Projects of the Month: April & May 2014
Published by tifreak8x 9 years, 9 months ago (2014-06-02T00:44:06+00:00) | Discuss this article

Welcome to the first installment of Projects of the Month! We've decided that we would like to recognize projects posted to Cemetech each month to help bring more awareness and attention to them. Since we wanted to start at the end of April, but missed the deadline, we're starting out our first broadcast with projects from both April and May, so the list might be a little long.

April:
  • The World's Hardest Game: The World's Hardest Game is a z80 asm port to the TI-83+/TI-84+ line of calculators of a Flash game of the same name, with similar difficulty. It has various levels from versions I and II of the Flash game, and also comes with some custom maps that Mateo himself made. Definitely worth looking into!
  • Alien Breed V: When JamesV isn't busy jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, he's keeping it real by giving us more features for Alien Breed V. His latest advancements with this game includes a retreat mode, which allows you to walk backwards and keep firing at the enemies chasing you, a mini game inside the game to play pong, and achievements.
  • Steins; Gate 8-Bit: For those that don't know, this is an amazing text adventure visual novel, now for the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition. It has an anime based art style, and even has sound! Near the end of April, calc84maniac posted an update to this port, adding a fourth scenario to the game, and bringing it to roughly half way done. Check out the link for a screenshot and a download link for the latest version.
  • Cubix: Another of MateoConLechuga's projects in 83+ BASIC, you are a king, and you must eat the villagers of each level/village. Seems simple, right? Some of them aren't so easy to get to, so you'll have to figure out how to get at them to proceed to the next village!
  • Flag Database: Flag database is a program by tifreak8x that was started after not knowing which country was being represented in Scandinavia and the World. While scrolling through the over 200 country flags, I decided it would be nice to have a portable way on my calculator to know what flag belongs to what country. All the country flags have been put into the program, and a quiz like program is being worked on to test your knowledge of the flags.
  • Lib Helper: Recognizing the need for programmers who don't code at their computer to have easier access to the libraries Doors CSE offers, tifreak8x started this project, condensing the important information down into an AppVar, with Kerm Martian writing up the code to display the text, switch pages, and offered up a color value finder for xlib sprite colors. This project is currently waiting on Doors CSE to make it to an 8.1 release before it can be released to the public, due to issues with Doors CSE 8.0's Celtic routines.
May:
  • xLIBC 8.1: tr1p1ea, the ever-so-awesome library coder, has been busy working away at adding some fancy new functions to the next update of xLIBC for Doors CSE 8.1. He is adding a new function that will draw background tiles via list as X/Y values. This should save time when drawing backgrounds of onscreen sprites.
  • Maplen TI-82: CalebHansberry has done it again with his woodworking skills, this time making a functional wooden case for an old style TI-82. It looks great, and will available on eBay sometime in the coming weeks. If you feel you couldn't live without this calculator, keep an eye on that topic for a link to the eBay item!
  • Lights Out: Lights out is for the CSE calculators, written by TI-84+CSE programmer ohernandez. Lights Out is based off the classical game where you have to turn off all the lights. It has a password system, so you can resume at the level you were last playing. Future features include the possibility of random levels being generated.
  • Reuben Quest: Ev Awakening Remake: For anyone that's been in the community for any real length of time (maybe a decade?) you will automatically know this name. It was an impressive feat of coding that DJ_Omnimaga was able to pull off with libraries to create grayscale using TI-BASIC and put into a massive RPG. Now, it's been remade in Axe, which gives it far more power, speed, and general awesomeness. Everything was carefully ported directly from the original game, and looks just as good as the original does.
  • Solitaire: The illustrious DrDnar has made one final update to his Solitaire game of awesome, giving the face cards graphics, and making AppVar detection a little more robust, among other things. This is a very complete Solitaire game, including a lot of options taken from the original Windows game.
  • KnightOS: KnightOS is an attempt to get a useful, working third party OS on the z80 line (73, 83+, 84+,CSE). It currently has various features that are integrated and working, though it's still a bit off from something that can completely replace your TI-OS. Still, it's looking good so far! Additional updates have been posted here.
  • Doors CS 7.3 & Doors CSE 8.1: Doors CS and Doors CSE have both seen a bit of work over this past month, with various bugs fixed and features added. Doors CS 7.3 will fix a bug with 2:Goto, back-ported from Doors CSE, among others. Doors CSE is getting various bug fixes, including repairs to the Celtic library's functions for ReadLine and ReplaceLine, and tr1p1ea is working on new features for the xLIBC libraries included in Doors CSE. A new feature that should also shine in the spotlight is the ability for Doors CSE to run apps!
  • Programming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus: Kerm's book is seeing some updating, by getting some more data dumped into a new Appendix D regarding the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition. There was at least one issue brought to Kerm's attention that may also get fixed, more info on that as Kerm keeps us updated.
  • DCSE Icon Creator v2: Tifreak8x decided to come back to this project and add to it. It now has the ability to insert the Doors CSE header into a program. You give the program a name, it checks if it exists, creates it if it does not, checks to see if it is archived if it does and unarchives as necessary, then lets you create your icon. Once finished, you select the |>Hex option, and it pastes the information directly to your program. Release is pending the availability of Doors CSE v8.1.
    [*] Charz: Charz is a program by Kerm Martian and tifreak8x that gives programmers who don't use computers access to extra characters not easily obtainable on-calc. The program was created 8 years ago, and recently revitalized to make better use of screen real estate.
  • TokenIDE: TokenIDE has been seeing some big changes over the last month and a half or so. It now supports pretty-printing, such as changing -> immediately to →. Merthsoft has also added a converter to change various image types (png, gif, and jpg to name a few) into usable calc images (.8xi and .8ci). It also boasts full support for xLIBC image types and has done some very impressive things with the map editor. Overall, you should go take a look through the topic and check out all the cool functions TokenIDE now has!
  • Chord Trainer: This is an interesting project, taken on by Merthsoft, that is meant to familiarize and teach people various chords and key signatures. If you are interested in music and would love to learn, keep an eye on this project, it will surely be awesome and helpful when released.
  • Prizm Minesweeper: Merthsoft revisited this older project to provide some updates! With some new information that was found, Merthsoft was able to set it up so the saving and loading is an automatic thing, and removed those corresponding buttons. He has also added in a way to do a cascade selection of open, flagged neighbors to make for a quick mass selection.
  • Open Jazz Jackrabbit: ProgrammerNerd has been busy updating some projects. The first one on the list is Open Jazz Jackrabbit. Apparently the previous version of the game wrote to areas used by the OS, which caused some issues.
  • Prizm PNG viewer: ProgrammerNerd has brought us a png viewer for the prizm, apparently using some magic from dimensions unknown to show very large images without breaking the bank (or your calc).
  • MPEG2 player for Prizm: This is a front end built for libmpeg2 by ProgrammerNerd. There are various things you can do with this video player, and some things you need to watch out for, so check out the topic and read up on this cool little video player setup.


If you don't see your calculator related project up in this list, we apologize. There were quite a few to browse through and get information for. Would you like to make the list? Then all you have to do is make sure to post up progress in a topic here on Cemetech about the work you are doing, and we'll see what we can do. Enjoy the list, and keep on programming!

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