Omnimaga

Calculator Community => Other Calculators => Topic started by: alberthrocks on April 06, 2012, 06:35:23 pm

Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: alberthrocks on April 06, 2012, 06:35:23 pm
[split from here (http://ourl.ca/15770)]

-It seems many Nspire coders abandonned the fight against TI, and Ndless 3.1 did not create as much interest as 2.0 did. Don't give up! You know some people still code for 68K and AFX calcs, right? Also if you are really afraid of the Nspire being blocked permanently, maybe it would be a good idea to try doing what Reo did with his RPG: Make it for both the PRIZM and Nspire at once? Maybe Reo could share how he works on a C game on both the PRIZM and Nspire at once.
Heh, that's the peanut gallery you're referring to. ;) Personally, I kinda find it funny - they just made a breakthrough with overclocking, but the Ndless scene has already done that. :P
Furthermore, the Ndless scene is really about to heat up. You've heard of the bFLT loader, right? That loader will open the gates to C++ programming (used to be just ARM ASM and C), as well as game porting for nSDL! :D (It'll also allow newlib, a mobile C library, to get ported. That's actually pretty crucial, since 99.9% of the world's programs depend on a C library. It's a miracle that we survived for so long without one...)

So quite honestly, whoever said that we just "gave up" is probably lying. ;) Watch out PRIZM, the Nspire is about to rev into action! >:D

(Honestly, I think the only reason PRIZM is getting *that* much attention is because of the already exposed API, and the fact that no one hacked it yet :P The introduction of nSDL and bFLT *might* turn this around. I'm that confident! ;))

As for suggestions... that Spybot45/New IRC bot... that needs to be up 24/7, not go down for 24 hours, up for a few seconds :P
That bot is pretty much a lifeline for activity. I've noticed that activity tends to go down when that bot is down... :/
I don't know what language it's in, but if it's compatible with Linux (non-mIRC), it could be co-located on a separate VPS.

Finally... advertise this site to your friends! :D Of course, make sure they aren't online trolls, and make sure they actually know how to program :P Otherwise, they'll more or less be kinda bored...

I think the low activity can also be attributed to the age group - this year in HS is particularly important to me, so I've shifted my focus to my studies.
Hopefully (no guarantees) this summer we can be a bit more free :)
There's an interesting piece of software that I want to write - a collab project - that might change the whole world... or at least the TI community :P
Again, no promises or anything, but it's something I aspire to do.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 06, 2012, 08:08:10 pm
Yeah but I mean some people fear that TI will eventually manage to permanently lock the Nspire, with no way to make Ndless work anymore on it, or locking down Ndless for 3 extra years like before, and some people probably don't find it worth it anymore to bother coding in ASM/C for the Nspire as a result, since eventually their audience would shrink as low as the TI-86. There's even a post from Chockosta where he stated he was considering quitting Nspire development because of TI's action. Also to run nSDL and bFLT you need Ndless, right? If Ndless was to be killed for good by TI, then we would never be able to use nSDL/bFLT again. THat said I still think people should not give up, though.

As for Spybot I agree more stability would be nice. Its current unreliability makes it hard to get notified of new posts and IRC is often cut off from the forums again. OmnomIRC helped a lot Omnimaga activity before.

As for age, I guess you have a point, since most people turned 18 last Summer or close, so much less time or risks of interest shifts, but there seemed to be less new guys joining.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: alberthrocks on April 06, 2012, 08:16:21 pm
Yeah but I mean some people fear that TI will eventually manage to permanently lock the Nspire, with no way to make Ndless work anymore on it, or locking down Ndless for 3 extra years like before, and some people probably don't find it worth it anymore to bother coding in ASM/C for the Nspire as a result, since eventually their audience would shrink as low as the TI-86. There's even a post from Chockosta where he stated he was considering quitting Nspire development because of TI's action. Also to run nSDL and bFLT you need Ndless, right? If Ndless was to be killed for good by TI, then we would never be able to use nSDL/bFLT again. THat said I still think people should not give up, though.
I guess you are right in a sense that we are always fearful of TI. With the next update, it will be hard to choose. :/

Still, most people will not care about updating their Nspire OSes - hardly anyone in my school thinks you can update a calc's OS! :P Ndless devs will still have an audience!
In the end, I think it'll all balance out - hardcore Lua devs will take the upgrade (with a spoonful of TNOC, of course!), and the rest will wait for a Ndless3.2, which I'm sure won't be too far away. ;)

Besides, I like to think of the recent developments as momentum to find exploits and make ndless3.2 faster, since the new developments are fun, and we'd like to see them on newer (and better?) OSes ASAP! :D
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 06, 2012, 08:42:57 pm
Yeah. Also there's Lua, but many people find it too slow to perform any advanced stuff. As for OS updates, sadly the issue is that retail store calcs will eventually all come pre-installed with OS 3.2 and a lot of teachers force students to upgrade. :/

In the worst case scenario, I expect 90% of the Nspire scene to be european developers in a few years (since in Europe teachers do not have full control of what students do with their calc).

Anyway what I think too is that it would be nice if topics were created to discuss further ideas for Ndless dev in the future. Maybe not just plain publicly state what hacks to try for Ndless 3.2 in case TI watches us, but you get the idea (kinda like the UTI topic).
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 07, 2012, 11:25:37 am
I just wanted to clarify some Nspire stuff

- There is no on-calc editor in 3.2. The student software comes with a SDK built in. However, there are multiple Lua programs that allow you to code on-calc, so this isn't a problem.
- TI cannot fully lock the Nspire, there will always be holes to exploit. It might take longer, but as Olivier stated he will not give up on Ndless development. And I will not either.
- TI is actively improving the Lua language, and they are very open to suggestions.
- TI isn't that evil either. I recently asked them why they removed/disabled the print command in Lua. They reason was not to annoy us, and now there is a very big chance that it will return in the OS after 3.2.

And as Albert stated, great stuff in the Nspire scene are just beginning.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Adriweb on April 07, 2012, 12:20:16 pm
Yeah. Also there's Lua, but many people find it too slow to perform any advanced stuff. As for OS updates, sadly the issue is that retail store calcs will eventually all come pre-installed with OS 3.2 and a lot of teachers force students to upgrade. :/
I think you're mistaken. Or at least don't understand everything going on. (nothing bad intended towards you)
Of course C/Asm is faster. We know that, we get it.
But you can do great things with Lua. Just look at awesome stuff already out even before Physics is out and before the official SDK is out.
Can you imagine how even better Lua scripts are going to be when all that is released ?
Compared to what the Nspire always had (crappy Basic), Lua scripting is infinitely better.
Another thing to note : Everybody knows that Basic is slower than native. Look at popular z80 and 68k calcs. Count how many BASIC programs there are out there. Do you think they are all crappy because it is "too slow to perform any advanced stuff". No.
So, what we have right here: a "limited" basic, but making incredible things thanks to everybody in the community.
Now, Lua on the Nspire allows us to make 9001* better things that what z80 and 68k Basic could allow us to do.
So please, stop writing again and again that Lua is so slow we can't do a thing with it. (this is not necessarily to you but to everybody in general, I mean).
And also, while you may want to compare raw computation speed, you will compare things with criteria that won't be fair for both the compared languages. For example :
  You can't make a NES Emulator in Lua. You can in native.  Native Wins.
  You can't make a GBC Emulator in Lua. You can in native.  Native Wins.
  You can't process xxxx computations per second in Lua.   Native Wins.
  You can't access USB over Lua.  Native Wins.
Clearly, Native wins right ? Lua is crappy right ?

Now let's take this point of view :
  Nspire Lua is easy to code in. Start up TINCS and open the Lua SDK. It's a mess with Native.  Lua wins.
  Lua can access the math engine. (with CAS if device is CAS).  Native can't.   Lua wins.
  Lua can interact with the already existing variables and widgets.  Native can't.  Lua wins.
  Lua is supported by TI and whenever the SDK is out, so it will have an even bigger community.  Native isn't/won't (as much).  Lua wins.
Clearly, Lua wins right ? Native is crappy right ?


As you can see, you (or any other) can't just claim that "it's too slow". For many things, Lua's better than Native. And for a lot of things I'm pretty sure it will stay that way. Except if TI radically changes its ideas and publishes some Native Resources Toolkit or whatever, but I don't see that coming soon...

Also, some other things :
- I think the community needs to make some kind of all-in-one-included Native SDK, where you could just select the target device, and everything would be so you just have to code your thing, and it would compile with the latest ndless toolkit available (or the one you want if you want to override that), etc. so that people who aren't really geeky enough to setup properly their toolchain onto their system (or just dont want to mess with it too much, or for any other reason), could finally be able to program in C for their device ! If it was easy enough to code in Native (as much as in Lua with the SDK, for example), there would be a heck of a lot more people involved, and thus, the community would be way more active, including here at Omnimaga, but also at TI-Planet etc.

- While you can think 3.2 is blocking ndless (it will most probably do), there will probably be flaws like in every other OSes, so don't worry too much I guess :)

In the worst case scenario, I expect 90% of the Nspire scene to be european developers in a few years (since in Europe teachers do not have full control of what students do with their calc).
Maybe I haven't understood correctly, but how is that bad ?
I mean, 90% of the "underground" scene is European ?
on the Nspire, 3.2 does also mean Lua physics stuff, so even more content...
And that could be from anywhere in the world :)
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: critor on April 07, 2012, 01:02:16 pm
- While you can think 3.2 is blocking ndless (it will most probably do), there will probably be flaws like in every other OSes, so don't worry too much I guess :)

You belong to the Ndless development team, so please don't give false hopes to our fans...

3.X OSes are pretty well secured.
3.1 had just a little compilation error which had disabled the canary (by mistake), and a flaw in the OS update code.

OSes 3.0.1/3.0.2 have the canary and have not been ndlessed up to now.
OS 3.2 is probably going to be a little more secure than OS 3.0.2.


If OS 3.0.2 had been ndlessed since Melendy's annoucement, it might have been possible to get Ndless on 3.2 within weeks, maybe during the summer.

As it wasn't the case, it's probably a "good bye" to Ndless for months/years, or even forever...
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Adriweb on April 07, 2012, 01:42:11 pm
You're too pessimistic here ;-)

Just wait & see !
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Dingus on April 07, 2012, 02:34:49 pm
TI has again defeated Ndless and it is not a coincidence that interest in programming their calc's has fallen off drastically.  They got what they wanted.  Except it and move on.  We cannot go back to a previous era that no longer exists.  Again, we can not go back to a previous era that no longer exists.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: critor on April 07, 2012, 02:41:43 pm
Move on to what? Casio?
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: alberthrocks on April 07, 2012, 02:44:39 pm
TI has again defeated Ndless and it is not a coincidence that interest in programming their calc's has fallen off drastically.  They got what they wanted.  Except it and move on.  We cannot go back to a previous era that no longer exists.  Again, we can not go back to a previous era that no longer exists.
So I guess we should dispose of our calculators now, close down all the calculator related forums, and move on to tinkering with iOS and Android devices? :P

You're right - this is not the previous era. The previous era was insanity with old TI-8x calcs. We're in the new era of modding and programming for new TI-8x, TI-Nspire, and Prizm devices! :D
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Yeong on April 07, 2012, 02:44:45 pm
Quote
TI has again defeated Ndless
We have no proof that ExtendeD can't go through OS 3.2 ;)
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Xeda112358 on April 07, 2012, 02:47:17 pm
Plus, between people like myself and Qwerty.55, we are looking into quantum logic and we have been attacking methods of cracking cryptosystems. I would like to believe that we can crack something like that, even if it isn't for another bazillion years :) All it takes is one neat trick.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Lionel Debroux on April 07, 2012, 03:21:30 pm
Quote
If it was easy enough to code in Native (as much as in Lua with the SDK, for example), there would be a heck of a lot more people involved, and thus, the community would be way more active, including here at Omnimaga, but also at TI-Planet etc.
TI is boneheaded about limiting the functionality of their calculators (and screwing with basic user rights of doing whatever they see fit with the hardware they own), instead of taking advantage of the possibilities of native code, and their resulting attempts to "protect" themselves, is a very powerful deterrent for the open development communities. That's why even a much improved SDK would hardly help people getting involved...

Quote
You're too pessimistic here ;-)
Not so sure, because the fact is that hardly anybody gives a damn about the Nspire platform...
Did anybody do for the Nspire what was done for quite a number of closed platforms (starting with gaming consoles), i.e. port Linux mere weeks after the release of arbitrary code execution on the platform ? No, and more than two years later, we're not remotely close to that state.
Do we have a chain of ready to use exploits, and wait for TI to close the hole of the day to release a new version, by a dozen days (often two or three days) after the release ? Not at all.
Do we have a usable graphical library (a need which was identified from the beginning) ? Several weeks ago, the answer was "no".
Do we have a program loader with relocation support (another need identified a couple years ago) ? Again, the answer used to be "no" until very recently.
This list could go on. And yes, I'm criticizing myself (as being part of a community that does a relatively bad job, compared to a number of other communities throughout the history of computing), even if I tried to do something about the math stuff, the document system, the program loader, the graphical library, etc.

Why is it that hardly anybody cares about the Nspire platform ? I don't know, but it's a fact. Another fact is that TI is (relatively) safe is a consequence of the fact we (collectively) are not trying (yet), rather than being a consequence of the fact they're making a decent job protecting their platform...

Quote
Just wait & see !
We'll probably see, indeed, because there always are holes. But even more than Ndless, I can't wait to see TI's dangerous strategy backfiring :)
It's not like they weren't warned about the potential consequences of their incompetence. The gloves have long been off, and so far, the only thing that saved them from facing the consequences of the infuriating war they've been waging against users for five years, is that nobody got over their moral bounds. But sooner rather than later, as I predicted, people are going to become interested in destructive matters (the most damaging attack venues are public knowledge)... and TI will lose, just like Sony lost, to the resent and hatred they created (and also to the false promises incompetent people at TI made to incompetent people at standardizes test regulation authorities - trying to prevent native code is in no way a requirement for certification, it's only willful and lucrative collaboration with the authorities - en français, collaborationnisme). And yet, they were warned in advance, but willfully chose not to take that into account. Their loss.
OSLauncher was perfectly harmless (and yet, it freaked out TI and the woefully incompetent standardized test regulation authorities); '2012 stuff is unlikely to be as gentle as '2010 and '2011 stuff...


One thing is sure, Adriweb: you'll have to take sides at some point. Either TI, or the open development community - but not both, because TI's actions are making them exclusive.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: ruler501 on April 07, 2012, 05:01:50 pm
Not so sure, because the fact is that hardly anybody gives a damn about the Nspire platform...
Did anybody do for the Nspire what was done for quite a number of closed platforms (starting with gaming consoles), i.e. port Linux mere weeks after the release of arbitrary code execution on the platform ? No, and more than two years later, we're not remotely close to that state.
Do we have a chain of ready to use exploits, and wait for TI to close the hole of the day to release a new version, by a dozen days (often two or three days) after the release ? Not at all.
Do we have a usable graphical library (a need which was identified from the beginning) ? Several weeks ago, the answer was "no".
Do we have a program loader with relocation support (another need identified a couple years ago) ? Again, the answer used to be "no" until very recently.
This list could go on. And yes, I'm criticizing myself (as being part of a community that does a relatively bad job, compared to a number of other communities throughout the history of computing), even if I tried to do something about the math stuff, the document system, the program loader, the graphical library, etc.

Why is it that hardly anybody cares about the Nspire platform ? I don't know, but it's a fact. Another fact is that TI is (relatively) safe is a consequence of the fact we (collectively) are not trying (yet), rather than being a consequence of the fact they're making a decent job protecting their platform...
It's not just that nobody gives a damn its also that some people who do have no idea what they could do to help. If there was something I could do to help I gladly would but I doubt I know anywhere near enough to be able to help. If you guys working on the development team tell me something I could do I would gladly help. I like ndless and would love for it to not be stopped because TI is too boneheaded to realize we arent trying to do anything bad.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Adriweb on April 07, 2012, 05:46:14 pm
Quote
If it was easy enough to code in Native (as much as in Lua with the SDK, for example), there would be a heck of a lot more people involved, and thus, the community would be way more active, including here at Omnimaga, but also at TI-Planet etc.
TI is boneheaded about limiting the functionality of their calculators (and screwing with basic user rights of doing whatever they see fit with the hardware they own), instead of taking advantage of the possibilities of native code, and their resulting attempts to "protect" themselves, is a very powerful deterrent for the open development communities. That's why even a much improved SDK would hardly help people getting involved...
Sorry but no. In our cases, since we're mostly geeky people, if we want to program in ndless, we'll go through the necessary steps to make the toolchain work etc.
But not a lot of not-so-geek people would dare to do complex stuff like this, especially if they think it can hurt their computer in whatever way (messing with the system etc.) What I'm saying here is that if it were a lot easier to program in C etc. for the Nspire, a lot more people would at least try. Example : same as the Lua SDK in 3.2, but you just write ... C code instead of Lua. How would that *not* help gaining more Nspire native programmers ?

Quote
You're too pessimistic here ;-)
Not so sure, because the fact is that hardly anybody gives a damn about the Nspire platform...
Well, if you think that way, why even bother continue talking ? :o
There are great opportunities out there, and TI is trying to make Lua be the easiest/most-accessible/ etc. of all.
Again, if Native coding presented the advantages of what Nspire Lua provides, it would be great. But TI doesn't want that for now. And yes, it's sad, I know, and I agree that there would be great developments made if native dev got open. But from what we've seen, you can't influence TI in this kind of decision.
So if you (particularly *you* since you're a great coder and very dedicated to the Nspire among others), decided to give up, then yes, everything will fall to pieces. "Just" because you couldn't get what you wanted from TI... That would be a bad decision because I'm sure that 3.2 and 3.3 etc. will have flaw or whatever, that the ndless team will exploit. Plus, and that's what I said before, if 3.2+ gets ndlessed, we could enjoy the best of both worlds : improved Lua API (physics etc.) and Native. Wouldn't that be awesome ?
Also : "hardly anybody gives a damn about the Nspire platform" -> We still have to think we (the whole community here at Omni+TI-Planet+Cemetech for example) do represent a very, very, very tiny part of TI's customer. There aren't many nerdy-about-calcs people out there (in high school etc. for example), as you know... So whatever we do, it will still be marginal. If, however, (for example), suddenly all the teachers went on strike to get the ability to code in native, I'd bet that TI would get their request done. Sadly for us, that's how it goes and we can't do anything about it. If the only way to make TI "move" is to release "bad" (as from TI's point of view) tools like a PTT Killer or a CAS on non-CAS (or whatever), it could only cause big troubles which could lead to the end of the Npsire "reign" (i.e : it wouldn't be accepted on exams for example, and TI wouldn't sell as much so they might stop produduction). Then we would lose everything. Would you rather have 'limited' programming (as you call it...) with expanding capabilities (Lua) and maybe even native opportunities (thanks to an eventual Ndless 3.2+) or *nothing* at all ?

Did anybody do for the Nspire what was done for quite a number of closed platforms (starting with gaming consoles), i.e. port Linux mere weeks after the release of arbitrary code execution on the platform ? No, and more than two years later, we're not remotely close to that state.
Do we have a chain of ready to use exploits, and wait for TI to close the hole of the day to release a new version, by a dozen days (often two or three days) after the release ? Not at all.
Do we have a usable graphical library (a need which was identified from the beginning) ? Several weeks ago, the answer was "no".
Do we have a program loader with relocation support (another need identified a couple years ago) ? Again, the answer used to be "no" until very recently.
This list could go on. And yes, I'm criticizing myself (as being part of a community that does a relatively bad job, compared to a number of other communities throughout the history of computing), even if I tried to do something about the math stuff, the document system, the program loader, the graphical library, etc.
Why is it that hardly anybody cares about the Nspire platform ? I don't know, but it's a fact. Another fact is that TI is (relatively) safe is a consequence of the fact we (collectively) are not trying (yet), rather than being a consequence of the fact they're making a decent job protecting their platform...
I know all that, and as a geeky-tinkering end user, I'm sad it's the case. But we can't do much about it.
Also, as you said, more and more projects of "big" envergure (english word ?) are starting/in great shape (nDSL etc.), so better late than nothing. It's not a race neither...
Also, to try to answer your question about why we're so few people tinkering with the Nspire, I think it's because ... we're working with *calculators*. Just imagine you're a total alien to this calculator-world. If you ever meet someone who tells the story of how much efforts were done to make {whatever} on a calculator, he would consider it crazy. Indeed, in a world of quad-core wifi-enabled (etc.) smartphones, who anymore gives a damn about simple "calculators". A few people. Just a few. And within that little group, a shallow (extremely tinier !) sub-group who make all the stuff and create all of what happens down there. It's a sad truth, but we really can't do anything about it. Whatever we do will be considered as a feat. nDoom on a calculator was and is, still, a great achievement. If it were done on smartphones (it probably got done), it wouldn't have gotten as much praise and source-of-astonishment than anything else. And sometimes, I guess a little-but-skilled community like ours have to face difficult times where we can't have control of everything. But you know, a lot of projects thought almost impossible at first were done on the Nspire, so let's not be depressed about that and as I said, wait&see, as 3.2+ may contain flaws that will allow us to continue with the great ndless adventure !

Quote
Just wait & see !
We'll probably see, indeed, because there always are holes. But even more than Ndless, I can't wait to see TI's dangerous strategy backfiring :)
It's not like they weren't warned about the potential consequences of their incompetence. The gloves have long been off, and so far, the only thing that saved them from facing the consequences of the infuriating war they've been waging against users for five years, is that nobody got over their moral bounds. But sooner rather than later, as I predicted, people are going to become interested in destructive matters (the most damaging attack venues are public knowledge)... and TI will lose, just like Sony lost, to the resent and hatred they created (and also to the false promises incompetent people at TI made to incompetent people at standardizes test regulation authorities - trying to prevent native code is in no way a requirement for certification, it's only willful and lucrative collaboration with the authorities - en français, collaborationnisme). And yet, they were warned in advance, but willfully chose not to take that into account. Their loss.
OSLauncher was perfectly harmless (and yet, it freaked out TI and the woefully incompetent standardized test regulation authorities); '2012 stuff is unlikely to be as gentle as '2010 and '2011 stuff...
Well, I talked about that up there and while I may agree on some of what you say and disagree on some others, I still don't see the point of releasing tools that could only lead to an even worse situation. Again, we are a small community trying to get great things done, so in any way, our acts won't probably have an impact on 0.1% of the worldwide Nspire Users (students who are given calcs for their studies and who only use it for their purpose : math/science), so why bother taking so much time and effort to just annoy TI ? As you say yourself, most of this community's members are not affected by PTT or stuff like this : so why fight it when we are not having to deal with it ? (This is just an example, btw, not necessarily the truth so far, idk). About the CAS-on-NONCAS thing, while this is inevitably a thought everybody had as soon as the first Nspires came out, it will again be addressed at 0.001% of the users, since most of them won't want to "take a risk" or whatever. This, we can't control...


One thing is sure, Adriweb: you'll have to take sides at some point. Either TI, or the open development community - but not both, because TI's actions are making them exclusive.
Well, so far, choosing both (or actually not chosing any side more than the other) worked pretty well : I work closely with TI with the Lua things, and I really enjoy participating in the native dev effort (but since I'm rather limited in Ndless C/(let's not even talk about ASM), although I can't do much other than testing alpha-versions of risky tools :P which I gladly do for the sake of going forward in native dev.).
If I wanted to take a selfish point of view but completely rational, here's what I would think :
- What profit can I make from being on the side of the open-community ? - What profit can I make from being on TI's side ?
On the first side, not much. I'm not sufficiently skilled enough like you or Extended (and many others) right now (I'll probably learn a lot more in my engineer school in the next 3 years) to create incredible things like you do, and leading to a great fame (on the Internet). And since TI knows me and has (with others like Levak and Critor for example) taken some never-seen-before close-contacts with me/us, it would destroy all this (since they wouldn't probably (?) place any trust in me anymore). So, from that point of view, I just lose everything I'd have gained after so much time of hard work.
If however, I place myself on TI's side, I don't see any bad points, actually. I don't think (as long as I'm not an TI employee) there are rules that forbid being part of a perfectly legal community like Omni/TIPlanet. So then I can profit from both sides : while having the advantages of working with the latest TI stuff and having their trust, I can also continue what I've always done since I bought my first TI : making programs and messing around with what I can. More recently on the Nspire, I focused myself more on Lua since it's where I'm good at, and I didn't have time to properly learn C (and ASM not at all) to be able to code for the Nspire with Ndless. As said, I will probably have more time next years to learn specifically that... You can take Levak's case (which is pretty close to mine, actually) for example : since he's better than me at C/ASM, he does great stuff too for Ndless. But he's great too in Lua so he also has the opportunity to work with TI, as close as me. And that was thanks to "official" programming (well, we forced it because we were tinkerers who allowed Lua programming before it was released). Now we have job opportunities etc. Sadly, this isn't what "underground" Native development could have done for us. Although TI would gladly hire you and you know it ;-) (but this is your choices so I don't have to say anything about what you want to do :) ) If I'm given the opportunity to work for TI when I get my engineer degree, it will be a great achievement for me, since it would mean that after years of messing with calculators, I'm finally "recognized" by the company, even if it wasn't my goal at all at first (I was just messing around for fun, but then I got better at programming etc.).

But I don't [ want to ] think like this. What I think at a long term would be better for me (and probably a lot of people), is to try to focus on what TI can offer, since it's pretty much the only way not to be constantly fighting stuff that would have to be redone for each version. As you said yourself, TI will probably block Ndless in 3.2, and a lot of work would have to be done by people just like us who give their free time for a cause like this. I'd be more than happy to participate more into native dev if TI made it easier, like at least not blocking everything each version. And a lot of people are be probably like me, on this point at least.
So, so far, I'm not having to chose a specific side, and I wish it stays like that as long as possible, so I can participate in the great "official" stuff, while also enjoy the incredible feats of a devoted community (as a end-user and also a participant as much as I can find myself helpful to help the programmers with testing etc.).


I would have written more and mroe to explain my ideas, but it's getting late, and I don't want to post stuff that take an hour to read (oops, that might be too late :D)
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Levak on April 07, 2012, 06:20:48 pm
Dude, I can't see anymore now. I zoomed at maximum trying to focus on the same line in order to read.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 07, 2012, 06:26:24 pm
Yeah. Also there's Lua, but many people find it too slow to perform any advanced stuff. As for OS updates, sadly the issue is that retail store calcs will eventually all come pre-installed with OS 3.2 and a lot of teachers force students to upgrade. :/
I think you're mistaken. Or at least don't understand everything going on. (nothing bad intended towards you)
Of course C/Asm is faster. We know that, we get it.
But you can do great things with Lua. Just look at awesome stuff already out even before Physics is out and before the official SDK is out.
Can you imagine how even better Lua scripts are going to be when all that is released ?
Compared to what the Nspire always had (crappy Basic), Lua scripting is infinitely better.
Another thing to note : Everybody knows that Basic is slower than native. Look at popular z80 and 68k calcs. Count how many BASIC programs there are out there. Do you think they are all crappy because it is "too slow to perform any advanced stuff". No.
So, what we have right here: a "limited" basic, but making incredible things thanks to everybody in the community.
Now, Lua on the Nspire allows us to make 9001* better things that what z80 and 68k Basic could allow us to do.
So please, stop writing again and again that Lua is so slow we can't do a thing with it. (this is not necessarily to you but to everybody in general, I mean).
And also, while you may want to compare raw computation speed, you will compare things with criteria that won't be fair for both the compared languages. For example :
  You can't make a NES Emulator in Lua. You can in native.  Native Wins.
  You can't make a GBC Emulator in Lua. You can in native.  Native Wins.
  You can't process xxxx computations per second in Lua.   Native Wins.
  You can't access USB over Lua.  Native Wins.
Clearly, Native wins right ? Lua is crappy right ?

Now let's take this point of view :
  Nspire Lua is easy to code in. Start up TINCS and open the Lua SDK. It's a mess with Native.  Lua wins.
  Lua can access the math engine. (with CAS if device is CAS).  Native can't.   Lua wins.
  Lua can interact with the already existing variables and widgets.  Native can't.  Lua wins.
  Lua is supported by TI and whenever the SDK is out, so it will have an even bigger community.  Native isn't/won't (as much).  Lua wins.
Clearly, Lua wins right ? Native is crappy right ?


As you can see, you (or any other) can't just claim that "it's too slow". For many things, Lua's better than Native. And for a lot of things I'm pretty sure it will stay that way. Except if TI radically changes its ideas and publishes some Native Resources Toolkit or whatever, but I don't see that coming soon...

Also, some other things :
- I think the community needs to make some kind of all-in-one-included Native SDK, where you could just select the target device, and everything would be so you just have to code your thing, and it would compile with the latest ndless toolkit available (or the one you want if you want to override that), etc. so that people who aren't really geeky enough to setup properly their toolchain onto their system (or just dont want to mess with it too much, or for any other reason), could finally be able to program in C for their device ! If it was easy enough to code in Native (as much as in Lua with the SDK, for example), there would be a heck of a lot more people involved, and thus, the community would be way more active, including here at Omnimaga, but also at TI-Planet etc.

- While you can think 3.2 is blocking ndless (it will most probably do), there will probably be flaws like in every other OSes, so don't worry too much I guess :)
Yeah but I mean for example on the 83+ you got a slow but easy to code language, along with a fast but harder to startup with (and hard to code when it comes for certain type of games and stuff like math softwares). On the Nspire, you got something in the middle, probably more on the easy/slower side by default. Basically you got less freedom by default and there is always a possibility (the worst case scenario) that ASM/C might never be possible again on the Nspire. If that ever happened (I doubt it will and if it does, eventually a later OS might re-open a hole allowing Ndless to run again), then you still got a nice language called Lua, but the issue is that many members visit us for programs like emulators and Doom. Let's say for example that the best mario clone that could ever be made in Lua has 10 keypresses per second maximum and a framerate of 20 FPS (which looks like 10 cuz of the slow getkey). I'm pretty sure this won't be a huge "seller" like SMB3 on NESpire, simply because it isn't as good gameplay-wise as a real Mario game or even Sam Heald's. Basically, what I am saying is that we will attract much less new members and visitors with Lua than we did with Ndless. Thankfully TI has made Lua easy to get started with, so that already helps us a lot. I just mean without Ndless this could still hurt us despite the presence of Lua, and without Ndless, eventually people will have pushed Lua to the limits and run out of ideas for new innovative Nspire games.

Basically my post above was in function of the worst case scenario about Ndless. Do you think TI-83+ calcs would ever have gotten this popular if ASM was not possible on them? Check the download stats: Super Mario 1.2 is among the top downloads since the past decade.




In the worst case scenario, I expect 90% of the Nspire scene to be european developers in a few years (since in Europe teachers do not have full control of what students do with their calc).
Maybe I haven't understood correctly, but how is that bad ?
I mean, 90% of the "underground" scene is European ?
on the Nspire, 3.2 does also mean Lua physics stuff, so even more content...
And that could be from anywhere in the world :)
You effectively misunderstood, by far. I stated this because in United States of America, most schools force students to upgrade their TI-Nspire calculator to the latest OS in order to be allowed to use them. This is not the case in Europe. I was saying 90% in reference to how almost everyone in USA would no longer have access to Ndless in the worst case scenario.
- TI isn't that evil either. I recently asked them why they removed/disabled the print command in Lua. They reason was not to annoy us, and now there is a very big chance that it will return in the OS after 3.2.
Basically it might just have been a mistake?

Hopefully they don't screw up too much either like they did with OS 2.53MP breaking many ASM programs and new 84+ hardware preventing RealSound and some other programs from running. X.x
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Adriweb on April 07, 2012, 06:44:28 pm
Ok , I know what you meant now :)

Also, about the print(), you could consider it was a mistake, I think they actually did some redirection the function to the SDK or whatever, so in the SDK's console there was the stdout. But why in 3.1 ... ? idk :P
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: hoffa on April 07, 2012, 06:46:43 pm
Tossing my two cents.

I'm a relatively new guy in the calculator community, but I've read and experienced enough of TI's actions to not give the slightest damn about morality as far as they're concerned. Sucking TI's big corporate dick hoping they'll change their ways is ridiculous (does not apply to people like adriweb who have contacts), they won't change for an insignificant minority, that's how business works (and I fully understand them), deal with it.

Let's be honest, if I had a non-CAS calculator, I'd work on getting a CAS OS installed on it, would spare me a few bucks. If it was possible to control the LEDs, I'd probably write a PTT simulator just for the heck of it (not sure if I'd cheat with it though, it's not like I can't walk to class with PTT already activated, documents stuffed on it and pretend I just put it on). It would be a nice big "fuck you" to TI, and through my cynical eyes I'd probably enjoy the eventual aftermath. Either you bend down and adapt, or then you go against the flow, relish the advantages, and deal with the consequences.

In other news, I think changing the theme to a lighter, more modern and less "intimidating" one would encourage others to participate (no offence to whoever made the theme, just my view). I'm pretty positive there's a great deal of psychology involved, and many might have the tendency to go away or just quickly pass by if it looks too much like a concentration camp of weird and sweaty basement dwellers (yeah, you'll have to get used with my way of expressing myself). Think what you think, but that was what made me doubtful before I joined the party.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 07, 2012, 06:59:06 pm
By the way I don't think people should give up on Nspire programming because TI screws with us because even if they win, there are still a bunch of people, even if a smaller group, that will play our games and softwares. However, I heavily suggest developing simultaneously on the PRIZM too, to give TI more competition by trying to attract PRIZM users. Also, Apple has blocked Cydia and other jailbreaking stuff for the iOS devices many times before, yet people still continue using them. Same with Sony PS3s, where Sony went as far as trying to get someone in jail for jailbreaking his PS3. As for PTT, why don't TI just put a mem clear option easily accessible by teachers (and unaccessible by Ndless) and get teachers to reverb back to the old method of clearing student's calculator memory before tests? That method was annoying for BASIC programmers, but outside tests people could still install whatever the hell they want on their machine.

Btw Hoffa you can change the theme on the front page. There is a lighter version of this theme, in fact, along with a few others. Sorry you don't like it, though :(. Do you know, however, what we could do to make that option more visible, seeing you missed it too?

EDIT: Also maybe people could do a slightly bigger effort in staying active during Summer? Sure, going out is awesome and weather is nice, but I'M sure if those who leave for a month would instead visit Omni during 10 minutes once every two day and quickly check out one or two latest update and give their thoughts would make a big difference.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Xeda112358 on April 07, 2012, 07:03:29 pm
Hmm, maybe changing the theme so that the preference is saved? (or maybe it is and my cookies are getting cleared or something) x.x
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 07, 2012, 07:10:47 pm
It does get saved, although there could be an issue in some browsers.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: hoffa on April 07, 2012, 07:28:43 pm
However, I heavily suggest developing simultaneously on the PRIZM too, to give TI more competition by trying to attract PRIZM users.

What needs to be understood, is that we (the TI-Nspire community mainly) are minor minority. TI does not give a damn about us, that's the harsh reality of things but it's at the same time something very normal and comprehensible. TI's a massive corporation, and we're just surface dust next to shareholders. As I said earlier, that's how business works, that's how you keep the cash flowing. There might be some patting going on and fairy tale ideals floating in the air, but we have to be realistic: unless we are the ones to strike, we will have no effect, nada. We're just not enough for passive actions to have any kind of noticeable effect. Even if every single person on Omnimaga switched to the Prizm, it would only be a lonely, insignificant fart in the Milky Way.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jonius7 on April 07, 2012, 07:30:46 pm
Tossing my two cents.

I'm a relatively new guy in the calculator community, but I've read and experienced enough of TI's actions to not give the slightest damn about morality as far as they're concerned. Sucking TI's big corporate dick hoping they'll change their ways is ridiculous (does not apply to people like adriweb who have contacts), they won't change for an insignificant minority, that's how business works (and I fully understand them), deal with it.

Let's be honest, if I had a non-CAS calculator, I'd work on getting a CAS OS installed on it, would spare me a few bucks. If it was possible to control the LEDs, I'd probably write a PTT simulator just for the heck of it (not sure if I'd cheat with it though, it's not like I can't walk to class with PTT already activated, documents stuffed on it and pretend I just put it on). It would be a nice big "fuck you" to TI, and through my cynical eyes I'd probably enjoy the eventual aftermath. Either you bend down and adapt, or then you go against the flow, relish the advantages, and deal with the consequences.

In other news, I think changing the theme to a lighter, more modern and less "intimidating" one would encourage others to participate (no offence to whoever made the theme, just my view). I'm pretty positive there's a great deal of psychology involved, and many might have the tendency to go away or just quickly pass by if it looks too much like a concentration camp of weird and sweaty basement dwellers (yeah, you'll have to get used with my way of expressing myself). Think what you think, but that was what made me doubtful before I joined the party.
Hmm I can't remember whether it gets saved or not, though I like this theme. I understand what hoffa is saying though, as possibly it is a little heavy and people glancing over your shoulder will immediately be attracted to the heavy blue hues of Omnimaga.

Also I guess we still need to continue development in the nspire anyway. This is about attracting new programmers here, not about attracting TI here I guess.

EDIT: Just realised there were 5 pages in this thread already. And Whoah with the massive mega posts!!!!
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 07, 2012, 08:26:38 pm
However, I heavily suggest developing simultaneously on the PRIZM too, to give TI more competition by trying to attract PRIZM users.

What needs to be understood, is that we (the TI-Nspire community mainly) are minor minority. TI does not give a damn about us, that's the harsh reality of things but it's at the same time something very normal and comprehensible. TI's a massive corporation, and we're just surface dust next to shareholders. As I said earlier, that's how business works, that's how you keep the cash flowing. There might be some patting going on and fairy tale ideals floating in the air, but we have to be realistic: unless we are the ones to strike, we will have no effect, nada. We're just not enough for passive actions to have any kind of noticeable effect. Even if every single person on Omnimaga switched to the Prizm, it would only be a lonely, insignificant fart in the Milky Way.
Although on the other hand, developing simultaneously for both the PRIZM and Nspire like Reo is doing gives you a larger audience for your programs (or reduces the effects of a permanent Ndless lockup on your audience)
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Yeong on April 07, 2012, 09:20:18 pm
Ok. I see the proper discussion going about nspire and prizm and whatnot, but I believe this thread is for discussing about the decreased activities in omni. ;)
Let us digress since there are so many threads about nspire and prizm stuffs.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 07, 2012, 09:24:16 pm
Yeah I guess that part could be moved out, although I guess it's inevitable since the biggest part of Omnimaga activity that got affected is Nspire-related.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: alberthrocks on April 07, 2012, 10:04:06 pm
What needs to be understood, is that we (the TI-Nspire community mainly) are minor minority. TI does not give a damn about us, that's the harsh reality of things but it's at the same time something very normal and comprehensible. TI's a massive corporation, and we're just surface dust next to shareholders. As I said earlier, that's how business works, that's how you keep the cash flowing. There might be some patting going on and fairy tale ideals floating in the air, but we have to be realistic: unless we are the ones to strike, we will have no effect, nada. We're just not enough for passive actions to have any kind of noticeable effect. Even if every single person on Omnimaga switched to the Prizm, it would only be a lonely, insignificant fart in the Milky Way.
This point exactly. I've been hesistent because... well, a certain community chose to jump to the Prizm for "pissing off TI" or whatever. Won't name any names, you just gotta know. ;) (Actually, I've made this point a few times on that community's IRC, but it's dismissed as nothing to care about...)

The other thing is this: if the CASIO Prizm really does get popular, who's to say that CASIO won't come up and say, "Hey guys, we know you've been having fun, but we're going pro now, ya know? The thing that's in is locking your devices beyond belief with 512-2048 RSA keys! So, time to pull the plug!"

Which brings up another point re: that bolded word.... in. For intl. users, this expression (which is probably antiqued, I blame A Series of Unfortunate Events (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Series_of_Unfortunate_Events)) means that something is considered popular and commonplace.

If you want to see change, we must begin by reversing the trend of locking. We have Apple, Sony, and maybe even Microsoft to blame for this, since they started an interesting trend of locking down hardware. If one were to invent a method of anti-piracy protection that at the same time can be open - this would cause a major industry shift, and of course invalidate Apple's argument for locking stuff down. Heck, I think that if a device that was FOSS was invented, and the company profits from it, the industry would flip upside-down overnight. (Add on FOSS hardware schematics... ehh, that'd be hard, especially with preventing Chinese clones :P)

The other corner of change needs to happen with the U.S. education system. Speaking as an American, I'm rather ashamed that such a country, with all of its "freedom" and whatnot (which is threatened by the likes of SOPA, NSA, etc.) can't produce a high quality educational system. I think that if I go back to China and study there with their censorship and whatnot, I will likely be smarter and much better off than 99% of Harward's grads.

The SAT (made by a silly company Collegeboard) is the broken system's forerunner. It can't predict college success, and still fails to do so today. (I have a conspiracy theory: CollegeBoard is actually for-profit, not like the "non-profit" label they have, since you see these ridiculous fees being charged for AP and SAT tests... and their description of where the money goes is quite hilarious too. They're saying that they'll donate to organizations that support the CollegeBoard cause... sounds like top executives rolling around in money all over again. Excuse my bias - I'm a pessimist when it comes to politics. Feel free to discuss such with me outside of Omni/Ceme/etc.)

Fortunately, there are colleges that are moving away from the SATs. Even better, there are states that are moving away from standardized testing altogether. I've been hearing about some "group tests" that will be administered instead, focusing on real life knowledge and collaboration, rather than bland, silly knowledge. Of course, knowledge *does* come into play, but it's not bubbling A, B, C, or D.

And as always, people laugh at the fact that kids need to buy crappy calculators at the price of $99+. (Parodies at XKCD and this year's April Fool's for Engadget - I'm too lazy to link to them here, but you can probably find them easily.)
There's plenty of momentum for change, no worries! ;) I won't be there to experience it (SATs will still remain a burden to overcome, at least for me) but I'm optimistic that things will change.

Finally - knowing that TI/Casio/etc. could care less about us, what should we do? I wouldn't say we should start throwing knifes at the company's chest, since nothing good comes from that. It just means that we should move on, and develop for ourselves, not for TI. I don't condone things like OSLauncher for use on the ACT and such, but developing games, cool networking programs, and such? Full speed ahead! :)

Sure, TI may not (and maybe never will) accede to our friendly demands to allow native code execution, but there's always that glimmer of hope, which I believe in. As always, don't depend on that happening, but don't erase it out of your mind either. The world's all about apps and more apps these days, and many companies have fallen to the pressure of 3rd party app development. Want evidence of that from TI? Lua! :D It's important to note that Lua != BASIC. I'll repeat it again: Lua != BASIC. Some people like to belittle it because of its speed, but they don't realize its potential. It's actually pretty powerful - enough for software like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to use as part of their app/plugin API. (Yup, a million dollar company loves Lua!) It has OOP, and is very much on par with modern languages. It's also not too slow either! You may not realize it, but that's a sign that TI's bending from apps insanity, and that's great! They finally realize that 3rd party development is a must to keep their platform alive.

In the end... I will believe what I want to believe, and you will believe what you want to believe. My post mess is just here to say this: we're not in a black hole; we're just on a dark, no lights beach, not realizing that there are pretty fireflies with their glows of light, and not realizing that there's a nice possibility of a beautiful sunrise around the corner. ;)

/superlongpost

EDIT: Oops, didn't realize that we're trying to tone down the Nspire/PRIZM/etc. discussion here. :P I guess we could split topics into something like "The Future of the TI Community" or something, not too sure.
Title: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 07, 2012, 10:29:43 pm
Casio has expressed concerns about 3rd party developement before and have no plan for a SDK. They didn't expect add-ins to be made by the community, but they have decided to give us one chance and they won't block them unless we start publishing softwares such as image converters for the american models, tools to cheat in tests and stuff that can permanently damage the calc.

Also Alberthro I know Lua isn't like BASIC, I was saying it's kinda like between ASM/C and BASIC. Not too slow and limited, but not offering 100% speed/freedom either. Basically, good enough to make somewhat cool games, but not enough to pull a gbc4nspire in Lua that will draw hundreds of members to Omnimaga, TI-Planet and ticalc.org whenever Ndless is useable on the latest OS. More programming examples and routine examples (such as map engines, collision detection and data management) could possibly improve Lua audience, though, because the language, while being limited, is kinda underused lately.

Anyway if we split this discussion I guess it could be called The Future of TI-Nspire programming. The debate above somewhat remained fine with no trollish message towards an entire brand of calculator except maybe one, so it could definitively continue on in a different thread and we could possibly use some more of those calc-related debates (at least they're more constructive and interesting than political and religious debates). :P

EDIT: Wow I was scared Omni went down again as I clicked Save and nothing happened. Glad it was due to a topic split.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Darl181 on April 07, 2012, 10:35:08 pm
Topic split. ;)

I don't have much else to add to this discussion :P other than that it would be interesting to see where TI's education department ends up in a few years..
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: alberthrocks on April 07, 2012, 10:50:14 pm
Casio has expressed concerns about 3rd party developement before and have no plan for a SDK. They didn't expect add-ins to be made by the community, but they have decided to give us one chance and they won't block them unless we start publishing softwares such as image converters for the american models, tools to cheat in tests and stuff that can permanently damage the calc.
That, or the Casio Prizm gets popular and teachers start whining about games and such. :/

Also Alberthro I know Lua isn't like BASIC, I was saying it's kinda like between ASM/C and BASIC. Not too slow and limited, but not offering 100% speed/freedom either. Basically, good enough to make somewhat cool games, but not enough to pull a gbc4nspire in Lua that will draw hundreds of members to Omnimaga, TI-Planet and ticalc.org whenever Ndless is useable on the latest OS. More programming examples and routine examples (such as map engines, collision detection and data management) could possibly improve Lua audience, though, because the language, while being limited, is kinda underused lately.
Actually, the focus doesn't necessarily have to be on emulators. Even emulators can be written in an upper-level language (though it will be harder, and the results will be slower). I was thinking about porting Angry Birds, Cut the Ropes, etc. that are already popular in the mobile world! :D Particularly Angry Birds... "Angry Birds ported to TI-Nspire" would certainly elicit an nDoom-like response, if not much bigger. With the new physics engine coming up, it'll be much easier to port those fun little games! ;)

(By the way, that "Lua != Basic" thing was directed to everyone - I know you already knew about the potential. It's just that some people (probably not at Omni, but elsewhere) like to bash Lua to bits and pieces. I like C/C++ better, but even then I still find it pitiful that people could bash it without doing some proper benchmarking.)

I personally should apologize for not contributing much to the Nspire community - even though I made promises back then to write some bFLT loader, I should've realized that I would need time to do such a thing, and I lack it a lot due to my studies taking precedent over everything else. I'm a man of words, not actions it seems... :P

So... there is a project that I’m planning to work on with a friend here at Omni that I believe will boost Nspire dev significantly.... but it’ll only be during the summer, and ONLY if I have time. Because of that, I’ll let it remain a secret, and offer no guarantees of its completion. If it succeeds, it’ll be released with fanfare. If it doesn’t even get a line of code, it’ll die in secrecy. That way, we won’t disappoint anyone if it doesn’t make it out the door.

(If you want a hint, the project is similar to what Adriweb suggested earlier... which I am also going to try and attempt to do before attempting the secret project I’ve mentioned above.)
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: jwalker on April 07, 2012, 11:40:04 pm
Well i guess its my turn... :P
First off, i believe that even though the near future for programming the Nspire in any other language except Lua and Basic looks grim, i believe its will get better. Ti might not unlock the Nspire, but we have a realy smart group of poeple working on it. Alot of poeple have started using the Nspire, we just need to get more of these poeple hacking it, me included.
Second, if the prizm does get realy big, CASIO will be trying to lock it down too. This is because teachers and Test makers/regulators will start breathing down their backs.
Lets face it, we are a small margin of the users of all calcs. at my shool where there are at least 90 other graphing calcs (mostly 84's, but some 83's) im the only one that can program them. as far as i know im the only programmer from ND, All of the schools prety much require you to have graphing calcs, thats at least 300,000 students. Companies dont listen to the minority, so we need to either send a message that we are powerful and can break through their anti-native programming attitudes, or we need to stop wasting our breath.

This is just how i see it, you may believe parts of it are right or parts of it are wrong. Hell, maybe all of it is wrong. Maybe my opinions seem to go against each other, Maybe they work hand in hand. This is for you to decide for yourself

I like my Nspire, and i love Lua, but i also like C. i think alot of you like the second one too.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Lionel Debroux on April 08, 2012, 02:16:12 am
You haven't understood, Adriweb: I'm not saying that an improved native code SDK for the Nspire would not be a good thing, but that it can't offset the major downer that the consequences of TI's boneheadedness are.

Quote
If the only way to make TI "move" is to release "bad" (as from TI's point of view) tools like a PTT Killer or a CAS on non-CAS (or whatever), it could only cause big troubles which could lead to the end of the Npsire "reign" (i.e : it wouldn't be accepted on exams for example, and TI wouldn't sell as much so they might stop produduction).
Sorry, TI's fears of seeing the Nspire being booted out of exams is a completely delusional and irrational fear. Locking down the way TI did with the PTT mode is obviously in no way required to get a platform certified for exams - otherwise, the TI-Z80 series and the Prizm wouldn't be certified - so even if the Nspire platform's lockdown were to be tampered with, there would be no consequences. Or ar least, there shouldn't be any... but this requires that the incompetents regulating standardized tests (and making them a fatally flawed scheme in many ways) be rational, and expecting rational behaviour from the incompetents to whom the Nspire was oversold as "secure" by incompetents, might be a bit too much.

Tampering with the PTT has not been attempted yet, otherwise chances are good that we'd have found out that tampering is easy... What if the PTT mode were ridiculously easy to tamper with (access to documents, access to native code, access to forbidden math functions, etc.), and creating a new item in the long list of TI's silly mistakes over a couple decades ?
Spending several man-weeks on a crappy scheme, in order to be able to deceive the incompetents ruling standardized tests ("look, we've tried to make our platform secure"), is a very worthwhile investment :)
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Dingus on April 08, 2012, 02:31:53 am
Power is about influence.  A small group can exert a lot of power if they can influence the buying decisions of the larger market.  To make that point keep in mind that TI sucks up to teachers because teachers influence what kids buy.  Also keep in mind that if kids want good games and if this group provides them for prizm then kids will want prizms and TI will definitely take notice and act accordingly.  The real question is how important are calculator games to today's kids?  Is the Big calculator game demand that occurred for the 8x series there for the nspire series?  Or maybe good games on a calculator is no longer important?
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 08, 2012, 04:45:22 am
@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

@DJ, the print command was changed for something compatibilty with their upcomming SDK. TI did not think anyone would use it (Seriously, I think they never expected sound through it). I pointed them out to some nice stuff you could do with it, and they will change/revert it in the next dev cycle.

Also, the Lua platform is just becomming popular. It's important to know the Lua enviroment was quite hidden to other people than the community until T3 2012.
TI actively showed Lua (with links to the community) to many teachers, who are now started to have fun with it (you can see the trend on the nspire google group).
Also, many Lua programs are being developed 'underground'. I got some projects I haven't posted yet about, and I'm sure others too.

Now, I don't think the TI community is dying. I think it's in a special fase, as there are many factors we did not have previously.
I have to agree with Adriweb in many points too, and I don't think we have to choose a side. TI knows that many TI-Planet admins such as Adriweb work on Ndless, yet they continue to have contact with them. TI clearly isn't forcing us into choosing a side. And if the community forces us to choose .. well then I know what side I would be on.
But this isn't the case, and I'm happy to be able to work both with TI and the Ndless dev team ;)
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Hayleia on April 08, 2012, 06:57:01 am
Or maybe good games on a calculator is no longer important?
Well in my school, a lot of students only have one TI 82-Stats and a lot of others only have one Casio Graph35+. In my class, a few have a 83+, one have a 84+ and one (not counting me) have a 84+ SE. Good games are rare. And I only know two guys who have Nspires in all my school and none of them have Ndless (one didn't know about it and the others don't manage to install it).
But for the majority of them, the bought crappy calcs because they didn't know they could have games on it (one asked me to put Tag on his 82 Stats and I lol'ed for the rest of the day).

...
The TI community is not dying but the Ndless community is. Chockosta almost gave up programming because of TI's actions. And Lua will never bring us any GBC emulator.
The only thing TI wants to avoid is OS launcher so stop updating it and we might have that "freedom to tinker" you keep asking for. And when I say "stop updating it", it is not "stop updating it during 3 weeks and TI will change, the update it", but "stop updating it".
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 08, 2012, 07:13:16 am
The TI community is not dying but the Ndless community is. Chockosta almost gave up programming because of TI's actions. And Lua will never bring us any GBC emulator.
The only thing TI wants to avoid is OS launcher so stop updating it and we might have that "freedom to tinker" you keep asking for. And when I say "stop updating it", it is not "stop updating it during 3 weeks and TI will change, the update it", but "stop updating it".

I'm not the developer of OS launcher, and I'm not the one who is constantly asking for "freedom to tinker".
I think you might have mixed me with someone else.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Lionel Debroux on April 08, 2012, 07:20:34 am
As I mentioned above, OSLauncher is perfectly harmless. And there's no valid reason to stop updating this kind of tools: they're perfectly legal.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: linuxgeek96 on April 08, 2012, 07:50:17 am
Just my 2 cents...

Currently, I am using both an 84+ and a CX CAS for development (Terraria 2%). Why am I still using the 84+, you might ask. Because it is easier to program on-calc and has more reach, at least in my school. The CX is great for impressing people, but when it comes to reach, I'm the only one who has one in the entire school. Also, as I don't have access to a computer most of the time, the only way I can develop for it is through oclua, which is certainly not an easy solution. This is the ONLY REASON that I am not using C, or some other compiled language for it. I think that more effort should be focussed on trying to make on-calc IDEs/compilers, as I know I'm not the only one who codes with my calculator as the primary devenv.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Yeong on April 08, 2012, 08:28:18 am
I totally agree with linuxgeek96. If somebody make a full-functional lua on-calc editor (I know few of them is getting worked on), many people will start to learn Lua (including me) :)
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Hayleia on April 08, 2012, 10:45:19 am
I'm not the developer of OS launcher, and I'm not the one who is constantly asking for "freedom to tinker".
I think you might have mixed me with someone else.
I was not talking about you, but "you" in general ;)

As I mentioned above, OSLauncher is perfectly harmless. And there's no valid reason to stop updating this kind of tools: they're perfectly legal.
Yes but TI hates us for this.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Lionel Debroux on April 08, 2012, 10:49:31 am
Quote from: Hayleia
Quote from: Lionel Debroux
As I mentioned above, OSLauncher is perfectly harmless. And there's no valid reason to stop updating this kind of tools: they're perfectly legal.
Yes but TI hates us for this.
Their loss :)

We have collectively been very (overly ?) kind to them...
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Dingus on April 08, 2012, 10:51:05 am

[/quote]Yes but TI hates us for this.
[/quote]
Why is that?
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 08, 2012, 11:06:27 am
I don't think TI hates us ..
They just don't like it.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Yeong 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)
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Lionel Debroux 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).
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: alberthrocks 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Lionel Debroux 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 ?
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: bsl 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: hoffa 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Lionel Debroux 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Dingus 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?
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: hoffa 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jim Bauwens 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 :)
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga 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?
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: alberthrocks 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! ;)
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jim Bauwens 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.
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 09, 2012, 03:38:21 pm
Alberthro it's all a matter of opinion. While you may dislike the PRIZM doesn't mean everyone has to think your way, like people are not forced to think Dingus' way. I personally prefer the PRIZM interface much more than  the Nspire because it's the exact same as every Casio calc since 1990 (once you switch from an old Casio calc to this one, you are already familiar with the interface). Also the PRIZM may not be as powerful as the Nspire, but it's sure much more powerful than every other calc. However I agree that the Prizm will have an hard time becoming popular, since TI has such strong monopoly. It may pick up, but it will most likely remain at the same level as 83+ programming in 2007 or early 2009 (where barely anything got released, but stuff still came out). Also most PRIZM software will be in French, thanks to the larger Casio fanbase in France.

Btw Alberthrocks about upgrading to OS 3.2, some teachers will force students to do so in United States. The only way to prevent that would be that the entire community get up together and get a petition signed to disallow teachers to force students to switch to a software they do not want or to have students boycott OS 3.2 by not bringing their own calcs in class and borrowing school's. After all it's the student's calcs, so they should be allowed to install what they want on them. Of course I understand such thing would not work with school-owned calcs, though, but I mean if I had a TI-Nspire back when I went to school and teachers tried to force me to upgrade to OS 3.2, I would simply hide my calc and take one from the class until it ends, saying I have the freedom to decide what ends up on the machine I paid $200 for and what doesn't, and if my calc is not allowed to the test because of it, then be it.

Also another issue is that I have heard stories about Nspire Student software or Link Software sneakily upgrading people's calcs without them asking or tricking them into upgrading it.

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.
Can you buy us TI-Nspire CAS? O.O

jk
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 09, 2012, 03:57:12 pm
The hidden upgrade stuff never did not happen yet. I found that it was possible when figuring the update protocol out. There is a warning system set up so that the community will be warned if the enable it.

And no, I can't buy you CAS calcs :P
Title: Re: The Future of TI-Nspire Programming
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 09, 2012, 05:14:47 pm
Ah ok, but doesn't the upgrade boxes get checked again and again whenever you restart the software? In my case with the computer software, they did. (at least in version 1.3 and 1.4)