Omnimaga
Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on June 16, 2012, 07:22:25 pm
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For the last few years, Texas Instruments calculator updates have nearly been entirely in favor of schools and at the expense of student's freedom. For example, the TI-Nspire series lacked ASM and C support and did not even have an actual programming language available altogether (a very limited form of TI-BASIC, even more limited than on the TI-81, arrived about one year after the calculator release). However, as quoted from this post (http://ourl.ca/16389), it seems like higher cooperation between some community members (mainly parts of the TI-Planet staff) and Texas Instruments have convinced the latter to try making the TI-Nspire Lua language more attractive for game programmers:
TI updated their scripting page a bit a couple of days ago:
http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/nonProductSingle/nspire-scripting.html
Some interesting statements:
For programmers and the programming community
The wider programming community gains a potential programming and gaming platform that can well suit their needs. We look forward to seeing programmers band together through existing online communities to share their work and learn from one another.
At least they recognize that there is/was a need. And because several members of the community have close contact with TI, stuff will only get better :)
Also, they clearly don't mind games ..
Getting started with Lua scripting for TI-Nspire technology
Try a series of tutorials that will take you from getting started to creating TI-Nspire documents with the Script Editor. Learn more
These tutorials use OcLua (made by ExtendeD) ;D
Both things show that they slowly start appreciating the community again. This is because it benefits them too. (So if they would open up to native programming, it would benefit them a great deal). If TI continues with this trend I think we will see some great stuff happening :)
Granted, just with Lua, it's still far from the freedom people would have with native support for ASM and C like on older calc models, but hopefully it's a good step away from the days where the TI-Nspire series did not even support TI-BASIC or Lua at all. Hopefully, TI will devote more of their time spent on OS upgrades to make Lua a more viable language for higher-end game and program development, rather than devoting most of it into their lost battle against Ndless.
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Wow, this is some promising news! :D Sure, it's still not assembly, but I'm really glad to hear this: first, it means TI will continue to support third-party Lua programs in the future (and it's not too bad as a gaming language, either), and second, TI openly recognizes the game/programming community again, even if they can't really endorse it.
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Hey that's pretty cool :D
They must had fired a vice-president or something.
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Why TI is starting to turn back towards students is
still unknown. EDIT: I read the OP. Why TI would ever listen to their programming community is the unknown.
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I think that behind the scenes, people have been trying to convince them about the benefits of allowing people to code games again, such as the fact calculators sales might actually increase. I know for myself that the presence of good games on the 83+ was what convinced me of buying my own TI-83+ back then rather than using the ones from school. The calc was for school, but games were a major factor in convincing me to shell away $159.99 (around $180 with taxes) for a 83+ in 2001.
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O.K., a concession is being made, that's fine, but TI needs to go the whole way, and it looks like it's only a minor concession really. I have nothing against Lua, but since you can't program this on the calculator, if you have a REAL JOB and are not a student, where you have to program for WORK, in the FIELD, you don't want to have to take a laptop with you to alter your program to meet changing requirements.
I think they're really trying to sell their PC software, ultimately. it's another revenue stream...
I still find the Nspire crippled and clunky, in spite of the processor speed. It's for education only...
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Now, if they put Lua Programming on the Inspire, more then just letting it run programs, then I will stop dissing them...
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Well, there are oclua and tools like that for Lua programming on-calc.
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Hmm just as a side note, make sure to use the modify button rather than double-posting, unless there is a considerable amount of time since your last reply ;)
And yeah I agree with TI needing to go the whole way. Of course I fear this might not happen anytime soon since they're way too concerned about Ndless being used to cheat in tests (as you could see with the two PTTKiller threads getting locked, we've been trying to do some efforts to convince TI we do not agree with such student activities), but we never know in a few years. At least they could maybe make Lua as fast as possible or even get a better coder to make it more efficient and it would already help. Still wanting to be able to run ASM/C games, though.
Also you can code Lua directly on the calculator since only a few months after Lua arrived, just so you know. ;) There are tools allowing you to do so. I'm thinking about OCLua, for example, but if I remember, three are available.
Also I prefer conventional graphing calc controls, like on older models, rather than the touchpad-style interface.
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[netham45] Best Article EVER!!! and its REAL :D :D :D !!!
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Okay, how is that even... I mean... What? Why??? /me stabs annoyingcalc
This is great news though =D
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Even though I don't own an Nspire, it's great that TI is finally realizing/acknowledging the real success that they have had because of the programming community. :D
EDIT: maybe in the future they will give us a little credit. :P
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I still find the Nspire crippled and clunky, in spite of the processor speed. It's for education only...
That's a fact.
Even though I don't own an Nspire, it's great that TI is finally realizing the real success that they have had because of the programming community. :D
Some of TI's programmers have always been fully aware of that, but some people in the top management are still not realizing that, sorry.
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Okay, how is that even... I mean... What? Why??? /me stabs annoyingcalc
This is great news though =D
I didn't see anyone use the [Netham45] bbcode in a while O.O
(Not that it's generally a good idea anyway since everyone will use it then)
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Oh sorry I copy pasted, I thought something else was in therw
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I think this is great news. I think something that's helping turn their views is the support Casio is gaining from the development community as well.
(Not that it's generally a good idea anyway since everyone will use it then)
[Netham45]I don't know what you mean?
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This is really cool. I hope TI will turn more and more to the community again. I seriously hope they improve Lua. (Isn't Lua on the nspire about as fast as asm on the 84+ series?)
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It'd be great if they packed some simple games with the calculators along with the source. Then people realize that games can be made for them. The first LEGO mindstorms model was designed for educational purposes. LEGO saw that people were hacking their products, so they made a newer model with more powerful features.
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Great article and great news! Glad to see TI making the right moves! :)
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Ooooh... guys, don't be so gullible ;)
OK, TI mentions a third-party tool in passing... and what ? Old-timers like me can assure you that it's not the first time they mention third-party software...
But they still show us how much they want to keep their calculators locked down and underwhelming, and how much they disrespect our basic user rights. And this remains as flat out inacceptable as ever. It's even more unacceptable now that we used our direct contacts at TI, to try and make TI understand what's at stake, and what the highly predictable consequences of their disrespect are going to be. It will be their loss...
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So you don't think TI will eventually make their calcs less locked-down?
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I think TI is making a huge marketing mistake with the Education-centric Nspire in a more subtle way. Education is in a massive bubble right now (like a lot of other things, as well).
Young people, trying to not end up being burger flippers for the rest of their lives, are borrowing heavily to go to college to avoid that fate. Example: I bought a used textbook on Linear Algebra on Amazon to have as a reference. I paid 30 bucks used, and the "new" price was well north of $200! That's a bubble! In a year, or two, or three, the whole education system crashes, as (1) Student loans become rare because of Austerity programs (think Greece or Europe, that's coming here, too) (2) Students realise there are no jobs to train for (well, a whole lot fewer, anyway).
TI is trying, with the Nspire, to ride the same bubble as the people selling $250 textbooks. You can guess where that's going....They'll just get the worst bugs worked out, and by then the market they're targeting, will have disappeared.
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I see what you did there. You should write a letter to TI, your arguments are pretty good. :D
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aetios:
1) it's not just a matter of being somewhat less locked down. The only acceptable thing for them to do is to provide users a level of openness equivalent to that of the TI-Z80 and TI-68k series - or better, of course.
When the manufacturer respects us (which, sadly, is extremely unlikely to occur...), we can respect them. Not before.
2) TI-Cares, which mlytle0 would certainly be writing to, is infamously known for filtering a huge amount of useful things.
And the top management, which I have personally reached to, has already proved since then that they're unable to implement common sense measures to reduce the risk that TI's Education division loses potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, just like Sony did, due to their aberrant behaviour with the PS3.
Seriously, what makes you think that writing a letter to TI (to tell them about another way they risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars) would do any good ?
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TI is only locking it down because teachers want this, isn't it?
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We don't have to care about the reasons why they're disrespecting our basic user rights (and reducing their sales as a result, even if by a small amount).
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TI is only locking it down because teachers want this, isn't it?
That and programs like OSlauncher and PTT Killer can be created.
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Okay :)
What made me think that writing a letter could help, um, yeah I don't know. It's just weird imo that they lock everything down without any respect for the user rights. I'm sure the community has done a lot for TI in direct and indirect ways.
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jwalker: you've got things backwards... Trying to lock down stuff (and failing at it, because it's fundamentally impossible) does not make it less likely that things they don't like occur - it makes it more likely. I've said that face to face to TI's top management, in TI's Paris offices, last year.
PTTKiller could have been made, and released, more than two years before it ended up being released (on the day after the release of a new, underwhelming OS version). Draw your own conclusions.
aeTIos: it's indeed a fact that the community did a lot for TI, in direct and indirect ways. With calculators that are less open and versatile, they'd have had a harder time becoming the market leader. Like hundreds of thousands of persons over many years, I bought a TI-89, instead of a Casio Graph 100 (which I knew how to operate, unlike the TI-89, because I had used a schoolmate's Graph 100 the year before !), because it was possible to make cool things with it.
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Do people really care about PTT? I've never had to use it (And I can't on my calc since I killed it).
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@aetios
My impression is that TI is trying to lock in a market by trying to get education departments to see the Nspire as a necessary part of the Education infrastructure. As necessary as the textbooks. This is why they want kids to do their homework on the Nspire and then upload the problem sets to their teacher. Sort of like 'Electronic paper'. It's very ambitious, but I don't think the world of the near future will see this as essential when maybe 30% or more of the college seats in the U.S. go away, when recession battered single parent or two parent families are wondering where they can find $150 for a calculator only useful for a few classes. I don't think people will do their English assignments on it.
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Yes, but that is why they are locking it down in the first place. PTTKiller dosnt have much of an effect on TI except in the class room, but OSlauncher could causes TI to loose money. Corporations will try to protect their profits.
Think of it this way, Every calc that uses OSLauncher to start a CAS OS instead of the regular OS, TI has just lost $20. Every Student that finds out that OSLauncher exists because they visit sites that have it because they are looking for games could now download it. That is hundreds of poeple.
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Are they aiming to let teachers use it in english class? Thats ridiculous O.o
Their aim at letting people use the calculator as a datalogger seems legit, tho (And will be much more used)
edit: also can you drop a cas OS on the nspire with oslauncher? Cool :D
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Yeah. TI could make their calculators more useful to the education infrastructure if the platform was more open.
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Yep, think of it like people using the calculator as a part in circuits (like as a display, or the other way round, create new input things for it). This has be done on the 84+ (usb8x, ti-nterface[by keoni29]) and I am sure the nspire can be used even better if the lockage gets removed.
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One other thing, is, I think the arrival of low power CPU's that can address megabytes of memory with speed, like the ARM family, just begs for some marketing clown to "fill it" with something and ruin everything. The bloated and buggy OS on the Nspire was probably predictable, as this level of hardware became available. You could never screw up this bad with a Motorola 68000, as it could never support such a monstrocity.
I see the Nspire OS as the Windows Vista of calculators...
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Yes, but that is why they are locking it down in the first place. PTTKiller dosnt have much of an effect on TI except in the class room, but OSlauncher could causes TI to loose money. Corporations will try to protect their profits.
Think of it this way, Every calc that uses OSLauncher to start a CAS OS instead of the regular OS, TI has just lost $20. Every Student that finds out that OSLauncher exists because they visit sites that have it because they are looking for games could now download it. That is hundreds of people.
As I've explained multiple times:
* Clickpad / Touchpad CAS calculators are simpler (no interchangeable keyboard) than Clickpad / Touchpad non-CAS calculators, and therefore, the manufacturing cost is lower;
* CX CAS and CX non-CAS calculators are the exact same hardware: it's just one bit of difference in one of the hardware ports (the one used for the serial ID). One has a "CAS" mention while the other one doesn't, but this is a vanishingly small part of the manufacturing cost;
* the development of the sub-par 84+ emulator cost some money, but it has disappeared from CX; in theory, the stripping down of the CAS OS (an OS which needs to be done anyway) to make the non-CAS OS costs some money, but it's the flip of a switch...
Does TI lose money when a non-CAS calculator is used for CAS ? No. What costs them money is the fact that they have to make a non-CAS version in the first place, in order to comply with brain-damaged "standardized tests" crap regulated by incompetents.
And when someone pays a Nspire for $150 or €150, only a small proportion of that goes to the manufacturer. As you know, most of the price of an item is made by the various retailers' margins ;)
That's why P2C direct distribution schemes let the manufacturer/producer earn comparatively more money, and therefore be able to make a better product (money makes everything easier...), which pleases consumers more than large retail distribution stores. I live in a rural area, I know how that works.
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They sell the CAS OS for more money than the non CAS OS, so they arent making as much of a profit AKA loosing money on their product. They may not be going in the red on a manufacturing standpoint because they are still make Nspires, but they do loose money.
Many stores have the CX CAS priced the same as on TI's website, maybe even less in some cases.
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They sell the CAS OS for more money than the non CAS OS
Er, they do not sell either the CAS OS or the non-CAS OS, as both can be downloaded from their web site for no fee ;)
They might sell the CAS-capable hardware as "CAS" at a higher price tag than the CAS-capable hardware as "non-CAS".
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Yes, but they have the calculator purposely locked so that you can only use a CAS OS on their specified CAS calculators. If poeple want to use a calculator that has a CAS, Then TI wants them to buy the more expensive calculator. They didn't realy try to lock down the Z80 or the 68000 based calculators because the operating systems and hardware was not even compatible, you couldn't put the ti-89 OS(CAS) on a ti-84+ silver(non-CAS). TI-89's sold for way more money because they had a CAS OS. they probably only costed a little bit more to manufacture than the 84 too.
Another thing you must look at is features, the CAS OS has more features, which made it more expensive to produce because it probably took more man hours to make. You are paying for those man hours when you buy the CAS calculator for maybe $20 more.
What I ment was the sell the CAS OS CALCULATOR for more money than the non CAS OS CALCULATOR.
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Another thing you must look at is features, the CAS OS has more features, which made it more expensive to produce because it probably took more man hours to make.
You have things backwards, as I explained above (the OS whose development cost extra money is clearly the non-CAS OS), but I don't think we should keep arguing about it.
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The crappy emulator probably wasnt that hard to make, the CAS OS has WAY more features and functions and would cost more to make. Also since TI is slowly pushing for the CX and CX CAS, by phasing out the old Nspires, to become the only new Nspire types avalible, there is no 84 emulator on the CX. It would have taken alot longer to make the CAS OS because of all of the extera functionality, way longer than to make an 84 emulator.
And I agree, we should stop arguing.
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I'm pretty sure I heard that TI ported the CAS from the same base as the 68k series.
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You read about it because it's a fact, indeed :)
TI's CAS is still very largely the same code base as 15 years ago, on the 92+ and 89. My "Native EStack programming PoC " ( http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/437/43727.html ) is a very straightforward port of my TI-68k/AMS program.
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The main thing keeping me from getting any of their newer calculators is the "lack" of native assembly support. To be honest, having a color screen to play with sounds like a lot of fun, but being locked out of assembly (and, by extension, C), just sucks. I think that was always one of the biggest attractions of their calculators: browsing the massive amounts of programs available and then learning to program them and do things you thought you never'd be able to do. That and knowing that a large number of people would have immediate access to and actually use/enjoy your programs. I guess for ARM programming there are a lot of other communities/platforms out there, i guess you'd just reach a different audience.
The 82-83+ (even the 89) will always be special to me, but not because of the math problems i solved on them ;) Programming them was the reason i bought my first (and second, and third, and fourth, etc.) calculator :P
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That is if you are a programmer, but we are a minority of users. I am the only calc programmer at my entire school.
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That is if you are a programmer, but we are a minority of users. I am the only calc programmer at my entire school.
That's very amazing. How big is your school?
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there is like 300 kids, at the very least 160 of them have an 83 or 84. I still havn't met anyone else in the entire state that programs calculators either yet.
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I thought there would be more programmers here.
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there are probably more than 160 now that I think about it, everyone from a sophmore and up has one, unless they got to be in algebra 1 when they were 8th graders, then they got one when they were freshmen. Even though I got one as a freshman, I didn't even know about programming, I just thougt graphing calculators looked cool.
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So it's actually around 250 or 275?
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probably, except my school counts the 60 7th and 8th graders as high schoolers.
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240*(3/4+1/2*1/4)=210 then?
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That is if you are a programmer, but we are a minority of users. I am the only calc programmer at my entire school.
Sadly same for me. 3 times. (I dont count people making "Input A; Disp A") Probably a total of 1000+ students.
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The main thing keeping me from getting any of their newer calculators is the "lack" of native assembly support. To be honest, having a color screen to play with sounds like a lot of fun, but being locked out of assembly (and, by extension, C), just sucks. I think that was always one of the biggest attractions of their calculators: browsing the massive amounts of programs available and then learning to program them and do things you thought you never'd be able to do. That and knowing that a large number of people would have immediate access to and actually use/enjoy your programs. I guess for ARM programming there are a lot of other communities/platforms out there, i guess you'd just reach a different audience.
The 82-83+ (even the 89) will always be special to me, but not because of the math problems i solved on them ;) Programming them was the reason i bought my first (and second, and third, and fourth, etc.) calculator :P
Actually the Casio PRIZM, which has a color screen, a bit more RAM and archive, has ASM support. :D It isn't intentional by Casio, but they have said if we play nice they'll let us use it. :)
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240*(3/4+1/2*1/4)=210 then?
That is probably pretty close.
The cool thing though is that since I started programming, a couple of poeple were inspired by me and started programming computers, so we have an odd number of programmers considering the average class.
Sadly same for me. 3 times. (I dont count people making "Input A; Disp A") Probably a total of 1000+ students.
Poeple dont even try that. Most of them dont know where the prgm menu even is.
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I believe there are a few calc programmers at school (out of 2000), but most of them write math programs.
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how many are Nspire programmers?
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I know someone who says he can write simple programs on the Nspire, IIRC. But I saw only 84+ programming in action...
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dang, are they like some sort of group or something?
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my physics professor came to me once, and asked kinda excited if it was true what he heard.. he heard from some students that i was able to code for the nspire, and when i said it was true he was like "wow, really? ö" and started to ask me a lot of questions about it :) so that's already 2 people programming the nspire in our whole school i think. I don't know all people of my school, but i guess there aren't a lot more than this 2
it's very sad to see how some people still think programming is
1. for people sitting after their computer screen without going out, ever.
2. a waste of time
3. doesn't learn you anything
none of these are true, but the problem is, how do you have to make people believe them..
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Well that's true indeed.
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The main thing keeping me from getting any of their newer calculators is the "lack" of native assembly support. To be honest, having a color screen to play with sounds like a lot of fun, but being locked out of assembly (and, by extension, C), just sucks. I think that was always one of the biggest attractions of their calculators: browsing the massive amounts of programs available and then learning to program them and do things you thought you never'd be able to do. That and knowing that a large number of people would have immediate access to and actually use/enjoy your programs. I guess for ARM programming there are a lot of other communities/platforms out there, i guess you'd just reach a different audience.
The 82-83+ (even the 89) will always be special to me, but not because of the math problems i solved on them ;) Programming them was the reason i bought my first (and second, and third, and fourth, etc.) calculator :P
Actually the Casio PRIZM, which has a color screen, a bit more RAM and archive, has ASM support. :D It isn't intentional by Casio, but they have said if we play nice they'll let us use it. :)
Really? I've never looked much at the Casio calculators but that actually sounds really cool, i may end up picking one up :D Now you've got me reading up on SH3 assembly :)
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So that means that casio doesn't support the community, but it also doesn't lock down everything? Yes I'm gonna buy a casio calc, sir.
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dang, are they like some sort of group or something?
No.
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I think your post is a good example of why TI is pretending to warm up to the community. People are learning that there is an excellent alternative to dealing with ti's "we don't need you additude." It's Casio calc's. My impression of TI's tactics are that they believe the only customers that they need to please are the teachers and the teachers will then require the students to use their nspires.
So that means that casio doesn't support the community, but it also doesn't lock down everything? Yes I'm gonna buy a casio calc, sir.
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I think your post is a good example of why TI is pretending to warm up to the community. People are learning that there is an excellent alternative to dealing with ti's "we don't need you additude." It's Casio calc's. My impression of TI's tactics are that they believe the only customers that they need to please are the teachers and the teachers will then require the students to use their nspires.
So that means that casio doesn't support the community, but it also doesn't lock down everything? Yes I'm gonna buy a casio calc, sir.
But, if that were to be wrong anytime soon, I guess TI would revise its stategy plan... They obviously are aware of what competitors do, so they must adapt when they feel the need for it anyway...
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Ah, if only that were true. Then the TI cas would have competitive math capabilities. For example, i have a ten year old Hp calc that I use for Laplace capability because TI won't put that capability on their calc's. Also, there are a lot of customers that would like to use nspire technology on their iPad but TI ignores these customers and doesn't support that platform.
I have been watching ti's antics for about fifteen years now and based on that experience there are a few things that I am certain of. One is that today's TI caters to high school math teachers and only pays lip service to the rest of the market and that is not likely to change. Two, TI doesn't seem to be able to put out good os software updates and I believe that is a symptom of a lack of technically competent management. Three, TI makes some really big mistakes, for example the original nspire keyboard which was horrible, and at some point their mistakes are going to be their undoing because they think they know it all and they don't.
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But, if that were to be wrong anytime soon, I guess TI would revise its stategy plan... They obviously are aware of what competitors do, so they must adapt when they feel the need for it anyway...
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Casio said that if we do something wrong again, they might lock the PRIZM like TI did with the Nspire. At least, though, Casio is giving us one last chance.
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Casio said that if we do something wrong again, they might lock the PRIZM like TI did with the Nspire. At least, though, Casio is giving us one last chance.
what has been done wrong before with casio calcs?
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Casio said that if we do something wrong again, they might lock the PRIZM like TI did with the Nspire. At least, though, Casio is giving us one last chance.
When did they say that? I've heard from Kerm that they're trying to ignore third-party development, but I don't think they've actually stated that they will lock it down if we do something that they'll dislike.
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Ah, if only that were true. Then the TI cas would have competitive math capabilities. For example, i have a ten year old Hp calc that I use for Laplace capability because TI won't put that capability on their calc's. Also, there are a lot of customers that would like to use nspire technology on their iPad but TI ignores these customers and doesn't support that platform.
Oh, I totally agree with you on the point that CAS can be improved. Everybody would welcome changes and more features, of course.
For now, we'll have to stay with user-made programs (for Laplace Transforms..., for example).
I guess they actually rely on third-party programs so far to do this kind of specific math things. I don't really know...
However, about the iPad thing, how could you possibly know what they are doing right now ? I'm not aware (I haven't looked) that Casio did any Prizm app for the iPad neither ? And from what I've seen on the App Store right now, there isn't much CAS software that support as much as the Nspire Computer software can. So whenever TI releases some iOS app (I'm personnaly pretty sure they will since it's the obvious evolution on the education side (see news about US schools getting iPads))
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Casio said that if we do something wrong again, they might lock the PRIZM like TI did with the Nspire. At least, though, Casio is giving us one last chance.
what has been done wrong before with casio calcs?
Well there are two Prizms in fact: the fx-cg20 and the fx-cg10. Both support ASM but the fx-cg10 has some limitations concerning images (to not put cheats on the calc I guess). And for some reason, someone released an Image Viewer for the Prizm, which is as stupid as releasing OSLauncher or PTTKiller for Nspire since this is exaclty what the company doesn't want. I guess this is what they talk about.
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On the iPad thing, the iPad has been out for years and is in it's third version and there are hundreds of thousands of apps for it. A TI nspire app is not one of them. If TI was committed to supporting that platform they could have and would have put out an iPad app by now. So based on fact, TI does not support the iPad platform.
As for what ti might might be working on, well, they might be working on pigs that fly through the night and drink pink cool aid for all I know, but who cares? What counts is what TI has released, not what they might do, UNLESS they make a commitment which they never do.
Yes, tablets are the future of education but TI apparently is going to milk their hand held products as long as they can and not having an iPad app helps them do that. I will stick with my iPad and old calc's and if TI never puts out an iPad app, then they will never see any more money from me.
However, about the iPad thing, how could you possibly know what they are doing right now ? I'm not aware (I haven't looked) that Casio did any Prizm app for the iPad neither ? And from what I've seen on the App Store right now, there isn't much CAS software that support as much as the Nspire Computer software can. So whenever TI releases some iOS app (I'm personnaly pretty sure they will since it's the obvious evolution on the education side (see news about US schools getting iPads))
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Aren't emulators against iPad appstore rules? If TI decided to release TI-Nspire Student Software for the ipad, they would have to do it via Cydia, meaning only jailbroken devices could run it.
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Aren't emulators against iPad appstore rules? If TI decided to release TI-Nspire Student Software for the ipad, they would have to do it via Cydia, meaning only jailbroken devices could run it.
Yes, they aren't allowed, but it's not at all what TI would make anyway.
If they are to release something, they probably would re-code the software anyway to support some kind of nspire format, "possibly", I don't know.
Also, it wouldn't be an emulator, but rather just another type of product that could be a CAS-powered Math applications, but looking more like the Nspire ?
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There is a new potential competitor looming out there, and that's software apps for various smartphones. Given that most phones have ARM processors running much faster than the Nspire, the non-education market may eventually be served by pieces of software, if that software has some sort of built in programming language.
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Casio said that if we do something wrong again, they might lock the PRIZM like TI did with the Nspire. At least, though, Casio is giving us one last chance.
what has been done wrong before with casio calcs?
Fake reset programs and other kind of cheating tools that can compromise the allowing of the calc at most tests.
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If it happens that casio also locks their calcs, fxdless? <_<
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There is a new potential competitor looming out there, and that's software apps for various smartphones. Given that most phones have ARM processors running much faster than the Nspire, the non-education market may eventually be served by pieces of software, if that software has some sort of built in programming language.
Smartphones will NOT be a competitor for calculators anytime in the near future. Calculators don't have wireless networking by default. Smartphones do. That's an entire class of potential cheating methods avoided just by banning phones, which is something testing organizations won't be overlooking.
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True, unless someone like apple comes out with a student model which has a press to test mode. Not likely at this time but maybe in the future. It has been rumored that apple will be adding press to test to their iPad so I wouldn't rule out the possibility for the iPhone. There just isn't any good reason to buy and carry around an extra single purpose calculating device so eventually that will be addressed I'm sure, but I don't think it is a high priority for phone makers at this time.
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Smartphones will NOT be a competitor for calculators anytime in the near future. Calculators don't have wireless networking by default. Smartphones do. That's an entire class of potential cheating methods avoided just by banning phones, which is something testing organizations won't be overlooking.
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If it happens that casio also locks their calcs, fxdless? <_<
Or just don't get on their bad side. Simple.
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My comment about smartphones replacing calculators is not directed towards students. Most people will be students for 8 years, sometimes more. People will be in the working world for decades, and professionals will not be worried about "exam taking" from after college through retirement.
Yes, I see a HUGE future for computing devices TI can't control....
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True, however your point is mot because TI focuses only on the education market and more specifically on the high school math market thus they would not see smart phone apps as competition unless they could be used in teaching high school math which so far isn't the case.
My comment about smartphones replacing calculators is not directed towards students. Most people will be students for 8 years, sometimes more. People will be in the working world for decades, and professionals will not be worried about "exam taking" from after college through retirement.
Yes, I see a HUGE future for computing devices TI can't control....
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If it happens that casio also locks their calcs, fxdless? <_<
Most likely Prizmless :P
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Lol XD Priz(e)less?