Hmm, this isn't good... were there any particular incidents that caused them to leave? Or was it just the general spam/death threat collection that Nick got?

Is this even a normal community anymore, with all these underage drivers trying to meet people like Nick, and 'power-hungry pre-pubescent twelve-year old control freaks'? ;-P

What has caused this madness?

That's a good question.

Anyway, about this Flash Information... it looks like they've made a good start. You can put the included .tib file in your VTI directory (I would definitely not try this on your real calculator), and run VTI. Then, on the TI-92+ tab, you'll see an entry called (TI-92 Plus)... that's the open source ROM. And, it actually works, you can see a few menu items on the bottom (I have no idea if they actually work) and 'Demo Version' on the top. Keep up the good work, anyone who's helping out!

-- JaggedFlame, who would probably be helping out too if he had the time to learn assembly... :-) or maybe not. Who knows?

Is there anyone out there who is bold/foolish enough to try this on a calc? I haven't looked much, but I imagine the "failsafe" code sticks around, so it might be kinda safe. I'm not willing to risk it though!

If there's a failsafe code for the TI89 hw2 calcs, It doesn't function in the event of a checksum error. I tried to send 2.04 to a friend's calc b/c he had 1.05, and there was a checksum error that resulted in the complete loss of functionality of his calculator. I tried to send the 2.04 code from my computer later, and was unable to do so. Does anyone know how to restore functionality to a hw2 ti89 that received a checksum error, preferably without sending it to TI?

Running in VTI is a lot different than running a real calculator. AFAIK, VTI doesn't emulate any "unessecary" hw which is nessecary on the real hw, and it doesn't check the tib file for validity (which the software to send to the calc is bound to check).

this is a sad day for the TI community. with so many programmers leaving the TI scene i hope that the people that caused this outrage are happy but we must stand strong and keep on pumping out quality programs.

This is a sad day for the TI Community indeed. However, it is not always the actions of people that cause someone to leave the community, and such departures are not necessarily permanent. They could be going off to college like Nick D is, for all we know.

I do disagree with one inference made from your message, though: that C/C++/assembly programs are the only quality programs out there. I have written and posted several small but good BASIC chemistry programs for the 83, 85, 86, and 89. These were simple and relatively easy to write, but they can be invaluable if you suddenly forget a formula. Remember that just because someone is unknown in the TI Community does not mean that they are not contributing quality programs.

Remember that that was just drawn from a potentially incorrect inference, and you may have just as likely been urging budding programmers like me to not give up.

/|\
\___click

Maybe if they saw interesting American hacks like:

http://barney.gonzaga.edu /~rguerra/PocketTI89/PocketTI89.html

I realy must say, that looks SUPER sweet. what platform wil it be released for?

eggo

Is it even real?

ok, DUH. READ the page eggo, read it.

eggo

YOU TWO read the page. It's for the PocketPC-MIPS, and it is not real :)

I've tried to send it to my calc, and, naturally, it has not been accepted: it's not signed

So what message does it give you?

If those French guys can't get it signed, I wonder what they'll do... I wonder if TI would sign them anyway, because they might not have any restrictions against what you create...?

Nah, I doubt it. We're talking about _TI_ here... ;-)

it tells sth like corrupted certificate (I dont remember, but you can try on your calc, no more risk than with a normal rom I think)
Wormhole says that he knows how to sign roms (he would know the key), but he doesn't want to tell us how... so we don't know if it's true (a lot of people think he lies)

About the leaving programmers: I'm not sure that Clement Vasseur leaves: he was supposed to manage the asm part of a new site: ti-cas.org
Ju (the author of a68kedit) leaves. He has put the sources of a68kedit on his site (www.multimania.com/a68kedit)

Clement Vasseur told me he was leaving, but this is just because he want to have a break ; he is NOT disgusted of the TI community :-)
Maybe he's actually disgusted of Wormhole leaving. I've been knowing Wormhole for one year now, and he always appeared to me as a mysterious person. It is often difficult to understand what he's thinking. With all informations he has found, he could have become a very famous person in the TI community. Instead of that, he prefered first getting angry with the whole community, then leaving saying he doesn't matter anymore... No one inderstand but him. It's really a pity.

If he could sign rom certificates why did he never once share with anyone just to prove it at least? My theory, he was a fraud in his attempt and took out his failure on the ti comunity, just a theroy though.

I've known WORMHOLE for over a year and I can promise you that this was not any form of fraud. He had no reason to prove to any one that his work was real. I, having worked on it with him, can assure you that it is/was true. Nor did he want people to know about it until completion. I hope he decides to come back to the community while I'm still here. :-)

-Glenn (A.K.A. Eric Greening)

Bout time you responded to something on one of these boards :)

- one[2]

Don't try shaming wormhole into signing anything. He doesn't owe it to you or anybody else for that matter. Despite what most people say, the TI "community" is still a bunch of kids (no offense to kids, I'm one too) and thus you've seen many times before how impractical it can be. Complaints and criticisms (did I spell that right?) of which are sometimes too critical and have no beneficial purpose at all:P In any case, also remember his discovering how to sign stuff isn't illegal until he does it and spreads it, so mebbe he justs doesn't want to get sued by TI or whatnot:P I'm sure TI would be pissed about something like that getting out

-Trailblazer

and note that it's not necessary to know how to sign a tib to send a rom to the calc: the flash can be written to the same way that hw2patch and maxmem do.

So as to bypass the signature check? That's a good idea... why hasn't this been realized?

several programmers are working on it now...

lol,a small hello in the ticalc's frm:)
About subject of The new rom, JM said that it's possible to write in all flash mem, so I think it's possible to write a small boot, who, works on the tios, and receives the rom code;) after it writes it on the begining off the rom code... but for this task, you must have your personnal linkk programme for this manipulation...
ps: the boot don't use tios' ram_calls;)))
juste a little news aboute a new HP:
www.hp-sources.com
;))))

cause we don't really won't screwed up calcs
---
Cd_Slayer

ops
cause we don't really WANT screwed up calcs, since it shouldn't really be public knowledge
---
Cd_Slayer

Hmm... I'm by far not an asm expert, but it looks to me that the function flash_unprotect in unlock.txt tries to bypass the signature check. If not, it's certainly doing something in that area...

we can get the signiture when the 68k sdk comes out.

Yeah, right.

The sdk could allow to sign flash apps, but I don't thinks we'll be able to sign roms

I imagine that the signature is the same for both Flash Apps and ROMs.

The signiture is "NOT" the same... Making an OS upgrade is completly different from making an app. eg. You can't use any of the certificates you get with the 83+ SDK to make an OS replacement... and I'm sure it says on TI's site somewhere that the signitures are different anyway.

--Robin Kay--

You are mistaken... The SDK will not contain the ability to sign it, as is already seen in the 83+ SDK. You have to send the application off to TI to have it signed, and they will send it back to you. This is a nessecity because they have to guard their precious key.

No, you are mistaken.
What you say is true, but we can compare the one we send to them to the one they send back.
With that information we'll be able to crack the key a LOT faster.

Cavan

If ti has someone that reads these message boards (hey, its possible!), you just signed the 68k SDK's death warrant. Also, someone could just download and decompile every flash app currently available for the 68k calcs and compare the code.

<sarcasm>I just added my signature to the 68k SDK's death warrant. Yay!</sarcasm>
:[

Hahahaha...
The SDK was never born, and I think they already had an abortion, so it never will be!
Downloading the Flash Apps wouldn't do any good unless the calc changes the code as it recieves it.
Someone should see if that's the case (I'm too busy).

Cavan

Yes, we do have one or two TI employees who frequent our page. One was even a TI-86 ROM programmer who was very helpful at times!

Don't be so surprised. ;)

yeah, like anybody still expects it
---
Cd_Slayer

No. You are not right. We will not be able to crack the key a LOT faster with that information. Do you know principles of RSA? Knowing the original message, the crypted message and the public key at the same moment will not give any help in determining the secret key...

Right. TI isn't stupid when it comes to things like this. (as for other things, well...) TI has made it VERY hard to crack their encryption, it's not likely we will ever be able to do it. We will have to come up with ways around their protections, as HW2patch and MaxMem have already done. This release of a ROM by Wormhole seems to indicate that he has found a way around the encryption, hopefully someone smart (not me) will be able to figure out how he did it.

Is someone thinking about modifying MD5 function for returning the hash we want???

I tried to send it to my calc and the 0% received message on the calc's screen...then the computer crashed. Not sure why that happened. Now I need to go download and send another rom to the calculator to get it to work again.