Author Topic: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?  (Read 14666 times)

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Ashbad

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TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« on: May 26, 2011, 11:51:14 am »
Hello, my fellow peers of the calculator community:

As of yesterday, TI did something we would have never expected them to do: they opened us up to full development rights for Lua programming with decent tools and all.  This brings us back into an era of peace with our mortal enemy, Texas Instruments, as they obviously don't squelch us highly skilled programmers and hackers as they used to.  However, should we trust them?

Let's go back in time for a minute and look at what they've done to us in the last 3 years.  In 2007, the TI-Nspire was released, and the original versions had no programming support whatsoever, lacking even a BASIC language.  In 2008, they included Nspire BASIC in later OSes, but by this time half of the community was already fed up, and we dropped into the doldrums of 2008, where little to no calculator development took place.  They singlehandedly almost killed us all.  In 2009, however, the community picked themselves up and started again, knocking a few chips off their shoulders from previous experiences.  By 2010, Ndless was created.  And the malicious TI struck again, consistently trying their hardest with their obviously brain-dead programmers to lock us out of C and Assembly development.  By 2011, they finally hired decent programmers and were able to lock us out of 3rd party development almost entirely.

Should we trust them now?

On another note, Casio has been turning a blind eye to us lately, and I commend them for that.  The Casio fx-CG10/20 Prizm was a huge success amongst programmers in these parts of the web.  It already has decent support for C and SH4 assembly programming, putting it leagues above Lua-only programming.  With C, we already are in the midst of many other languages coming to fruition -- Qwerty.55 (or fishbot) and z80man have been hard at work making Khavi, a multi-language interpreter framework that is set to support Java and Lua at base release, and by extension JRuby, Jython, and Groovy are also supported.  There are rumors concerning the ability to use fully-functional C++ soon via some additions the GCC SDK created by Jonimus, Tari, and others.  And, I, lastly, am creating a whole new language, Emerald, for the Prizm.  That's a lot more than just Lua.  And slow Lua, at that again.

While I cannot make any decisions for you, I just wanted to fill everyone in on my opinion, being that TI obviously doesn't want us doing any significant development on their calculators, while Casio is probably in secret joy we're helping them out a little.  My question to you all: Why should we turn to the dark side of limited TI calculator programming, when we can have the infinitely more supremely open-to-third-party-software Casio calculator programming?  I personally will never buy a TI calculator again, Lua support thrown together at the last minute to sugarcoat my opinion of the monopoly won't undo the evils they issued on us in the past -- at least in my mind.

Thanks for your time,

Ashbad


EDIT: and, I am interested to hear your opinions as well, feel free to post them below!
« Last Edit: May 26, 2011, 11:55:19 am by Ashbad »

Offline JosJuice

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #1 on: May 26, 2011, 12:15:09 pm »
TI will probably continue to try to stop Ndless on the Nspire. ExtendeD has started making Ndless 3.0, and I'm not going to be surprised if TI releases yet another OS that does nothing except for blocking it...

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #2 on: May 26, 2011, 12:26:45 pm »
If they're inviting us back, what's the harm in going there?

Offline ruler501

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #3 on: May 26, 2011, 12:55:31 pm »
My bet is that they will add extra protections in their as yet anounced OS. It will probably have something that lets only TI-approved apps be run.
Everything above is pure guesses and inferences
I personally would get a Prizm rather than a CX.
I might be a little hard on TI but at least to me they have proved I need to be hard on them.
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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #4 on: May 26, 2011, 01:22:01 pm »
Hmm.. interesting. But this wouldn't stop me from buying an 'older' TI, for example the z80 calcs, or the 68K calcs to be able to program, and run programs made for them. It is nice to have fun with just an 'old', black and white, simple calc. But if you have to choose between the PRISM or the CX, I guess the PRISM is probably the best(judging on what I heard).


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Offline AGVolnutt

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #5 on: May 26, 2011, 01:29:03 pm »
Although I suppose TI has "opened up", I still believe there is still a sinister intention behind the LUA tools. I mean, why would TI suddenly allow programs other than TI-BASIC? Wasn't the nSpire designed to counter "cheating"?

It could be possible that the release is to discourage the ndless developers, now that a "new platform" is available. I still think that an update will lock LUA apps in PTT mode.

How about we just spectate how this fiasco plays out, then decide whether we want to go back or not? Haven't we always been "in the dark side"?

Offline Stefan Bauwens

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #6 on: May 26, 2011, 01:30:05 pm »
That is the reason that they might not allow games, but well programs(that they approve?).


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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2011, 01:31:02 pm »
Quote
TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?

Why not? There's no way we can be harmed :)

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #8 on: May 26, 2011, 01:34:36 pm »
They were maybe going bankrupt because of all those people who weren't buying there calcs anymore(us :P). So they desided to do this, hoping it will save them. And maybe it will, but if we don't buy there calcs because Casio's are better, they better do something EVEN better. :P


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Ashbad

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #9 on: May 26, 2011, 01:42:43 pm »
Keep in mind we are the vast minority of TI calculator users.  However, very few use the Nspire anyways, and I heard TI lost a lot of money on the touchpad versions that they came out with later.

Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #10 on: May 26, 2011, 01:42:57 pm »
Don't worry, TI will not get bankrupt, the calculator sections is just a little part of everything ;)

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #11 on: May 26, 2011, 01:50:10 pm »
TI will probably continue to try to stop Ndless on the Nspire. ExtendeD has started making Ndless 3.0, and I'm not going to be surprised if TI releases yet another OS that does nothing except for blocking it...
That looks like Nintendo. The last 2 System Menu updates for the Wii did absolutely nothing but delete the homebrew you had on your Wii.

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Ashbad

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #12 on: May 26, 2011, 01:51:58 pm »
Also, how can we trust TI for keeping Lua support for good?  It is very possible they will require paid licenses and/or teacher certificates at any time.  I suggest we don't even take this as a good sign -- who knows if they're just luring us in so we will buy it and shut up, then in OS 3.1 or 4.0 or the like shut us back out?

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #13 on: May 26, 2011, 02:01:36 pm »
I'm still not trusting them. They still haven't opened OS 3.0.1 to ASM/C development nor stopped blocking Ndless on it. They did a step in the right direction by allowing Lua, but who knows if it's not to sell a SDK and disallow any community tools to generate Lua files for free in the future? After all, back in 1999-2003 the 83+ Flash Debugger SDK was paid.

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Re: TI invites us back, but should we go to the dark side?
« Reply #14 on: May 26, 2011, 02:08:03 pm »
Something I'm wondering about is why they chose to add a 0D compression requirement in 3.0.2, blocking all of our Lua programs, but then give us a method to create 0D-compressed files so that we can use Lua again...