You can now download the next build of S.A.D. for testing and experimenting purposes, as well as for enjoyment.  I have highlighted in bold all new features, so if you read the news for the previous build, your biggest concern is the stuff in bold.  I salute Netham45 and his band of lobsters





This version of S.A.D. allows you to preview the human race.  You can select a ship, construct a building, check the progress of your buildings, and move across the map.  Collision is also implemented to the point that buildings cannot be placed on top of each other or on top of solid objects and space.  You can add refineries and processing units to increase your income, and you can view your income.  Buildings cost money now, although ships don't cost money yet.  Buildings have more realistic costs and construction times.

When you see the loading screen, please be patient.  The loading screen is not a "goodie," the game really does take time to load.

Controls
------------------------------

2nd -- Displays the "Construct Building" Menu
Alpha -- Displays the "Select Ship" Menu
Mode -- Toggles the cursor on and off
X_T_Theta_N -- Allows you to drive your ship.  You can toggle this mode on and off with the same key.
Enter -- Place a building after you choose where you want it placed.  If you press Enter over a refinery, you can build processing units to increase your income.
Arrow Keys -- Move
Soft Keys--Adjust the speed at which the map Scrolls
Clear -- Exit a Menu, or exit the game entirely
Plus Key -- Toggle the resoures view, meaning how much money and supplies you have.

Hot Keys (For Menus) -- 2nd, Mode, Del, Alpha, X_T_Theta_N, Stat, Math, Apps, Pgrm

-----------------------------

A download link is provided below.  I have a forum available for bug reports, so please list any bugs there.

Please limit yourself to 25 buildings (NOT including processing units) per test-run.  I recommend testing this on an emulator.  The game, for right now, requires 21 KB of memory and 4 app pages.  The game does not check to see if you have enough memory.  I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE for any damage to your calculator.

Enjoy, and please let me know of any issues that exist, except for the following:

1. Please don't mention any errors that might occur when a player makes too much money
2. Please don't mention any errors about incorrect collision.  There are some tiles I accidentally marked as "collidable," and others that I forgot to mark as "collidable."  This is not a program bug, just a data bug.
3. Please do not report Nspire combatability issues.  We know that some exist, but we still have to fix the ones we know about



Download Link: http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4324.0;attach=3092

Things to look forward to, for sure, in S.A.D. Alpha 4:
------------------------------------------

Simple 2-Player gameplay:  You can connect two calculators, and move ships / construct buildings against each other.
Actual Buying and Construction of Ships

There may be surprises, but the above two items will be included for sure

Although we are one day late on this, I am pleased to announce that Omnimaga is now 9 years old!  Omnimaga started on September 1st 2001, and so yesterday marked its ninth anniversary.  I will leave the history of Omnimaga to DJ: http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?topic=1037.msg12201#msg12201

We at Omnimaga wish to thank everyone for their hard work in helping this site to be one of the best calculator communities in the universe.  A lot of new projects have come in, and we can tell that the designers are putting their best effort into their work because they enjoy what they do.  

On top of that, the post count for this year is at an all-time high.  These posts include great questions, informative answers, and encouragements that allow our programmers to continue their work, knowing that their games and applications are greatly anticipated.  

Finally, it is very Nspiring for us that even though Ndless has barely been out, we have had some very nice Nspire projects.

I speak for the Staff at Omnimaga, as well as the Coders of Tomorrow, when I say that I look forward to the future and what Omnimaga has to offer to the world, let alone to calculator users everywhere.

DJ Omnimaga has put together a tribute video for the 9th anniversary of Omnimaga.  I wish to give a big thank you to DJ, who has been the entire backbone of Omnimaga.  Without him, we could never dream of Omnimaga being a glorious light in the future of calculator communities.  He made all of this, and much more, possible.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SJ6MP2-WYs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SJ6MP2-WYs</a>

UPDATE: Video can now be downloaded on our site (although it is 75 MB large): http://www.omnimaga.org/otherfiles/tribute_to_omnimaga_2010.wmv

Due to episodes of plagerism (such as this person) on our music, we have decided to restrict access to our MP3s. From now on, only the radio will be available to guests. To download the individual mp3s you will need to register a forum account.

Aha i have been secretly working on this in my spare time and am releasing a Demo finally! Sector 1 is finished!

So download the demo! And install the 30 programs and subprograms   heh its so big because i didnt bother to compile many of the subprograms.  It wont be nearly that big in the final version, but for now, you have to deal

So this thread is for discussing the game demo, what you like about it, what you didnt like about it, what i should change, and all the BUGS you find.  Im sure i wasnt able to find them all Its a complicated game after all! Oh and if the puzzles provide to be too puzzling, this is also the thread to get help

Demo link: http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4272.0;attach=3044

There was another small forum update last night involving member groups. Now, as you can see when reading topics, each forum member are ranked by a level from 0 to 10. Those are simply post count rank groups and here they are below. First, the LV, secondly, the title, third, the required post count and finally, if applicable, the special privilege you earn with this user group:

LV0 - Newcomer - 0 posts - Initial group. Can post on the forums. At 1 post, you can edit your personal profile info such as website links and signature (spambot protection)
LV1 - Newcomer - 5 posts - Can send private messages to other members
LV2 - Member - 20 posts - Can use OmnomIRC
LV3 - Member - 50 posts - Can use the arcade
LV4 - Regular - 100 posts - Can upload files to the TI game/tools download section and wait for a manager to approve them (coming soon)
LV5 - Advanced - 200 posts
LV6 - Super Member - 300 posts
LV7 - Elite - 500 posts
LV8 - Addict - 700 posts
LV9 - Veteran - 1000 posts - Can add custom title below your nickname (staff can do so at any level)
LV10 - Super Veteran - 2000 posts

We thought it would be cool to have something slightly similar to RPG systems. Eventually, we may add more groups and we might attempt at re-adding a forum shop like we had in 2005, if we can find a reliable one. Note to our spammers, note that the Randomness and Intro section doesn't increase your post counts and we have the ability to reset post counts to zero.

Although it is still possible to apply for a spot in the Coders of Tomorrow programming team, tonight we are announcing the additions and changes to Omnimaga staff, although these changes were done several hours ago.

-First of all, we are pleased to announce the addition of Bwang and apcalc to our programming group. They both program for the TI-Nspire in C and apcalc also program for 68K calculators. Both of those programmers recently made ticalc.org front page with two of their releases. In Bwang's case, it was the TI-Nspire raycaster, and in apcalc's case, a TI-Nspire port of the popular Block Dude classic. Apcalc also becomes our first 68K programmer being part of the team in one and half a year. Currently, Bwang is continuing to work on his Raycaster as well as a Floorcaster, and apcalc is working on TI-Nspire and TI-89 ports of Trapped, which was a spin-off of Block Dude released on MaxCoderz a few years ago.

-Secondly, we are pleased to announce that Hot_Dog has been added to the Administrator group. From now on, he will be able to help for forum updates such as addition of projects sections and updating other areas of the site. As our community grows, it is important for us that we can continue to help the community and provide a nice discussion environment. It should also help for when some admins are busier.

-Third, I am returning into the administrator group. For the past month, my status on the forum was uncertain, as my activity was sporadic and I did not know if I would be able to contribute to the site anymore as admin after the contest is over. Although I may still not be able to answer many requests and that I may mostly be involved in the downloads section once this month ends, I will still remain active on the forums.

-Finally, the admin user group was renamed to "Managers".

Congrats to Bwang, apcalc and Hot Dog for their new positions!

The site front page and the forums were updated to reflect those changes.

On an unrelated note, the 40000th post of 2010 was posted today.  This amounts to an average of 167 posts a day since the beginning of 2010.

After a long summer of coding and debugging, Doors CS 7.0 has finally been released! This milestone comes three years since the last major release of Doors CS 6.0 in April 2007 and two years since the incremental release of Doors CS 6.2 in May 2008.  Nine years since its humble beginnings as a crude BASIC shell, Doors CS 7.0 aims to bring a full set of features and rock-solid stability to users and coders alike.  It supports MirageOS, Ion, Doors CS, and nostub BASIC and Assembly programs, and contains full support libraries for XLib, Celtic III, PicArc, (partially) Omnicalc, and the new DCSB Libs that let Doors CS coders use features like the DCS GUI.  The HomeRun feature lets you execute any type of program, BASIC or ASM, archived or not, from the TI-OS homescreen.  The Doors CS desktop lets you view your programs and folders, organize them into nested folders, cut, copy, rename, lock, archive, hide, and even edit programs, and change settings and options from the DCS Menu.  Doors CS 7.0 adds more robust protect from data loss due to RAM Clears, including automatic restoration of the user's folder structure.

For ASM developers, Doors CS offers a full suite of features, adding the DCS GUI system, and Associated Program system that automatically opens files in their associated viewer/editor, and much more on top of a full complement of MirageOS and Ion-compatible libraries.  BASIC programmers can take advantage of support for every popular BASIC library built directly into the shell.  Full information about Doors CS can be found at http://dcs.cemetech.net, including a (very) exhaustive feature list and screenshots galore for your viewing pleasure.

Download Doors CS 7.0 today and unleash the full power of your graphing calculator!

Download
Doors CS 7.0

Other Useful Downloads
Doors CS 7.0 SDK - The official Doors CS 7 SDK
Document DE 7 - A text editor demonstrating the power of Doors CS.
Doors CS 7 Teaser Trailer

There was a time where the TI community was thought to be dying. Texas Instrument came with a calculator with no programming capabilities, MaxCoderz was slowly getting abandonned, Cemetech hosting went haywire, TI-Freakware's fellow 68K coders were leaving one after another, Ticalc.org was lucky to see one program feature in a month, UTI, while active, had no more releases, then finally Omnimaga died. People thought F-Zero, Project M, Doors CS 7, Axe, Escheron and Nspire ASM were impossible dreams. At one point, there were rumors that in 2007, ticalc ran their last POTY ever and that the site would eventually end the same way Dimension-TI (Calc.org) and TI-Files did, several years ago. It even seemed like it did not matter what you contributed to the TI community anymore. The greats of today were barely coding anymore. It was mass chaos.

The problems that went on in the TI community eventually calmed down, allowing Omnimaga to restart. Omnimaga was originally not supposed to re-open in 2008, but many requests pushed me and Netham45 to at least allow it a fresh restart. At this time, the sole goal of the site was to attempt at offering a TI discussion area in the same fashion as back in the days, with promising releases over the years. There were no hopes of getting the activity we had during the first part of 2006. In fact, the site re-opening was never announced anywhere. The only clue people got was by trying the URL in their browser, following old links on other sites or when Ticalc.org announced the 2009 contest. At this point, we were not expecting a lot of months above 1000 posts, except maybe during Winter time. The only goal was to offer a different TI forum with different goals once again and keep the TI community somewhat alive. A small core group of users from the old board were our main contributors.

Then came F-Zero, TI-Boy SE and 8 level grayscale. Things that were told to be impossible years ago were finally done. OS keys were then factored, followed by many other discoveries. September 2009 became the month with the largest amount of ticalc.org features in 5 years. It seemed like at this point, the TI community was about to see a revival, something unexpected in the previous year. Although the TI community has seen a lot of changes since the end of 2008, the revival seems to have happened. If it didn't, then it is probably close. Today, even if we remove features of old programs that were missed before, 2010 already got more features than 2009 on ticalc.org.

Then there's Omnimaga, a site that seemed like the black sheep of the TI community back in the days, that managed to revive. A fresh and slow restart. It was clear that we would never see days with 200 posts again, something that was already extremly rare back in the days, and that our summers with 50 posts a day that we once thought to be inactive would look like active times. So then the first year passed, our board slowly approaching 12000 posts and it was common to see about 15-20 different registered users logging in in one day. This was an entire year on the new Omnimaga forums.

Who would have thought, that the year after that, two years after we thought the TI community was dying, that Omnimaga would have higher activity than anything ever seen on other TI-83/84 forums? Who expected to open Omnimaga on August 25th 2010, exactly two years after its resurrection, and find it with 57500 posts (more than what the old board and the temporary board combined had in 2.5 years in an era where the TI community had yet to go through its lull)? Who would have thought that the #omnimaga IRC channel, where it was rare to see more than 20 users connected at once, would sometimes have as many users as #TCPA back in the MaxCoderz glory days?

With the dedication of several of our forum members, staff and their contributions to the TI community, the extremly rare 200+ posts days seen in 2006 became something common, the impossible 300+ post days finally happened and after being rare for a while, they became something common as well, then finally it even became typical to have one or two days with over 400 posts here and there, even if less than two years earlier, it sometimes took close to an entire month to get 400 posts. Even the days in the early 200s started to look inactive. It then became common to see the online list wraps in two lines of text on most screen resolutions and 3 on standard ones. 20 logins a day became 80 and Summers that were once the quietest period in the TI community managed to break records even with several people away.

So this is how Omnimaga came along, since its unexpected resurrection exactly two year ago. Here is how the activity evolved on the forums in its 730 days of existence.

I would like to thank to everybody who have contributed in helping this site grow in the past 2 years and to the people, especially Necro, who bugged me non-stop during all of August 2008 to restart a new site from scratch. In the next days, there will be more site updates, including new staff additions (it will be possible to continue applying afterward), a new admin, Omnimaga 9th anniversary (Omnimaga having started long before having a website) and the eventual opening of our new downloads section.

Omnimaga is now starting its usual end-of-Summer programming team recruiting of new Coders Of Tomorrow. This basically means that new spots are now open for the position in our team (green nickname). However, unlike previous years, we currently only accept calculator programmers (although they can remain in the team if they move to computer game or music creation in the future).

If anyone is interested in joining the programming team, you only have to meet the following conditions before you get hired:
-Have 50 posts
-Have been active posting for at least one month
-Have a good forum/IRC behaviour during that period and no past ban/suspensions longer than 7 days (including the old board).
-Be involved in at least one of the following:
 *TI game programming
 *TI game development tools (on calc or on the computer)
-Have a related project which was updated less than a month ago.
-The language used to program doesn't matter, same for the TI calculator model.

As Omnimaga staff you get the following:
-The ability to upload your TI games/utility, PC games or own music in our staff downloads section.
-You get sub-forums for each of your calculator game/utility, PC game/software or ROM hack projects.
-Global moderator priviledges (in case someone wins the game)
-If you ever quit calculator programming (which we don't hope ), you can still remain in the team as either PC game programmer or musician (providing you make your own music), providing you remain active on the forums.

Here are the responsibities as Omnimaga staff (to ensure they remain active):
-Have an active project (or releases) going on under the themes specified above.
-Keep a minimum of at least 10 posts within the last 30 days from September 1st to June 30st and 5 posts within the last 30 days from July 1st to August 31st.
-Moderation is on a volunteer basis, although it's recommended to help when those naughty spambots flock in.

If you are willing to join the team, please PM me on the forums. Your staff application will then be queued then processed.