A89: PR Hit -- Those bastards
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A89: PR Hit -- Those bastards
If you think about all that has happened with the unauthorized release of
ROM 2.01, including the bugs, assembly limitations, we must make TI pay.
Keep in mind that all evidence is pointing to a conclusion that all new
TI89's in production have 2.01 preinstalled. Add that to the fact that TI
did not want the key "rogue" programmers to have it before official
release. Notice still that they have not produced any responses to this
prerelease of 2.01 either.
Oh, and did you notice how nice ROM 1.00 and HW 1.00 were so nice for
programmers? And then they release HW 2.00 making it impossible to
implement greyscale. And ROM 2.01 limits the asm size to 8k. And the fact
that you have to pay to make even _freeware_ flash rom programs. And how
they keep all internal information secret even though they "support"
assembly programming.
We now have three (realistic) options:
1) Hit them and hit 'em hard. Spread the word of how they treated their
most faithful customers who reccomended the calc to all of their friends,
only to have themselves stabbed in the back. This will be hard, since much
of the market (i.e., teachers, clueless students) do not care about "nerds"
with their calculator games. Corporations don't care either, since they
can easily handle the fee to program flash apps, and then release them at
inflated prices. Hope springs eternal.
2) Don't use the built in assembly except to implement a shell that
executes the rest of the programs, disguised as DATA files. Make sure that
_everyone_ uses this format, not the built in format.
3) Switch to HP wholeheartedly. I've been meaning to get my hands on one
of 'em...
More unrealistic options:
3) Crack the 512-bit RSA encryption. This can be accomplished a number of
ways, such as enlisting the help of cryptographers -- or maybe get your
hands on some quantum computers. Or -- even easier -- get a hold of the
private key -- it shouldn't be that hard :)
4) Simply hack the 2.01 ROMS -- It aint gonna happen with all those new HW
2.00 calcs. See how HW 2.00 *really* benefits TI? -- I agree with the
comment about the market in "older" TI89s.
We must let TI know that their behavior is unacceptable. They treat the
community that ported ASM to most of their calculators and made TI popular
like we don't exist. The unofficial release of the ROM can really help our
case, especially if we make TI look like fools come December 21 and full
assembly and flash rom app support is already enabled.
There. My rant is finished.
-Mark Zavislak
felix@megsinet.net
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