86 assembly language is a more complicated, but probably more useful to learn (can look at any program on your computer). Or maybe you could learn ARM assembly (e.g. this would allow you to write simple programs that blink lights on a Raspberri PI).
> [...] can you recommend anything?
I looked through my bookmarks and found some links you might want to check out:
2. The assembler project part of nand2tetris computing-from-first-principles course: https://www.nand2tetris.org/project04
I haven't gone thought this course, but I've heard many things about it.
> First off I want to note TI calculators are not anything special when it comes to assembler. It was more of a limitation of the platform (in order to get games that are fast, you had to write them in assembler because TI-BASIC was too slow).
> Note also that assembly code is different for each CPU architecture. The TI calculator I had contained a z80 chip, so it was z80 assembler (Motorola assembler?). The x86 assembly language is a more complicated, but probably more useful to learn (can look at any program on your computer). Or maybe you could learn ARM assembly (e.g. this would allow you to write simple programs that blink lights on a Raspberri PI).
Sure, I understand all this already. I suspect that x86 assembly might be most useful for me, but I also have access to an Arduino, so I might try writing assembly for that as well.
> 2. The assembler project part of nand2tetris computing-from-first-principles course: https://www.nand2tetris.org/project04 I haven't gone thought this course, but I've heard many things about it.
As it happens, I’ve already gone through nand2tetris. I can’t say it helped me that much: sure, it’s good for getting a conceptual understanding of how assembly works generally, but it doesn’t give me any idea about e.g. how to write a program for x86 or ARM.
Of course I understand TI calculators don’t run x86 assembly! That’s not what I want to do — I just want to get a better understanding of assembly, preferably x86 so I can run it on my own Windows computer. (I don’t even have a TI calculator.)
Ha, just making sure :P I do have one suggestion, though: try WSL, because it will give you access to Linux, where you can actually write programs entirely in assembly because the system call API is stable. The ABI matches with macOS's too, which is another plus.
Learn Assembly in 28 Days[0] is what I remember going through when I first started messing with assembly on TI calculators. Another great resource is Cemetech[1], a forum/community dedicated to (mostly TI) graphing calculators and hacking/programming them.
Ahh maybe I should read the entire comment before replying :P. Sorry. I only saw the wanting to learn assembly and asking for resources. Honestly though I think this could still be a great way to get into assembly. There's a myriad of emulators out there for TI calculators, so you could still use the links I posted.
> Honestly though I think this could still be a great way to get into assembly. There's a myriad of emulators out there for TI calculators, so you could still use the links I posted.
Good points — I’ll save those articles for future reference. Thanks for the recommendations!
And it ended up helping me choose Computer Science as my college degree and put me on the career path I'm on now. TI has its faults, but I'll be ever thankful for their roll in my job satisfaction.