Hacking into the .g3p/b format [HALTED]

[DJ Omnimaga]

@Kerm at least this is good that Casio has given us a chance. TI has never done so with the Nspire (as soon as Ndless was made possible on latest OSes, they immediately blocked it and went as far as installing anti-downgrade stuff. I think this is why I think we should take that chance and behave so they trust us. With TI we don't do any effort to behave, because they screwed with us from the very start, unlike Casio, and I even considered cancelling the entire TI-Nspire portion of the 2011 contest last year, replacing it with a DCS, 9860G or 68K one, a month or two before launching it, as some sort of boycott of TI's actions.

I still think that maybe, if kept secret among trusted community members, there could be someone volunteering to convert a few images for other people if they absolutely want their games to be cross-compatible, and it's a good idea to examine the format and try to hack it for the sake of just accomplishing something special, but we all need to be responsible and be aware of the consequences, negative or positive.

Also we gotta keep in mind that those BASIC games are very large in file size, so they might no longer get a signifiant audience in the future, when more ASM/C games comes out, plus I'm sure eventually there will be workarounds, such as xLIB for the PRIZM, letting people use 16x16 sprites and stuff like that for their game graphics. Not saying that BASIC games are bad, but I mean if a puzzle game is 2.3 MB, people might prefer the much smaller Tetrizm clone.

On the positive side, however, is that once BASIC pictures novelty have weared off, if someone volunteers to convert pics for people games, he won't get much work to do.

[fxdev]

Simon told me, he was able to remove any CG10 restrictions by an OS-patching add-in. But because of obvious reasons, such a tool is never going to be released. It would be best to close the entire thread then.

[Deep Thought]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, but Casio's still giving out licenses to their G3B/G3P image generator for free at http://www.casioeducation.com/prizm/create.

It's their own tool, so why not use that? We wouldn't need to do anything to make them suspicious.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Well that's cool that he managed to do it. Hopefully there are more PRIZM breakthroughs in the near future (even if that one cannot be released). Recently for example there was a successful overclocking attempt (that doesn't reboot the calc).

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, but Casio's still giving out licenses to their G3B/G3P image generator for free at http://www.casioeducation.com/prizm/create. It's their own tool, so why not use that?

Because that only works for cg20 calcs. The goal of this thread was to allow cg10 calcs to use custom images too, but due to american school rules about calculator images, that could have lead to the PRIZM community demise.

[MPoupe]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, but Casio's still giving out licenses to their G3B/G3P image generator for free at http://www.casioeducation.com/prizm/create.

It's their own tool, so why not use that? We wouldn't need to do anything to make them suspicious.

Did anybody try to download the tool ?
I tried and I am somehow confused. The tool works with cg 20, right ?
cg 20 is not for USA, so there are very few cg 20 users (comparing to cg 10 users) in the USA.
So why was I asked for US state ?
Simply the registration form expects that I am from some school, from USA and I own fx cg 20.
:-O

Nevertheless I was successful :-)

[JosJuice]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, but Casio's still giving out licenses to their G3B/G3P image generator for free at http://www.casioeducation.com/prizm/create.

It's their own tool, so why not use that? We wouldn't need to do anything to make them suspicious.

Did anybody try to download the tool ?
I tried and I am somehow confused. The tool works with cg 20, right ?
cg 20 is not for USA, so there are very few cg 20 users (comparing to cg 10 users) in the USA.
So why was I asked for US state ?
Simply the registration form expects that I am from some school, from USA and I own fx cg 20.
:-O

Nevertheless I was successful :-)

The descriptions seem to say that images should be used on the emulator, which works just like an fx-CG20 when it comes to images, even in fx-CG10 regions. Of course, they still work on actual fx-CG20s.

[DJ Omnimaga]

By the way there's one other workaround people could use if they absolutely want custom pics on their calcs and have no problem not using that calc in classes: Buy a FX-cg20 on ebay. However you have to be careful to make sure the seller isn't misleading you into buying a FX-cg10 by passing it as a cg20 or something. (like people did with TI-Nspire prototypes)

[MPoupe]

The descriptions seem to say that images should be used on the emulator, which works just like an fx-CG20 when it comes to images, even in fx-CG10 regions. Of course, they still work on actual fx-CG20s.

Thank you for explaining.
But I do not see the value of working images in the emulator (assuming I am US cg10 owner). I would use emulator probably only to try something before I run it on real calc. There are much more advanced mathematics tools for PC otherwise (I mean using emulator as it is without any cooperation with the calculator)

[JosJuice]

The descriptions seem to say that images should be used on the emulator, which works just like an fx-CG20 when it comes to images, even in fx-CG10 regions. Of course, they still work on actual fx-CG20s.

Thank you for explaining.
But I do not see the value of working images in the emulator (assuming I am US cg10 owner). I would use emulator probably only to try something before I run it on real calc. There are much more advanced mathematics tools for PC otherwise (I mean using emulator as it is without any cooperation with the calculator)

I agree - it's not very useful. It's too bad that the fx-CG10 has to be this restricted.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Something I wonder:

If hacking the g3p/b format and publishing a tool letting you bypass the cg10 restriction could backfire on the community by making Casio block add-ins, does it means that releasing a BMP/PNG image viewer could also cause problems? Because shortly after this project was halted, PNG and BMP viewers were started, respectively. I'm confused as to why a cg20 image viewer for the cg10 would be any more risky than a PNG/BMP viewer, when all 3 involves the ability to view images on a calc that is not supposed to allow it?

[SimonLothar]

...I'm confused as to why a cg20 image viewer for the cg10 would be any more risky than a PNG/BMP viewer...

You are right, of course. Based on careful calculations, the probability of abusing some unlimited standard-imagetype-viewer for the Prizm is even higher compared to an unlimited G3P-viewer. Hence, if someone is troubled over an unlimited G3P-viewer, it immediately follows, that he should be troubled over any unlimited image-viewer for the Prizm at least as much.

[fxdev]

...a PNG/BMP viewer...

Well, someone should implement a check to make the program work on fx-CG20's only.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah I agree such restriction could be added. Of course, somebody will probably argue that we should release whatever we want because of freedom of speech or blahblahblah, but I think this would not hurt, if we're really concerned about calcs getting banned in North American schools.

But of course the video viewer would not be any better on the image viewing sense. However the video player produces poor quality image, making it impossible to read text, so I guess it's not too bad.