Over almost exactly the past seven days, I have been working on globalCALCnet (heretofore gCn for the sake of simplicity), a longstanding project of mine to connect CALCnet2.2 networks and their constituent calculators over the internet.  It can work as simply as connecting two individual calculators as if they were right next to each other, or at the opposite extreme link together many networks, each consisting of many calculators, into a single virtual hub.  As you might imagine, such a system is quite complex, and once I finish working out glitches and kinks, I will probably write a Cemetech whitepaper to detail the system.  Here's the executive summary of the different pieces:

CALCnet2.2 network: One or more calculators linked together with a Cn2.2 network, requiring only the calculators and a handful of unit-to-unit cables.
AVR-based microcontroller board with FTDI: For the prototypes I've made, I'm using the widely-popular Arduino Duemilanove board, offering a 16MHz AVR with 32KB of EEPROM and 2KB of SRAM.  This board pretends to be a calculator participating in the network, but passing incoming frames up to a connected PC via serial/USB, and injects frames into the network from the PC.
C++ gcnclient application: The gcnclient application connects both to the local Arduino and to a remove gCn virtual hub aggregator.  The gcnclient is responsible for moving 1-to-1 and broadcast frames from the Arduino to the remote server and vice versa.
Python gcnhub server daemon: The gcnhub, or virtual hub aggregator, acts as one or more virtual hubs linking together groups of remote gcnclient applications.  There is currently a single gcnhub server, but if gCn becomes more popular, it would be easy to distribute this program so that users could set up their own servers.

Frames (the CALCnet equivalent of packets) travel from one CALCnet2.2 network, through the connected Arduino, to the gcnclient and through the internet to a gcnhub, which routes the packet as necessary to another gcnclient, which hands off the frame to its Arduino and therefore its connected CALCnet2.2 network.  I have successfully demonstrated Flourish running between a pair of single-calculator CALCnet2.2 networks, connected by a 12-mile round-trip over the internet but acting as if they were directly connected; my testbed can be seen below.

Please post all kinds of questions, suggestions, comments, and insults in the attached topic.  I would especially appreciate users who have an Arduino to spare who would like to help me test globalCALCnet.  Cheers!

As announced in several recent news articles, CALCnet2.2 is a long-running of mine that has in the past two weeks reach fruition on real hardware devices.  NetPong v1.0 is a small game that I have been developing for the last few days to showcase the capabilities of CALCnet 2.2, including broadcasting, one-to-many and one-to-one transmissions, fault and collision tolerance, and low latency capabilities.  NetPong allows you to play Pong across an arbitrary number of calculators. With two, three, four or more calculators, NetPong creates a single virtual LCD for a standard Pong game, complete with scoring, paddles, distributed pausing and quitting, and more.  Although no specialized hardware is required, playing with more than two calculators requires a simple splice of I/O cables together; feel free to ask for assistance.

CALCnet2.2 will continue to be developed, and I plan to soon re-integrate it into Doors CS 7, no mean feat considering how little free space is left in it for me to add new features.  I'll let the somewhat unwieldy screenshots of two-, three-, and four-calculator gameplay speak for themselves.

Download
NetPong v1.0






Videos of real calculators playing earlier versions of NetPong:

In answer to all the users that have requested a custom oncalc TI-BASIC editor, Tokenizer DE takes a first step in that direction. Just as SourceCoder (http://sc.cemetech.net) can convert text files into .8xp programs online, Tokenizer can take text documents typed in Document DE 6 or Document DE 7 and convert them into fully-tokenized BASIC programs editable with the TI-OS's TI-BASIC editor. Weighing in at slightly over 1KB, this small but efficient program takes advantage of the power of the DCS GUI system, and requires Doors CS 6.8 beta or higher.  It uses a naive reverse substring-match brute force algorithm that takes very little memory (roughly 300 bytes for the core tokenization algorithm) at the expense of going at a moderate rather than blazing speed.  Future improvements may integrate this with a Document DE-style editor; feel free to give it a try and post any comments or suggestions in the associated topic.  This release also includes the source code to Tokenizer DE for those wishing to learn more about using the Doors CS ASM libraries.

Download
Tokenizer DE v1.0

The administrators of Cemetech are happy to announce the seventh official Cemetech programming contest.  The theme of this contest will be Doors CS programs.  All entries must use some feature of Doors CS to be eligible for the contest.  For BASIC programmers, this includes using the specialized headers to add icons, define subprograms, and hide subprograms, the built-in XLib and Celtic III compatiblity libraries, or the upcoming Doors CS BASIC libraries.  For ASM programmers, this includes using the Doors CS GUI subsystem, the Associate Program subsystem, or some other features that are unique to Doors CS (even if it's just the header).  A secondary goal of the contest is to introduce programmers to the extra features and power that Doors CS facilitates, so the more creative and efficient the use of Doors CS' features in your program, the better.  If you're unfamiliar with all the features Doors CS offers BASIC and ASM programmers, check out this page: http://dcs.cemetech.net/index.php?title=SDK

First, something everyone will be interested in: prizes.  Brandon Wilson has generously offered to donate the top prize, a TI-73 that has been converted to a TI-83+ using his Chameleon program and then installed in a TI-83+ case.  The contest will have two categories as detailed in the next paragraph, and a first, second, and third place winner will be chosen from each category.  The two first-place winners will be fairly compared, and the entry judged to be the best will be awarded this top prize.  A second prize that has not yet been chosen will be awarded to the first-place winner in the other category, and the second-place winners will also receive consolation prizes (feel free to post suggestions!).

We will be accepting two major classes of programs.  One category will contain all BASIC and Hybrid (BASIC with XLib / Celtic III / Doors CS libraries) programs, while the second will consist of all pure ASM and Axe-compiled programs.  The judges, Rivereye and myself, Kerm Martian, will make every effort to judge the entries fairly against others in the same categories and between categories based on our expert knowledge of the relative features and capabilities of BASIC, Hybrid BASIC, Axe, and Assembly.

The deadline for this contest will be 11:59:59pm Eastern Time, Sunday, September 5th, 2010.  The results of the contest will be announced by the morning of Tuesday, September 7th, and the entries will be released to the general public during the day on September 16th to avoid violating the terms of the Omnimaga Axe contest and to allow possible cross-entries.  The rules for this contest will be mostly similar to previous Cemetech contests.  Programs should contain only original code, with some exceptions.  Limited use of external libraries may be permitted on a case-by-case basis, but should be checked with one of the two judges.  Only projects that have not been previously released will be permitted, and no code releases are permitted before September 16th, but unlike previous contests, publicity and posting about one's entry will be permitted, and feedback on ideas may be solicited from the general public.  Again, users should not be asking for help with their code.  The exception to this is Doors CS-specific questions, comments, or bug reports.  I will be happy to work with any user to quickly resolve Doors CS bugs that may be preventing their projects from working properly, and points will not be taken off for bugs in entries that are the fault of Doors CS (although it is the responsibility of the coder to try to resolve these before the deadline).

Please feel free to post a topic in this Contest subforum when you decide you're going to enter the contest, to discuss whether a specific idea is appropriate, and to announce updates on your projects.  We are open to appeals on the rules if you feel any of them are unfair, although we reserve the right to keep them as-is.  Good luck, and have fun! To summarize:

PRIZES: Chameleon'ed TI-73/TI-83+ to the top entry, unannounced prize for the next three winners.
THEME: Use of Doors CS libraries and capabilities
DEADLINE: Sunday, September 5, 2010
ALLOWED: Publishing details and requesting idea/artwork help allowed
DISALLOWED: Releasing code, requesting non-Doors CS-specific code help



If you have any questions or want to enter, I humbly request that you crosspost in the official Cemetech topic on the subject: http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4641 .  You can start your own topic in the Cemetech Contest subforum here: http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=50