TICT eBooks Reader v1.89 | (c) 2000-2002 TiCT |
General Informations |
The TICT eBooks Reader is used (as the name implies ;-) to view books from the TICT eBooks Series 2000 or compatible ones, which will bring high quality literature to your TI89 or TI92plus calculator.
These books come in high-compressed state to make maximum usage of your calculator's memory. The penalty for this are noticeable load times between the parts of an eBook which will range from 0.5 to 2 seconds depending on the size of the part.
If you want to make your own ebooks just download the TIGCC Tools Suite and read the included documentation (the TIGCC Tools Suite will also contain the source of this reader).
- First of all: its size. It is under 8kB so it can be started directly on any available AMS version till now without the need of an installed kernel or some kind of ROM patching (HW2Patch).
Just upload it to your calc, archive it and start it. That's all.- The next main feature its maximized usage of the calculator's screen by using the smallest TI font in combination with intelligent end-of-line treatment. No words will be cutted into pieces at the screen border.
- The reader automatically detects during startup which books are installed on your virtual book shelf (a special folder) and will show you a list from which you can choose.
- The navigation within a part of a book is really easy. Use the up/down cursor keys or '+'/'-' keys to step pages for and back and use the left/right cursor keys to jump to the beginning or the end of a part.
- And last but not least you can set up to 10 bookmarks for each installed book. To set a bookmark just press key 'x' and then one of the numerical keys (0..9). Think of the 'x' as making a virtual cross in your eBook!
To load a bookmark just press a numerical key (0 .. 9) and the reader will bring you immediately to the corresponding location in the book (of course you have to load the book first and you have to set a bookmark for this key).
(Note: you can press 'x' twice instead of pressing 'x' and afterwards '0')
- Thanx to Austin Chu (qarv@yahoo.com) for pointing me out how stupid and therefore slow NextLine() was implemented previously
- many parts rewritten to optimize the codesize which is necessary for the statusline restoring handling (see below)
- "white on black" text is now drawn with FastStringXY, too
- uses now FillFullLines macro instead of RectFill()
- previously set font will be restored now before exit
- FontSetSys() only used in CharSet grabbing, because all 4x6 strings are now drawn by FastStringXY
- I have moved the bottom line to the top, because I think this way reading the text is a little bit easier.
- uses now an own INT5 handler to restore the statusline area if it gets destroyed by one of the statusline indicators.
- Thanx to Francesco Orabona (bremen79@infinito.it) for minor code size optimization in v1.89.
- The first step is, of course, uploading the reader to your calculator ;-)
Upload file ebook.89z to your TI89 or ebook.9xz to your TI92plus.- If you have already an eBook installed on your calculator, start the reader by just typing: ebook() [ENTER]. The program will show you a list of all books on its virtual shelf. This virtual shelf is a folder with the name tictebks. I have choosen such an uncommon name to prevent conflicts with already existing folders on your calc.
If the program will state that it hasn't found any book and you have already installed eBooks, just move them into folder tictebks. Then the reader will find them.- If you haven't already eBooks installed, download one ore more eBooks of your choice from ticalc.org's eBooks archives (TI-89 eBooks-Archive/TI-92plus eBooks-Archive) or from the TI-Chess Team HQ at http://tict.ticalc.org.
- After downloading just transfer the file with extension 89y to your TI89 or the file with extension 9xy to your TI92plus. If you have downloaded an eBook of the TICT eBooks Series 2000, it will be automatically installed in the virtual book shelf. Otherwise move it by hand to folder tictebks.
On the VAR-LINK menu you can guess easily which files are eBooks. eBooks will have the extension "ebk" (all lowercase letters).- Within the reader there is not many to know: choose a book, press enter, select a part of it, press enter and there you are. Enjoy it!
Additional informations:
The bookmarks will be stored in an own folder named tictmarks. Again I have choosen this strange name to prevent conflicts with existing folders.
If you store the first bookmark of a book a variable with the same name as the book, but with extension "cfg" will be generated in folder tictmarks.
If the folder doesn't exists it generates first the folder and the variable afterwards.
It doesn't matter if you use just one bookmark or all ten bookmarks for each book: the variable which holds the bookmarks of a book will keep the same size (48 bytes).
You can delete the bookmark variables by your will. Nothing else than the bookmarks is stored these variables and the folder.
This program may be distributed by any other website for non-commercial use only.
DISTRIBUTIONS ON ANY OTHER MEDIUM (Disc,CD-ROM,DVD etc.) are PROHIBITED without separate allowance of the author.
The author makes no representations or warranties about the suitability of the software and/or the data files, either express or implied. The author shall not be liable for any damages suffered as a result of using or distributing this software and/or data files.
You are free to re-use any part of the sourcecode in your products as long as you give credits including a reference to the TICT-HQ (http://tict.ticalc.org/).
- Pasi 'Albert' Ojala (albert@cs.tut.fi) for his compression/decompression algorithm which I have ported to the TI environment
- Loic Minier (lool@fr.fm) for suggestions and hints on the sourcecode
- Denis Bernard (denis.bernard@freesbee.fr) for his ASM optimization on the decompression algorithm
- Zeljko Juric (zjuric@utic.net.ba) for his great TIGCC library,the book selection code, which I "borrowed" from his ScottFree Driver and for helping me out many times
- Valentin Durif (Val.snoop@freesbee.fr) for reporting the problems with french ebooks and testing the (fixed-again) french support
- joelt49@yahoo.com for reporting the serious "book mark selection" bug which was fixed in v1.80
- Joey Merfalen aka "Lazy Joey" joey@50-50.com for suggesting many useful additions
- Austin Chu (qarv@yahoo.com) for pointing me out how stupid and therefore slow NextLine() was implemented before v1.88
- Francesco Orabona (bremen79@infinito.it) for minor code size optimizations in v1.89
- ... and me (thomas.nussbaumer@gmx.net) for the rest ...
- You can reach Thomas Nussbaumer at thomas.nussbaumer@gmx.net
- Marcos Lopez can be reached at marcos.lopez@gmx.net
- Lionel Debroux can be reached at xdanger1@caramail.com
Suggestions, bug reports and similar are VERY welcome. Please use our Messageboard at http://pub26.ezboard.com/btichessteamhq for this.
... and last but not least: The TI-Chess Team (TICT) Website can be found at: http://tict.ticalc.org