CodeWalrus

Development => Calculators => Calculator News, Coding, Help & Talk => Topic started by: Dream of Omnimaga on January 14, 2017, 03:04:54 PM

Title: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on January 14, 2017, 03:04:54 PM
Casio has recently announced that a new Casio PRIZM calculator, under the fx-CG50 model number, will be released this Spring. Amidst speculation from community members that this calculator will ditch support for third-party ASM and C development (which was unnoficial to begin with on the fx-CG10/20, but Casio left the door open on those calculators, while locking it down on the fx-CP400) and that the BASIC language will not see any significant speed improvements, here are some of the announced improvements:

-New case design, more rectangular than round
-3D graphing with many features, including zooming and rotating
-Improved catalog so that users can use commands more easily

(https://i.imgur.com/d2IHyb7l.jpg)

It is unknown if the CPU will be the same as the PRIZM or if it will be upgraded to the one used in the ClassPad II, which is twice faster.  The memory capacities and whether the 2.5mm jack remains or not are also still unknown. The MSRP will be around $100 USD and many features from those calculators, such as picture plotting (graphing lines over a real life photo) will return in the new calculator. Let's hope that the door will still be open for third-party add-in development and that the BASIC language speed during drawing will be improved (for example, the 58 MHz fx-CG10/20 took 300 milliseconds to draw a pixel or horizontal line, while the 15 MHz TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition took about 10).

Source: Casio (http://www.casio.com/news/detail/casio-raises-bar-for-education-tools-with-new-prizm-graphing-calculator) (via TI-Planet (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=19471))
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Adriweb on January 14, 2017, 07:43:35 PM
What about the "more squared" design:

(https://i.imgur.com/WcPfPj8.png)

(Photoshop troll, yep :P)

(rehosted on imgur just in case)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Yuki on January 15, 2017, 01:29:55 AM
Ooooh, interesting. Wonder if it will be as interesting as the fx-CG10.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on January 15, 2017, 04:19:15 PM
Petite précision : niveau "source via", une mention plus exacte serait plutôt TI-Planet et non Cemetech :
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19471&p=211619#p211619

Après avoir publié cet article, j'ai prévenu en privé cfxm qui m'a répondu et a ensuite annoncé sur Cemetech où je ne poste pas, ainsi que sur Casiopeia.
Pour ma part, dans le même temps je me suis chargé de l'annonce sur Planete Casio, ainsi que du message privé à l'attention de l'administration Planete Casio.

Une simple vérification des horaires après correction du décalage horaire le confirmera.


Il n'est pas du tout dans la politique de Cemetech de créditer correctement ses sources, ce que je déplore d'ailleurs fortement.
Il faut donc toujours rester très méfiant quand on trouve une info sur ce site, tant que sa politique ne changera pas.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on January 15, 2017, 04:48:43 PM
Merci de la précision. Je n'avais pas remarqué que j'étais déconnecté sur TI-Planet donc l'heure était GMT+1 sur la news et j'ai donc cru que l'info venait de TeamFX. C'est maintenant corrigé. :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on January 15, 2017, 04:50:16 PM
Oh thank you very much for such a prompt edit, DJ Omnimaga. :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Adriweb on January 19, 2017, 07:36:27 PM
This was a troll photoshop image I made, if you hadn't noticed (and a made up release date, although who knows...)

Here's a real image from a german press release (http://www.casio-schulrechner.de/de/presse/detail/2414/) that amazonka found (https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=255391#255391).

(https://i.imgur.com/d2IHyb7l.jpg)

HD: https://i.imgur.com/d2IHyb7.jpg
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on January 20, 2017, 12:30:38 AM
Yeah I figured this might have been fake due to how it looked like the PRIZM's original design on a CE. It looked kinda cool but I hoped that the curved keys would be gone.

I like the actual design you just posted now, but not as much as the CE. This reminds me the ClassPad II. Also on Cemetech there are many screenshots posted and what scares me are the new menu icons, which look identical to the ClassPad II. I definitively think that add-in support is gone and that we'll be stuck with TI-BASIC until someone finds a way to hack the calc (hoping it can be done on a software level and without third-party hardware, unlike the Casio CFX-9850 series.)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on February 16, 2017, 06:46:02 PM
First pictures of a real fx-CG50 are now online :
https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/album.php?album_id=504

It's the sample available at the Casio Europe stand in Didacta-Stuttgart (Germany).

Real add-in support seems to have been kept, seeing the .g3a file sizes in the storage memory.

Please share before tomorrow the tests you'd like to be performed (provided they can be performed in public - dismantling or linking to your own calculator is probably not ok).
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on February 16, 2017, 07:20:03 PM
If you have access to the calculator, then I am curious about how the BASIC drawing commands compare to their fx-CG20 counterparts (a non-overclocked fx-CG20, that is) :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on February 16, 2017, 07:30:03 PM
Do you have a sample drawing program ?
I have no fx-CG20 by hand.

There is one on the stand, but I'd like to avoid monopolizing 2 calculators at the same time. :P
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Yuki on February 16, 2017, 09:37:22 PM
Maybe a simple program that counts from 1 to 1000, easy to write. Compare each calc one after the other with timer in hand. Maybe also a set-pixel loop too, would work.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on February 17, 2017, 12:23:25 PM
Anybody with an fx-CG10 or fx-CG20 ?

Could you check how much time is needed for the following program to complete, please ?
1→N
2→U
While U≥0.0001
   (NU+1)/(2(N+1))→U
   N+1→N
End
N

I think it should take less than a minute.

I should then be able to tell you about the fx-CG50 cpu and performances. :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on February 17, 2017, 12:40:46 PM
@critor, I hope it's not too late and that you'll see this in time.

I understand that transferring files to/from the calculator is out of the scope of possible things.

I'd like to know if add-in languages (like Russian on the fx-CG 20) are still supported, but without a preloaded g3l I guess we have no way of knowing without transferring files. Can you at least tell us the list of built-in languages and respective versions (shown in the Version screen of the System app)?

Besides BASIC speed which can be useful for guessing the CPU speed, the only other thing I can think of that could be tested (given that you already entered the diagnostic mode) is checking if the Test Mode still exists / can be entered with the following key combination:
Press [OPTN]+[EXP]+[AC/ON]
Quickly type 5963
(I think this has to be done starting with the calc in standby state)

If yes, I'd love to see a picture of it - even if just to confirm it's the same as on the fx-CG 20.

Oh and another thing: in eActivity, when editing a document, does the STRIP option still appear on the function key menu, and does opening it show strips for all built-in apps and also Geometry, Pict Plot (and maybe 3D graphing?), etc.?

Finally, could you maybe ask someone where the Probability Sim add-in went and whether it will be making a come back? (maybe someone already deleted it from the demo calc, heh heh)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on February 17, 2017, 04:31:48 PM
Here's about the built-in languages :
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=504&image_id=7838) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=504&image_id=7838)
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=504&image_id=7837) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=504&image_id=7837)
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=504&image_id=7840) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=504&image_id=7840)
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=504&image_id=7839) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=504&image_id=7839)

Speed seems to be significantly better than on the fx-CG20 (+45% to +65%).

But although the fx-CG50 is faster, like the fx-CG20 and fx-CP400 its Basic interpreter is still abnormally slow compared to other models.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on February 17, 2017, 04:36:12 PM
They probably increased the CPU clock to be the same as on the fx-CP 400. Since the OS apparently didn't change much, I suppose the speed feels like a fx-CG 20 when overclocked. The Main Menu probably has a much smaller delay when opening...

The message versions are already at 03.00 which confirms that will probably be the OS version at launch.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on February 17, 2017, 05:25:20 PM
For the drawing commands (I sadly won't have a piece of code in time for you to test) I think that while the CPU might play a big factor, the screen drivers combined by how the Basic interpreter renders the drawing commands might also play a big factor. So if the screen is easier to access, I think the speed increase might be more significant.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on February 17, 2017, 05:58:42 PM
On the fx-CG 20, the screen could be updated much, much faster than BASIC could. The bottleneck is on the BASIC interpreter and/or the graph system it uses for all drawing commands, not the screen.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on February 18, 2017, 12:05:51 AM
That's a shame then. That said, I remember that many PRIZM games didn't seem to run at higher than 20 FPS even when rudimentary.

In any case I made my mind and probably won't buy the calc unless I can get it at heavy discount *cough*or if I suddenly make a massive amount of music sales*cough*. Besides, my PRIZM Basic programs (if I ever make any) will probably run on the 50 anyway
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on February 18, 2017, 12:11:40 AM
Yeah, I won't buy it either: I barely use my fx-CG 20 now (in fact, its batteries are empty right now and I keep forgetting to charge them), and it doesn't look like I'll have much use for a graphic calculator in the next few years. I have way more pressing stuff to spend my money with...
But if I was going into high school now and the fx-CG 50 was available and custom native code was not crippled, I'd go for it without any doubt. Because if it was locked down, then I'd go for anything else, perhaps even an older generation fx-CG 20 or something from TI.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on February 18, 2017, 12:16:24 AM
Yeah I personally lost interest a bit in programming except maybe a bit on the CE lately, and if you visited Omnimaga from 2010 to 2013 you probably noticed that my breaks from programming can last extreme amounts of time. If I still had as much money allocated to hobbies as I did back then, though, I would get the calc in a heartbeat for collector purposes.

Also, the color 84+ models are pretty much the only viable calculators for pure color graphical BASIC programming. While the CSE and CE BASIC interpreters are slow, it's nothing compared to the Casio PRIZM and especially the ClassPad. On top of that, we got libs/enhancers.

The HP Prime is an even better BASIC alternative, but I kinda lost interest when it took HP 3 years to fix most fatal bugs.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on February 19, 2017, 09:43:00 PM
Ok, I've now released the fx-CG50 performances test :
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=19630&p=213488#p213488


To sum up things :

- the fx-CG50 is around 2 times faster than the fx-CG10/20

- Basic programs are 2 times faster, but this is still abnormally slow (non-graphic fx-CG10/20 Basic programs weren't faster than fx-7400GII/9750GII/9860GII SH4 programs - so when dealing with the much bigger screen buffer, of course...) - lets hope this is going to be enough to fix graphic programs speed

- so Casio probably didn't improve the software (and especially the Basic interpreter)

- but did switch from the fx-CG10/20 SH4 32-bits 58MHz CPU to the 116MHz one from the fx-CP400
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on February 20, 2017, 04:27:45 PM
Yeah, as I suspected, this is basically a fx-CG20 with a faster CPU. As for the speed, I bet it will be on-par with the TI-84 Plus for homescreen commands, while drawing commands will now be on-par with the Classpad II.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on March 18, 2017, 06:39:12 PM
fx-CG50 add-ins, and even the new 3D one, are apparently perfectly compatible with older fx-CG20 models ! :)
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&image_id=7803) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?image_id=7803)
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&image_id=8164) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?image_id=8164)
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&image_id=8165) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?image_id=8165)

It doesn't prove that older fx-CG20 add-ins are going to work on the newer fx-CG50, but in my opinion Casio didn't change much with add-ins support.
I think that fx-CG20 add-ins are going to work, and this is a huge opportunity for us.
Remember all the huge things which have been achieved for the fx-CG20 : Doom port, OpenJazz JackRabbit port, eigenMath port, JPEG/PNG image reader, C SDK...
We'll be able to reuse them with the fx-CG50 and to create even huger things ! :D


Test source : https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19749&p=214470#p214470
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on March 18, 2017, 07:00:13 PM
 :w00t:

The only thing that looks really out of place is the icons, and that's only because of the white background. The key labels are not in the same place, as we had already discussed at Cemetech, but that's not too bad.
Let's hope for a 03.00 OS for the fx-CG 10/20 with a white main menu (or some sort of clever runtime icon patching to get rid of the white background).

How thoroughly have you tested the add-ins? I'm still kind of surprised they don't depend on any new syscalls, and that the syscall table has not gone through major changes.

Also, given that, as far as I could understand, the add-ins were transferred from a prototype fx-CG 50, it's quite possible that once the add-ins are released (on the internet and on consumer units), they will have added some checks to prevent running them on earlier models. Not that such checks would be hard to patch out...
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on March 18, 2017, 07:30:34 PM
Quote from: gbl08ma on March 18, 2017, 07:00:13 PMHow thoroughly have you tested the add-ins?
I could graph in 3D and rotate the 3D frame without any error or crash. :)

Except that rotating the 3D frame was much slower on the fx-CG20 than on the fx-CG50.
Not twice slower, but really many times slower.

On the Stuttgart fx-CG50 prototype I got this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8A4FnASNpA

On my fx-CG20 with a plane too (but not exactly the same), after each 3D frame refresh the calculator was freezing for a second with the busy pointer in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Also note that the tested 3D app was borrowed on a different prototype (Graph 90+E in Paris) with an older OS version (2.92 instead of 2.94). So the 3D app may be a different and older version too...
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on March 18, 2017, 07:49:25 PM
Actually the speedup can be explained by the different CPU clocks alone, even though it's possible they did further optimizations to the 3D app. This is because not only the CPU clock is higher, but the peripheral bus is probably also clocked higher, making it possible to achieve higher frame rates. There's also the possibility that finally Bdisp_PutDisp_DD is not blocking (although that would break compatibility with older add-ins, that could modify the VRAM while the DMA transfer is in progress...), but I find this very unlikely. It's also possible that different planes produce wildly different rendering times (it would be strange, but seeing the bugs related to calculation time on the latest Classpad...).
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on March 18, 2017, 08:28:37 PM
Wow, if old add-ins still work that's good news. It reminds me of the TI-83+=> 84+ transition in 2004 where almost everything worked on both models. I am curious about what will be the differences that could cause compatibility problems.

About the slowdown, could they have finally fixed screen access speed issues? I hope to see some Basic drawing improvements
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on March 28, 2017, 08:37:38 AM
New fx-CG50 add-ins are now available, and can still be installed and tested on fx-CG10/20. :)
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=19780

(https://i.imgur.com/gxnlMDJ.png)

For fx-CG10/20 testers, note that :
- the new add-ins use new icons designed for a main menu with a white theme, and won't look very nice with your black theme
- Convert 1.01 is not going to work properly
- 3D Graph 1.00 is going to be slow...
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on March 28, 2017, 06:32:23 PM
Nice to see such compatibility. I should check if I wrote a news about the compatibility because I doubt I did (I was busy x.x). It's definitively good news for the Casio community and a big contrast with the SH3->SH4 switch a few years ago where many add-ins broke.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on March 28, 2017, 07:37:09 PM
The big question remains, which is whether add-ins for the older model will work on the new one.

At this rate, the only way they wouldn't be compatible, was if Casio purposefully did something to block them.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on March 28, 2017, 08:18:43 PM
Yeah I am guessing it will be trial and error. Hopefully there is no way for old add-ins and vice-versa to damage the new or old calc, though. I'M also still curious about what the price will be in Canada. The fx-CG10 price has remained frozen at $130 over here ever since it came out, no matter the US<>CAD currency exchange rate. The non-CE TI models also did the same from 2011 to 2015, approximately, and the fact the CE price was adjusted based on exchange rate and the fact that the older Casio models did the same makes me think the same thing will happen with the fx-CG50, which means that if the MSRP is $130 USD and not $100 USD, it will probably retail for $175 over here.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on March 29, 2017, 12:06:24 AM
Quote from: gbl08ma on March 28, 2017, 07:37:09 PM
The big question remains, which is whether add-ins for the older model will work on the new one.

According to the new fx-CG50 Manager 3.00 emulator which has just been released, it works :
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=19783&p=214806#p214806

(https://i.imgur.com/roxUKU5.png)

Or at least, the add-ins which used to work with the old fx-CG10/20 Manager 2.xx still work with the new fx-CG50 Manager 3.00, among them Eigenmath and CGDoom :
(https://i.imgur.com/LPf8w2B.png) (https://i.imgur.com/2OnYFlb.png)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on March 29, 2017, 06:22:13 AM
Have you tested the compatibility of this new emulator? I remember that some add-ins had speed issues in the old fx-CG manager (I think something about timers behaving the other way around, such as short timer delays lasting much longer while long timer delays last much shorter, but I could be wrong since it has been half a decade since I read about it) and IIRC some also had key input problems.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on March 29, 2017, 08:59:01 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 29, 2017, 06:22:13 AM
Have you tested the compatibility of this new emulator? I remember that some add-ins had speed issues in the old fx-CG manager (I think something about timers behaving the other way around, such as short timer delays lasting much longer while long timer delays last much shorter, but I could be wrong since it has been half a decade since I read about it) and IIRC some also had key input problems.

The emulator appears to be based on the exact same technology as the one for the previous model, so it's unlikely any of that has changed.
The OS and official add-ins don't need simultaneous key presses to work, so they don't need to emulate that.
The CPU clocks and timing appear to be as poorly emulated as on the previous model.

The fx-CG 50 really is just a fx-CG 20 with a different shell, higher CPU clock, French model and exam diode, and a OS that has a different UI theme. Plus a few new add-ins, which as we are finding out, work on the previous models as well.

Utilities seems to work fine: https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=258204#258204

The only really incompatible thing so far is the looks of the main menu icons. Probably that can only be solved by providing two g3a, for each model, that while otherwise identical, have different icons. Everything else can be solved using model/OS detection inside the add-ins.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on March 29, 2017, 04:08:40 PM
It would be interesting to see a comparison of the 2010-13 fx-CG10/20 PCB's, the 2014-17 one and the fx-CG50 side by side.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on April 18, 2017, 08:57:49 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 29, 2017, 04:08:40 PM
It would be interesting to see a comparison of the 2010-13 fx-CG10/20 PCB's, the 2014-17 one and the fx-CG50 side by side.

Here you are :

fx-CG20 V04
(http://i.imgur.com/ZqDBDTv.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/ZqDBDTv.jpg)

Graph 90+E
(https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=514&image_id=8282) (https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=514&image_id=8282)
(for the fx-CG50, just remove the exam LED beside the mini-USB port in the bottom right-hand corner, and switch the position of one port Q resistor at the right of the ASIC)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on April 18, 2017, 09:01:25 PM
Only one big capacitor used... my Prizm which has undergone repair came back with none... the earlier Prizm models had two. Interesting.

Also, RAM that's not an epoxy blob. This might make unbricking a bit easier, given the right tools...
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on April 18, 2017, 11:20:14 PM
Interesting. In any case, I hope those new calcs won't have defect problems like the old Prizm calcs. Seriously, my calc was overclocked before and I bet that if I start using it again, it could die at any moment.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on April 19, 2017, 07:40:05 PM
@gbl08ma Do you have the possibility to check the eigenmath app, please ?

I'm using the http://tny.im/dl/casioprizm/eigenmath.g3a download link.


It seems to be working but I'm still running into minor problems on the Graph 90+E, when I use the SHIFT+MENU menu.

The display doesn't get cleaned correctly in several situations :
(http://i.imgur.com/AAz7WOW.png) (http://i.imgur.com/Rea4oj5.png)

And in the list-menus, the last selected item gets erased in black instead of white, making it invisible :
(http://i.imgur.com/hwpLorz.png) (http://i.imgur.com/zkrSMiS.png)

Wide fractions aren't drawn correctly :
(http://i.imgur.com/EZYiMAq.png)

And display cleaning problems too, when the history scrolls up :
(http://i.imgur.com/EMmLd6c.png)

No such problems with the same file sent to my fx-CG20.


Thank you very much for reading. :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on April 21, 2017, 05:35:21 PM
@critor, I can't reproduce the problem on Casio's fx-CG 50 emulator.

It seems the drawRectangle function stopped working properly on real hardware:
https://github.com/gbl08ma/eigenmath/blob/master/src/graphicsProvider.cpp#L289

I guess it's probably due to the hardcoded VRAM address. But since it works correctly on the emulator, they must have changed it only on real hardware or it might be specific to the French version.
This means that not all fx-CG10/20 add-ins will be fully compatible with the Graph 90+E and maybe the fx-CG50. Add-ins will only be fully compatible if they are checking the VRAM address through the proper syscall, GetVRAMAddress. Utilities does not exhibit this problem, because it uses this syscall. See the following issue and associated commit:
https://github.com/gbl08ma/utilities/issues/28


Eigenmath has the VRAM address hardcoded, so it is not fully compatible.

Unfortunately, even though the solution is simple, I don't have the means to fix this now and I don't foresee having them any time soon. I no longer have a development environment set up. With a bit of luck, and if you nag me about this by then, I'll have some days in mid-summer I can allocate to this.
My add-ins are only supported on the fx-CG 10/20 platform until further notice.

Since I don't have much time right now, I hope someone spreads the news about the possible VRAM address incompatibility in other forums.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on April 22, 2017, 08:05:24 AM
Thanks for your quick reply anyway. :)

Yes, we know about the VRAM incompatibilities and have started communicating about it and fixing things :
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=19815
http://www.casiopeia.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1783#p14816
https://codewalr.us/index.php?topic=2015.0
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on April 22, 2017, 05:30:52 PM
Good luck gbl08ma and critor
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: p2 on May 15, 2017, 12:10:00 PM
the two capacitors look like they're connecte in parallel.
what's the difference between using one or two except saving a tiny amount of money in manufacturing...?
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 04, 2017, 11:30:01 AM
@gbl08ma  It's now summer, and back to school in some weeks. :)
May we have some fx-CG50/Graph 90+E compatible update of your eigenmath app ?

I'll gladly test it on real hardware if it can help.

Thanks for reading. :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 11:46:44 AM
I am aware of that and I've seen the issue that was opened in the Eigenmath GitHub (https://github.com/gbl08ma/eigenmath/issues/6).

I have also identified the problem, in fact I did so some months ago. The VRAM address is hardcoded. Utilities doesn't have this problem, as it reads the VRAM address using the appropriate syscall when it starts, caching that address to RAM and using it for custom VRAM manipulation functions from then on. Eigenmath uses a hardcoded address for these custom functions, which is why on some calculators the graphics are glitched.
It appears that the Graph 90+E uses a different VRAM address than the fx-CG50 (since on the emulator for the latter at least, the add-in doesn't show any problems).

I also know how to fix this in terms of code, it's a matter of reusing the solution from Utilities.
Now, you may think that the problem is basically solved as the steps that are usually 90% of the work are done (identifying the problem and drafting a solution). The problem is that I no longer have a Prizm development environment on any of my machines. And it's a bit tricky to set one up.
First, I need a custom mkg3a (because the add-in has a eActivity strip, and vanilla mkg3a doesn't have support for that) and I'm not sure I still have the source code to that custom mkg3a anywhere.
Second, I need to use my fork of libfxcg (this is not very hard).
Third, if I recall correctly there are some library shenanigans regarding the C math functions. I'm not sure but I think Eigenmath was the add-in where I had to use a library frankensteined from miniSDK or whatever that terrible libfxcg alternative was called.
Finally, ideally I'd like to use the same 4.x GCC I used before, as a long long time ago I tried GCC 5 and 6 without success. It appears that at the time these versions of GCC had some problem emitting code for the Prizm SH4 CPU architecture. It's probably fixed by now, or the problem might be in my code, or in libfxcg, after all. But I don't want to waste time figuring that out.

I'll see if I can boot the Linux install I supposedly still have on the hard disk I used to have on my laptop. That's supposedly where I had the environment I used to develop Eigenmath and Utilities.
This will take a while though, and there's a chance I'll have to fight bitrot, and that's why I haven't started yet. Furthermore, fixing Eigenmath is obviously not the only thing I had postponed to the summer and there are more urgent things in my to-do list.

@critor, how do you prefer I send you builds for testing?
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 04, 2017, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 11:46:44 AMIt appears that the Graph 90+E uses a different VRAM address than the fx-CG50 (since on the emulator for the latter at least, the add-in doesn't show any problems).
I'd advise you not to trust the Casio emulator. Even in Graph 90+E mode apps are working, although most of them don't on real hardware.

From what I could read on http://www.casiopeia.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1783 , the real fx-CG50 is sharing the same problem as the real Graph 90+E.

Quote from: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 11:46:44 AM@critor, how do you prefer I send you builds for testing?
Email to [email protected] would be better - since I might not get the PM notification.


Thank you very much for your very prompt reply. :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 11:58:13 AM
That's sad. It means the emulator OS diverges from the OS running on real hardware even more than with the fx-CG10/20. It's probably a good time for someone to resume working on a QEMU-based emulator, or to figure out a way to run OS images on the official emulator that are closer to what runs on real hardware. Fortunately I don't intend to develop anything else for this platform other than one-off fixes like this.

Can you check if my image viewer still runs fine on real hardware for both JPEG and PNG?
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 04, 2017, 12:10:19 PM
Quote from: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 11:58:13 AMCan you check if my image viewer still runs fine on real hardware for both JPEG and PNG?
JPEG/PNG images seem to be working perfectly. The scrolling is so fast compared to the fx-CG10/20 ! :D

The file browser though has the same kind of graphic glitches as eigenmath :
(http://i.imgur.com/b7x0ymF.png)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 12:11:50 PM
OK, fortunately if I manage to fix Eigenmath I can also fix the Image Viewer very easily. It's just a matter of getting to my old development environment, if it still works. Perhaps later today I'll be able to do that.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 07:31:11 PM
@critor, I sent you test builds. If everything works fine then the only thing left to do is to tag the git commit, rebuild them so the version strings gets updated, and upload them to the various places on the internet where I originally uploaded them.

Icons will stay in the fx-CG 10/20 style for now. I hope someone works on a solution to automatically and safely swap the icon on the first run, so separate builds for different models are not needed. Given the trouble previous Prizm OS versions had when writing or otherwise manipulating g3a files from add-ins, I'm not hopeful...
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 04, 2017, 07:38:09 PM
Ok, thanks you very much. :)

Are they supposed to still work on the fx-CG10/20 ?
(I don't have it anymore)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 07:39:58 PM
Yes, they will work on previous versions as well. But you don't need to test that, as the emulator does an OK job and I already checked.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 04, 2017, 07:41:00 PM
So it's great if the same build is working on all models - thanks ! :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on July 04, 2017, 07:58:43 PM
A community emulator would definitively be a must for adequate C development on this calculator series, even though the audience would be smaller. The official emulator costs $200 anyway. (almost twice as much as the original PRIZM calculator)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 04, 2017, 08:03:24 PM
Not $200, worse.
It's a subscription now - you have to go on paying forever :P
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on July 04, 2017, 08:04:34 PM
Wait, so it's now like Xbox Live, PS Plus, World of Warcraft and MS Office?
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 08:11:41 PM
And unfortunately, unlike earlier versions of the fx-CG10/20 manager, I have not been made aware of any registry hacks for the newer emulators.

If you use PlayOnLinux you can always create a new virtual disk (Wine config) every time the 90-day trials expire, though. This is what I used to do...
For Windows I'm not sure if there's any sandboxing tool that will allow for something like that.

I think in the longer run it'd be best to get an open-source alternative going on so we can stop pretending we didn't read EULAs.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 04, 2017, 11:34:37 PM
critor says the image viewer appears to be fixed, but Eigenmath is crashing and causing system instability.

In the interest of the public, here's a copy of the email I just sent him, as it summarizes the situation very well.

----
I have bad news. I can't reproduce the problem on the previous model, neither on the emulator nor on real hardware, and I can't do it on the emulator for the new models, no matter which mode is selected.

I also have little idea of what could be causing the crashes and general instability. Only thing that comes to mind is if they changed the RAM areas in size or the way they are supposed to be initialized. But that doesn't explain how other add-ins run so well.

It could also have something to do with one user timer that the add-in installs (and carefully uninstalls when it's supposed to), to be able to abort computations. Maybe tomorrow I'll send you a build that doesn't install any timers, to see if that fixes the problem. Maybe Casio broke the timer API, or the timer system entirely, with the new OS. I don't think it's a functionality that official add-ins use.

I might give this problem some more hours of attention tomorrow, but failing the timer idea, I'm afraid this can't be fixed unless the OS change that causes the problems is identified. I don't own one of these calculators and since the emulator is significantly different, it makes everything very hard. I have also lost all familiarity with the code of my Eigenmath port, which was never exactly a miracle of software engineering to begin with. In fact, I lost familiarity with lots of quirks of the Casio syscalls. So things take a lot of time and effort as I need to restudy everything.

Is the PC and target always the same?

At least the image viewer appears to be fixed.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: gbl08ma on July 08, 2017, 06:37:55 PM
An update to the image viewer has been released. The g3a works on all Prizm models.

For Eigenmath, I don't know what to do and I've given up for now.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: AmazoNKA on July 11, 2017, 05:36:09 AM
Thanks for all the updates and trying. I started and then postponed fixing a few of my addins for fx-cg 50 too. Emulator cost is one problem I'm facing and lack of experience with linux prevents me from being able to restart the demo - in fact on some of the machines where previous fx-cg 20 demo expired I wasn't able to start new fx-cg 50 emulated not even once
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 11, 2017, 07:12:19 AM
You don't really need the new fx-CG50 emulator, as it is not accurate and just seems to emulate the older fx-CG20 hardware/behaviour.
Most addins work on the new emulator although they don't on real hardware.

If you've got something to test, just share it. I'll gladly do it. :)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: AmazoNKA on July 11, 2017, 11:45:47 AM
Makes sense that it is pretty useless for most add-ins as long as I have old emulator working - i only needed it for a few addins of mine like pokemon+ because it uses native os main menu background which now completely changed between fx-cg20 and new fx-cg50 versions becoming white vs black and so on. The other add-in i relied on black main menu background was my g-plus addin which was putting current time in the status bar of main menu and also launching most built in apps with the time display in the status bar. I made some progress fixxing everything for the new hardware but will have to work more on them to finish.

If compiling of gbl08ma's eigenmath becomes possible on windows i will definitely try and debug it for fx-cg50 - maybe one of the online compiling tools can be tweaked to compile such projects to make further development of gbl08ma's add-ins possible on any pc be it linux or windows - I know nothing about linux and will be greatful if someone makes those addins compilable on Windows please
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on July 11, 2017, 06:58:43 PM
The fx-CG50 / Graph 90+E does crash with both release and development builds of eigenmath.

It's reproducible :
- no USB connection
- reset eigenmath (delete folder - empty history)
- reset calculator
- run eigenmath
- type (x+1)^2 with the [x²] key
- type (x-1)^3

With the development build, the PC/target values are always the same :
(http://i.imgur.com/f3FePgwm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/f3FePgw.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/EBw7CpDm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/EBw7CpD.jpg)

With the release build, the values are slightly different but it still crashes :
(http://i.imgur.com/FSFGqmFm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/FSFGqmF.jpg)
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 21, 2017, 11:20:39 AM
So the fx-CG50 is $150 in Canada, $20 more than the fx-CG10, which remained frozen at $130 ever since it came out no matter the exchange rate. This seems on-par with the MSRP of USD$130 announced at some places before and it's actually cheaper than the monochrome TI-84+.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Jemons on August 25, 2017, 12:50:37 AM
I am surprised the price is so expensive...
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 26, 2017, 02:10:28 PM
Calzcs are overpriced compared to their hardware specs.
Title: Re: A new Casio PRIZM calculator: The fx-CG50
Post by: critor on September 26, 2017, 07:11:01 PM
@AmazoNKA and @gbl08ma
Now that OS 3.10 update is available for both fx-CG50 an fx-CG10/20, is it possible to check back what's wrong with Eigenmath and other add-ins ?

Thanks.