TI-84+CSE: Good or Bad for the Community?

KermMartian · Site Admin (Posts: 64051)

That seems like a pretty provocative thing to say: you'll "tolerate" a group of programmers because they choose to program on a particular device? If there was a such thing as platformism or bigotry related to calculators, that would be about as close as I think you could get. You haven't really said why the unchanged RAM and CPU makes you dislike the programmers rather than the device containing that hardware.

KermMartian · Site Admin (Posts: 64051)

Indeed, I understood that, and I'm questioning why that would even be an issue. I could understand if you chose to not "hate" the device but only dislike its capabilities, but I wouldn't expect anyone to hate programmers for a device because they liked that device. You might feel they had poor judgment, and explain in clear words what part of their choices you disagreed with, or you might feel that they could try a different approach, but even not hating them sounds like a biased reaction to me.

KermMartian · Site Admin (Posts: 64051)

You originally asserted on Omnimaga that the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition was "over-rated junk", but you never made it clear what made it over-rated: ie, what people thought was good about it that was not in fact good. You offered a comparison to the Casio Prizm, which does indeed have objectively better specifications but a smaller base of users and existing code. I am trying to understand that assertion in the context or whether you're criticizing the calculator itself or the programmers who plan to use it.

KermMartian · Site Admin (Posts: 64051)

OK, I get that, and I'm asking you to provide details of what exactly you're criticizing about the calculator. I can't criticize the iPad and then when asked what's wrong with it say "the Nexus 7 is better". That's not a criticism, that's a subjective assertion. What exactly are you criticizing about the TI-84+CSE, and why?

Alex · Official Cemetech Site Manager (Posts: 7912)

I'm giving the TI Color programmers the utmost respect; It's not going to be easy programming a fast color game from the looks of it.

flyingfisch · Minor Calculator Deity (Posts: 1088)

You originally asserted on Omnimaga that the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition was "over-rated junk", but you never made it clear what made it over-rated: ie, what people thought was good about it that was not in fact good. You offered a comparison to the Casio Prizm, which does indeed have objectively better specifications but a smaller base of users and existing code. I am trying to understand that assertion in the context or whether you're criticizing the calculator itself or the programmers who plan to use it.

KermMartian · Site Admin (Posts: 64051)

You originally asserted on Omnimaga that the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition was "over-rated junk", but you never made it clear what made it over-rated: ie, what people thought was good about it that was not in fact good. You offered a comparison to the Casio Prizm, which does indeed have objectively better specifications but a smaller base of users and existing code. I am trying to understand that assertion in the context or whether you're criticizing the calculator itself or the programmers who plan to use it.

DJ Omnimaga · Calculator projects necromancer (Posts: 2835)

That seems like a pretty provocative thing to say: you'll "tolerate" a group of programmers because they choose to program on a particular device? If there was a such thing as platformism or bigotry related to calculators, that would be about as close as I think you could get. You haven't really said why the unchanged RAM and CPU makes you dislike the programmers rather than the device containing that hardware.

flyingfisch · Minor Calculator Deity (Posts: 1088)

I suppose there is a difference in philosophy here. Personally, if I can get a vastly more powerful calculator, for much less money, I'm going to buy it. I really don't care whether it uses my favorite input method, BASIC derivative, or processor.

calc84maniac · eZ80 Guru (Posts: 1625)

I hope you realize that animated gif is completely unrepresentative of actual speed.

flyingfisch · Minor Calculator Deity (Posts: 1088)

I hope you realize that animated gif is completely unrepresentative of actual speed.

KermMartian · Site Admin (Posts: 64051)

Saying "Calculator x sucks because calculator y has these features" is not a philosophy, it's a comparative claim. I maintain that it's disingenuous to decry the features of the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition in a simple numbers-to-numbers comparison with the Prizm. I could say that the Prizm is a horrible calculator because my computer has a much bigger screen, but that doesn't tell the whole story either.

DJ Omnimaga · Calculator projects necromancer (Posts: 2835)

Let's say, for example, that a side-scroller can display 3 16x32 enemies and 1 16x32 character on the screen at once, each being able to cover up to 6 tiles at once, which can become 32x32 when swinging his sword (in such case covering between 4 and 9 tiles at once), and that to scroll left or right, 15 extra tilemap sprites need to be updated. Since that is 52 tiles to update per frame, would such game run at 23 FPS or would the z-adress value change slow things down considerably?

I'M beginning to think that for action games that requires smooth movement, to speed things up there might be needs for shortcuts such as only updating 1 sprite location per frame, unless there are faster and more efficient ways to move a sprite around without destroying everything that's behind him.