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Unread 28-08-2006, 12:51
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Re: Using a TI-83+ or TI-84+ as an auxilary controller

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hydr0g3n
I am currently working on developing an advanced program for our teams robot that will incorporate a TI-83+ as an auxilary controller. Hopefully when it is done i will be able to write programs on the calculator and send them over the link to the controller on the robot. This will be used as a precursor test for someday integrating a serial GPS unit on the robot.

I wanted to know if anyone has attempted integrating a calculator before and if so how and whether they succeeded or not.

P.S. Any coding hints are much appreciated!
Hi all;
I have researched this very thing. I have a TI-84Plus with usb port. Both of these calculators use a Zilog Z80 variant so software development is easy. Zilog has a free IDE that comes with an assembler for this processor. Additionally there is a GNU SDCC C compiler that works as well. I have done some much as writing a universal Hello World program that works fine. There are also programs from TI to support user program developement. This said I think the use of an embedded controller chip such as the Zilog EZ8 family of chips is much easier. The demo boards average around $40.00 USD and come with the same IDE mentioned above but with a fully capable Ansi C compiler as well. It is one of the best at any cost being equally as capable as the MPCC18 that has been used with the FIRST controller for the last 3 years. The EZ8 boards have both rs232 serial and ttl serial ports as well as an IR port that can be used in the same manner. Hope this helps. LRU