Re: OT ti emulator Message #3 Posted by Marc Ferrer (France) on 22 May 2012, 4:16 p.m., in response to message #1 by Olivier De Smet
Hello,
It's been some years since the last time I used my TI-57 but I very clearly remember its behaviour.
When doing a computation, the display blanks (duration ranges from a few milliseconds to almost 1 second for trigonometrics).
When running a program, the display acts as if you were keying in manually as fast as the calculator could allow you, pressing a key as soon as the previous result is displayed.
Visually, you got a briefly flashing display of each step result : numbers appear during not more than 80 mS (estimated).
I even remember a "program backup" apparatus described in the French magazine "L'ordinateur Individuel" built around an EPROM, a crude clock and counters, hard wired to the TI-57 keyboard ! In some way, it replaced the little built-in user-program memory and sequencer to extend capacity. Those were the days...
It also makes me think that a "fast" mode (à la ZX 81) could have been implemented by TI engineers : blank display during program execution, and a flashing dot to tell the user that something's going on.
Hugh : the screen saver you talk about was TI-30's, its goal was to save battery life since that model used non rechargeable 9V batteries (unless you bought the optional battery pack).
Hoping it well help,
Regards,
Marc
Edited: 22 May 2012, 4:33 p.m. after one or more responses were posted
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