TI-Nspire CAS+ are prototypes which were evaluated in classes in 2006-2007.
If you had the idea of holding
at boot, what became the maintenance menu combo on later Nspire, you got a very bad surprise... No menu came out, and the OS was immediately removed without asking you!
Moreover, Texas Instruments has never publicly released a CAS+ OS installation file. So you couldn't update your OS, and could never repair CAS+ in the above situation which would remain bricked forever! :'(
And there is no hope in the handheld "send OS" feature as it's either disabled or non working!
In a
previous news, we performed the 1st dump of a TI-Nspire CAS+ with the OS 1.0.334T of the P1-EVT2 CAS+ development prototype by copying the OS files to the user /documents folder with commands sent to the Datalight shell through RS232!
That OS was quite different from the latest CAS+ OSes and so couldn't be installed on the CAS+ handhelds publicly evaluated in 2006-2007.
We needed a more recent CAS+ OS! But the Datalight shell was disabled on more recent CAS+ handhelds and the same dumping method couldn't be used again! :'(
We decided that 6 years were enough, and started some days ago a 5-1 fight against the TI-Nspire CAS+:
- Adriweb
- Bsl
- Goplat
- Jimbauwens
- and myself
Was the CAS+ going to resist much longer? 
We already knew that the CAS+ was getting an IP to communicate with the computer or with other handhelds, and that for the computer it was using port 10001. But only the
/documents user folder could be accessed through that port. No access to system files...
But Jimbauwens scanned the CAS+ ports, and discovered a secret shell on port 10002, which wasn't used by the TI-Nspire Computer Link, and could access all files!
The shell had a very strange syntax. We supposed that port 10002 was the one used for transfers between handhelds. Fortunately, after analysing OS 1.0.334T which was including the same 10002 shell, Goplat managed to figure out the command which would make the CAS+ send the OS files to itself, writing it in the /documents user folder!
Adriweb and myself immediatly dumped all other CAS+ OSes we had:
- OS 1.0.494 from TI-Nspire CAS+ P1-DVT1
- OS 1.0.529 from TI-Nspire CAS+ P1-PVT
- OS 1.0.554 from TI-Nspire CAS+ P1-PVT1.1 (most common version)
Looking at the TI-Nspire Computer Link 1.0 source code generated from the jar files, I correctly repacked the OS images into tnc files which should be installable.
Will we be able to upgrade/repair CAS+ handhelds? Stay connected to Omnimaga to know!
Today is an epic day. 6 years after, TI-Nspire CAS+ handhelds have finally been dumped and are ready to be opened for assembly!
TI-Nspire CAS+ OS installation files are available from the TI-Planet news:
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9217
