Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => TI-Nspire => Topic started by: Loser on November 17, 2013, 02:33:14 pm
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Today I had an idea:
Im not sure, but I think this would be relatively easy to program:
a sort of Windows for nSpire
Written for ndless, it could launch on startup.
User could set a desktop background, and organize their files/programs into folders
in the same way that you could on a windows computer
Calculator, graphs, scratchpad, vernier, notes, data and lists, could be listed in the start menu.
It could also have a clock in the bottom right of the startbar, made similarly to nClock.
This would probably be relatively easy to make because it is just icons and links to documents, but Im not sure since I dont program for ndless.
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Why not port dosbox and run a real Win95?
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Could you explain how to go about doing this
(beginner)
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Porting Windows 7 might be simplier.
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Windows 8 is the only windows that has ARM support. Try porting that one!
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Actually, dosbox has been ported to the playstation portable, which also made gpsp_nspire possible.
(Guess what the psp in gpsp_nspire stands for :P )
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Porting Windows 7 might be simplier.
This. At least it would let me run the HP Prime emulator. :P
Seriously, though, it would be possible to create a Windows spinoff so that you can use your Nspire with a Windows 95-like interface, rather than porting an existing Windows OS, and would be much smaller without the extra bloat that Windows comes with (that won't be needed on a calculator). Think of something like Doors CSE, but as an OS (which can be launched with nLaunch). Also it would be a crapload of work (there is a reason why not a single calculator OS other than Pedrom 68K and PongOS ever got finished.)
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What DJ Omnimaga said is more what I was thinking of
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- Find the guy who is good in reverse engineering
- Find the same guy who has time
- Find the same guy who has will in making this with current TI's way of mind
- Finally, find the same guy who is as good and as fast making this project, else you'll only get a pre-alpha in 2 years.
Sounds good ?
Of course it has been discussed many time for an Ndless patch that will redesign the Home screen. It is possible in many ways, and with many level of complexitly.
Just the fact that, either the guys who know how to do this don't have time or will, or the "idea" guys don't have skills to make it.
A community is an evolving environment, nothing stay. If you wish such a program to happen, do it yourself, but maybe not now, starting step by step by learning C programing, etc ...
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On the other hand, Levak, the Other calculator Projects and Ideas section is called "Other calculator Projects and Ideas", not "Other calculator Projects". Basically, this means that people can suggest ideas in that sub-forum (or its child boards) too (although for such large scale project, I agree with your points). :P
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Actually, that might (http://ourl.ca/17257) be doable (http://ourl.ca/17586). The older Windowses (the ones not based on NT that runs on top of DOS) might be easier to emulate on a Nspire using DosBox or similar. If you want XP and up, you're better rewrite an UI that looks like them, some sort of program launcher or something.
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Writing an X gui emulator is indeed your best option here.
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Windows 8 is not the only windows with ARM support.
WinCE has supported arm for well over a decade. It became Windows Phone 7, but before that it was actually a fairly normal Windows installation, with a desktop and whatnot.
My question is: Why would you want this? We already have the means of running a decent GUI in Linucx with X, and making it run Windows won't let you run any windows programs.
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Also worth mentioning; windows oses aren't exactly small. Even if you could technically make one work, You'd be giving up a lot of space. Windows 95 for example requires 50MB minimum.
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Well, I think this is why 95 was brought up, since the Nspire has about 100 MB of Flash. Windows 95 requires 16 MB of RAM to run too, IIRC, so it should be fine for the Nspire's 64 MB of RAM. In a few years, some Nspire OSes will probably be even larger than 50 MB anyway.
Windows 98 or higher, however, would be impossible unless they booted from an external SD card adapter or something. I think Windows 8 requires 950 GB of disk space.
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Actually Win CE can run as low as 1 MB for the kernel alone.
The gizmondo ran it, with only marginally better specs than the nspire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizmondo
Keep in mind there is no ARM version of win 95/98/XP/etc. The only ARM windows that would be suitable is CE, outside emulation.
If you really want emulation, keep in mind the ~6x performance penalty. That would reduce the 150 on the nspire to less than the 33 MHz standard used by most DOS computers.