TI Voyage 200 C programming anyone?

[Martinn]

Hi all,  I have just purchased a used Voyage 200 calculator, out of curiosity mainly. I'm interested mainly in programming it - either in 68k assembler (I enjoyed that a lot in Sinclair QL times) or better C.
Most of the sites on this topic seem to be down or not updated in a decade (TIGCC: http://tigcc.ticalc.org/), so this might be a lost cause.
Does anyone still program for those 68k calculators?

- Martin

[brucehoult]

Hi all,  I have just purchased a used Voyage 200 calculator, out of curiosity mainly. I'm interested mainly in programming it - either in 68k assembler (I enjoyed that a lot in Sinclair QL times) or better C.

Hmm .. a calculator form-factor with long battery life that you can program in 68000 asm would be really cool.

12 MHz 68000, 188 kB RAM,  2.7 MB flash

Not bad.

Most of the sites on this topic seem to be down or not updated in a decade (TIGCC: http://tigcc.ticalc.org/), so this might be a lost cause.
Does anyone still program for those 68k calculators?

"GCC has been updated to the 4.0.1-20050630"

Omg. gcc 4. Yup, the latest and greatest in 2005.

But why would you need a custom gcc rather than just using a current version of gcc or llvm? It's just a 68000.

Just "apt install gcc-m68k-linux-gnu" on Debian/Ubuntu (including the same in WSL on Windows, or in Docker on anything) and you're in business.

[Martinn]

Hmm .. a calculator form-factor with long battery life that you can program in 68000 asm would be really cool.

12 MHz 68000, 188 kB RAM,  2.7 MB flash

Even better: There are tons of them on the used market for next to nothing (at least here in Switzerland).

Omg. gcc 4. Yup, the latest and greatest in 2005.
But why would you need a custom gcc rather than just using a current version of gcc or llvm? It's just a 68000.
Just "apt install gcc-m68k-linux-gnu" on Debian/Ubuntu (including the same in WSL on Windows, or in Docker on anything) and you're in business.

Well, did C or GCC change that much in the last 20 years? It's an ancient language, actually more a highly advanced assembler.
Also, there's tons of gritty details: Linker map, booting, ROM routine interfaces, hardware drivers etc... So I'd prefer some kind of working package (preferably with IDE, simulator and debugger) over a generic command line compiler.

But the truth is: If I invest the same time I need to get those abandonware tools running into Android programming, I have a far greater return.
Except of course for the coin cell operated, hardware keyboard graphical LCD unit.

[Martinn]

I got a used Voyage 2000.
Unfortunately, some keys did not work, self test identified 13 not working. Probably one scan line of the matrix is dead.
Inspection, cleaning, resoldering did not help - and keyboard interfacing is done by the single non-documented TI ASIC on the board (read: goes straight into the junk bin).

I take this as some higher power trying to tell me that I should not waste time on antique stuff with unmaintained outdated development tools, instead start going through an Android/Kotlin tutorial.