Author Topic: Let's hack the HP Prime!  (Read 117490 times)

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Offline critor

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #90 on: September 17, 2013, 06:00:34 pm »
Yeah I mean like that one debate topic there about why should there be a Wiki on TI-Planet when there is already wiki4hp that have been around for years, located at http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/forum.cgi?read=249854#249854 . One person in particular wasn't fond of the idea that HP Prime info and fans go on a TI website instead of their own and only HP forum. They probably don't want any other website to budge on their thunder.

Yes I know and I was very shocked by this. Such behavior is immature and unproductive.
The first priority now should be to do the job - not to fight about who's going to host it...

If they prefer keeping HP stuff on a website on which registration is allmost impossible (I did spend several hours registering on it, looking for an accepted email address...), then it's too bad for HP visibility... And as a consequence, it's too bad for them.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 06:04:28 pm by critor »
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #91 on: September 17, 2013, 06:18:09 pm »
Ouch, I didn't realize it could take this long. I gave up after 5 minutes (when I realized that no common e-mail worked). ANyway I think it's good to have alternatives. Besides, their site seems to be mainly oriented towards educational uses of the calc, much like the TI-Nspire Google Group, while the big four TI sites focuses mainly on advanced calculator development. If you post about your next Final Fantasy game on HP Museum or Nspire Group, you will probably not get much attention and if you post about ASM exploits, there will be people who get upset at you because they find calc games pointless.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 06:19:13 pm by DJ Omnimaga »

Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #92 on: September 18, 2013, 01:53:45 am »
Yeah, the MoHPC registration process is overly restrictive and annoying.
If it weren't for pier4r recently starting to centralize and expand information on Addloop, Savage and UltraNaivePrimes benchmarks on wiki4hp, that site would basically be as dead as it was at the time of the hpwiki / wiki4hp discussion on MoHPC. The information found on the hpwiki hosted on TI-Planet could obviously have been copied to the wiki4hp, but AFAICT from the list of recent changes, nobody even bothered doing that.

If the traditionally HP-oriented community doesn't start low-level development for the Prime soon enough, and if the traditionally TI-oriented community beats them (those are two big "if"s, but still), that'll teach the HP community. Here, we all agree that we and they should be working together on the same goal, but if we don't... first one wins.

Even without physical Prime items in the wild just yet (although it seems that they should be hitting people's hands quite soon), people can disassemble firmware, reverse-engineer file formats through the emulator, work on emulating the S3C2416 + associated hardware, and stuff like that :)
But that takes time, as usual...
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #93 on: September 18, 2013, 11:16:16 pm »
One good thing about the HP Museum board though is that it gets plenty of people asking help for HP calcs, not only the Prime, but older models as well. THis shows that there is an actual HP community out there, contrary to what we thought in 2003-08. There only needs to be more games now, since most games on Hpcalc dates back in the 90's.

And yeah, if the HP Prime reaches a larger audience than the HP 50g (which only reached older people in class or engineers, who, in general, have no more interest in playing games, even on gaming consoles), it would at least be good if it was hacked and if there were games offered to students using it, along with math tools. I wonder if KermMartial will port his Graph 3D app to the Prime in the near future? IIRC the calc lacks 3D graphing; but Graph 3D had very decent speed results per 84+CSE BASIC standard, so imagine how fast it would be on the Prime.


That said Lionel, although the activity level towards the Prime here is kinda low since last week or so, I think there is still more interest than for Nspire development. Although ElementCoder showed interest in starting ARM assembly again soon and that a new member who programs in Lua joined today, notice how the Ndless 3.2 announcment only got one reply so far >.<. If the Prime really takes off, TI will have a lot of work to do to regain trust towards Nspire users.

Offline chickendude

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #94 on: September 19, 2013, 05:21:44 am »
I'm just waiting to get my hands on one. Finding a way to run machine code is quite a bit over my head, but once we get there i'll be more active :)

Offline TIfanx1999

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #95 on: September 19, 2013, 08:14:57 am »
This is silly. We should all be working together towards a common goal; making the calculators we all know and love an open platform for development. Why should anyone care if we or any of the other sites started as TI fansites? We all want the same thing. The truth is that over time, the TI community has largely expanded. These days were are a more broad "Graphing calculator hobbyist community" instead.

Back on topic, I'd love to help with making the Prime an open format, but I have no experience in this area, and no idea where to start. I will however be placing my preorder for one shortly. :)

*edit* Just checked out their forums, To say the least, they are really dated. I can't even register unfortunately. I only have hotmail. I don't have access to a non-free email account. Their alternative is a bit ridiculous unfortunately. :/
Quote from: The Museum of HP Calculators
If you're sure you don't have a "normal" email account, or if you use an ISP that has the unfortunate tendency to provide both free and paid addresses, then please click here to register by postal mail.
They could at least have an email link to contact administration so you could be added manually.

I'm not sure how they plan to host a wiki there when many people who might be interested won't even be able to access their forums. :/
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 09:45:08 am by Art_of_camelot »

Offline Adriweb

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #96 on: September 19, 2013, 09:24:07 am »
*edit* Just checked out their forums, To say the least, they are really dated. I can't even register unfortunately. I only have hotmail. I don't have access to a non-free email account. Their alternative is a bit ridiculous unfortunately. :/
Quote from: The Museum of HP Calculators
If you're sure you don't have a "normal" email account, or if you use an ISP that has the unfortunate tendency to provide both free and paid addresses, then please click here to register by postal mail.
They could at least have an email link to contact administration so you could be added manually.

I'm not sure how that plan to host a wiki there when many people who might be interested won't even be able to access their forums. :/
Yeah it's pretty ridiculous.


Anyway, for reverse-engineering the List file format, what I only did is create several list files (and editing them as I was exploring things) and compare with an hex editor. In the end it was quite easy.

Other file types could be done like that.

Although that's no OS rev-eng, it's still a start :)
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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #97 on: September 19, 2013, 01:10:31 pm »
Yeah, reverse-engineering file formats and (a bit more advanced) linking protocols are one of the ways people can help without knowledge of ARM assembly.

Communication with the Prime is easier than communication with all TI graphing calculators and the SilverLink: thanks to the (ab)use of the standard HID class, no additional driver is required. For Windows users interested in using both official software and the hopefully lighterweight third-party software, the Prime shall not suffer from the massive user unfriendliness that manual installation of the filter driver, required for working around a limitation of Windows, is...
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Offline timwessman

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #98 on: September 19, 2013, 02:56:33 pm »
Tim Wessman hardly ever post on Omni anymore for unknown reasons.

Just nothing to say really. I would assume that fact that the calcs were not available and in people's greedy little palms was the reason for lack of interest.

Tim has to try to avoid participating to HP hacking discussions, since he is working for HP.

Bingo.

I think most people who have an HP Prime are on HP Museum forums it seems. It's hard to attract HP fans on a TI forum when there is an established HP-only board around, same problem we had with Casio people. Certain people might see TI boards as the "enemy" or something.

Then they have some maturity problem.

On the contrary, the average age of the posters at hpmuseum is probably up in the ~50 year range or higher.  ;D Games, hacking, quotes at the bottom of posts, animated avatars, etc just is not much interest to a large chucnk of people in that range. Seeing such just makes them think "kids, get off my lawn"... :-P

I am certain a large majority see someone posting "cute" little simple programs that don't really do much doesn't interest a majority of the readers/posters. Also note that that group is more about the OLD calculators, the historical interest items and less about modern units (hence the name "hp museum". They don't even really talk much about anything newer.

Then again, there are a large numbers of others there that are interested in such but just don't have anything to contribute in their opinions. Every time someone has posted a "this is the HP museum forum, don't waste my time with Prime" type message, they have been inundated with others telling them to shut up and that, yes, there is interest.


Also, you need to remember that a LARGE chunk of people who are regulars at the hpmuseum forum are WAY beyond talking about "hacking" software. They have long ago moved into the "create calculators from scratch" phase.

Were you aware of the wp34s which is a complete from scratch calculator based on a repurposed HP-20/30b? http://commerce.hpcalc.org/34s.php Or how about the user that created a USB connection for said calculator complete with rechargeable li-ion battery that mounts inside the unit? Or the user who created from scratch a brand new replacement board for the HP-41, including every flash module ever sold for it, extensions to the built in system, full compatibility with all HP-IL modules, and so on... http://systemyde.com/hp41/index.html?

Then you have the team that recreated a mini HP11,12,15,16C calculators and sells them? http://www.swissmicros.com/ The team that is making a complete from scratch hardware calculator to rival anything HP or TI ever made (of the classical style)?

To many folks like this, hacking software to make games, or even just programming on modern units isn't all that exciting.

I do think the people that complained about the wiki were a bit silly. However, easiest way to show them wrong is to simply make it better. Everyone will know which is the real resource...

thanks to the (ab)use of the standard HID class, no additional driver is required.

Abuse? In what way?
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 03:02:02 pm by timwessman »
TW

Although I work for the HP calculator group, the comments and opinions I post here are my own.

Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #99 on: September 19, 2013, 03:39:46 pm »
Quote
I am certain a large majority see someone posting "cute" little simple programs that don't really do much doesn't interest a majority of the readers/posters.
Indeed.
FYI, that "someone" is desperate about garnering attention. He made himself the worst outcast in the TI community (and consequently an outcast in parts of the Casio and HP communities), multiple times at years apart, through severely inappropriate behaviour ranging from spamming to threats, through insults and whatnot...

Quote
Were you aware of the wp34s which is a complete from scratch calculator based on a repurposed HP-20/30b? http://commerce.hpcalc.org/34s.php Or how about the user that created a USB connection for said calculator complete with rechargeable li-ion battery that mounts inside the unit? Or the user who created from scratch a brand new replacement board for the HP-41, including every flash module ever sold for it, extensions to the built in system, full compatibility with all HP-IL modules, and so on... http://systemyde.com/hp41/index.html?

Then you have the team that recreated a mini HP11,12,15,16C calculators and sells them? http://www.swissmicros.com/ The team that is making a complete from scratch hardware calculator to rival anything HP or TI ever made (of the classical style)?
I knew about the link between WP34S and 30, but not about most of the other, pretty interesting, items that you're mentioning :)
My father has had a 41C for so many years, and has made a number of programs for his own use over time. We still use the 41C, though not the programs.

Quote
To many folks like this, hacking software to make games, or even just programming on modern units isn't all that exciting.
Easily understood :)
Games would clearly be the main use of native code, as usual, even with a port of Linux + userspace to the Prime. It has to do with the fact that making native code games is always much easier - and funnier anyhow - than making native code math programs with CAS integration, because games only need to access the screen, the keyboard and optionally some files, while math programs need to consume and produce data in (often) undocumented formats through (often) undocumented APIs...
The Prime's CAS format is probably among the exceptions, as being based on giac/xcas, it's unlikely to be completely undocumented. The ease of making native code math programs on the Prime could therefore well be closer to that of the TI-68k/AMS series than to that of the Nspire series, which is a good thing :)
At the end of the 1990s, TI was in their right mind and used to provide a bunch of official documentation for TI-68k/AMS, which third parties like me expanded. As for the Nspire, while I showed that the Nspire's CAS hasn't evolved much from the TI-68k's CAS, we never got really far, even with native code Lua extensions...

Quote
Quote
thanks to the (ab)use of the standard HID class, no additional driver is required.
Abuse? In what way?
Not sure until the protocol has been analyzed :)
But I know it's common for people to use the HID protocol to transmit non-keyboard/mouse/joystick data to other devices. Among hundreds of examples, in the TI community, one of the globalCALCnet bridges ( http://www.cemetech.net/projects/item.php?id=35 ) does it, for instance.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #100 on: September 19, 2013, 05:13:44 pm »
@Tim I think the TI Planet HP wiki should definitively focus on the HP Prime for the time being, since that's the calc people here are the most interested in. Also yeah about the HP enthusiasts on HP Museum, I think the average HP user is older due to the main demographic target for the HP 48 and such calcs. Also, a lot of those people are hardcore RPN fans, so they might tend to not like newer calcs due to that. I remember nasty complaints on Youtube about the 39gII because it lacked RPN and SysRPL. Of course the HP Prime supports RPN in some ways, though, so that can help.

Also nice to see that people recreated calcs from scratch O.O. Over here I know that there was a Project Paradise (later renamed to Ubercalc) and OTcalc projects, but sadly they never got much further than planning stages. D:

Offline iconmaster

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #101 on: September 21, 2013, 09:51:55 am »
I now have a Prime in my hands. I want to try installing the SDK, but I'm afraid I'm going to brick my calculator; I don't konw if I could fix that as connecting to ftp.hp.com in the data-link program seems to not be retrieving the OS for me. Should I go ahead and see what the SDK firmware does on a calculator?

Offline critor

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #102 on: September 21, 2013, 09:58:22 am »
Which boot+firmware versions did it come with?
Just launch the diagnostics software to find out: hold F C O keys while pressing and releasing the reset button on the back.

« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 10:04:49 am by critor »
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Offline iconmaster

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Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #103 on: September 21, 2013, 10:25:05 am »
Here's just a raw dump of my Prime's data:

DATA: V0.025.5106    OS(1M):V0.025.5106
ADPT IN    :    BOOT ARMUboot V13
Samsung K9K2G08U0M    256 MB    SLC

So I see you've got the SDK version working! Have you found any differences in function yet?

EDIT: The HHC2013 is going on as we speak. I'm hoping some of our questions about native execution and the like will be answered there...

EDIT 2: I've been messing around with the file formats. The first byte of the custom app's .hpapp files seem to indicate what app it's copying.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 12:02:28 pm by iconmaster »

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Re: Re: Let's hack the HP Prime!
« Reply #104 on: September 21, 2013, 12:10:12 pm »
Here's just a raw dump of my Prime's data:

DATA: V0.025.5106    OS(1M):V0.025.5106
ADPT IN    :    BOOT ARMUboot V13
Samsung K9K2G08U0M    256 MB    SLC

So I see you've got the SDK version working! Have you found any differences in function yet?

EDIT: The HHC2013 is going on as we speak. I'm hoping some of our questions about native execution and the like will be answered there...

EDIT 2: I've been messing around with the file formats. The first byte of the custom app's .hpapp files seem to indicate what app it's copying.
heya and welcome to the forums. :) Nice to see that HHC2013 is happening by the way. IIRC there were worries about a cancellation due to the recent Colorado floods.

Also is the calc really sold with OS 0.025.5106? A version number under 1.0.0 often means it's a beta... ???