In the last few days, following the new downgrade protection discovery in OS 3.0.2, some infos leaked here and on TI-BANK seemed to indicate that there might be an official software development kit made by Texas Instruments at the horizon.

-First of all, after OS 3.0.2 caused a scandal with its Lua blocking and anti-downgrade protection, TI-BANK posted this news article. In summary, what it says is that many TI-BANK developers were recently contacted by Texas Instruments and that they would be allowed to beta-test a pre-release of a tool allowing people to create TNS files that includes Lua code. However, TI doesn't want them to tell any more information for now.

-Afterward, the TI-BANK team launched a new website called Inspired-Lua, meant to be a neutral reference for TI-Nspire Lua programming. It will include both French and English documentation. At this point, TI-BANK also revealed extra informations regarding Lua and what TI told them: There is nothing confidential about Nspire Lua documentation and releasing tools generated with the beta-testers version of the tool discussed about would be allowed.

-Next, on Omnimaga, ExtendeD discovered a website hosting a tool to generate Lua files, along with plenty of Lua samples for the TI-Nspire. Those files were apparently not meant to be made publicly available. The related page and files were taken down, but most tns samples remained online. It appeared that the samples might have been produced using an actual SDK, which is currently not available for the public.

-And today, TI has allowed them to host two of the Lua samples from there on TI-BANK, after TI-BANK team asked them permission.

It seems that TI could possibly be re-opening the door to third-party development on their calculators and it seems like there could be an official SDK at the horizon!

Here comes a new problem, though: Texas Instruments is a company and companies' main goal is to make money. Because of the growing interest towards Nspire development and the arrival of the TI-Nspire CX, could they be eventually attempting to put the Lua SDK for sale, trying to make money from TI community developers?

It seems very likely, because back in 1999, this is exactly what they did with the TI-83 Plus: First of all, a 8 KB executable code limit was added to 8xp assembly files, a limit that was not present in Flash applications (8xk). Secondly, the TI-83 Plus Flash Debugger (the name of the SDK) costed money. Basically, this meant that to create programs using more than 8 KB of executable code, you were pretty much forced to pay for TI's software (no, Crabcake did not exist back then, unfortunately)! As a result, most large ASM games like RPGs were severely limited in content and lenght and since the average calculator programmer still goes to school and have no way to buy softwares online, very few people in the TI community programmed Flash Applications.

Eventually, the SDK became free, but today, in this era of iDevices, gaming console online services and online software downloads, creating small application and games for those devices became very popular, and it could be very possible that TI decides to test this market with the TI-Nspire series in the future. The problem, though, is that if a TI-Nspire SDK was not free, then a lot of people in the TI community, especially Omnimaga, which got a younger userbase in general, would not even be able to grab it, as they would not have a credit card or even money to afford it, not to mention that not everyone might be willing to spend extra money to develop calculator games. Also, how much would such SDK cost? Knowing TI, I am quite worried that the price would be in the high hundreds of bucks...

If the SDK ever becomes a reality and becomes available for free or for any TI-Nspire owner, then a whole load of new possibilities will open for the TI community, even if it's not the full power of assembly and C. If it has a price, however, then I guess the community will still need to constantly fight new protections against third-party development tools.

Maybe they'll make it free </dream>

I can only partially blame TI. they are a company after all. As long as they don't try to control the programs we make with the SDK when/if it is released.

hehe! They are starting to cave in! I hope this becomes a reality... on a scale from 1 to 10 how much is lua like C#?

just wondering... I could write stuff if it is alike (during offtime, if any)

Even if it is paid, it is only a matter of time before we reverse engineer the software. 

They probably can't go too far in the way of making the SDK paid for, now that the Lua / image -> clipboard program suitable for pasting into the Nspire computer software.

By the time TI releases anything, chances that the compression+encryption will be fully nullified, fully reimplemented independently, or both, are nonzero.

I remain pessimistic about the chances of TI opening up.
Sure, it would be an excellent, if belated, thing... but remember, we've had a major testimony to the contrary this very week, with OS 3.0.2.

Indeed!
I'm starting to think that something happened at TI, maybe the pressure started to build up with all the negative stuff, and then the leaked documents. I hope they will become again more open to developers. And I think there is a good chance that that happens

This. Would. Be. So. Awesome. Sigh... {Dreams about what would happen then}

Can someone make a LUA script to make the LCD not suck?

Nope. You can't even draw to 100% of the screen using Lua IIRC.