CodeWalrus

Development => Calculators => Calculator News, Coding, Help & Talk => Topic started by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 20, 2020, 04:39:51 PM

Title: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 20, 2020, 04:39:51 PM
I saw this coming years ago as critor would say, but it is now a reality: Texas Instruments has decided to block ASM on the TI-83 Premium CE and TI-84 Plus CE.

Looks like from now on ASM will have to be added via hacking or whatever, like on the Nspire. Hopefully it's not as difficult as with Ndless and hopefully there is a way to get the old games to run on the new OS. But this is bad news for TI development, especially considering most games are coming out on the CE.

Source: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=23858
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Boric on May 20, 2020, 07:40:18 PM
Truly a sad day for calculator communities. Hopefully competitors will not do such a boneheaded decision either.

One thing remains to be seen: where will the refugees go? So far most people think this will benefit Casio since they have decent tooling and lots of programs already existing. NumWorks calculators currently have nowhere near the same level of polish for both developers and users of native programs (nor a community as strong either).
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 20, 2020, 11:33:15 PM
On the color Casio fx-CG50, there is now an application called C.Basic which takes Casio BASIC programs and run them faster, in addition to ASM and C support that Casio haven't tried to block so far. As for HP, a Mario game would be feasible even with the on-calc HP PPL language, but it's not as popular as Casio and TI.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Boric on May 23, 2020, 02:26:27 PM
Apparently, the saga keeps unfolding as Cemetech has Peter Balyta himself providing insight in this f*ckup of biblical proportions (https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16652). I couldn't resist answering (https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=285853#285853):

Quote[...]

Sincerely,
Not presently a member of your community, but you messed up so bad this time I wrote this.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 23, 2020, 06:20:11 PM
(http://img.ourl.ca//zeldalastyle.gif)(http://img.ourl.ca//zeldacsetitle.gif)

With the exception of an utility that changes the screen resolution to 160x240 pixels instead of 320x240, the above screenshots showcase pure TI-BASIC on the 15 MHz Z80-based TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, which is way slower than the TI-84 Plus CE.

With the slow performances I've seen from python on the latter calculator in Critor's videos, it would be very hard to convince me to switch to python as an alternative to ASM/C/ICE. In TI-BASIC, ASM and C you can create games that takes up to 3 MB of memory and I believe with ICE it's 64 KB. Does python even come close?
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Lionel Debroux on May 23, 2020, 08:17:31 PM
QuoteIn TI-BASIC, ASM and C you can create games that takes up to 3 MB of memory and I believe with ICE it's 64 KB. Does python even come close?
Nah, with that ~16 KB Python heap, you're limited to the ridiculously tiny value of several KB of source code. It varies somewhat depending on what the source code contains, since the internal representation of some entities is smaller than others.
TI's proprietary, non-portable functions can fetch image data from files, but that doesn't fix the heap size limitations.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 23, 2020, 09:08:53 PM
This is atrocious. I also assume that it's quite slow for some important math programs too.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Legimet on June 06, 2020, 01:30:37 AM
I haven't paid much attention to calculators in the last few years (i.e. since I started college). This is sad but not surprising.

On another note, this is my first time hearing about NumWorks. I doubt I will purchase a calculator any time soon but it looks interesting.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 06, 2020, 06:58:51 PM
Yeah, to be honest what keeps me from buying a Numworks aside from the fact I only did a few calc programming recently for the first time in almost 4 years is the price. Despite being open-source it's even more expensive than a fx-CG50 and not too far from the TI-84 Plus CE (when including shipping fees), but of course since it's a smaller production run than TI calcs then the production cost per calc is most likely much higher than with TI/Casio.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 07, 2020, 05:51:44 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on June 06, 2020, 06:58:51 PMYeah, to be honest what keeps me from buying a Numworks aside from the fact I only did a few calc programming recently for the first time in almost 4 years is the price. Despite being open-source it's even more expensive than a fx-CG50 and not too far from the TI-84 Plus CE (when including shipping fees), but of course since it's a smaller production run than TI calcs then the production cost per calc is most likely much higher than with TI/Casio.

Here in France it's the same price as the TI-83 Premium CE Edition Python (80€). I guess Casio is focused on conquering the North American market, whereas NumWorks is focused on the French market (and recently expanding into the European market).

The fx-CG50 has an edge on hardware specs and the community is both bigger and has a significant head-start. It's probably the better choice if you want to play games but don't want to make them.

I would not draw conclusions without more data about production cost per calc. The NumWorks calculator's hardware is much more bare-bones internally (no USB OTG, no supplying power to USB devices, no RTC...) and it uses an off-the-shelf MCU rather than a custom home-made ASIC. Texas Instruments most likely has an edge due to production numbers, but I would not be surprised if the NumWorks calculator is slightly cheaper to produce per-calc for the same production volume.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Caleb Hansberry on June 08, 2020, 08:42:48 PM
Sad news. Think they'll release an update to disable ASM on the TI-83+ series? :D
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 08, 2020, 09:10:30 PM
They already did in Europe with the TI-82 Advanced in France and the TI-84 Plus T elsewhere. I dunno if they'll do it worldwide, though. The last 84+ OS update was in 2011 and 83+ in 2006.

What surprises me is why the TI-83+ is still in production despite lacking an exam mode.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: ACagliano on June 09, 2020, 05:46:29 PM
I posted this to Cemetech and Omnimaga as well.

QuoteI would even propose calling TI's bluff on something. Write TI a letter, signed by a EVERY major calc development community - Cemetech, Omnimaga, Codewalrus (unity is important on this), informing them that if they do not revise their decision on C/asm, and implement exam security in a way that is conducive to teaching, learning, and doing programming, we the community will be designing, releasing and marketing our own calculator to compete with them. And if they do not walk it back.. actually follow through.

There is no action legally they could take to prevent this: it would be our own hardware and programming, no copying of names, symbols, anything. Free market, people can compete with whoever they want.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 06:23:30 PM
Quote from: ACagliano on June 09, 2020, 05:46:29 PMI posted this to Cemetech and Omnimaga as well.

QuoteI would even propose calling TI's bluff on something. Write TI a letter, signed by a EVERY major calc development community - Cemetech, Omnimaga, Codewalrus (unity is important on this), informing them that if they do not revise their decision on C/asm, and implement exam security in a way that is conducive to teaching, learning, and doing programming, we the community will be designing, releasing and marketing our own calculator to compete with them. And if they do not walk it back.. actually follow through.

There is no action legally they could take to prevent this: it would be our own hardware and programming, no copying of names, symbols, anything. Free market, people can compete with whoever they want.

Realistically, that would be pretty hard, and TI knows too well that won't work without the backing of many, many teachers. Many attempts failed before, even Numworks barely breaks through in France (although we wish them luck). Best we can do I think is threaten them to release any and every exam mode hack we know of we normally have hidden away for fear something like this would happen, or even just to lose their support and cut ties with them (I know Cemetech and TI-Planet are rather close to TI, so it would work).

I like the idea of an open letter, though, even without threatening to do anything.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 09, 2020, 06:35:24 PM
Something I wonder is if the TI community could team up with the existing Numworks team to expand that calculator's programming capabilities beyond Python and perhaps even promote the calculator? Of course the price still remains a problem but if eventually it sells more, then perhaps they can reduce the price per unit?

Or if the Numworks team is afraid of people tampering with the exam mode then they can sign our apps themselves before we release them on our website or an appstore of their own, so that they can review what can go on the calc.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 06:59:26 PM
The huge problem is indeed the exam mode being required by governments. The original intent was to do anything you want outside exam mode and to restrict functionalities when it's on without the teachers requiring to delete everything on the calc. But since this concept came quite late into the design of current calcs, TI struggles to make it fit.

One thing I thought was to act as an official third-party provider of apps, I asked TI-Cares but they don't seem to have any official way to sign apps for their latest lines of calcs, recommending me instead to develop for their old original TI-83 Plus line.

In the meantime, supporting Numworks really seems to be a good idea, their ROM is open source last time I checked and if you know ways to improve it, well go for it :) I really wish they successfully launch outside of France and manage to take away a bunch of market parts in the USA.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 09, 2020, 07:07:27 PM
Quote from: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 06:59:26 PMI asked TI-Cares but they don't seem to have any official way to sign apps for their latest lines of calcs, recommending me instead to develop for their old original TI-83 Plus line.
That's funny, considering they locked down the old 83 Plus line in France and Europe as well (see TI-82 Advanced and TI-84 Plus T). That leaves you only North America for the monochrome models.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 09, 2020, 07:22:05 PM
Quote from: undefinedI would even propose calling TI's bluff on something. Write TI a letter, signed by a EVERY major calc development community - Cemetech, Omnimaga, Codewalrus (unity is important on this), informing them that if they do not revise their decision on C/asm, and implement exam security in a way that is conducive to teaching, learning, and doing programming, we the community will be designing, releasing and marketing our own calculator to compete with them. And if they do not walk it back.. actually follow through.

There is no action legally they could take to prevent this: it would be our own hardware and programming, no copying of names, symbols, anything. Free market, people can compete with whoever they want.
Unlikely to happen. The closest that comes to what you are describing out there is Symbolibre (https://symbolibre.org) and they are nowhere near an industrialized product at this time. It's one thing to hand-build a couple of prototypes cobbled together from parts, it's another to have a design ready for mass-production and cost-optimized. Production engineering is an extremely complex topic that is never addressed in calculator forums. Take a look at NumWorks' blog (https://www.numworks.com/blog) for a tiny peek at what goes behind the scenes.

Instead, boycott Texas Instruments. Do not recommend their calculators to anyone. Buy, use, tinker and develop with platforms from other competitors that actually care: Casio, HP, NumWorks, SwissMicros... Spread the good word. Seriously, TI will never learn unless their bottom line hurts, so make theirs hurt.

To be clear, you can tinker with one of the numerous calculator designs available on the Net or build your own if you want. Just don't expect to upend TI's marketshare that way.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on June 09, 2020, 06:35:24 PMSomething I wonder is if the TI community could team up with the existing Numworks team to expand that calculator's programming capabilities beyond Python and perhaps even promote the calculator? Of course the price still remains a problem but if eventually it sells more, then perhaps they can reduce the price per unit?
Well, do come in, we don't bite ;)

The main developer community around the NumWorks calculator is the Omega firmware, which is a fork of the official epsilon firmware. The biggest problem right now is the lack of manpower and the fact that unlike TI or Casio there is not a rich legacy to build upon. On the other hand, there's plenty of stuff to invent from the ground up if that's what you're after.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on June 09, 2020, 06:35:24 PMOr if the Numworks team is afraid of people tampering with the exam mode then they can sign our apps themselves before we release them on our website or an appstore of their own, so that they can review what can go on the calc.
There is no signing whatsoever in the NumWorks calculator, you can flash whatever you want. Should they need to tighten up their security in the future, I've written about it (https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=285865&sid=56fd665a9b384051fd1597a1687342c7#285865). They will not prevent people from running third-party firmwares, the openness of their platform is a major selling point.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 07:43:11 PM
Quote from: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 09, 2020, 07:22:05 PMInstead, boycott Texas Instruments. Do not recommend their calculators to anyone. Buy, use, tinker and develop with platforms from other competitors that actually care: Casio, HP, NumWorks, SwissMicros... Spread the good word. Seriously, TI will never learn unless their bottom line hurts, so make theirs hurt.

Yeah, sounds like a good plan.

Quote from: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 09, 2020, 07:22:05 PMThe main developer community around the NumWorks calculator is the Omega firmware, which is a fork of the official epsilon firmware. The biggest problem right now is the lack of manpower and the fact that unlike TI or Casio there is not a rich legacy to build upon. On the other hand, there's plenty of stuff to invent from the ground up if that's what you're after.

I'd like seeing some more love to NumWorks in here on CW, porting some games and stuff :) That ought to give a message to TI.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 09, 2020, 07:57:02 PM
Quote from: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 07:43:11 PM
Quote from: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 09, 2020, 07:22:05 PMInstead, boycott Texas Instruments. Do not recommend their calculators to anyone. Buy, use, tinker and develop with platforms from other competitors that actually care: Casio, HP, NumWorks, SwissMicros... Spread the good word. Seriously, TI will never learn unless their bottom line hurts, so make theirs hurt.

Yeah, sounds like a good plan.
I've even come up with a slogan at the Cemetech forums for this:

Remember, friends don't let friends buy TI calculators.

Quote from: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 07:43:11 PM
Quote from: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 09, 2020, 07:22:05 PMThe main developer community around the NumWorks calculator is the Omega firmware, which is a fork of the official epsilon firmware. The biggest problem right now is the lack of manpower and the fact that unlike TI or Casio there is not a rich legacy to build upon. On the other hand, there's plenty of stuff to invent from the ground up if that's what you're after.

I'd like seeing some more love to NumWorks in here on CW, porting some games and stuff :) That ought to give a message to TI.
Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure that the Omega fork has been properly introduced here with a forum post... Which is too bad, because we have external apps support (including KhiCAS, NES and GameBoy emulators, periodic table), built-in symbolic computation, RPN... Heck, I've even managed to put a clock on the titlebar just a few days ago even though the hardware doesn't have a RTC quartz for time-keeping purposes.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 08:16:29 PM
Do it! I don't think I've heard about it yet, how long has it been around?

Yeah, I'm kinda out of the loop these days.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 09, 2020, 08:19:26 PM
I forgot about the Omega fork actually. I should check it out.

As for the Numworks, I think it was released shortly after I got postraumatic stress disorder and at that time the entire site staff either moved on or got too busy to follow the rest of the calculator community. That was around when CodeWalrus activity died down and mostly shifted to Cemetech. However I don't remember seeing many posts about the Numworks on Cemetech. However this whole TI ordeal seems to have brought back several former TI community members.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Boric on June 09, 2020, 08:34:04 PM
Quote from: Yuki on June 09, 2020, 08:16:29 PMDo it! I don't think I've heard about it yet, how long has it been around?
It was created somewhere around November/December 2019. It builds on previous work though, like my own RPN app and full-screen post-processing accessibility settings as well as the external app support from zardam.

I'll try to have either me or somebody else in the team make a post about Omega this weekend, right now it's nearing bedtime in France. In the meantime, you can check out the website (https://omega-numworks.github.io/) for info. We do include all the features (https://www.numworks.com/features) from the official NumWorks firmware too since we're a fork.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 17, 2020, 12:35:10 AM
Quote from: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=23941
  • 1.665s : NumWorks N0110
  • 2.228s: NumWorks N0110 (firmware tiers Omega)
  • 2.751s : Graph 90+E
  • 2.838s : NumWorks N0100 (firmware tiers Omega)
  • 2.853s : NumWorks N0100
  • 7.087s : TI-Nspire CX CR4+
  • 9.142s : TI-Nspire CX CR3-
  • 19min45.846s : TI-83 Premium CE Edition Python

And even with a modified script that only runs on the TI-83 Premium CE Edition Python, the program takes much longer than the TI-Nspire CX.

Quote from: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=23941
Quote from: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=23941
  • 45.483s : TI-83 Premium CE Edition Python (script dédié optimisé à la main)
We will definitively switch from ASM/C/ICE to Python, right? :trollface:
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Yuki on June 17, 2020, 12:43:26 AM
So, comparing the specs, it's about 3000 times slower than it should?

Pathetic.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 17, 2020, 12:49:15 AM
It actually reminds me of the Casio Classpad II, also known as the fx-CP400. Its BASIC language was ultra-slow and under some settings it could be up to 400 times slower than the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition. I believe there's a fx-CP500 or CG500 now but it's probably not much better.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: nspiredev500 on June 22, 2020, 08:47:17 PM
Do you think the performance difference between the Numworks and the TI-Nspire lies in the software or in the hardware?
If it's in the software, I looked at the Numworks firmware and they internally use an hardware abstraction layer.
So you would only need to implement that abstraction layer on the Nspire platform.
Or if they have a better Python interpreter, you could just take it out and adapt it for the Nspire.

I'm amazed at what the people at Numworks managed to cram into the tiny Flash and RAM.
The RAM is literaly only twice the size the Nspire uses for a single thread stack (after Ndless expands it), and in the Numworks all the data lives in that, including the Python heap.
But I don't know if the firmware is executed directly from Flash or from RAM, that would save much space in RAM.
If I had the money to do it and not had a calculator, I would buy a Numworks calculator.
But I already have my TI-Nspire CX CAS I had to buy for school, and I don't need two.
For now I just try to make the most of the one I had to buy.

About the TI-83 and 84, the Nspire had no assembly support since the beginning, and Ndless came to add it.
I think the community rage is big enough for some people to start a similar project for those calculator models, if it is only to rebell against TI.
But that will take time, in which people who have to buy calculators with the new OS version are out of luck.
Or a miracle happens and TI listens to the community.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Lionel Debroux on June 22, 2020, 09:01:22 PM
There have been efforts porting the NumWorks firmware to other platforms, e.g. the HP Prime, by none other than Jean-Baptiste Boric :)

The NumWorks series uses XIP on NOR Flash memory, like the TI-Z80, TI-68k, TI-eZ80 series and other models I'm less familiar with. The N0100 and N0110 models both have only 256 KB of RAM, while NumWorks' Epsilon firmware is ~900 KB nowadays (the N0100's meager 1 MB Flash is close to be full, and even though it's possible, few users attempt to solder an external 8 or 16 MB NOR Flash chip onto the appropriate area of the N0100's PCB), and the Omega fork containing xcas (khicas) is probably like 3-4 MB.
Larger Flash memories are NAND, and NAND Flash needs to be read on a page basis, which makes it unsuitable for direct code execution.
Unlike the TI-Z80, TI-68k and TI-eZ80 series (at least), the NOR Flash of the N0100 (internal + external if that is populated) / N0110 (both internal and external are populated and used out of the box) is accessible at a high rate, ~100 MHz. No speed-destroying wait states necessary on the N0100, possibly one on the N0110 whose CPU is clocked at a rate twice higher.

The TI-Z80, TI-68k and TI-eZ80 series simply weren't designed with security in mind. The Nspire series' design is more security-oriented, but it fails time and again to prevent users from executing arbitrary native code on the whole series (including the CX II, this has been public knowledge for months at this point). The only graphing calculator which could be locked down fairly strongly (secure boot scheme) by the manufacturer, but currently isn't locked down, is the HP Prime G2. Even that could technically fall to vulnerabilities in the firmware, but people don't try to attack it that way, precisely because HP's not trying to prevent users from doing whatever they want with the calculators they own.
You're right about TI-eZ80 user rage, which will end badly for TI - they have far more to lose than users :)
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 23, 2020, 02:36:37 PM
Imagine how fast Epsilon/Omega's Python would be on the G2 HP Prime :O

Also, I wonder if wait states slow down TI-83 Premium CE python? Because I found this program: https://www.cemetech.net/downloads/files/1276

EDIT: It seems that wait states were improved on newer hardware revisions.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on July 27, 2020, 07:11:33 PM
For the past decade, the TI community as a whole for the most part have been careful not to let programs that tamper with the exam light, to ensure that TI doesn't remove ASM or to convince them that letting people run TI community ASM programs still protects the exam mode. Whenever a program dedicated for cheating was published on Omnimaga, Cemetech, CodeWalrus, TI-Planet or Ticalc.org, it was deleted and such program was limited to a release outside the calculator community that barely anyone could find. Programs that simply tampered with the exam light were met with the same fate.

With TI's recent removal of ASM/C from the TI-83 Premium CE in OS 5.5.1 and soon on the TI-84 Plus CE with OS 5.6, it was only a matter of time before such forum rule gets modified and that similar programs would finally make their way on TI calculator websites. Today, it finally happened, with the release of "LEDmorse" for the TI-82 Advanced and the TI-84 Plus-T.

https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=2639002

Basically, this program lets you talk in morse code via the exam light. The program requires CalcUtil shell to run and since this calculator always lacked ASM/APP support, there is an elaborate tutorial explaining how to circumvent that limitation and install Flash APPS (such as the aforementioned shell) at https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=22192&lang=en , in French.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: critor on July 30, 2020, 08:10:29 AM
New milestone.

OS 5.5.1 which did remove asm programs support was only for the french TI-83 Premium CE, not the international TI-84 Plus CE.

But now there is OS 5.5.5 for the TI-84 Plus CE and of course it removes asm as well, this time on the last TI calculators still supporting it :
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24097&p=254657#p254657
(https://i.imgur.com/y6a3pOC.png)

A new major step just began in asm programs annihilation on the CE...
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on July 30, 2020, 01:09:02 PM
I'm definitively not upgrading. I hope that in the future, TI won't make TI-Connect automatically update any calc connected to the computer, either via software or background Windows processes.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: critor on August 13, 2020, 03:42:34 PM
84+CE OS 5.6 has just been released with some new things, and of course no asm anymore :
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=24146

Think very carefully before updating... there is no going back, once updated asm will be removed forever.
(https://i.imgur.com/6cUy5p2.png)(https://i.imgur.com/clIuTol.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/oRjoGLh.png)(https://i.imgur.com/ErirNXo.png)
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5/5.6. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 13, 2020, 03:57:19 PM
I'm definitively gonna be careful when connecting my calculator to TI-Connect in the future, in case one day TI releases a TI-Connect update that automatically sends the newest OS to any connected TI-84 Plus CE without any warning (I don't know if that would be illegal).
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 28, 2020, 07:39:32 PM
There is now a warning about OS 5.5/5.6 removing ASM and blocking downgrades on TI website https://education.ti.com/en/software/update/84-ce-software-update/84ce-download?q1=84-ce&count=1
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Yuki on August 28, 2020, 10:45:49 PM
Hey, wait a minute, I'm pretty sure I've seen a story unfolding exactly like this before... Some big company removing a major feature for no other reason than "security"...

Yeah... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS#History)

Any of you guys daring enough for a class action lawsuit?
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: YvanTT on September 06, 2020, 06:56:58 PM
Hello everyone,

I've just released arTIfiCE, a "jailbreak" for the TI CE calculators with OS 5.5 and 5.6.
It brings back ASM programs and games!

(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YvanTT/arTIfiCE/master/images/artifice.gif) (https://yvantt.github.io/arTIfiCE/)

More information, download, install instructions, and an FAQ, are available on the website: https://yvantt.github.io/arTIfiCE/

Yours truly, fighting for the freedom of peaceful assembly,
Enjoy :)
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Yuki on September 06, 2020, 07:04:58 PM
Hey, that's pretty cool :)
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 06, 2020, 07:29:59 PM
Too late everyone, TI has just released a new OS update just a minute ago that patches this... just kidding :P, this is amazing. I'm gonna have a read about this when I get some time. :)

Now if only there was a way to make the Asm() command functional again, so that TI-BASIC games that uses ASM libraries can work again.
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 08, 2020, 03:11:21 PM
A tool that lets you downgrade to an older OS if your TI-84 Plus/83 Premium CE is hardware revision L or lower (which excludes all Edition Python calculator models) has now been released, although it's still under development. It's called Cauldron: https://github.com/TheMachine02/Cauldron

The original link was https://github.com/Ne3s2-3p4/Cauldron but it's down now.

https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23858&p=255666#p255666


WARNING: Keep in mind that any wrongful manipulation of your calculator boot code or usage of Boot code manipulation without first reading instructions could permanently brick your calculator and that there are still risks otherwise. So be careful!
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: YvanTT on September 23, 2020, 01:59:24 PM
I have released v1.1 of arTIfiCE!

It's just a bugfix release to handle APD and improve compatibility with the Cabri app.

More details and download on the release page (https://github.com/YvanTT/arTIfiCE/releases) :)
Title: Re: WARNING: Do NOT upgrade your TI-84 Plus CE to OS 5.5 and higher. It blocks ASM!
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on February 25, 2021, 12:01:22 PM
OS 5.6.1 breaks compatibility with Cesium apparently. I dunno if it's released yet but here is a picture of the about screen https://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=64&image_id=13615

Quote from: Critor on TI Planet chat(07:04:20) critor: ^ ne pas mettre à jour si vous tenez à l'Asm, l'appli Cesium ne marche plus

EDIT News article available at TI-Planet: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=259388#p259388

Basically, CabriJr hasn't been updated yet, so the ArTIfiCE jailbreak still works. ASMHOOK still appears to work, but not Cesium, so it looks like it's just Cesium that needs an update for the time being.