Texas Instruments TI 92 II

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The excellent tool for symbolic calculations!

What's in the box? Development tools My programs

A true computer with a wide screen, the different parts of the system can communicate easely (symbolic calculus, graphs and geometry, programmation).

La super graphique:
  1. Processor Motorola MC68000 clocked at 10MHz
  2. 128kb RAM and 256kb ROM
  3. Programmation Basic-like, assembler possible
  4. Serial link for PC connection, link between two calculators
  5. A powerful tool for symbolic calculation adapted from DERIVE. Exact calculation, natural display, integration, equation solver, etc...
  6. Grapher 2D, parametric, polar, 3D. Here you can see some curves from the family x^2-k*x+1 with four values of k. (If k is an array, then the grapher automatically displays a curve for each value from the array!)
  7. A good tool adapted from CabriGéomètre, user friendly and powerful. Here you can find the construction of a parabola (trace of the point M when H moves on the horizontal line).
Bad point:
Hard to read on the screen of the TI 92! Each pixel has a shadow on the background and if you don't look at the screen with the same direction as the light, you see eveything in double! This photo was hard to take, but looking at the bottom right corner you'll read "{ -1" with a shadow for each character.
Developpement tools:

TI Graph Link

What follows concerns the TI Graph Link V2.0 (may, 4th 1999). I had to search the jungle of the TI Education site to get it! The fact is that every new machine now uses TI Connect. This last can be used with the TI 92 but lacks some features on the old machine. Here is a link to get the frech version of TI Graph Link 92.


TI Graph Link with the Program editor
 The tool TI Graph Link allows you to manage the files of your calculator from a PC. Its main features are:
  • save/restore the TI memory
  • send/receive files individually
  • write TI Basic program on the PC
  • screen capture saved as an image file on the PC
  • CBL extension manager, but I don't own one...
When you want to capture the screen, this dialog box opens and allows you to get the screen and save it. Thre file formats are available:TIF, EPS ou PIC.
A screen capture with the Geometry tool running.
Sending or receiving files is really easy. A fileselector opens (you can see it in "receive mode"). There are three zones:
  1. the folders, only one for now "MAIN"
  2. the content of the selected folder
  3. the selected files for transfert
Then, you just have to clic on OK to send/receive the selected files.

The assembler with Fargo

1. Loading Fargo into the TI-92

The TI-92 and TI-92II can't run assembly programs written for the MC68000. They need the FARGO extension to do it and act as a TI-92+. The Fargo pack, version 2, can be dwonloaded HERE. To install FARGO on the calculator, I used TI Graph link. This requiered three steps:
  • First, I backup the whole memory and save it as BACKUP.92B in the BIN folder of FARGO
  • Then, with a command line from this BIN folder, I type PUTFARGO BACKUP.92B that modifies the backup adding FARGO.
  • Finally, I restore the memory with this modified version of BACKUP.92B.
You'll have to send the standard libraries because a lot of programs use them. To do this, send every *.92P file from the folder asm/lib/ of FARGO.

If you want to test your installation, send every *.92P file from the folder prgm of FARGO: they are demonstration programs.

To ensure that FARGO is correctly installed

type and this combination, available at every time, enters FBrowser, the program launcher for Fargo.
Note that every program comes with a short description.


2. Setting up the tools on the PC side

Once again I use Qedit with its editable menus. This way I get:
  • A complete text editor for the source code
  • Menu entries to assemble and link
  • Another link to TI Graph Link to send the program to the TI
I'm going to detail the steps to create the "Fargo Assembler" menu you can see on the next capture to obtain an easy-to-use programming environment without command lines.

Here is the tree of my own installation. I will create three BAT files in the Qedit folder and then modify its menu settings.
The file ASSEMBLE.BAT
Turns the source file into an object file 
@echo off
c:\travail\ti92\fargo\a68k\a68k %1 -g -t -ic:\travail\ti92\fargo\asm\include
pause
The file LINK.BAT
Turns the object file into a 92P program 
@echo off
c:\travail\ti92\fargo\bin\flinker -vo %1.92p %1.o
del %1.o>nul
pause
The file MAKE.BAT
The two previous steps but at once 
@echo off
if not exist %1.asm goto error0
call c:\travail\ti92\fargo\qedit\assemble.bat %1.asm
echo ÿ
if not exist %1.o goto error1
c:\travail\ti92\fargo\bin\flinker -vo %1.92p %1.o
del %1.o>nul
goto end
:error0
echo File not found: %1.asm
goto end
:error1
echo There were errors.
:end
pause
Finally, into Qedit, Edit/Edit menus, I insert the following paragraph: 
[Fargo Assembler]
Assemble to Obj,C:\TRAVAIL\TI92\FARGO\QEDIT\assemble.bat {a}
Link Obj to 92p,C:\TRAVAIL\TI92\FARGO\QEDIT\link.bat {b}
Make all,C:\TRAVAIL\TI92\FARGO\QEDIT\make.bat {b}
Send to TI-92,C:\Program Files\TI Education\TI-Graph Link 92 - Français\Wlink92.exe
We are now ready to write our first assembly program!

3. How to write an assembly program

The source edition


Run Qedit and type the program as it appears next on the right. The important points:
  • Always include the libraries first, here I need FLIB
  • Then, the external references: "_main" is the starting program address and "_comment" the address of the comment string that will appear in Fargo.
  • The program must end with a RTS
This program is easy: two loops from 0 to 239 and from 0 to 127 to parse the whole screen. Then, for each coordinate pair, there's a call to flib::pixel_chg to reverse the pixel color. At the end, the whole screen should appear in reverse video.

Save this program as "revscr.asm". ATTENTION: the whole pathname for this file should not contain long names. Else, nor the assembler neither the linker will find your file! Just use the old MS-DOS filenames with 8 chars max.
Tired or in a hurry?
Download the files!


The assembly


Then from the menu "Fargo Assembler", clic on "Assemble to Obj" and you'll get the following DOS window:
The linker


To complete the work, run the linker from the menu "Fargo Assembler" choice "Link Obj to 92p", and you'll get this:



Your file REVSCR.92P is ready to be used by the calculator!


The execution


With TI Graph Link, send the program REVSCR.92P to the calculator. Then run Fargo (with Shift ON) and you'll find, normally in the default folder "main", the following list where revscr appears:
Run revscr, you'll see the screen reversing from right to left until you get this image:



It would be faster to reverse the screen memory with NOT, but I wanted to show the library usage.