Credit goes to Nikitouzz for the idea.He's not the first one to think of relaying TI's attack against Linux outside the community, nope ;)
Currently, there are only two TI-Nspire developer left besides the Ndless/TNOC/nLaunchy team: Jens_K (Minecraft 2D) and Jwalker (WZGlib).
Released Ndless 3.6 Switching Pack for the TI-Nspire CX CAS with Boot2 3.1:Switch back and forth with renaming a file and reseting? Sounds awesome. Going to install that and use the new ui and 3.2 lua games.
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=13214
Put both 3.1 and 3.6 OSes in your TI-Nspire CX CAS and switch between them when needed.
Switch to 3.6 when you want to benefit from the latest features...
Switch to 3.1 when you want to use Ndless programs.
New easy installation tutorial in only 10 easy steps.
Enjoy.
Last night, new TI-Nspire 3.6 OS files were found on TI servers.
The complete version number is 3.6.0.543, and it was built on Sept. 11th, 2013.
The OS is available for :Let’s notice that we couldn’t find any release for the chinese TI-Nspire CM, which already skipped OS 3.2.4. Are those models discontinued?
- TI-Nspire
- TI-Nspire CAS
- TI-Nspire CX
- TI-Nspire CX CAS
The TI-84+SE version for TI-Nspire calculators remains the same 2.56MP.
This OS sets the minimum installable version to itself (3.6.0.546) and thus forbids any possibility of going back to any prior version - which is actually counter-productive since several bugs were found in the recent releases that weren't there before, in versions that worked better….
The OS does include Boot2 3.2.4 for the TI-Nspire CX and Boot2 3.0.1 for the TI-Nspire ClickPad/TouchPad.
Let's note that there is a new quite evil protection. The OS installation files contain new ‘manifest' files with the signed list of all files included and their signatures ! As a result, it is impossible to make any changes to these files: they can not be deleted or replaced.(http://i.imgur.com/YDpA5wh.png) (http://i.imgur.com/YDpA5wh.png)
As a result, it becomes impossible to use our TNOC utility to remove the useless Boot2 in 99% of cases and furthermore harmful, as well as sample files.
This means in practice that if you install the OS 3.6, the available space on your TI-Nspire ClickPad / TouchPad, for example, will drop to 14.3 Mo, and the update to nLaunch-incompatible Boot2 is mandatory.
Remember that at the time of the OS 3.0, the update to the 3.0 boot2 could destroy your TI-Nspire ClickPad / TouchPad, and TNOC helped limiting damage and therefore the number of calculators exchange for Texas Instruments. Such an attack against the tool, ignoring the past, is not acceptable.
If you remove the Boot2 from the 3.6 OS file, the system will devilishly pretend to function normally at first. But after the first start, it will change the minimum installable version to 3.6.0.546 and will self-destruct, reporting a discrepency in the RS232 log visible here. You are now condemned to stay with an unusable calculator until you accept to install the original version of the file OS 3.6, now the only accepted version. :banghead:(http://i.imgur.com/eFUYFwK.png) (http://i.imgur.com/eFUYFwK.png)
The home screen directly indicates the availability of the CAS engine, allowing a quick check during exams that forbid it:(http://i.imgur.com/nlksFUg.png)
We can also notice the new designs of the main calculator application, graphs, spreadsheet and Vernier :(http://i.imgur.com/0WTqPR6.png) (http://i.imgur.com/blYmcst.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/OCBLhji.png) (http://i.imgur.com/ZJCoVOw.png)
Changes on the Lua scripting side will be detailed later.
We therefore do not recommend installing the OS 3.6 if you've got a monochrome TI-Nspire, or a TI-Nspire CX still running a nice 3.2.3 release or earlier. We may find a software-way to use the 3.6 OS in a controlled manner from these versions. But if the OS 3.6 is installed the normal way, that is to say, with all its protections, it will remain uncontrollable and going back will be very difficult because it will require external hardware, or may actually be impossible in the current state of our knowledge.
Source: (and downloads...)
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13206&lang=en
With 33+ years of programming/hardware design experience and 26+ years as a EE I am always astounded why you are all at all surprised. Don't you get it?Beware, some guys around here are older than that.
It's all about money and power! It has nothing to do with capability!Some of the oldest members have been stating just that for years now.
...we can make this platform the most successful to have ever traversed the face of this planet.What an exaggeration, my gosh! The poor thing is already quite old-fashioned by todays' tech standards, the only valuable stuff remaining is the math-software, really.
Take setAlpha for example .. it actually didn't work on the handheld but only on the computer software.It used to work on 3.1, this function is directly linked to a nucleus GAFIX routine.
With 33+ years of programming/hardware design experience and 26+ years as a EE I am always astounded why you are all at all surprised. Don't you get it? It's all about money and power! It has nothing to do with capability! Just look at the SI unit system in America, VHS v beta, QWERTY v others , 8086 v 68000/Z8000 etc, etc etc!!! TI is simply acting out of fear, pure and simple for their investments. IMHO, TI has invested in a student/academic calculator and not a computational platform. If you (we) destroy their business model then they will/must fight us but if we align ourselves (please, please bear with me for a moment please) with at least their profit motives we can make this platform the most successful to have ever traversed the face of this planet. TI,as I recall, from the 70's goes WAY back to Jack Kilby and probably the first IC CALCULATOR!!!! If we deconflict our efforts with their survival profit model then we's all down on our sh__ w/o TI threatn' us.
Just ensure two domains exist , one TI profit model for students/tests and the other NONSTUDENTS/TESTS/ all others. We need to come to an agreement that some indicator/unbreakable method is a student/test version
*OR* ours AND NO ONE CAN FAKE the student/test version! I think its that simple IMHO!!!! That way its a win/win for us AND TI because they have the student/test profit and growth to STUDENT==> Professional/hobbiest/ whatever profit model which are clearly and completely different.
If the HP manages to fix all known HP Prime bugs before next school year, that the price doesn't increase higher than the Nspire CX and that more and more people adopt the platform over the Nspire, then TI will have no choice but to adapt the Nspire to that new market.For me, before thinking about aquiring a large(r) part (or at least non-negligible) of the market, HP will seriously have to make the Prime more professional. Not that competitors didn't have hard times with their first release, but the HP prime is competing with the Nspire CX which has years of evolution now, and bugs "everywhere" is still bad for the customer point of view- who isn't going to be lenient about bugs/crashes. They buy something, they want it to work. And the more intuitive/fast/profesionnal looking, the better. So far, I don't think the Prime targets students well enough. And if HP makes a calculator not targetted at students, then they simply can't expect to get a non-negligible market share in that field, whetether they think TI's way of doing things (like a very user-friendly CAS and interaction/display in general) is not profesionnal looking, or whatever.
Currently, the HP Prime has no ASM/C supportOfficialy, I don't think it ever will. (or then, it won't probably be fit for exams, and thus HP would have abandoned the main target : students).
but the calculator is MUCH faster than the TI-Nspire and offers a programming language officially on-calc programmable that does nearly as much as Lua and at much faster speed.Yes, the Prime is much faster, and some of its Basic commands are actually not possible in Nspire Lua (let alone Basic), but on some other points, Lua's much better. It's really much of a different approach, and up to the user to like better whichever platform, in the end.
Many younger students prefer BASIC-like languages because they're easier to learn as a first programming language,All that's great but it would have been a much more valid point like 10 years ago. Today, most of the student don't give a crap about programming on their calculators anyway, because most of them have their smartphones to lose their time on. It sure is sad, but it's the time we live in, now - and I don't think there is anything we can do to change that.
but sadly, the BASIC language on the TI-Nspire makes it a major PITA to program anything that is even close to useable by the average student.I'll have to disagree on that. While z80, 68k and other platforms allow a mode in-depth I/O and graphics control from Basic, I challenge you to find a better platform for math-oriented programming than the Nspire's Basic.
Sadly we can't judge if the HP Prime will compete well, because it came out one month after back-to-school 2013, after most students had already purchased another calculator, but there already seems to be a decent amount of users on HP Museum (their daily forum activity even rivals Cemetech and Omni now, even with a batshit insane registration system)Well, early-adopters' peak, I guess. We can only wait and see in the future what TI's response to the Prime will be (if they ever feel the need to actually respond. They are so powerful onthe market that they wouldn't really need to take harsh measures to keep their market share)
If TI did some efforts in not providing us an half-hassled TI-BASIC language and made it and Lua as fast as HP PPL, then maybe we wouldn't be complaining as much.Sure. Although the 2x faster processor isn't there for nothing :P
If they just can't find ways to make both languages faster, then why won't they just upgrade the processor to 400 MHz or something? It's not like they'll ruin themselves doing so, considering how cheap processors are nowadays.They certainly can (and, well, TI knows about microprocessors.....), and they most probably will, but when they decide it's going to be needed.
And instead of trying in every way to block every Ndless program, why won't TI just try to find ways to make the teacher mode impossible to hack? That's the only reason why they're blocking Ndless after all.Well, nothing is never hackable anyway :P
YEah I doubt that the Prime will ever gain official ASM support. I meant that the community have yet to try to add it. That said, unnoficial ASM/C support have slim chances of never happening either too. All will depend of if the community is willing to bother or is dedicated enough to do so. Notice how the Let's hack the HP Prime thread have been dead for a few months now. If there are only two or three people actively hacking the Nspire newest OSes for a calc that is used for like 100 millions of people, then if the HP Prime gets used by 100000 people, for example, this would mean 1000 times fewer potential people interested in hacking it.Currently, the HP Prime has no ASM/C supportOfficialy, I don't think it ever will. (or then, it won't probably be fit for exams, and thus HP would have abandoned the main target : students).
However we can hope that they won't take the same measures as TI does in every versions, making everything to prevent ndless.
Nope it didn't stop anyone. However, while there are people who like to work on limited languages or platforms to push them to their limits, there are certain people who might want more freedom without being forced to learn ASM or C (or even Lua in some cases, since I saw people who found Lua too hard compared to Basic before or didn't like it). As you say it really depends of the user's preference.but the calculator is MUCH faster than the TI-Nspire and offers a programming language officially on-calc programmable that does nearly as much as Lua and at much faster speed.Yes, the Prime is much faster, and some of its Basic commands are actually not possible in Nspire Lua (let alone Basic), but on some other points, Lua's much better. It's really much of a different approach, and up to the user to like better whichever platform, in the end.
Anyway, has slow programming ever stopped coders to do what they want ? Just look at the myriad of marvelous things done in z80 and 68k Basic , for instance.
True but it's not like they give a crap about smartphone programming either. Not that we can even program directly on a smartphone anyway, not to mention the fact they're still banned in some classes because of idiots disrupting the whole class with their phones.Many younger students prefer BASIC-like languages because they're easier to learn as a first programming language,All that's great but it would have been a much more valid point like 10 years ago. Today, most of the student don't give a crap about programming on their calculators anyway, because most of them have their smartphones to lose their time on. It sure is sad, but it's the time we live in, now - and I don't think there is anything we can do to change that.
One issue though is that we can't judge how good a calc is from its first adopters. When the Nspire came out, it lacked any proper programming whatsover, 3D graphing and various other things, not to mention it had more bugs. Most of those were fixed to a certain extent in later versions. The same thing seems like it will happen to the HP Prime. Sadly, nowadays companies seems like they have to rush products to the market to meet deadlines then fix or improve them later. Of course, too many bugs can leave bad impressions at first, but so far in the Amazon reviews, for example, most bad reviews are mainly complains from RPN fanboys who used their HP 48 for decades. That said, the company better not screw up too much either, like they did with the HP 49g in 1999: The calc was so broken that its reputation could probably never be salvaged, so the improved version had to be renamed as the 50g.Sadly we can't judge if the HP Prime will compete well, because it came out one month after back-to-school 2013, after most students had already purchased another calculator, but there already seems to be a decent amount of users on HP Museum (their daily forum activity even rivals Cemetech and Omni now, even with a batshit insane registration system)Well, early-adopters' peak, I guess. We can only wait and see in the future what TI's response to the Prime will be (if they ever feel the need to actually respond. They are so powerful onthe market that they wouldn't really need to take harsh measures to keep their market share)
This, and this is why I think that a faster TI-Nspire processor could already be a good alternative for them. HP PPL would probably be as slow as Lua if the Prime ran on a 150 MHz processor. Maybe the so called TI-Nspire Premium? :P But yeah as you said in response to my other quote, the average student probably won't need it since the TI-Nspire is already fast enough for maths. (the touchpad responsiveness needs some improvements, tho, since it didn't detect my fingers all the time when I tried scrolling through graphs or selecting stuff)If TI did some efforts in not providing us an half-hassled TI-BASIC language and made it and Lua as fast as HP PPL, then maybe we wouldn't be complaining as much.Sure. Although the 2x faster processor isn't there for nothing :P
Hopefully they eventually do it, but yeah I guess if they don't see the need to we'll have to wait longer. >.<And instead of trying in every way to block every Ndless program, why won't TI just try to find ways to make the teacher mode impossible to hack? That's the only reason why they're blocking Ndless after all.Well, nothing is ever hackable anyway :P
And the point of Ndless is not to mess with the teacher stuff like PTT. It just opens doors. What some users decide then to do is their own choice...
Several solutions (like having a separate, open Nspire system where native coding is allowed and documented, and a exam-reserved OS where it would be closed (but which native developers wouldn't care about anyways since the other OS is there)) have been proposed to TI. Even though it's unlikely they will adpot such measures, we can at least say we have tried to discuss for the good of all.
I won a TI nspire CX CAS and I wonder it won't come with os 3.6 :S"Trés bien Antoine!"
Ok it works, but only on TI-Nspire CX CAS, not on TI-Nspire CX (it just freezes).
Tried it out on my CAS CX with nlaunch, it turned my 5KB document into a 7KB document. When I "downgraded" the document, it went back to 5KB.Interesting (but sad).
Which is why I think it would be nice to have a third-party 3.2 to 3.1 (or any other version, even 1.1 to 3.1) converter, then if the program you attempt to convert uses commands not available in older OSes, it just notifies you and ask if you want to convert anyway (and remove the offending lines of code or not).this feature actually exists in 3.1, I have documents created in 3.2 (exclusively Lua) that I can open in 3.1. When I open them, the OS prompts me a warning, but still opens it.
It's confirmed that you won't be able to downgrade from 3.6 ever again (officially), because of fixes related to the press-to-test mode.Huh? Who put PTTKiller/PTTCopier on GitHub?
So it looks like they're referring to some Ndless tool, attacking the PTT mode, which was released here on Omnimaga.
Unfortunately, even after being moderated and explained things here, the author didn't think this back and did rerelease its tool on github.
So to the one who will feel concerned by this, thank you very much for all the problems we now have to deal with...Could you please stop blaming other people...?
If Ndless 3.2/3.6 is released someday (and note I said *if*), I hope that nobody will attack the PTT ever again.And I hope TI stops being stupid... but I guess that will not happen...
Huh? Who put PTTKiller/PTTCopier on GitHub
Well, PTTcopier is still available and findable with a simple google search.
(http://i.imgur.com/1of8Pbh.png)
Well TI is imposing its TI does not care policy when it comes to lockdowns^^THIS!
[...]Registry editor?
Granted, you could maybe uninstall 3.6 software then reinstall an older one, but what if the student software writes something inside your Windows registery to prevent installing older versions?
[...]
...LOL, for that you don't need any TI software at all. I recommend you to do it every now and then just to get rid of M$ self-inflicted viruses, tho. :P
Also, re-install windows? :P
@DJ Omnimaga: Apparently, no problem with wired connectivity.Ah ok, but now that they're doing this, IMHO it's only a matter of time before it's extended to wired connectivity kit too. They're that bad and I wouldn't be surprised if they did something about people switching the Nspire motherboard to get around the 3.6 lockdown in the future, even if it meant a complete redesign of the calculator case.
It's only for wireless connectivity that if you use 3.6, it has to be on both sides: OS and software.
Thanks for your findings! But as we are saying with each release, don't upgrade yet as you would no longer be able to use Ndless if you want to and we're not really sure the 3.2 software will work with OS 3.6. (You can upgrade if you don't care, there's nothing to keep you from doing this, but you probably won't be able to downgrade back to 3.2.3 after.)
EDIT: Actually, the 3.6 software is out. (http://ourl.ca/20267)