Author Topic: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming  (Read 22518 times)

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Offline Yeong

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #45 on: April 08, 2012, 11:10:15 am »
I'm just wondering but won't TI support ndless if we make a hell lotta math program with ndless along with other cool programs since they're interested in math stuff? I'm pretty sure teachers might enjoy some programs (like slope fields)
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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #46 on: April 08, 2012, 11:18:37 am »
Let me find what I tried to explain TI, I'll edit my post :)

EDIT: below is an excerpt from the long version of the notes posted in http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=8857 , and sent to several top-level persons at TI.
Short summary: if TI wants us to make math programs, they need to help us first - the way they did on the TI-Z80 and TI-68k series. Otherwise, the main usage of native code will remain games (or other, even more unwanted stuff), because it's easier, in the sense that it requires much less knowledge about the platform.

Quote
On TI-68k/AMS, TI provided some documentation about the math system, and it was used (and expanded) by some people to actually build native code math programs which can be called from the Home screen (whose equivalent in Nspire documents is a calculator page). I'm both one of the users, and one of the reverse-engineerers expanding third-party knowledge of the CAS ( as I told in the meeting in Paris, even nowadays, see https://github.com/debrouxl/gcc4ti/commits/next ).
And we did math programs in C/ASM precisely because it allowed faster and more powerful math programs, or even things that cannot be done in BASIC, even with built-in functions like part().
[...]

By using functions at a lower level, my C implementation of the Aitken delta^2 algorithm on TI-68k/AMS requires a number of operations close to the element count of in the input list (O(n) complexity), while the original TI-BASIC implementation requires a number of operations proportional to the half of the square of the input element count
(O(n^2) complexity). My C program does about 50 operations for a 50-element list, the TI-BASIC program requires more than 1000 op[eration]s...

But on Nspire/Phoenix, there's no official documentation about the Nspire document system, and it's hard to reverse-engineer by ourselves (which is, by the way, "reverse-engineering for interoperability purposes", exempted from DMCA prosecution), because the Nspire OS is so huge. We don't know how to do _interactive_ programs, where users can enter arbitrary math functions and read/write values in per-document variables.
Sure, I have performed enough reverse-engineering on OS 1.7.2741 to show that the Nspire series' CAS is the same as the TI-68k series' CAS (same data structures, same function names - derived from my own disassembly of AMS 3.10 for 89T, which itself contains many names that were publicly documented by TI and a number of names I made up and have little chance of matching TI's), and to make a non-interactive port of my aforementioned Aitken delta^2 program (with a hard-coded function, so it's useless for practical purposes): http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/437/43727.html .
But I'm not motivated to go further...

[...]

If TI wants more math & science programs (and the faster, more powerful math manipulation which native code can provide), at a minimum, we need to be able to integrate both ways with Calculator screens (similar to what Nspire BASIC libraries can do: take arguments, return values), how to read/write per-document variables, and how to make a native
code program well-formed for the purposes of containing per-document variables (current Ndless programs are not well-formed).
« Last Edit: April 08, 2012, 11:27:33 am by Lionel Debroux »
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Offline alberthrocks

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #47 on: April 08, 2012, 11:33:04 am »
OSLauncher can be blocked in mere seconds if they felt like it. They just don't care, that's all. (Then again, have we even showed it to them? :P)

As for the Prizm, I don't believe that people will get attracted because of the games and colorful screen. It all boils down to the majority and what's on the "back-to-school list". If it says that students should get a TI-83+ or TI-84+ [SE], then that's what the students can only get. No parent will get their child a different calculator, because "that's what the sheet says." What games we write will have no effect on the market. Add to the fact that the majority of textbooks are written for the TI-8x calculators, and there you have it: monopoly. Unfortunately, Casio didn't have a chance from the start.** You would need an antitrust lawsuit to fix things.

Also, a good point was mentioned - neither the CX nor the Prizm have penetrated the market much. So technically, we're only programming for ourselves - not bad either! That means that most of us (at least the Ndless fans/people) will stay on 3.1 for however long they want. Remember, TI-loving teachers are not 99% of the teachers in the United States (and those teachers should be fired on the spot). Also, most, if not all of the students, don't even know that they could update their OS! We're, in a way, quite safe from TI...

Again, I suggest we take the road where iOS jailbreaking has done - "new OS update? Great! Let's hack it again!" The JB community there doesn't even bother to convince Apple.
Sure, we're not as popular as iOS jailbreaking, maybe even less than Prizm hacking or TI-8x hacking. But who said we needed popularity to get stuff done?
We can do stuff at our own pace - this has always been the way in the TI community.
The most important thing is this: having fun. I know it sounds cheesy, but everything here is all done on a volunteer basis - we might as well have fun while doing so! ;)

** There's definitely a more optimistic opposing viewpoint... :P I'm just not a fan of Casio, that's all.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2012, 11:34:56 am by alberthrocks »
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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #48 on: April 08, 2012, 11:44:58 am »
Quote
OSLauncher can be blocked in mere seconds if they felt like it.
By merely activating the PTT mode, indeed :)
Which is why I'm stating, on most occasions, that OSLauncher is perfectly harmless (*), and therefore that the fact it freaked out the TI management and the regulation authorities alike, means that both are thoroughly incompetent.

Quote
They just don't care, that's all.
They do...

Quote
(Then again, have we even showed it to them? :P)
Well, sure: I did for defending myself, on the tinspire Google group, when I / the community (I don't remember exactly which) was attacked as a result of the release of OSLauncher ;)

Quote
What games we write will have no effect on the market. Add to the fact that the majority of textbooks are written for the TI-8x calculators, and there you have it: monopoly. Unfortunately, Casio didn't have a chance from the start.** You would need an antitrust lawsuit to fix things.
Indeed, TI's entranched monopoly (a monopoly which the openness of TI-Z80 and TI-68k calculators, and the good usage we community people made out of it, helped establish !! And they're now consistently showing big fat middle fingers to us) is a major part of the problem; but an antitrust lawsuit wouldn't fix it.

Quote
Again, I suggest we take the road where iOS jailbreaking has done - "new OS update? Great! Let's hack it again!" The JB community there doesn't even bother to convince Apple.
Sure. But the iOS, Wii and whatever similar jailbreaking communities are doing a much better job at near-uninterrupted arbitrary native code execution availability, and about breadth of usage of the platform, than we are doing. Again, I am including myself in the criticism. That's why I wrote above that hardly anybody cares about the Nspire platform :)

Spoiler For Spoiler:
*: until someone tampers with the PTT, of course. This would be a good topic on which people could nicely hone their reverse-engineering skills... who knows, maybe it's just glorified pixie dust that falls apart in several hours ?
« Last Edit: April 08, 2012, 12:27:30 pm by Lionel Debroux »
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Offline bsl

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #49 on: April 08, 2012, 12:36:40 pm »
Quote
Again, I suggest we take the road where iOS jailbreaking has done - "new OS update? Great! Let's hack it again!" The JB community there doesn't even bother to convince Apple.
Sure. But the iOS, Wii and whatever similar jailbreaking communities are doing a much better job at near-uninterrupted arbitrary native code execution availability, and about breadth of usage of the platform, than we are doing. Again, I am including myself in the criticism. That's why I wrote above that hardly anybody cares about the Nspire platform :)

The reason the iPhone hacking community is doing better is that the iPhone has so much more hardware/software capability.
Also, the underlying UNIX OS makes it very attractive.
The Nspire was marketted to the classroom - so a budget limit plays a design factor compared to the iPhone.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #50 on: April 08, 2012, 12:49:47 pm »
Yeah the thing is that for the majority of calculator programmers, calculator programming is a secondary or third hobby for them. As a result, they care about calculator programming, but it is very low in their priorities. If the weather is nice outside or there's a good movie to watch or game to play, they would rather do that instead of calc programming, and they'll only code for calcs if they have nothing else to do for an extended period of time. This is why, for example, during Summer, that many people vanishes for a while from the community or become much less active. Basically, they care, but not enough to be very dedicated, so most projects or breakthroughs goes on very slowly. A major TI-Nspire breakthrough might be delayed only because of that (there are people who are very dedicated that would accomplish it much earlier, but they're just too busy accomplishing different breakthroughs). Also, to keep people around more, the community constantly has to attract them with contests and prizes. In early 2009, we even looked into the possibility to offer money prizes to the first few Omnimaga people who would release a quality game or program on ticalc.org before the end of the year in attempt to convince people to work on new stuff. Add to that the fact most people here are at school and have work, so they're also busy.

It's kinda like ice hockey in the southern United States among sports fans. Some people like it, but they would rather go see a football or baseball game instead, and owners of hockey teams have to lower their tickets or even offer them for free to fill up stadiums (most notably the Phoenix Coyotes). Basically some people like it, but they just not care enough to be die hard fans, so they have to offer them treats to attract them.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2012, 12:57:55 pm by DJ_O »
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Offline hoffa

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #51 on: April 08, 2012, 02:27:52 pm »
@Hoffa, TI (TI-Nspire section) does give a damn about us. They have showed it multiple ways:
- By sending email to all magor TI-Communities
- By contacting several community members, allowing them to beta test stuff
- By listening to multiple of our sugestions

Yes, that's what I meant by "there might be some patting going on". I stand my ground, we're irrelevant farts next to shareholders. However, in those things you listed, we're (well not me personally, but you get the point) just doing their job free of charge, obviously they're going to exploit us as much as possible. Free beta testers and innovative suggestions that ultimately encourage investments and increase the businesses value is only advantageous for TI. Of course they don't want a source of free information to dry out; sending a few e-mails and keeping shallow relations is required, they wouldn't want the illusion of something deeper to fade away.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2012, 05:03:09 pm by hoffa »

Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #52 on: April 08, 2012, 02:53:13 pm »
Quote
obviously they're going to exploit us as much as possible
They're not just going to - I don't think I can reveal in what ways, but I know for a fact that they do already attempt to exploit third parties who are willing to let themselves exploited.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #53 on: April 08, 2012, 03:18:20 pm »
I hope they at least won't dare charging money for the Lua SDK... I know back when the 83+SDK was shareware that almost nobody used it.
I don't think TI hates us ..
They just don't like it.
Also if they hated us, I think they might have secretly tried to make us shut down or even try to sue us whenever we say bad things about them for libel and stuff like that. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if they even sent us a DMCA notice for our logo (remember that 2010 april fools joke?)

TI certainly held grudges, though. In 2001, they recalled Ticalc.org CD for innapropriate content, and then even though ticalc.org fixed that issue, TI has never put ticalc.org site link again on their website, even 8 years later (only calcgames.org and detachedsolutions.com were listed)

EDIT Fixed double post. I thought I was on the last page when quoting the above.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2012, 06:47:57 pm by DJ_O »
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Offline Dingus

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #54 on: April 09, 2012, 09:08:40 am »
The topic of this thread is "the future of nspire programming" and there has been a lot of info presented here.  I come away with the impression that because:
1.  Nspire calculators just aren't in great general use with students, like I thought they would be, and considering that end spires have been around for over half a decade that simply isn't good news for the future of that product.
2.  Ti's lock down efforts are working and the latest os may be the death of Ndless.  All of which means there is and will be less interest in programming for end spire.
3.  A few people have gone over to the dark side and paint a rosey picture of the future for nspire programming which doesn't seem to have any basis in fact and needs to be filtered by reality checks.
4.  LUA isn't the solution people are looking for.
5.  The motivation to program by people at his site is fragile because of the lack of rewards.
My conclusion?  There is no future for nspire programming and there may not be a future for EndSpire.  So where are the opportunities for the very talented people who post here? What do they tackle next? Where can they make their mark?

Offline hoffa

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #55 on: April 09, 2012, 10:30:24 am »
1.  Nspire calculators just aren't in great general use with students, like I thought they would be, and considering that end spires have been around for over half a decade that simply isn't good news for the future of that product.
I'm not going to post any figures or sources, but TI has a huge market and the TI-Nspire has been adopted by numerous schools. They know their way around marketing and business, don't worry.

2.  Ti's lock down efforts are working and the latest os may be the death of Ndless.  All of which means there is and will be less interest in programming for end spire.
Wait and see, your claims aren't based on much.

5.  The motivation to program by people at his site is fragile because of the lack of rewards.
Rewards? What kind of rewards? I don't know about others, but I certainly do not code for some medal.

My conclusion?  There is no future for nspire programming and there may not be a future for EndSpire.  So where are the opportunities for the very talented people who post here? What do they tackle next? Where can they make their mark?
What's EndSpire? I don't think that many people who code have as motivation pride or something related.

Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #56 on: April 09, 2012, 01:07:12 pm »
3.  A few people have gone over to the dark side and paint a rosey picture of the future for nspire programming which doesn't seem to have any basis in fact and needs to be filtered by reality checks.

But it's fun! And the emperor pays more to people lying to the rebels.
I took the job that gets paid the most :)
« Last Edit: April 09, 2012, 01:14:57 pm by jimbauwens »

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #57 on: April 09, 2012, 03:07:29 pm »
You get paid under the NDA? Or do you mean it in a figurative way in reference to how you know in advance what TI will release and stuff?
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Offline alberthrocks

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #58 on: April 09, 2012, 03:27:09 pm »
So where are the opportunities for the very talented people who post here? What do they tackle next? Where can they make their mark?
I guess I'll just remove the gigabytes of data on my server dedicated to doing Ndless programming, shut down my Lua2TNS bots, and buy myself a $105.77 PRIZM. :P

I don't know if you realize it or not, but the TI-8x programming is on a totally different level. Sure, I might program in Axe once in a while, but it's totally different from doing it in Lua or C.
Of course, if you think this pessimistically, we can all hop over to the Prizm platform... except that hardly anyone has that calculator. :P Plus, I don't really see the Prizm becoming a viable platform anyway. The interface is rather clunky, and the font is... well, let's just say "not good looking" :P The hardware is also much weaker than that of the Nspire.

You don't seem to get the reason people hack these calcs - because people own them, and want to see them do something else besides math. No one is going to buy another calc just because you can program for that other calc.
The hacker's reward? Satisfaction of seeing those programs run in front of their eyes.
There's no other motivation except seeing one's programs work.
If you're developing just to get attention, you should really consider another hobby... :P

You also miss the bigger point - we already have ndless3 out! Are you going to upgrade your OS just because TI said so?
If not, guess what? You can develop for the platform! :)

Finally... at last check, you don't even own the Nspire calculator anyway... why are you complaining about a calculator that you don't even have? :P

Maybe no one gives a damn about the Nspires (which might change in the future)... but no one gives a damn about TI, either! ;)
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Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
« Reply #59 on: April 09, 2012, 03:29:05 pm »
I was just sarcastic because of Dingus comment (acting like I was on the dark side).

But yes, we can get paid for some stuff.