Happy Easter! We're happy to announce the official launch of the Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 server (mc.cemetech.net). After about three months of hard work from dedicated members preparing the server, its spawn, its rules, and its plugins, not to mention a week-long soft launch in which we ironed out the bugs and started building a lot of activity on the server, we're proud to welcome you to the server. Way back in August 2012, after several of us had played Minecraft on Evocat.us for several years, we launched our own Minecraft 1.5 server here on Cemetech, whitelisted and restricted to a few core members. New Year's 2014 saw the launch of a brand-new, open-to-all PvP server in Cemetech's Minecraft 1.7 server. With a goal of encouraging cool machines, impressive defenses, beautiful builds, and crafty, political PvP, it was a resounding success, with a peak of about 12 active towns containing hundreds of members and dozens of active players. After players became increasingly divided on the intrigue and heartbreak of PvP and sanctioned theft, we switched to Intellectual Survival with Minecraft 1.8, retaining the philosophy of big, impressive builds and clever machines, but removing involuntary PvP and theft. Finally, the Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 server builds on the Intellectual Survival successes, encouraging players to work together to get started, then use their skills and imagination to build towns, cities, railroads, machines, and more.

Like Cemetech itself, our Minecraft server challenges players, asking them to think beyond cobble boxes, dirt houses, and straight-line railroads. The gameplay is semi-vanilla, and encourages players to explore the map to get Lapis Lazuli ore, used to buy towns, to work together with other players to build up those towns, to create ChestShops to trade with other players, to create auto-farming mechanisms, and in some cases to compete. As first introduced on the Minecraft 1.8 server, we hold frequent server-wide events, including Abba Caving matches, scavenger hunts for treasure, and more. I could tell you more, but the best way to experience the Cemetech Minecraft 1.9: Intellectual Survival server is to hop on and join us. You'll start in our huge, custom-built spawn, centered on a sky-scraping Mother Tree surrounded by jungles, paths, and the core stations of a railroad that will span the world. Take a look at the builds that are already underway, and if you want to play too, just ask a moderator to whitelist you for building.

I hope we'll see you on the server soon! Join mc.cemetech.net to start playing, and also check out the map, statistics, and videos below. If you've already tried the Minecraft 1.9 server and had fun, feel free to share your experiences in the attached topic. For today's launch, the border has been expanded an additional 250 blocks, so even if you haven't played during the soft-launch period, there will be a brand-new, untouched area for you to explore at the map's edges.

Media and More Information
Server address: mc.cemetech.net
Play @ Cemetech: Minecraft and Unreal Tournament 2004
Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 map
Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 game statistics
Kerm Martian's Let's Play of server's soft launch: Part 1, Part 2
TIFreak8x's Let's Play of server's soft launch: ,

In the theme of education with Texas Instruments' T^3 2016 conference starting tomorrow, this has been the week for new educational tools at Cemetech. Two days ago, we announced C programming support in SourceCoder 3, which allows you to write C programs for your TI-84 Plus CE in your browser. Now, we're proud to present Learn @ Cemetech, documentation to help you use your calculator and program in TI-BASIC, z80 Assembly, ez80 Assembly, and C. We will be migrating other information like our Calculator Documentation pages to the new Learn @ Cemetech wiki. You can also expect the following information:

• With help and permission from z80 Heaven administrator The Cow, we're proud to present a curated, updated version of z80 Heaven's documentation about z80 assembly.
  
• Cemetechian and ez80 programmer Hactar has given us his blessing to host information from ez80 Heaven as he develops this resource for ez80 assembly programmers.
  
• With help and permission from TI-BASIC Developer administrator jonbush, we're very proud to offer an updated subset of TI-BASIC Developer's TI-BASIC command reference and tutorials. We'll be continuing to update it with TI-84 Plus CE-specific information, crossreferences to other TI-BASIC documentation, and thus are calling it Cemetech's (Adapted) TI-BASIC Developer Reference. We hope you'll help us expand it as well!
  
• We anticipate that we'll be able to include some TI-84 Plus CE C programming documentation, with the help and assistance of our knowledgeable members.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the administrators around the community who have worked with us to make this new resource possible. Equally or perhaps more importantly, we need you to work with us to bring the community the best possible documentation. If you find any mistakes, anything you think should be added, or even new areas of information that the Learn @ Cemetech wiki should be covering, don't hesitate: jump right in and start editing. If you encounter any difficulties, just post and we'll try to figure out what went wrong.

Graphing Calculator and Programming Help
Learn @ Cemetech graphing calculator reference

It's been over two years since I first posted news entitled "SourceCoder 3 Nears Completion", but today, I'm proud to say that SourceCoder 3 actually is nearing completion. Unless you looked closely at the version number at the bottom-right of SourceCoder 3's main menu, I bet you might not have realized that SourceCoder 3 was technically still in beta, but I'm happy to say that in preparation for T^3 2016 and as various planned features come together, it has reached Release Candidate status. The biggest brand-new feature is in-browser compiling of ez80 C programs for the TI-84 Plus CE, but myriad other tweaks, adjustments, fixes, and updates have been added to SourceCoder 3 in the past two years.

If you've hung around Cemetech long enough, you probably know what SourceCoder 3, but if not, it's a universal in-browser IDE for graphing calculator programmers. It can help you write BASIC, Assembly, and C programs for TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus graphing calculators, edit and export lists, numbers, matrices, pictures, AppVars, and more, and even edit Casio fx-9860 and Prizm programs and images. With the integrated jsTIfied emulator, you can test programs right in your browser, take screenshots, and never need to use an offline calculator or offline emulators. In fact, SourceCoder and jsTIfied even work on smartphone and tablets (including the iPad), meaning that students in schools that issue Chromebooks or iPads can still use it.

I'll save the exhaustive list of features for the inevitable SourceCoder 3.0 announcement; for now, here are the highlights of what has been added to SourceCoder in the past two years:

• TI-84 Plus CE C Support: Thanks to help from Cemetech administrators Tari and elfprince13, as well as excellent tools and libraries developed by the inimitable Cemetech moderator MateoConLechuga, you can now write, compile, and export C programs for the TI-84 Plus C right in your browser. With TI-84 Plus CE support planned for jsTIfied, you'll even be able to test C programs in an in-browser TI-84 Plus CE.
  
• Overhauled Interface: Awkward dropdown menus and huge icon-filled buttons are a thing of the past. SourceCoder 3's editor now shows all of the files in a project as tabs, and contains a sleeker interface above the editor. Layout is now almost purely done in CSS (rather than the older Javascript layout engine), and is designed to flow better on devices with smaller screens.
  
• Indentation: TI-BASIC and C programs are automatically indented as you type to make it clearer where your loops, conditionals, and functions start and end. In addition, indentation is automatically added to programs that you upload. As with many other features, you can turn indentation on and off from the Settings tab of the main menu, and you can choose how many tabs or spaces to use to indent your code.
  
• z80 ASM and ez80 ASM Support: Thanks in great part to Tari's emscriptening of SPASM-ng, you can write, assemble, and test z80 and ez80 ASM programs directly in SourceCoder 3. Projects can also contain multiple assembly programs and includes that are assembled together.
  
• Casio fx-9860 and Prizm Images: SourceCoder 3 can import and export Casio calculator images, which required reverse-engineering and documenting the format.

Have you found SourceCoder 3 useful? Let me know! Have you encountered bugs while using it lately? I definitely need to know that too. Finally, although I'm anticipating adding only one additional planned feature for SourceCoder 3.0, feature requests are always welcome.

Launch Tool
SourceCoder 3 Online TI-BASIC, ASM, and C Editor and IDE



EDIT (DJ): Fixed a broken image URL

After nearly two years of work, a closed beta, and an open beta, I'm proud to present Graph3DC for the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition. In the time this project has gestated, the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition has gone from the leading member of the TI-84 Plus family to a barely-remembered third cousin of the sleek new TI-84 Plus CE, but completionist that I am, I refused to let the work I put into Graph3DC go to waste. Therefore, I present today a 3D graphing App for the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, capable of graphing up to five simultaneous equations in the form Z=f(X,Y). It integrates with the TI-OS, like TI's Transformation Graphing and Inequality Graphing Apps, and thus can offer 3D graphing within the TI-OS graphing tools that students and teachers already know how to use (while leaving 2D graphing instantly available to avoid any confusion). As stated in the recent Open Beta 2 news article about Graph3DC, among its most distinguish features are:

• Rendering and rotation of 3D graphs on up to a 17x17-point grid at normal resolution, or 27x27-point grid at high resolution.
  
• Simultaneous graphing of up to 5 3D equations at normal resolution, or 2 3D equations at high resolution.
  
• Tracing over graphs to examine the (X, Y, Z) coordinates of points.
  
• User-configurable grid colors, background colors, bounds and axis display, axis labels, and more.
  
• User-settable window and zoom.
  
• TI-OS integration with the Y=, Window, Zoom, Trace, and Graph tools.
  
• Full compatibility with horizontal splitscreen mode.

As I once stated in the Graph3DC Closed Beta 1 news article, and have repeated ever since, one of my primary motivations behind creating (and finishing) Graph3DC was "to show TI that by releasing the keys necessary for us to write free Apps for their TI-84+CE, they'll be only strengthening that platform's appeal to students, teachers, and programmers." I wanted TI to know that the community can not only create powerful, fast games and useful programming tools for students, but can also create educational applications that are genuinely helpful in the classroom. For better or for worse, that appears to no longer be feasible, but I can say with some confidence that if I have the time, I will port Graph3DC to the TI-84 Plus CE as a non-App program runnable using Doors CE 9. In fact, had I chosen to make Graph3DC a non-App program from the beginning, I think the program would have been released months, if not years, earlier. Why? The vast majority of the time I spent creating Graph3DC was not invested in the 3D graphing, computation, and rendering code, but in building hook after hook to integrate with the OS, and more importantly, to work around OS bugs. Examining how TI's own Transform and Inequality Graphing Apps work reveals an intricate set of hooks to make the Y= menu work properly when augmented by an App's extra features and much more. Graph3DC drew heavily on my experience creating Doors CSE for the TI-84 Plus CSE, requiring me to make cursor hooks to make the flashing Plot1 to Plot 3 cursor in the Y= menu work properly, a key hook to skip to a correct Z= equation in the Z= menu when the OS's own features didn't quite work properly, myriad redisplay hooks to work around quirks in the OS's implementation of horizontal split-screen mode, and so many more. Although I'll have to implement my own input routines for a theoretical Graph3DE for the TI-84 Plus CE, I suspect that the development time will be significantly decreased with the burden of interacting with the TI-OS removed.

Without further ado, please enjoy Graph3DC at the download link below. If you'd like to explore some fun 3D equations right out of the box, take a look at the included readme PDF, and also refer to the equations and screenshots posted by tireless beta-tester PT_. In fact, I'd like to thank everyone in the community who helped test Graph3DC and who encouraged me to press onwards even when the project felt insurmountable. If you're a teacher, I would especially be interested in hearing from you, but I hope anyone will feel free to share comments, questions, and suggestions for future versions.

Claims of an easter egg embedded in the App are completely unfounded.

Download
Graph3DC 1.0 3D grapher for the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition

Last month, we resurrected Cemetech programming contests with Cemetech Contest #14: TI-BASIC Connect 4 AI Challenge. In that short contest, designed by Cemetech members jonbush and earthnite, entrants were tasked with writing an AI to play Connect 4 in pure TI-BASIC. We congratulate JWinslow23 for winning that contest, and are happy to announce a longer, more elaborate contest. Cemetech Contest #15 is entitled Crypto Golfing, and is a multi-part contest. Starting today, and continuing every Tuesday until January 12th, we will release encrypted data with possible hints for a new challenge. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a program to decode each piece of encrypted data, be it a string, a number, an image, or something else, in as few bytes as possible. The top two overall winners will win a TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition and a TI-Nspire CX (with the first place winner getting first choice).

As in previous Cemetech contests, we'll have a number of categories; the sizes of entries from each category will be weighted at the discretion of the judging panel.

• TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus TI-BASIC, ASM, C, or Axe: Programs in any of these languages for any calculator with "TI-83 Plus" or "TI-84 Plus" in its name will be accepted, including the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition and TI-84 Plus CE. Hybrid TI-BASIC and z80 ASM programs must use only the libraries available in Doors CS or Doors CSE, to make grading easier.
  
• TI-Nspire CX and HP Prime: Lua entries for the TI-Nspire CX and CX CAS as well as PPL programs for the HP Prime will be accepted.
  
• Computers: Java, Javascript, C++, Rust, Haskell, and Python: For those who focus on computer programming these days, computer programming solutions will be accepted in the languages listed. Want to write in another language? Let us know what that language is in the attached Cemetech topic, and we'll consider it.

The usual rules apply:

• Contestants may not release any code or binaries before the end of the contest, including asking for programming help publicly or privately. Violators will be disqualified. Projects that have already been released in any form (excluding a contest project topic) already are not eligible for the contest.
  
• The contest will run until January 19th, 2016, at 11:59:59pm Eastern Time. No late entries will be accepted. Entries to any of the five challenges will be accepted up until this deadline. The earlier you submit each challenge's solution, the higher your score!
  
• All contestants must maintain a topic in the Contests subforum on Cemetech, including a first post that mentions the programming language(s) you'll be using. You can also post the size of your entries and when you complete them. Do not post algorithmic solutions, code, or hints.
  
• Submit entries by emailing them, in a zip file, to contest at the Cemetech domain name. Be sure to provide your Cemetech username in the subject or body of the email so we know who you are! Each Cemetech member can submit a single entry in one or more of the accepted language + platform combinations.
  
• Judging will be performed by a team picked from among the Cemetech administrators and members; all judges are disqualified from entering the contest. Results will be posted no later than ten days after the end of the contest.
  
• Algorithmic grading will be performed, based on the size of each entry's source code (or for assembly, assembled binaries) and how early the entry was submitted. Speed will not be graded.
  
• As with the Contests #12 and #13, we are very proud to offer two brand-new calculators as prizes. The grand prize winner will be awarded one TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition or one TI-Nspire CX, as chosen by the winner. The second-place winner will receive the remaining calculator. Additional Cemetech swag may be added to the prizes at the Cemetech staff's discretion. All participants will earn Cemetech flair in the form of signature bars and respect.

So what are you waiting for? Get coding, solve Challenge 1, push yourself to learn something new in the process, and win some calculators!

Challenge 1: GSVHVXIVGNVHHZTVRHLOWDRAZIW

More Information
Contest #15 Rules



Both of the two remaining of these six generously-donated calculators will be awarded as prizes. A special thanks to our anonymous donor for making this contest possible!

Since the release of TI's thin, light, ez80-powered TI-84 Plus CE graphing calculator, I have received countless YouTube comments, Cemetech PMs and posts, and emails about when Doors CS / Doors CSE would be available for the new calculator. Stumbling blocks including technical limitations related to the new calculator and my own lack of free time had forced me to say that I wasn't sure when or if a version of Doors CS/CSE would be available for the TI-84 Plus CE. For a long time, I hoped that an App key might become available from TI so that there might be a TI-84 Plus CE App version of Doors CS/CSE. It appears that that's not forthcoming, so in the meantime, I've been working on a port of Doors CS/CSE as a program, to be called Doors CE. Like the much-celebrated Cesium from Cemetech Expert MateoConLechuga, the new Doors CE is visible in the [PRGM] menu, and can be started by running a prgmA that Doors CE creates when you install it.

Since the beginning of October, I have been documenting my progress on putting together a Doors CE port for the TI-84 Plus CE. The following features have been completed, delta a little debugging:

• Launcher: Doors CE creates a special launcher when it is installed and archives its bulk as an AppVar to leave RAM for user programs. The launcher also switches between Doors CE and assembly programs when the user executes a program.
  
• Desktop: Doors CE can display BASIC and Assembly programs on its desktop, list an arbitrary number of programs, and scroll. Locked, archived, and hidden programs are correctly annotated as such. Folders can be created, and files can be moved between folders. Programs can be created, renamed, duplicated, deleted, and even edited. The clock works.
  
• Doors CE and Options Menus: The Doors CE menu ("start" menu) works correctly, and each of its sub-menus functions. The Options menu works, and most of the options in Options do what they're supposed to.
  
• Executing nostub BASIC programs: BASIC programs can be executed from the Doors CE desktop from RAM or Archive.
  
• Executing nostub ASM programs: ASM programs can be executed from the Doors CE desktop from RAM or Archive. Writeback is correctly performed.

There are a few features that still need to be added, and they're big ones:

• HomeRun: The HomeRun feature that lets programs be executed from the homescreen, regardless of whether they're BASIC or ASM, Archived or in RAM, or require libraries is incomplete (but nearly done). BASIC programs currently work; ASM programs do not.
  
• xLIBCE: The venerable Patrick "tr1p1ea" Prendergast is working hard to port xLIBC to the TI-84 Plus CE for inclusion in Doors CE. Since he has a busy job and a young family, I appreciate his willingness to work on xLIBCE in his minuscule free time.
  
• Celtic 2 CE: I will be porting the Celtic 2 CSE libraries from Doors CSE. With the permission of authors like MateoConLechuga, I may add additional functions, including ToString.
  
• ASM/C libraries: MateoConLechuga has also strongly hinted that he is completing tools that will make it easy to use ASM and C libraries in programs without explicit shell support. Doors CE will be leveraging this time- and effort-saving breakthrough from Mateo.

If you still need to get psyched about Doors CE, enjoy the video below. Although I don't have a concrete release date for Doors CE, I do plan to get it out in the early part of 2016. I'd be happy to field suggestions and answer questions in the attached topic or in the Doors CE 9 Development thread, where development updates will continue to be posted.