Everyone click on the Feedback link at the bottom right of the page and tell them you want the Nspire to be programmer-friendly!!!

I just did that! :)

See... everyone's doing it! So all you other people should too! Click on the Feedback link and tell them you want built-in programming functionality.

I heard it should have TI-BASIC by release or in a firmware update.

Good... we're making progress.

I did as well. W00t 100th comment on this article!

It seems alright. I guess I don't like the styling with the big box around the viewscreen. I like the 84 Silver/89 Titanium styling...Neat, clean and functional.

I am a student at a high school in Australia. My class has been selected to do a pilot program using the CAS version of the nspire. The models that we have been given are only prototypes and there are a few glitches (ie tells you the battery is empty when it is actually full and it is not programable as yet although the documentation that comes with it says it will be implemented for the final release) hopefully these will be ironed out by the time of the final release. Other than that the calculators are pretty awsome and make algebra and calculus a lot easier espiecally in exams.

Still not a dream calculator. Here is my idealized TI Calc:

-Color LCD screen (fine, OLED/E-ink technology would be ok as well)

~Backlighting (some of us work in near darkness at night...)

~Sharper pixels (yeah my 89 dot size is still not enough)

~Rechargeable via USB link (the cell phones do it...)

~Wifi and Bluetooth (no brainer connections)

~Cell phone capability, internet browsing, (just kidding)

Yes, TI-Nspire should definitely have TI-Basic or something of the sort as well as Applications. I will agree on the fact that anything that does more than a peanut when it comes to electronics can be hacked with Assembly. That should be no problem. Someone will have that figured out in no time! I'm fine with the Reset button or Test Mode as long as it doesn't clear the ROM. I really wish TI would choose something less effing cumbersome than Basic, though. It's painful to program on the calcs with Basic, although I must add that I love it! But something like Perl or Python would make the experience 100x better. Easier programming languages (as in less time consuming and memory intensive languages) mean that you can program more sophisticated software with much more power and consistence. I've used a Casio with color screens before. It's much nicer, especially on graphs. You can select different colors for graphs so that you may differentiate between them with ease. If TI does this for the TI-Nspire, I'll probably piss my pants. Texas Instruments is obviously into the high-quality functionality, but I've never seen them get into the high-quality graphics. Remember, TI-Basic programmers can't even use grayscale, let alone colors. Backlighting would come in handy, too. Only, if you've ever used an iPod you know that the backlight takes a lot out of the battery. And without AC wall adapters, this would be impractical. Added, if you /can/ charge the calculator by plugging it into the wall, than this shouldn't be a problem. Although, there still could be some downsides.

Continuing from my last post...
TI Calculators work by keeping the calculator running 24/7. When you turn it off, it's still on. Only, the screen is off and the buttons (besides ON) are disabled. The only way to turn it off is the take out the batteries or wait till they run out of juice. A backlight could jeopardize your ROM. I'm guessing that seeing as the 320x240 screen will have sharper pixels, although I may be wrong. Bluetooth and/or WiFi would never happen. That's just asking for trouble on tests. Think of a big gymnasium full of kids taking the SATs. If just one kid figures out how to disable the Test Mode, everyone in the whole room could start sending their answers out, and how long might it take to realize that this is going on? Again, WiFi ain't happening. I also have empathy for those of you who have used the v200 or TI-92. I really would like to see a nice medium between something like the TI-Nspire and the Voyage200. QWERTY does come in handy! Another thing, a double sided keypad would definitely be possible! All you need is two circuit boards. And those things aren't thick. Buttons are easy to customize so they fit inside the keypad holder. If anyone here has ever made an XML file, it's really no different from HTML or XHTML. The only two advantages are that you create your own tags and XML has no room for sloppy markup. Anyway, if you had XML on a calculator, you probably wouldn't be able safely write code in HTML without it be clean code in the first place. I would think Java and C++ a bit too cumbersome for a calculator. And too slow.