CodeWalrus

A bit less than a year ago, on February 19th, 2016, (https://codewalr.us/index.php?topic=1131.0) Ndless 4.2 was released. This version added compatbility with the then-latest TI-Nspire CX OS version, OS 4.2.

Ndless is the TI-Nspire's "jailbreak", which makes it possible to run programs much more powerful than those allowed by TI's approved tools (Basic, Lua), by taking advantage of native code (C/C++/ASM/etc.).



Unfortunately, on August 18th, 2016 (https://codewalr.us/index.php?topic=1495.0), Texas Instruments released the OS 4.3 version, which blocked the ability to install Ndless 4.2 and additionally forbade going back to OS 4.2.
That was a very unwelcome gift for users who accepted the update without being aware of the consequences, as well as a growing proportion of users since then, given that brand-new TI-Nspire CX calculators started coming preloaded with OS 4.3 months ago.

In fact, it's the usual scandal, going in dramatic ways against users' interests, because it forbids programming with Python (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15140&lang=en) for their school needs (multiple French high school classes / projects, etc.), or protecting their private data (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18741&p=205055) contained in their calculators from some exam watchers illegally allowing upon themselves to go through the calculators' contents, making snapshots and adding them as proof in their fraud reports, as reported over the past few years.

Three days ago (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19495&p=211967&lang=en#p211967), the OS 4.4 version was released, still based on the same philosophy of forbidding valid and legal usages :(
This version created a hearbreaking dilemma, as for once in a while, the new version brought multiple new, really useful features ! :'(



However, clearly, a vulnerability was found, and it took the Ndless team only 3 days to release the retaliation to Texas Instruments, the new Ndless 4.4 version !  :thumbsup:

As indicated by its version number, the install program targets OS 4.4, with this time, lots of humor and references aimed at poking fun at and taunting Texas Instruments :P

nSonic2MS, the program making it possible to prevent exam watchers browsing the machine to find stuff, was also updated for OS 4.4 compatibility.  :thumbsup:

For those fortunate enough to own TI-Nspire CX calculators with hardware revision V or older (assembled until October 2015), the ControlX boot manager was also upgraded for compatibility with OS 4.4 et Ndless 4.4. It's executed at Boot1 level, i.e. long before Ndless, and offers

• in theory, full control over the calculator - everything is imaginable  :love:
  
• in pratice:
  
  • automated reinstall of Ndless 4.4 upon every calculator reboot  :love:
    
  • the ability to reinstall an older OS version, and therefore fix the calculator, even if you updated by mistake the calculator to a future OS version preventing Ndless 4.4 from working and getting back to OS 4.4.0.532  :love:
    
  • many other things - ControlX 4.4 is a major version bringing new abilities, too many and too rich to list in this article - they will be detailed later in a news item dedicated to ControlX 4.4  ;)

Don't miss your chance - if you have a TI-Nspire CX, take advantage of the fact Ndless 4.4 can, at the time of this writing, be installed on all TI-Nspire CX calculators worldwide, to install ControlX, and nSonic2MS while you're at it (don't make a gamble on exam watchers not doing illegal stuff) !

In 2017, for the last French exam session where the unfair exam testing mode (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=16279) won't be used, you'll be able to take advantage of Ndless like your older peers - on the condition of not accepting a possible future OS update, should Texas Instruments produce one in the meantime.  :thumbsup:



Downloads & Tutorials :

• Ndless 4.4 (https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=44445) + tutorial (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=17765&lang=en)
  (can also be installed on 4.2, 4.0.3, 3.9 and 3.6)
  
• ControlX 4.4 (https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=652778) + tutorial (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=18920&lang=en)
  
• nSonic2MS 2.09 (https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=171136) + tutorial (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=17640&lang=en)

Official website: http://ndless.me
Source code and Ndless SDK: https://github.com/ndless-nspire/Ndless (SDK tutorial here (https://github.com/ndless-nspire/Ndless/wiki/Ndless-SDK:-C-and-assembly-development-introduction))

Crossported from : https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19514&p=212162#p212162

My friend's gonna piss himself  >:D

This is the most epic Ndless release, so far, with the jabs at TI. Good job Ndless team, as alwalriiys. :3=

Awesome. Great job guys. :D

I like the snarky comments about the weird lines :P
Good job guys, way to tell TI once again that if you lock away some functionality, someone will always restore it (and make the system as a whole better anyways)!

Does os 4.4(not ndless) bring anything new to the nspires? Also great job with releasing ndless so quickly!

I don't remember the latest OS features sadly. In any case, though, your Nspire won't be able to run it since it's a Clickpad model.

Well, that was fast.

Quote from: semiprocoder on January 22, 2017, 11:58:37 PM
Does os 4.4(not ndless) bring anything new to the nspires? Also great job with releasing ndless so quickly!

According to the TI-Planet link and Chrome's Google Translate tool, it looks like it improves the font, something with apps, customizing menus, graphing stuff, inverse binomial probabilities, and recursive equations. I'd update to it if I was a CX user, then download the appropriate Ndless.

Quote from: 123outerme on January 23, 2017, 12:11:18 AM
According to the TI-Planet link and Chrome's Google Translate tool, it looks like it improves the font, something with apps, customizing menus, graphing stuff, inverse binomial probabilities, and recursive equations. I'd update to it if I was a CX user, then download the appropriate Ndless.

- Some very thin (1px wide originally according to the screenshots) characters were emboldened
- You can make importable pages for your documents
- Customizable menus in the program editor
- Shading of the area matching an inequation for polynomials of a degree greater than 2 (was limited to 2 in 4.3, no polynomials before)
- Inverse binomial probability support
- Recursive sequences can be defined from any initial value of n

Thanks for the summary Streetwalrus. I know a few OS ago that commands to interface with the TI-Innovator were implemented in both Lua and Basic but I didn't know what was added in 4.4.

On a side note, I take it that Ndless 3.1 programs will still run fine in Ndless 4.4 and vice-versa, right?

Quote from: Streetwalrus on January 23, 2017, 12:37:23 AM

Quote from: 123outerme on January 23, 2017, 12:11:18 AM
According to the TI-Planet link and Chrome's Google Translate tool, it looks like it improves the font, something with apps, customizing menus, graphing stuff, inverse binomial probabilities, and recursive equations. I'd update to it if I was a CX user, then download the appropriate Ndless.

- Some very thin (1px wide originally according to the screenshots) characters were emboldened
- You can make importable pages for your documents
- Customizable menus in the program editor
- Shading of the area matching an inequation for polynomials of a degree greater than 2 (was limited to 2 in 4.3, no polynomials before)
- Inverse binomial probability support
- Recursive sequences can be defined from any initial value of n

Thanks for the more solid translation :)

Also, it fixes the exclamation point !, which for several versions had a dot above it.

By the way, the Ndless site no longer includes OS 3.1 in the list of compatible versions. Does it mean that OS 3.1 users now have to use the older Ndless downloads?

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on January 23, 2017, 08:09:24 PM
By the way, the Ndless site no longer includes OS 3.1 in the list of compatible versions. Does it mean that OS 3.1 users now have to use the older Ndless downloads?

Well, since ndless_resources has merged, it does have syscalls of OS 3.1, but there's no more installer.
It seems that the only way to use the latest Ndless in OS 3.1 is nLaunchy.

However, it's not as stable as the older one. When you open a document with Lua codes, Nspire crashes and reboots. I don't know whether it's because of Ndless or nLaunchy.

Ah ok. I guess OS 3.1 users can just download the old Ndless from TI-Planet archives then. Not that many uses it anymore but 3.1 took less memory and did not require nLaunchy in order to be reboot-proof.

The only thing TI can do is make the new nSpire have to charge, with the charger only being ale to charge with an ethernet cable  ;)

Quote from: lazydogP on January 23, 2017, 11:36:41 PM
Well, since ndless_resources has merged, it does have syscalls of OS 3.1, but there's no more installer.
It seems that the only way to use the latest Ndless in OS 3.1 is nLaunchy.

I'm pretty sure it still works with the old installer. You should be able to install an older revision then upgrade by dropping the newer resources file in place. I personally don't care since I use nlaunchy to run a CAS OS anyway. :P

Quote from: lazydogP on January 23, 2017, 11:36:41 PM
However, it's not as stable as the older one. When you open a document with Lua codes, Nspire crashes and reboots. I don't know whether it's because of Ndless or nLaunchy.

That's not supposed to happen! Can you reliably reproduce the issue? Which OS are you running (CAS)?

There is also a stack alignment issue with OS 3.1. If you run newlib.tns (from the Ndless samples), the float will not print correctly because of that.

Can't reproduce the lua-script-crash bug either, here, on both my CX and CX CAS :/
Any more info about the context of the crash?

Quote from: xMarminq_ on January 24, 2017, 01:47:20 PM
The only thing TI can do is make the new nSpire have to charge, with the charger only being ale to charge with an ethernet cable  ;)

Personally I think they will just try to continue changing the hardware without people noticing while also adding extra protections against Ndless. Also I think they made Nspire calcs that cannot be opened, right?

A little update.
There is now a newer Ndless installer for classic TI-Nspire running OS 3.9.0.

It is based on more recent Ndless 4 installers and thus doesn't require an USB connection anymore.
You can now reinstall Ndless 3.9 in any situation directly from your own calculator ! :)

Moreover, the previous 3.9.0 installer wasn't compatible with TI-Nspire TouchPad calculators.
If your TI-Nspire TouchPad was already running OS 3.9 then you had a huge problem, not being able to install Ndless, not being able to upgrade to 4.x, and not being able to easily downgrade to 3.6.
The newer installer is now fully compatible with all TI-Nspire ClickPad and TI-Nspire TouchPad calculators ! :)

Download + source : https://github.com/ndless-nspire/Ndless/releases/tag/v4.4

Would Ndless actually work on an Emulator?

Quote from: p3n4 on February 05, 2017, 11:43:43 PM
Would Ndless actually work on an Emulator?

Yes, it does.

The main point of the emulator is being able to debug ndless programs actually, otherwise TI's software provides the same functionality as the calculator, and a Lua development kit.

Nice to see those 3.9 issues fixed critor :). Good job, as always. :)

@Vogtinator @Adriweb Here's the detail.

Model: CX CAS -> CX-C CAS(Well, that's not the case)
OS: CX CAS 3.1.0.392
Ndless r2004(for OS 4.2)
nLaunchy 2.7(compatible with OS 4.2)

Documents without Lua codes work fine, but the ones with Lua codes cause the calculator crash and reboot. No Ndless program was run before. Sending a new OS 3.1 doesn't help.

Now I've sucessfully reproduced the crash, and here's the procedure.
1. Create a flash file in Firebird without OS, so nLaunchy can be installed later.
2. Boot up the calculator and it prompts "install an OS". Instead, send other necessary files("nlaunch.tns", "phoenix.tns" from OS 3.1, "ndless_resources.tns" and a document with Lua code).
3. Send nlaunch.tcc and here we go.
4. On the calculator, open the document with Lua code.

And here comes the error on serial messages:
Warning (106a68d4): Data abort: address=000000cd status=01 instruction at 106a68d4