Omnimaga
Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on August 13, 2011, 02:48:00 pm
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In the past few months, the TI community members accomplished various things via the TI-Nspire dock connector located at the bottom of the calculators. After breaking anti-downgrade protections, unbricking calculators hit with the Boot 3.0 glitch in OS 3.0.1 and controlling external perhipherals through it, Jimbauwens managed to get sound on his calculator in Lua (http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1263). A video is available here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6-6OjBsAEs).
However, recently, Adriweb paid a visit to TI in Dallas. He got to see various things such as the new TI-Nspire CM that was discussed about recently. What was discovered (http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1278) is that this connector is no longer present on the new model. Only a mini-USB jack is now present on the side.
Is it simply a random hardware change or did TI try to prevent us from doing too much with the dock connector (http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1268)?
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How will they get the lab station and wifi cradle to work now?
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I think they are just making a budget calculator. Many students don't need a lab station and/or a Wifi Cradle.
But yeah, the downgrading might have helped it.
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Yeah, sounds more "removing stuff to make a budget calc" than "removing stuff to piss off the community". Hope they set the price accordingly so people would buy a CM if they don't need all the features of the CX.
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The doc station will now connect from the side it seems:
http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1276
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I don't really see how that saves money, though. The dock connector contacts were just printed right on the circuit board anyways.
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I think they're ready for anything to prevent us from doing too much, even if that puts them bankrupt. :P (well maybe not this bad but...)
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lol but yeah true TI cant you let us ?
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I don't think they are set against us, just that they are worried about losing stuff like test certification if we can make these calcs less secure.
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Yeah, sounds more "removing stuff to make a budget calc" than "removing stuff to piss off the community". Hope they set the price accordingly so people would buy a CM if they don't need all the features of the CX.
So, priced as if it were made out of solid Gold instead of solid Platinum?
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Yeah, sounds more "removing stuff to make a budget calc" than "removing stuff to piss off the community". Hope they set the price accordingly so people would buy a CM if they don't need all the features of the CX.
So, priced as if it were made out of solid Gold instead of solid Platinum?
IKR, they must have profit margins higher than Apple!
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wow this is amazing and the code is very simple, you can create any monophonic song knowing the notes and changing the list happy_birthday but where I can get the codes of the notes?
I gathered some using this file but there must be a complete list, Jimbauwens could you specify the notes and codes please?
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I actually use frequencies in this program.
There are some programs available to the conversion.
Or if you know the notes you can use this list: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html to do the conversion manually.
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Would it be possible to do more complex sounds? Nyan cat is possible on an 84, it should be possible on an nspire...
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Well, I guess you can do more complex stuff, but the quality will be better on the 84 because you have more control over the output.
And with the latest update you can't have any sound anyway :p
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OS3.1 removed print() from what I heard... Why would TI do that unless they are against us???
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Well, it ins't actually removed (I tested it today), it just doesn't print to the console/serial port anymore (which renders it useless).
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ok, thank you so much
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That means it's printing to something else, then, right? I guess it could be to NULL, but it might be printing to another, internal RS232 or JTAG line.
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Maybe, I don't know. As far as I can see it doesn't print to any other port on the dock.
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But the dock isn't the only connector. Datamath says there's quite a few other connectors on the inside that have RS232s, which might be separately mapped.
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Yes, I know, but I'm not going to open my calc to find out :)
Unless you send me some to test :p
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No. :P I'd rather disassemble the OS to find out. And I don't even code in Assembly.
It's not like it makes a difference anyways, since no one would dare use them.
By the way, a great way to get all the dock connector pins hooked up: Take eraser cut to the width of the connector so it fits snugly. Color over all the gold contacts with a pencil. Push the eraser in and out, with a good amount of force pointing downward, into the contacts. Pull it out: You will have all the contacts clearly marked. Begin stabbing wires through the eraser, and bending them over their respective lines.
A connector is born!
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Very nice :)
But I had fun soldering directly to the dock port :p
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Talking about connectors, few months ago I made a pcb chip for it :
http://levak.free.fr/ftp/nspire/dock-nspire/noname-brd.svg
Using KiCAD : http://levak.free.fr/ftp/nspire/dock-nspire/
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But see, that's still the female side. I just wish they had made it less evil.
Raise of hands: Who would be willing to open up an 84+ Pad to install an SD card and increase Nspire Flash by 2 GB or more? The pins are available, only thing that remains is figuring out how to address them in C/Assembly and it's set. I hope they're just memory-mapped, but I can't be sure.
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I have a question:
I have a TI-Nspire CAS With touchpad, as we know the TI-Nspire Dock conector can use a 3.3 Volts external source
but when i read de potential between pin2 (Vcc) and pin5 (GND), while using batteries, it generates 3.3 volt output
the fan velocity depend of the volts of the source, but what about the ampers?, can it be dangerous?
if i connect a fan to my dock connector, could i damage my calculator?
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But see, that's still the female side. I just wish they had made it less evil.
Raise of hands: Who would be willing to open up an 84+ Pad to install an SD card and increase Nspire Flash by 2 GB or more? The pins are available, only thing that remains is figuring out how to address them in C/Assembly and it's set. I hope they're just memory-mapped, but I can't be sure.
I wish TI wouldn't try to lock down what we try to do nor removing the dock connector on some calcs, because then it would open the possibility of third-party TI-Nspire add-ons, by third-party companies. Kinda like the TI-92 modules we could insert below the calc to add memory, but not done by TI instead maybe it could be done with the dock connector or something. Some sort of TI-Nspire CX memory expansion pack or SD card loader. It would be a huge long-term compatibility risk at this point, though.
As for having an SD card in my calc it would be nice providing it's easy to install for someone who isn't good at electronics. Also I certainly won't do it with my 83+ because the screws are so old and dusty that they're stuck in there x.x
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Well, it's not like we really need the dock connectors for anything. We could just as easily gain thousands of options given some decent USB docs, like joysticks, hubs, external sound cards, SD Card Readers, ethernet, printers, or pretty much anything we want. However, the direct-IO approach is far more "hacking-friendly" because of its simpler design.
Installing the SD card would be paramount to doing the rs232 adapter, since it doesn't actually require any extra hardware besides the card and the calculator. It would need more pins, but they wouldn't need to be next to each other. Plus, Nspire Only :P
@Sebasu the calculator has 6V unregulated coming from the batteries, and 3.3V that is regulated through calc hardware. Why don't you try connecting it to the batteries directly instead? It's safer, since any problems won't ruin your calculator.
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ok, it is true that it would be simpler even connect directly to the battery, my question was for experimental purposes, to control the fan with a lua menu and the ability to enable the port for LED retroilumination and other possibilities, thanks for replying
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Well, theoretically you could hook it up with a small MOSFET circuit to get it to allow current from the battery when it gets a signal from the Serial, through Lua, but that's a little more soldering than just an LED (Not too bad though)
It's common for use in situations like this, where a low power signal needs to activate a high power drawing circuit.