Great job hoffa I can't wait to see what comes of this. I'll also have to move my one simple SDL program over to the nspire. How much code change is needed to go from a program written in C++ for a computer to working with the calc?

thanks jimbauwens I forgot that ndless was mainly for C
And I actually will still need to know if this will work on a regular nspire. I dont have a CX

I think I've finally--after many smashed walls, headaches and a bucket of aspirin--narrowed down one major issue.

Have this piece of code for instance:
#include <os.h>

typedef struct type1_t {
    const char *s;
} type1_t;

typedef struct type2_t {
    const char *s1;
    const char *s2;
} type2_t;

int main(void) {
    type1_t test1 = {"foobar"};
    type2_t test2 = {"foo", "bar"};
    printf("test1.s: %s\n", test1.s); /* Prints "foobar" */
    printf("test2.s1: %s\n", test2.s1); /* Should print "foo"; doesn't */
    printf("test2.s2: %s\n", test2.s2); /* Should print "bar"; doesn't */
    return 0;
}
As you can read, the output is:
test1.s: foobar
test2.s1:
test2.s2:
Which is completely wrong. Here's what the output obviously should be: http://codepad.org/DQcGIFy3

I think this might be one of those ARM struct alignment issues, or possibly some other bug. Either way, it has kept me from advancing with the port.
Any input on this one, ExtendeD? (or others, if you know what might be causing the problem)

This is very weird, not the first time only I have the issues.

Here's the assembly code: http://pastebin.com/2Giv2ScW

I also attached a TNS that doesn't print the values.

EDIT:
Windows 7 x64 and Yagarto that uses the following versions:
binutils: 2.21
gcc:      4.6.2
newlib:   1.19.0
gdb:      7.3.1

I see. But how come then that you were able to see the strings?

It does work now, but I'm afraid it will make the porting process a rather "hacky" and dirty one, with #if directives everywhere (breaking the clean code and flexibility) as SDL does rely quite a lot on structs. The code is not that simple in SDL as in the example, so the result might be spaghetti code. For now I'll try to see how it goes with nl_relocdata, if the code becomes an ugly mess I'll tell you. Thanks anyway for pointing out that fix, it'll be useful.

What are the drawbacks of using the ELF loader?

BLFT is also another possible option, if that may help with making SDL port work.

I will rely on nl_relocdata as long as possible then; the advantages of keeping the ELF loader away outweigh the advantages of integrating it. But we'll see how it turns out after a few lines of code.