Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
Posted by Astrid on 27 February 2010, 10:09 GMT
We here at ticalc.org are extremely pleased to announce the
inauguration of the TI-Nspire Assembly
Files category. The first file in this category
is Ndless,
a utility
by Geoffrey
Anneheim (geogeo)
and Olivier
Armand (ExtendeD).
Several years in the making, Ndless will open your TI-Nspire™ or
TI-Nspire CAS™ calculator up to third-party development. The
Ndless team has included a sample program that you can use as a
template for developing your own programs. Details on exactly how to
set up a development environment are presently in flux, but ExtendeD
assures me that this is the next phase of their work.
The Ndless installer only supports Windows. If you don't have a
Windows computer handy, or just want to perform the installation
on-the-go, Brandon Wilson has released a utility
called Nspire8x
that is able to install the Ndless loader. Nspire8x also allows a
TI-84 Plus/Silver Edition to communicate directly with a Nspire calculator and transfer files.
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The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.
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Re: Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
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elfprince13
(Web Page)
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woohoo. Nice work guys :) I'm excited to see all the stuff calc84maniac has been cooking up released to hardware.
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27 February 2010, 17:31 GMT
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Re: Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
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Kevin Ouellet
(Web Page)
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Yay I'm glad it's out! I can't wait to try it (and eventually Calc84 Gameboy Color and TI-89 emulator)
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27 February 2010, 18:31 GMT
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Re: Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
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Lewk
(Web Page)
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Absolutely superb news, finally that calculator might be worth something. This Ndless thing looks to be java to me, is there a technical reason it is only for windows?
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27 February 2010, 19:09 GMT
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Re: Re: Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
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Kevin Kofler
(Web Page)
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It uses TI's proprietary link components. :-( (That's actually one of the reasons it's in Java.)
Someone really needs to port it to the CalcForge libs (or the LPG libs, they're still almost the same thing). Note that those libs are GPL, so we'd need Ndless to get dual-licensed (as the MPL is not compatible with the GPL), but its authors seem amenable to that idea, so I think that shouldn't be an obstacle.
So far, the following functions already have an equivalent in the CalcForge libs:
pxConnectApp . connectedDevice().getDeviceInfo
pxConnectApp . setConnectAPI (internal function, the CalcForge libs have a different API there)
pxConnectApp . enumerateConnectedDevices
pxConnectApp . connect
pxConnectApp . installOS
pxConnectApp . getDeviceInfo
conApi.shutdown
conApi.sendFile
conApi.getFile
conApi.enumDirectory("/") ("/" being hardcoded, see get_dirlist in calc_nsp.c, it does a recursive enumeration, but I don't think that matters)
On the other hand, the following functions would have to be added to the CalcForge libs to make the Injector work:
conApi.getFileAttributes (low-level function already present: cmd_r_dir_attributes) (It would probably be possible to do without that and use a receive to test directory existence instead of that.)
conApi.mkDir (looks required to me)
conApi.copyFile (true local copy, required, copying through the PC won't work, we need to send the actual command for on-calc copying)
conApi.delete (could probably be done away with, but we'd like to avoid making a mess; del_var is already in the API, but not implemented for the Nspire yet)
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27 February 2010, 20:34 GMT
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Re: Re: Re: Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
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Lionel Debroux
(Web Page)
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> Someone really needs to port it to libti* / libcalc*
True, but there's a significant number of tasks of higher priority than this one ;-)
I mean, working on the toolchain, the library, the documentation, the program loader, expanding the set of OS versions that can be opened, the emulator, etc.
All of those matter more for the enjoyment of calculator hobbyists out there, and will foster community growth more, than the task you're suggesting (which has clearly its use, but should be a mid-term goal - free software ideology should not trump efficiency) ;-)
The SVN repository indicates that work on Ndless, toolchain, etc. is going on.
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28 February 2010, 20:09 GMT
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Re: Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
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Galandros
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Excellent work!
I am waiting for the awesome upcoming programs for classes, experiments and gaming!
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27 February 2010, 20:30 GMT
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Re: Nspire Models Opened to Third-Party Development
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nspire121
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That is so cool.
I had given up hope on my nspire, but this is great news.
Now about only 4 to 12 months for the good games to start rolling out.
Mario in 16 shade grayscale will be so cool.
This took forever.
It would be cool if someone makes Enhanced BASIC - a app that allows you to create BASIC programs with at least the capabilities of the 89. Better if it is a calculator app with advanced programming capabilities.
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28 February 2010, 03:51 GMT
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