Author Topic: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown (Read 49640 times)

SpiroH · « **Reply #30 on:** October 14, 2013, 08:34:43 am »

Well, i'm here pulling what remains of my hair trying to figure out an answer for some of your remarks. So, here are a few:

Quote from: Slaith on October 14, 2013, 04:08:41 am

With 33+ years of programming/hardware design experience and 26+ years as a EE I am always astounded why you are all at all surprised. Don't you get it?

Beware, some guys around here are older than that.

Quote from: Slaith

It's all about money and power! It has nothing to do with capability!

Some of the oldest members have been stating just that for years now.

Quote from: Slaith

...we can make this platform the most successful to have ever traversed the face of this planet.

What an exaggeration, my gosh! The poor thing is already quite old-fashioned by todays' tech standards, the only valuable stuff remaining is the math-software, really.

I'll stop here. Welcome, we'll surely be able to appreciate your experience and knowledge. Cheers,

Streetwalrus · « **Reply #31 on:** October 14, 2013, 01:22:56 pm »

Well a model dedicated to hacking around has already been suggested to TI, they just won't. TI's business model is understandable but they won't accept that some people like programming something just because it's labeled "calculator". Or rather they give them limited consideration with the half locked-down z80 series which is a power dwarf compared to the Nspire or the new HP Prime.
Cheap handheld devices that you can program directly do not exist. Fully open ones even less. DIY ones do but it's not for everyone. Calcs are a nice compromise as you already have them for school, and most people here started programming with these.
Just my two cents. We will never agree with TI and community alternatives have all failed up until now, so we are turning to the concurrence which is more tolerant and community friendly than TI. The Casio PRIZM and HP Prime are good examples : neither officially supports native code but the first has no restrictions on it while HP doesn't seem to react to our current attempts to hack the Prime (whose hardware is fully documented and open to arbitrary flashing, giving us complete control of it).

Levak · « **Reply #32 on:** October 14, 2013, 05:43:48 pm »

Quote from: Jim Bauwens on October 13, 2013, 04:42:39 pm

Take setAlpha for example .. it actually didn't work on the handheld but only on the computer software.

It used to work on 3.1, this function is directly linked to a nucleus GAFIX routine.
Look by yourself :
Lua (Make3D) :

C (nGC) :

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #33 on:** October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm »

Quote from: Slaith on October 14, 2013, 04:08:41 am

With 33+ years of programming/hardware design experience and 26+ years as a EE I am always astounded why you are all at all surprised. Don't you get it? It's all about money and power! It has nothing to do with capability! Just look at the SI unit system in America, VHS v beta, QWERTY v others , 8086 v 68000/Z8000 etc, etc etc!!! TI is simply acting out of fear, pure and simple for their investments. IMHO, TI has invested in a student/academic calculator and not a computational platform. If you (we) destroy their business model then they will/must fight us but if we align ourselves (please, please bear with me for a moment please) with at least their profit motives we can make this platform the most successful to have ever traversed the face of this planet. TI,as I recall, from the 70's goes WAY back to Jack Kilby and probably the first IC CALCULATOR!!!! If we deconflict our efforts with their survival profit model then we's all down on our sh__ w/o TI threatn' us.
Just ensure two domains exist , one TI profit model for students/tests and the other NONSTUDENTS/TESTS/ all others. We need to come to an agreement that some indicator/unbreakable method is a student/test version
*OR* ours AND NO ONE CAN FAKE the student/test version! I think its that simple IMHO!!!! That way its a win/win for us AND TI because they have the student/test profit and growth to STUDENT==> Professional/hobbiest/ whatever profit model which are clearly and completely different.

If the HP manages to fix all known HP Prime bugs before next school year, that the price doesn't increase higher than the Nspire CX and that more and more people adopt the platform over the Nspire, then TI will have no choice but to adapt the Nspire to that new market. Currently, the HP Prime has no ASM/C support, but the calculator is MUCH faster than the TI-Nspire and offers a programming language officially on-calc programmable that does nearly as much as Lua and at much faster speed. Many younger students prefer BASIC-like languages because they're easier to learn as a first programming language, but sadly, the BASIC language on the TI-Nspire makes it a major PITA to program anything that is even close to useable by the average student. Sadly we can't judge if the HP Prime will compete well, because it came out one month after back-to-school 2013, after most students had already purchased another calculator, but there already seems to be a decent amount of users on HP Museum (their daily forum activity even rivals Cemetech and Omni now, even with a batshit insane registration system)

If TI did some efforts in not providing us an half-hassled TI-BASIC language and made it and Lua as fast as HP PPL, then maybe we wouldn't be complaining as much. If they just can't find ways to make both languages faster, then why won't they just upgrade the processor to 400 MHz or something? It's not like they'll ruin themselves doing so, considering how cheap processors are nowadays.

And instead of trying in every way to block every Ndless program, why won't TI just try to find ways to make the teacher mode impossible to hack? That's the only reason why they're blocking Ndless after all.

Adriweb · « **Reply #34 on:** October 15, 2013, 07:10:51 am »

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

If the HP manages to fix all known HP Prime bugs before next school year, that the price doesn't increase higher than the Nspire CX and that more and more people adopt the platform over the Nspire, then TI will have no choice but to adapt the Nspire to that new market.

For me, before thinking about aquiring a large(r) part (or at least non-negligible) of the market, HP will seriously have to make the Prime more professional. Not that competitors didn't have hard times with their first release, but the HP prime is competing with the Nspire CX which has years of evolution now, and bugs "everywhere" is still bad for the customer point of view- who isn't going to be lenient about bugs/crashes. They buy something, they want it to work. And the more intuitive/fast/profesionnal looking, the better. So far, I don't think the Prime targets students well enough. And if HP makes a calculator not targetted at students, then they simply can't expect to get a non-negligible market share in that field, whetether they think TI's way of doing things (like a very user-friendly CAS and interaction/display in general) is not profesionnal looking, or whatever.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

Currently, the HP Prime has no ASM/C support

Officialy, I don't think it ever will. (or then, it won't probably be fit for exams, and thus HP would have abandoned the main target : students).
However we can hope that they won't take the same measures as TI does in every versions, making everything to prevent ndless.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

but the calculator is MUCH faster than the TI-Nspire and offers a programming language officially on-calc programmable that does nearly as much as Lua and at much faster speed.

Yes, the Prime is much faster, and some of its Basic commands are actually not possible in Nspire Lua (let alone Basic), but on some other points, Lua's much better. It's really much of a different approach, and up to the user to like better whichever platform, in the end.
Anyway, has slow programming ever stopped coders to do what they want ? Just look at the myriad of marvelous things done in z80 and 68k Basic , for instance.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

Many younger students prefer BASIC-like languages because they're easier to learn as a first programming language,

All that's great but it would have been a much more valid point like 10 years ago. Today, most of the student don't give a crap about programming on their calculators anyway, because most of them have their smartphones to lose their time on. It sure is sad, but it's the time we live in, now - and I don't think there is anything we can do to change that.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

but sadly, the BASIC language on the TI-Nspire makes it a major PITA to program anything that is even close to useable by the average student.

I'll have to disagree on that. While z80, 68k and other platforms allow a mode in-depth I/O and graphics control from Basic, I challenge you to find a better platform for math-oriented programming than the Nspire's Basic.
And as I just said, when students program on their calcultor, it's mainly because they have to do it, so they won't care much about having ASM capabilities or not, for example, they wouldn't have used it anyway, since they must be forced to program to consider looking at Basic programming in the first place.
on the other side, the small community of students who enjoy programming on such devices will obviously find the Prime's Basic way more powerful than the Nspire's in terms of raw programming capabilities and speed.
And on the Nspire, they can look at Lua scripting, and if they can depending on their device/OS, C and ASM.
Anyway, conclusion for that part : the "average student", as you say, will be largely satisfied enough with the Nspire's Basic. (and probably 20% of the features will be used).

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

Sadly we can't judge if the HP Prime will compete well, because it came out one month after back-to-school 2013, after most students had already purchased another calculator, but there already seems to be a decent amount of users on HP Museum (their daily forum activity even rivals Cemetech and Omni now, even with a batshit insane registration system)

Well, early-adopters' peak, I guess. We can only wait and see in the future what TI's response to the Prime will be (if they ever feel the need to actually respond. They are so powerful onthe market that they wouldn't really need to take harsh measures to keep their market share)

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

If TI did some efforts in not providing us an half-hassled TI-BASIC language and made it and Lua as fast as HP PPL, then maybe we wouldn't be complaining as much.

Sure. Although the 2x faster processor isn't there for nothing

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

If they just can't find ways to make both languages faster, then why won't they just upgrade the processor to 400 MHz or something? It's not like they'll ruin themselves doing so, considering how cheap processors are nowadays.

They certainly can (and, well, TI knows about microprocessors.....), and they most probably will, but when they decide it's going to be needed.
Again, do average student need 400 MHz to calculate a derivative (at best...) ? Nope. Programmers (probably a too small part of the customer base to actually weight in the balance enough) may, however, to do advanced stuff that would be slower otherwise.
So that's why, I think, they just don't feel the need to upgrade the hardware to a better one, that might cost a little bit more.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm

And instead of trying in every way to block every Ndless program, why won't TI just try to find ways to make the teacher mode impossible to hack? That's the only reason why they're blocking Ndless after all.

Well, nothing is never hackable anyway

And the point of Ndless is not to mess with the teacher stuff like PTT. It just opens doors. What some users decide then to do is their own choice...
Several solutions (like having a separate, open Nspire system where native coding is allowed and documented, and a exam-reserved OS where it would be closed (but which native developers wouldn't care about anyways since the other OS is there)) have been proposed to TI. Even though it's unlikely they will adpot such measures, we can at least say we have tried to discuss for the good of all.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #35 on:** October 15, 2013, 12:51:51 pm »

Quote from: adriweb on October 15, 2013, 07:10:51 am

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm
Currently, the HP Prime has no ASM/C support
Officialy, I don't think it ever will. (or then, it won't probably be fit for exams, and thus HP would have abandoned the main target : students).
However we can hope that they won't take the same measures as TI does in every versions, making everything to prevent ndless.

YEah I doubt that the Prime will ever gain official ASM support. I meant that the community have yet to try to add it. That said, unnoficial ASM/C support have slim chances of never happening either too. All will depend of if the community is willing to bother or is dedicated enough to do so. Notice how the Let's hack the HP Prime thread have been dead for a few months now. If there are only two or three people actively hacking the Nspire newest OSes for a calc that is used for like 100 millions of people, then if the HP Prime gets used by 100000 people, for example, this would mean 1000 times fewer potential people interested in hacking it.

Quote from: adriweb on October 15, 2013, 07:10:51 am

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm
but the calculator is MUCH faster than the TI-Nspire and offers a programming language officially on-calc programmable that does nearly as much as Lua and at much faster speed.
Yes, the Prime is much faster, and some of its Basic commands are actually not possible in Nspire Lua (let alone Basic), but on some other points, Lua's much better. It's really much of a different approach, and up to the user to like better whichever platform, in the end.
Anyway, has slow programming ever stopped coders to do what they want ? Just look at the myriad of marvelous things done in z80 and 68k Basic , for instance.

Nope it didn't stop anyone. However, while there are people who like to work on limited languages or platforms to push them to their limits, there are certain people who might want more freedom without being forced to learn ASM or C (or even Lua in some cases, since I saw people who found Lua too hard compared to Basic before or didn't like it). As you say it really depends of the user's preference.

Quote from: adriweb on October 15, 2013, 07:10:51 am

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm
Many younger students prefer BASIC-like languages because they're easier to learn as a first programming language,
All that's great but it would have been a much more valid point like 10 years ago. Today, most of the student don't give a crap about programming on their calculators anyway, because most of them have their smartphones to lose their time on. It sure is sad, but it's the time we live in, now - and I don't think there is anything we can do to change that.

True but it's not like they give a crap about smartphone programming either. Not that we can even program directly on a smartphone anyway, not to mention the fact they're still banned in some classes because of idiots disrupting the whole class with their phones.

Quote from: adriweb on October 15, 2013, 07:10:51 am

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm
Sadly we can't judge if the HP Prime will compete well, because it came out one month after back-to-school 2013, after most students had already purchased another calculator, but there already seems to be a decent amount of users on HP Museum (their daily forum activity even rivals Cemetech and Omni now, even with a batshit insane registration system)
Well, early-adopters' peak, I guess. We can only wait and see in the future what TI's response to the Prime will be (if they ever feel the need to actually respond. They are so powerful onthe market that they wouldn't really need to take harsh measures to keep their market share)

One issue though is that we can't judge how good a calc is from its first adopters. When the Nspire came out, it lacked any proper programming whatsover, 3D graphing and various other things, not to mention it had more bugs. Most of those were fixed to a certain extent in later versions. The same thing seems like it will happen to the HP Prime. Sadly, nowadays companies seems like they have to rush products to the market to meet deadlines then fix or improve them later. Of course, too many bugs can leave bad impressions at first, but so far in the Amazon reviews, for example, most bad reviews are mainly complains from RPN fanboys who used their HP 48 for decades. That said, the company better not screw up too much either, like they did with the HP 49g in 1999: The calc was so broken that its reputation could probably never be salvaged, so the improved version had to be renamed as the 50g.

Quote from: adriweb on October 15, 2013, 07:10:51 am

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm
If TI did some efforts in not providing us an half-hassled TI-BASIC language and made it and Lua as fast as HP PPL, then maybe we wouldn't be complaining as much.
Sure. Although the 2x faster processor isn't there for nothing

This, and this is why I think that a faster TI-Nspire processor could already be a good alternative for them. HP PPL would probably be as slow as Lua if the Prime ran on a 150 MHz processor. Maybe the so called TI-Nspire Premium?

But yeah as you said in response to my other quote, the average student probably won't need it since the TI-Nspire is already fast enough for maths. (the touchpad responsiveness needs some improvements, tho, since it didn't detect my fingers all the time when I tried scrolling through graphs or selecting stuff)

Quote from: adriweb on October 15, 2013, 07:10:51 am

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2013, 11:02:36 pm
And instead of trying in every way to block every Ndless program, why won't TI just try to find ways to make the teacher mode impossible to hack? That's the only reason why they're blocking Ndless after all.
Well, nothing is ever hackable anyway
And the point of Ndless is not to mess with the teacher stuff like PTT. It just opens doors. What some users decide then to do is their own choice...
Several solutions (like having a separate, open Nspire system where native coding is allowed and documented, and a exam-reserved OS where it would be closed (but which native developers wouldn't care about anyways since the other OS is there)) have been proposed to TI. Even though it's unlikely they will adpot such measures, we can at least say we have tried to discuss for the good of all.

Hopefully they eventually do it, but yeah I guess if they don't see the need to we'll have to wait longer. >.<

AnToX98 · « **Reply #36 on:** October 16, 2013, 07:48:40 am »

I won a TI nspire CX CAS and I wonder it won't come with os 3.6 :S
Also, I'm trying to find the changelog of new lua api, were this can be find ?

Adriweb · « **Reply #37 on:** October 16, 2013, 08:21:45 am »

I highly doubt tht it will come with OS 3.6.... It's too recent

The Lua API changes are normally going to come as an official separate document, this time, so it'll be better than before, where you had to look for the changes yourself in the doc

In any case, Inspired-Lua's wiki will have a detailed page.
It's not here right now but will be on http://wiki.inspired-lua.org/Changes_in_OS_3.6

Also, it's not just exactly the API that changes - you'll see ^^

AnToX98 · « **Reply #38 on:** October 16, 2013, 08:31:58 am »

Thank you for this awesome wiki, now I am number one in latin... :p

SpiroH · « **Reply #39 on:** October 16, 2013, 10:28:30 am »

Quote from: AnToX98 on October 16, 2013, 07:48:40 am

I won a TI nspire CX CAS and I wonder it won't come with os 3.6 :S

"Trés bien Antoine!"
If you don't mind my asking, where and how did you win the 'CX CAS'?

AnToX98 · « **Reply #40 on:** October 16, 2013, 11:40:52 am »

It was an photo contest organized by TI france on their facebook page :
https://www.facebook.com/Texas.Instruments.France?fref=ts

My photo is the number one :bj:

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #41 on:** October 16, 2013, 12:38:43 pm »

Wow congrats

. Also even if it isn't Ndlessable it's still a good prize.

Hyaloune · « **Reply #42 on:** October 16, 2013, 04:43:45 pm »

Quote from: critor on October 13, 2013, 05:10:43 pm

Ok it works, but only on TI-Nspire CX CAS, not on TI-Nspire CX (it just freezes).

Would it work if you used nLaunch CX and loaded the working CAS OS onto a normal CX?

critor · « **Reply #43 on:** October 16, 2013, 05:01:55 pm »

No, the patched 3.6 just doesn't work on the CX.

Hyaloune · « **Reply #44 on:** October 16, 2013, 05:11:29 pm »

Huh. That's certainly unfortunate. Do you know if 3.6 adds anything in terms of actual functionality? (Like how 3.2 added conics and some other stuff)

Author Topic: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown (Read 49640 times)

SpiroH

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

Streetwalrus

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

Levak

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

DJ Omnimaga

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

Adriweb

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

DJ Omnimaga

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

AnToX98

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

Adriweb

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

AnToX98

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

SpiroH

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

AnToX98

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

DJ Omnimaga

Re: Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

Hyaloune

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

critor

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown

Hyaloune

Re: New TI-Nspire OS 3.6 with extra lockdown