# The 86

This page contains some of my notes on features of the TI-86, which first appeared on my Freewebs site sometime around 2005. I’ve made an effort to correct and clarify some things, but it may still be only partially accurate in some places.

For all things TI-86, readers may find The Guide useful.

## Ports

### 0 – LCD memory map

Port 0 controls the memory address the display hardware will read from when refreshing the screen. (Unlike the 83+ and similar, the 85 and 86 have memory-mapped displays, which make drawing much faster in software.) To get the address read, take the value in port 0, add 0xC0, and multiply by 0x100. For example, the typical value of 0x3C puts the display buffer at 0xFC00. Put another way, the value of the port is the high byte of the buffer address minus 0xC0. For that reason, the display buffer must always be in the uppermost 16k of memory.

The block of memory at 0xCA00 is often used as a secondary display buffer (either for greyscale via buffer-flipping or just double-buffered drawing). The system’s graph buffer is based at 0xCA06 and evidently whatever’s immediately below that isn’t critical, but the 6 bytes at 0xCDFA are potentially important, so you should back those up if using the buffer at 0xCA00.

Bit 1 of port 3 reads reset if the LCD is currently refreshing, which can be useful for preventing tearing when flipping between buffers (vsync!).

This one behaves just like the other z80 calculators. Write a mask out and read back a value with bits reset corresponding to the keys currently depressed within the corresponding group. The following table gives the mask for each group and the keys corresponding to each bit on a per-group basis (all values in hex, unused values are blank):

3F 5F 6F 77 7B 7D 7E
7 More Alpha x-Var Del
6 Exit Graph Table Prgm Custom Clear ;
5 2nd Log Sin Cos Tan ^ ;
4 F1 LN EE ( ) ÷ ;
3 F2 x2 7 8 9 × Up
2 F3 , 4 5 6 Right
1 F4 STO> 1 2 3 + Left
0 F5 ; 0 . (-) Enter Down

### 3 – ON key, power, interrupt mask

Bit 3 controls whether the LCD is on. Write it set to turn the display off, and reset to turn it on. Read bit 3 to get the current state of the ON key (which is conspicuously absent from the above table, since it’s more closely tied to system interrupts than the rest of the keypad). Reads reset when the key is down, otherwise set.

My notes mention you should reset the system flag in bit 4 of (IY+9) when you want to check the ON key’s status, but not why you would want to do that. Presumably the default ISR does something with the ON key when that bit is set.

The lower bits (I assume 0-2, but not sure) of this port control what interrupt sources will actually fire an interrupt in the CPU. My notes are incomplete here, but I know bit 0 is for the ON key. I assume the other two are timer interrupts and link activity, but that’s mostly just speculation.

### 4 – Power management

Write bit 0 set for normal power mode, or reset for low-power mode. Not sure what all this does, but if you want to work like a “real” power-down write this bit reset before halting the CPU (..and waiting for an interrupt). This port reads back the last value written to it.

### 5, 6 – Memory paging

Port 5 controls memory paging in bank 1 (0x4000-0x7FFF), and port 6 does the same on bank 2 (0x8000-0xBFFF). I’m not sure exactly what ranges are valid, but one should only need to change these in rare occasions. Both read the last value written, which is useful if you want to flip pages and restore them to the old value when you’re done.

Like the other Z80 calculators made by TI, the link port is two lines with pull-up resistors on both lines. Writing bit 0 or 1 set pulls the corresponding line low, which can be read on the other end of the link.

## Interrupts

### Hooks

The default IM 1 ISR includes a hook you can insert to have your own code called each time an interrupt fires. Place up to 200 bytes of code at 0xD2FE and calculate a checksum, then set bit 2 of the flag at (IY+0x23) as follows:

    ld de,$28 ; Initial value ld a,(_alt_interrupt_exec) ld hl,_alt_int_chksum +$28
ld (_alt_int_chksum),a
set 2,(iy + $23) ; Enable user routine ei ; Ensure interrupts are enabled ### Power-off Between port 4 (above) and a few flags, making the machine look like it’s properly off (on these calculators, waiting for an interrupt is as close to off they get without removing the batteries) is pretty easy:  di ld a,1 out ($03),a                      ; Wait for ON key int
res     shift2nd,(iy+shiftflags)     ; Clear 2nd status
res     onRunning,(iy+onflags)       ; Calc no longer running
ei
halt                                 ; Wait for on key interrupt

### ‘Down-Left Bug’

Apparently something in the default ISR can crash the calculator if you hold the down and left arrow keys. Setting bit 2 at (IY+0x12) is one way to avoid it (which I assume also has some other effect, but my notes don’t specify), or you can install your own interrupt handler in IM 2 which bypasses the flawed logic:

    ex af,af'
exx
in a,(3)
rra
push af         ;
call nc,$01A1 ; Call out to system ISR - not needed if you only pop af ; read the keyboard via port 1 rather than the ROM calls ld a,9 adc a,0 out (3),a ld a,$0B
out (3),a
ex af,af'
exx
ei
reti

### Speedy processing

The above interrupt to be installed in IM 2 is evidently somewhat faster than the system ISR. If you don’t want to or are unable to install the vector table necessary for IM 2 setup, similar speed can be achieved by installing an interrupt hook as described earlier in this document, then popping the top value from the stack into oblivion and returning at your leisure:

    ; your interrupt code here
inc sp
inc sp
reti    ; ISR done

## Error handlers

Some ROM calls will throw system errors, not nicely returning error status. You can register an error handler routine by calling _InstError with HL pointing to your handler code. If/when your handler is invoked (by an error), the error code will be in A. Do not return from the handler (the invoker plays with the stack before calling your routine), instead do whatever you like and tell the system to put your program away by calling _jforcecmdnochar when done with reporting the error or cleaning up or whatnot.