Is the TI community over?

u/novenary September 22, 2015, 10:50:49 PM

I'm pretty sure it was a mistake.

u/SiphonicSugar September 22, 2015, 10:52:09 PM

QuoteAlso in my opinion the TI community is not yet over, but slowly shrinking.

Sadly though...

u/Dream of Omnimaga September 23, 2015, 12:01:24 AM

Quote from: James Oldiges on September 22, 2015, 10:46:24 PM
Amber is dead. Code was lost and the backups weren't properly done. (Shortcuts were backed up, not files)

I don't remember if Amber used Axe. Did Xeda use Axe backup feature? Because that feature has a past history of not working right. People should not rely solely on it.

u/SiphonicSugar September 23, 2015, 01:13:09 AM

Yeah, I think that he used Axe.

u/James Oldiges September 23, 2015, 01:44:43 AM

iirc, the issue people tend to have is that the edit the source in rom and axe only does backups of programs in ram

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 23, 2015, 12:01:24 AM
Quote from: James Oldiges on September 22, 2015, 10:46:24 PM
Amber is dead. Code was lost and the backups weren't properly done. (Shortcuts were backed up, not files)
I don't remember if Amber used Axe. Did Xeda use Axe backup feature? Because that feature has a past history of not working right. People should not rely solely on it.

u/Dream of Omnimaga September 23, 2015, 01:54:14 AM

Oh right. But didn't Axe backup tool sometimes corrupt the calculator archive and RAM? Or was that fixed? In any case, I always recommend also backing up on a computer. Even groups are unsafe.

u/semiprocoder September 23, 2015, 02:20:22 AM

Quote from: SiphonicSugar on September 22, 2015, 08:33:14 PM
Oh yeah, another depressing thing. (Sorry to mention it but I feel like I should) I keep finding topics and threads here and on Omnimaga especially about RPGs that people are going to make. They all seem like really good ideas, but the creators just drop the idea or something because they have not posted about it in like a year.

This is kind of off topic here, but have there ever been any rts games made for any calc(specifically ti 84 plus or ti nspire cx non ndless cause those are the ones I have).

Also I think that ti nspire basic isn't too hard, there are just not many good tutorials for it. And besides, I think that you don't necessarily need to learn basic, you can just go straight to lua and for it there are some really nice concise tutorials for it and a nice api functions list, which can be improved but are still really nice. It took me about 2 hours to learn, and even though I have programmed in c and java before, I have never really programmed in a scripting language, and I think it would be relatively easy to learn nevertheless.

But the thing about people having stuff better to do is totally true. In my school I showed off the simple lua games I made and some people liked them, while others just asked something along the lines of "why do this if you have a smartphone?"

u/Dream of Omnimaga September 23, 2015, 02:25:01 AM

Yeah I just meant that younger people tend to have an easier time getting into programming with TI-BASIC and preferably if it's programmable on-calc by default. When they get their calculator, they usually don't know that third-party on-calc Lua tools exist until months later. For example, I started programming TI-83+ BASIC in July 2001, but it took me until October of that year before I discover that there are calculator websites. This is what makes TI-BASIC a great stepping stone towards other platforms or calculator languages. But on the Nspire it's hard to make a decent game like an RPG with much interactivity so that might not be encouraging for new users of that calc (until they discover Lua, that is)

As for the smartphone excuse, we can't use a smartphone in class for the most part. In fact, some schools banned them from classes due to abuse. But some schools like in France wants to do the opposite it seems.

u/Hayleia September 23, 2015, 07:22:00 AM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 23, 2015, 12:01:24 AM
I don't remember if Amber used Axe. Did Xeda use Axe backup feature? Because that feature has a past history of not working right. People should not rely solely on it.

Quote from: SiphonicSugar on September 23, 2015, 01:13:09 AM
Yeah, I think that he used Axe.

I don't think Xeda used Axe. Not only she kind of never programmed in Axe (or once or twice for the lol), but she also wrote in the description of Amber that it could be a multipage app, which is not possible in Axe.

u/tr1p1ea September 23, 2015, 07:40:01 AM

I think like the handheld industry, smartphones have killed the calc community.

There is little appreciation for programming efforts on low end hardware these days because many people arent aware of what technical limitations even are.

That being said, it can never be 100% over, there will always be hobbyists that tinker away with calcs ... like us!

.

u/novenary September 23, 2015, 08:04:06 AM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 23, 2015, 12:01:24 AM
Quote from: James Oldiges on September 22, 2015, 10:46:24 PM
Amber is dead. Code was lost and the backups weren't properly done. (Shortcuts were backed up, not files)
I don't remember if Amber used Axe. Did Xeda use Axe backup feature? Because that feature has a past history of not working right. People should not rely solely on it.

She was writing Amber in asm.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 23, 2015, 01:54:14 AM
Oh right. But didn't Axe backup tool sometimes corrupt the calculator archive and RAM? Or was that fixed? In any case, I always recommend also backing up on a computer. Even groups are unsafe.

It was compiling as an application, and it shouldn't happen unless you pull a battery.

Quote from: tr1p1ea on September 23, 2015, 07:40:01 AM
I think like the handheld industry, smartphones have killed the calc community.

There is little appreciation for programming efforts on low end hardware these days because many people arent aware of what technical limitations even are.

That being said, it can never be 100% over, there will always be hobbyists that tinker away with calcs ... like us! .

Yup, besides CodeWalrus I frequent a GameCube forum on a regular basis, in fact the only one. There, we do homebrew, hardware mods, and all kinds of neat things, but the GC is a pretty niche console to do that kinda stuff. As I said that forum is the only one, it opened in 2010 and it gets fewer posts than cw. That doesn't prevent the community from being alive. The people there are very dedicated, always developing new things.
The calc community is definitely not done for.

u/Dream of Omnimaga September 23, 2015, 03:26:58 PM

I hope that no ones leave CW just because of low posting rates. I know this happened on Omni before (eg @emgoz ) but right now we're on-par with MaxCoderz activity during their heydays. It's just that there are so few TI forums now compared to back when MC was at its peak that when core users stops posting then the negative impact is significantly larger.