C SDK and Libraries for the TI84+CE/TI8PCE

b/Softwares publicado por u/MateoConLechuga January 29, 2016, 02:59:00 AM

C SDK and Libraries for the TI84+CE/TI8PCE

Hello all! I'm happy to announce that version 1.0 of the C development SDK for the TI84+CE and TI83PCE is available on GitHub now. Rather than going through this crazy process, you can now simply download the zip file, copy the folder to somewhere on your computer, set up your environment variables specific to your OS, and then use make in order to build your programs locally. Of course, it uses the ZDS compiler which is only natively supported on Windows, but works perfectly under Wine. If you wish to avoid even more hassle and you have access to the onlines, you can also use TI Planet's C Project Builder, available here: https://tiplanet.org/pb/ (You will need an account if you don't have one)

Now, ignoring all the craziness that happened with licenses, some standard CE C libraries have also been released. Currently there are 2; one for graphics and one for interfacing with the keypad. Included in each you will also find example programs in C using these libraries, and ASM source code licensed under the BSD 2 Clause. These libraries outperform their direct C equivalent as they are written in assembly and can behave however they want. Since they are still in version 1.0, there's a long way to go. But since things are easy to add to now, hopefully I can get some help

Anywho, here are the links so you can build your own programs, along with a screenshot using the C graphics library just for fun.

C Development SDK: https://github.com/CE-Programming/toolchain/releases
C Standard Libraries: https://github.com/CE-Programming/libraries/releases
LibLoad, for use with C libraries: https://github.com/CE-Programming/libload/releases

Enjoy everyone, and please post any pull requests/bug reports and comments you may have! This has been a long ride

Note:To install libraries so you can use them in development, simply read the readme provided on GitHub or in the zip. It's really easy.

Inicia sesión o crea una cuenta para dejar un comentario

u/Dream of Omnimaga January 29, 2016, 06:48:42 AM

Wow, great job Mateo for making it so much easier for CE C programmers. Also those libraries seems very handy. Just in September, there were concerns on CodeWalrus about whether TI-84+CE development was already dead or not and when people were questioned about their lack of interest towards the CE, they cited the lack of emulation and a proper C IDE. I assume that the lack of libraries did not help too. Now this is all coming along together, so hopefully this helps convincing more people to make C programs for this calculator.

u/MateoConLechuga January 29, 2016, 08:25:32 AM

I hope so, now that emulation, libraries, and a native C SDK are available, along with a handy online C compiler. The only real issue now is documentation; I'm slowly slogging my way through that, and luckily that is a little easier than other things

Since the build system just uses a makefile, you can use whatever C IDE you choose. I prefer a combination of Notepad++ along with a simple "make" shell command, but that's just me. It's easily configurable to however you want to set it up.

Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 08:27:58 AM by MateoConLechuga

u/Dream of Omnimaga January 29, 2016, 08:56:23 AM

That's good. I wasn't sure if the calculator was documented yet, but I think I recall the CSE got documented very fast on WikiTI when it came out, right?

u/MateoConLechuga January 29, 2016, 06:33:14 PM

Fairly fast, but kind of stopped now. The CE was way more documented than the CSE within the first couple of months. USB documentation is still a work in progress, but I imagine it can be eventually figured out.

u/Snektron February 15, 2016, 10:19:40 PM

Whenever im trying to compile the demo0 project, ez80link throws a syntax error. Any ideas?
EDITL nevermind, it was ZDS being picky about path names

Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 10:35:10 PM by Cumred_Snektron

u/Adriweb February 15, 2016, 10:52:31 PM

Ah yeah, because it's quite ancient, you'll want to avoid long paths, and ones with symbols/accents etc. :/

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 16, 2016, 05:16:00 AM

>choking on long path names
>2000 release date

I did not know that Year 2000 was actually 1989.

I wonder if eventually the current ez80 tools will move away from ZDS?

u/Lionel Debroux February 16, 2016, 06:36:09 AM

Moving away from ZDS could happen if an alternative, presumably LLVM-based toolchain raises up to a comparable level of functionality and stability. Clang's C/C++ front-end is so much superior to ZDS's frontend that it isn't funny.
There have been past attempts to build a Z80 target for LLVM+Clang, outside and inside the TI community. jacobly recently started working on another Z80 / eZ80 target for LLVM/Clang.

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 16, 2016, 08:41:34 AM

Hm I see. I guess that perhaps we shouldn't count on it, then, because many projects never get completed, so for now it's better to continue using ZDS until someone else comes with an alternative, rather than waiting until then. But a better alternative would definitively not hurt.

u/Adriweb February 16, 2016, 09:05:03 AM

The C calling convention has to be the same anyway, for compatibility reasons, so yeah, go ahead and use the ZDS toolchain for now, since that's the only choice anyway, but when the LLVM-based tools are ready and sufficiently usable, it's going to be a huge leap forward.

u/MateoConLechuga March 19, 2016, 12:00:30 AM

LLVM would be immensely nice, but there is nothing particularly wrong with ZDS, and it works great as well.

Yet another update to the toolchain and libraries! This one fixes some minor bugs in the fileio library, and changes the makefiles a bit to be easier to use. It is important as always that you have the latest release of the toolchain and libraries in order to make sure nothing goes wrong

When including libraries, it is now more practical to do it like this:

Code Select

#include <lib/ce/graphc.h>

This just makes it easier for IDEs to automatically include libraries for you.

Anyways, here are the usual links for getting the new libraries and toolchain: (Note that now the header files are included in the release, rather than in the source

)

CE C Development SDK

CE C Libraries

Anyway, one thing I find interesting is that more people aren't taking advantage of the amazing capabilities that C offers

A CAS system could be built, awesome GUIs, games, etc. I realize it is still early, but C opens up so many possibilities, it isn't even funny. Platformers, scrolling shoot-em-ups, educational programs such as a chemical equation balancers and so much more. I look forward to it

Last Edit: March 19, 2016, 12:09:45 AM by MateoConLechuga

u/Dream of Omnimaga March 19, 2016, 06:42:07 AM

Lol I noticed you used the Cemetech download icons as post template even though the files are on Github

And nice update Mateo. I think the reason why people are not taking advantage that C offers is because most are new to 84+CE C programming or C in general. Also, I think the main issue right now is that on each calc site there isn't a page that explains how to get started with C and what tools/tutorials can be handy. Right now CW now has a page linking to various emulators, but it's still in early stages. Also, the old Omnimaga user base (prior the 2014 upgrade), as well as CW user base tend to be more versed into higher level languages such as TI-BASIC and find C extremely difficult. I would definitively like to see new softwares for the 84+CE from our resident C programmers, though.

One suggestion I have for the C libraries by the way would be to edit the readme and descriptions to encourage programmers to warn users in their readme/file descriptions that their games and programs require the libraries. I noticed in the past that various authors fail to do that and when people play their games they report missing dependency issues because they were unaware that there were dependencies. Another thing that might be nice is if @Travis on Ticalc.org required TI-84+CE C programs that are dependent on your libraries to be put in a different folder such as "TI-84 Plus CE assembly games (C libraries)" or a checkbox on the file upload form asking the author if C libraries are required and if they are, then add a link to the Github page.

u/MateoConLechuga March 21, 2016, 12:19:32 AM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 19, 2016, 06:42:07 AMOne suggestion I have for the C libraries by the way would be to edit the readme and descriptions to encourage programmers to warn users in their readme/file descriptions that their games and programs require the libraries.

Cool; nice idea, added that in this release

Well, I've been rather busy as spring break winds down, so here is update 3.0 which includes a lot of major changes:

Download links:
C SDK: Download
C Libraries: Download

Also, the library setup is a little different, just copy everything in the dev folder in the library download to CEDev\lib\ce folder and it will be fine

Anyways, enjoy! This is a pretty big update; I think I'll focus more on fixing a few library bugs, but the toolchain setup is pretty much perfect now