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Development => Calculators => Calculator News, Coding, Help & Talk => Topic started by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 22, 2015, 03:40:59 PM

Title: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 22, 2015, 03:40:59 PM
Average activity on CW is worse than it was in September 2014 on Omni and a massive amount of its core userbase already ditched calcs, traffic is stagnating despite september normally being when people buy new calcs for school, and TI-Planet recently announced that in 2016, France government is gonna instate new school programs that makes even less place for TI calcs (perhaps eliminate them entirely).

Has the TI community really come to an end this time, unlike in 2008?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Hayleia on September 22, 2015, 03:47:26 PM
Well, a lot of people are interested in the 83PCE on TI Planet, so I guess the community isn't dead if it can take that turn.
Of course, "leaders" to help take that turn, such as a Doors CS for CE, or Axe for CE would help a lot...
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 22, 2015, 04:02:53 PM
There will always be some interest even if minimal. That said, we aren't getting the usual stream of September newcomers because we're still too hard to find via Google compared to  and Cemetech.
As Hayleia said, Axe, Doors CS and xLib would help interest in the CE. The monochrome models are going to lose popularity but for the new calcs to gain interest, they need to be attractive and pure BASIC and ASM aren't going to cut it.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Yuki on September 22, 2015, 04:05:52 PM
That's right, we need something good about the CE.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 22, 2015, 05:24:38 PM
Quote from: Streetwalrus on September 22, 2015, 04:02:53 PM
There will always be some interest even if minimal. That said, we aren't getting the usual stream of September newcomers because we're still too hard to find via Google compared to  and Cemetech.
As Hayleia said, Axe, Doors CS and xLib would help interest in the CE. The monochrome models are going to lose popularity but for the new calcs to gain interest, they need to be attractive and pure BASIC and ASM aren't going to cut it.
The problem is that with how Google works now, it's gonna take 4 years before we finally get a sustainable amounts of traffic to let people find us. By that time most people will ve gone.

Anyway if we drop to 500 posts in January (which seems likely at this rate) and people we have remains completely indifferent to the future of the forums until then then we should wevjust shut the site down entirely?

And ticalc doesn't help by not posting news anymore. They're the site TI users find first, and with the last news dating back in March they might think the community is already done. The last community lulls occurred while ticalc.org was understaffed and featuring no program for months. But no one can do anything about it, except ticalc themselves (by hiring)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: p4nix on September 22, 2015, 07:15:32 PM
The problems about calcs in general is that people have 'better things' to do nowadays I guess. If I show things like 'Bad Apple' on calculator to my classmates they are like: 'Why does someone wanna do that, you have a smartphone for that stuff.'... So let's change the society again and force people to get ASM-h4ck3rz :)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 22, 2015, 07:20:50 PM
Yeah the smartphone mentality doesn't help. The issue is that smartphones don't have a built in language as easy to start with as TI-BASIC. Not only this leads to less TI programmers, but also this leads to fewer programmers for non-calc platforms. Many people find the gap too big when trying to start with C/Java/Lua instead of TI-83+ Basic. Even 89/Nspire Basic aren't very newbie-friendly, same for HP PPL.

/me pokes @Cumred_Snektron about his :walrii: programming language
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Snektron on September 22, 2015, 08:20:48 PM
Yes yes, i'm still thinking about it. Plus i have it very busy with school :P
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: DarkestEx on September 22, 2015, 08:24:31 PM
Well its true. As I already stated earlier I left calc development too.
But this is still an awesome site and a great community. I don't plan leaving anytime soon ;)
Our government forced us to ditch TI calcs (and any programmable calculators at all) and I lost my interest in them some time ago too.

But I guess as the new school year started, many members are just busier and have less time they can spend here, what should be the reason for the low activity.

Also the development of the microcat should hopefully if it has any success boost this site and give it a big project and atleast 50 new users.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 22, 2015, 08:33:14 PM
I kind of already knew that something like this was going to happen.  There seemed to always be so much action, that I all missed (because I got in the community in 2013).  We need a breakthrough idea or something like what others have already said.  Axe for the CE, Grammer!  Everything!  Someone needs to make some breakthrough thing!  It needs to be something that everyone would want on their calculator!  That would attract attention!

The fact that the last news article thing was about Pi Day back in March is really depressing!
I'm wondering if I could become a staff member on ticalc.org and become a news editor or something!  :w00t:

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.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 22, 2015, 08:40:40 PM
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.
RPGs are huge projects. People want to make one then they realize that it's no easy task and lose motivation. You need a lot of dedication to be successful.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 22, 2015, 08:44:14 PM
Yeah, I know. 
One I was really hoping for was Pokemon Amber, and I don't think that came out unless I'm just dumb and can't find anything on it.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: 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)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 22, 2015, 10:47:09 PM
I know, I read that topic already.  ;)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: DarkestEx on September 22, 2015, 10:49:22 PM
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)
Wait what?! A programmer who backs up shortcuts O.O

Also in my opinion the TI community is not yet over, but slowly shrinking.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 22, 2015, 10:50:49 PM
I'm pretty sure it was a mistake. :P
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 22, 2015, 10:52:09 PM
QuoteAlso in my opinion the TI community is not yet over, but slowly shrinking.

Sadly though...
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of 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.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 23, 2015, 01:13:09 AM
Yeah, I think that he used Axe.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: James Oldiges on 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.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of 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.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: semiprocoder on 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?"
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on 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.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Hayleia on 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.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: 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! :).
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on 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. :)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on 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.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Unicorn on September 23, 2015, 08:24:08 PM
Yeah, I don't think the community is dead, I just think that the most active members are getting wrapped up in school. (I am) :P

my projects are still alive, just a little delayed.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 23, 2015, 09:46:31 PM
Man, I said he instead of she!  Typo!

Hey, I've been wondering.  Is Cemetech active?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 23, 2015, 11:31:10 PM
Yeah, cemetech is active but you'll find that it's very different from CW, the polar opposite in fact with Omni in the middle.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: alexgt on September 24, 2015, 02:28:15 AM
The reason that I have not been active is High School - I used to just be able to coast through middle school and get A's but now I have sports, more homework, and non stop essays from my English teacher <_<
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 24, 2015, 02:37:48 AM
What Street said, although the gap used to be even larger way back in the days. But yeah they are different (which I guess is a good thing for the sake of diversity, so at least it won't single out an entire chunk of the TI community)
Quote from: alexgt on September 24, 2015, 02:28:15 AM
I have sports
What are sports? O.O
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: alexgt on September 24, 2015, 02:42:54 AM
I run cross country and I have practice till 5 after school then dinner then homework so unless I stay up late there is not much room for CW :(
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: princetonlion.tibd on September 24, 2015, 02:45:33 AM
For me it's that DJ's prediction came true: I can't really focus on coding. I don't check the communities first thing like I've done for a year.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 24, 2015, 03:22:17 AM
Quote from: alexgt on September 24, 2015, 02:42:54 AM
I run cross country and I have practice till 5 after school then dinner then homework so unless I stay up late there is not much room for CW :(
Do you have the same schedule until June?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: catastropher on September 25, 2015, 12:14:50 AM
I don't think the TI community is over. Personally, I haven't been around much due to health issues and school, but I'm going to put in much more effort to be active in the community. I'm still working on X3D and I'm going to become the maintainer of TISDCC (using SDCC to compile C for the Z80 calcs). I do think it would be really good for the community if we could get a post out on ticalc.org though.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: semiprocoder on September 25, 2015, 12:23:11 AM
How do you use TISDCC cause I tried a while ago and couldn't get it working.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: catastropher on September 25, 2015, 12:42:46 AM
Quote from: semiprocoder on September 25, 2015, 12:23:11 AM
How do you use TISDCC cause I tried a while ago and couldn't get it working.
Yes TISDCC is sadly currently very broken (it's been unmaintained since at least 2013). I managed to fix the build scripts though and am working on getting the project cleaned up. If you give me some time though I'll get it all fixed and release new documentation! :)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Adriweb on September 25, 2015, 12:43:05 AM
Speaking of C on z80, maybe this (ez80 only) will also make more people interested in coding (or at least help, maybe to get started easily?)

(https://i.imgur.com/y5zDFF4.png) (https://i.imgur.com/6bpTWAm.png)

(It's not ready yet. See  https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17279 )
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: catastropher on September 25, 2015, 12:50:33 AM
Wow that's awesome! I wonder how the code generation compares to SDCC. Would it be possible to have SDCC as a supported compiler as well?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 25, 2015, 12:52:23 AM
Quote from: catastropher on September 25, 2015, 12:42:46 AM
Quote from: semiprocoder on September 25, 2015, 12:23:11 AM
How do you use TISDCC cause I tried a while ago and couldn't get it working.
Yes TISDCC is sadly currently very broken (it's been unmaintained since at least 2013). I managed to fix the build scripts though and am working on getting the project cleaned up. If you give me some time though I'll get it all fixed and release new documentation! :)
Fyi there's an active SDCC fork as part of the KnightOS project available here (https://github.com/KnightOS/kcc). Compatibility with both TIOS and KnightOS is intended and you actually get a subset of libc for KOS.
Adriweb's post is about the ez80 models (the new ones) only.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: catastropher on September 25, 2015, 12:57:12 AM
Hmmm... perhaps I will contribute to one of those projects then, as there's no point in reduplicating work.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Adriweb on September 25, 2015, 01:06:12 AM
The thing I was showing is indeed for the ez80 models.
It basically feeds the source into a ZDS project and calls its CLI tools via a makefile.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: catastropher on September 25, 2015, 01:10:53 AM
Quote from: Adriweb on September 25, 2015, 01:06:12 AM
The thing I was showing is indeed for the ez80 models.
It basically feeds the source into a ZDS project and calls its CLI tools via a makefile.
Ah ok, is it only for the ez80 calcs then? If so, perhaps we could add support for the regular 83+/84+ by using SDCC?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Adriweb on September 25, 2015, 02:17:59 AM
from what I've heard, it's bad enough not to be worth it.
But you're welcome to try and make your own tool :)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: bb010g on September 25, 2015, 02:21:03 AM
Quote from: alexgt on September 24, 2015, 02:42:54 AM
I run cross country and I have practice till 5 after school then dinner then homework so unless I stay up late there is not much room for CW :(
Woo! XC is awesome.

I sadly haven't had much time for calc stuff between AP, XC, and Rivals of Aether (http://www.rivalsofaether.com/) being released. I'm a bit at a loss for what to do with my Prime, though. Maybe a PPL compiler? I could use the work on parsers.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Unicorn on September 25, 2015, 02:38:10 AM
Quote from: bb010g on September 25, 2015, 02:21:03 AMI'm a bit at a loss for what to do with my Prime, though. Maybe a PPL compiler? I could use the work on parsers.


You could give the Prime to me.... :P
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 25, 2015, 03:12:05 PM
Or to Streetwalrus. :P He wanted to make a bootloader to allow ASM/C on it but he won't do so unless he gets a Prime for free. :P
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 25, 2015, 03:14:11 PM
Yeah I'm not really interested in getting a new calc myself, I already have too many devices and I'm mostly busy with my gamecube projects in terms of hacking, so unless the community shows a real interest or someone donates one to me then I won't get a Prime. That said, we could do a fundraiser. :P (though that requires community interest, I don't expect anyone to give more than a few bucks)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 25, 2015, 03:15:53 PM
I recently got back into calculator programming, and I am surprised by the lack of activity I've been seeing lately. Hopefully it picks up again.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: p4nix on September 25, 2015, 03:42:20 PM
You can be part of that :D
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 25, 2015, 09:42:25 PM
Quote from: annoyingcalc on September 25, 2015, 03:15:53 PM
I recently got back into calculator programming, and I am surprised by the lack of activity I've been seeing lately. Hopefully it picks up again.
Yeah I think it was a combination of factors, but it seemed much more noticeable this year. It seemed like some users moved to different hobbies over the summer, while others were on vacation, then when school started they didn't have much time, and not many people joined to replace them like most years. As some people said, it could be due to our site traffic not having built up in time for school start, though, so most new potential users don't find us right away.


The best thing would be to put the site URL in our readmes when we release new games or demos, as well as in Youtube descriptions.

Also hai @annoyingcalc :walrii:


EDIT: Just saw @catastropher post

Quote from: catastropher on September 25, 2015, 12:14:50 AM
I don't think the TI community is over. Personally, I haven't been around much due to health issues and school, but I'm going to put in much more effort to be active in the community. I'm still working on X3D and I'm going to become the maintainer of TISDCC (using SDCC to compile C for the Z80 calcs). I do think it would be really good for the community if we could get a post out on ticalc.org though.
What I am thinking is we could try to get them to write a news about the next big contest. We didn't for the 4x3 contest because we made it as a mini-contest at first and it only lasted 1 month. As it turns out, it had more participants than some large contests out there, though, despite being game-related.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: utz on September 26, 2015, 10:38:11 PM
Don't worry guys... second week of October I'm going to release my major TI z80 project that I've been working on for more than half a year now. I'll be damned if that doesn't breathe at least 0.000001% more life into the TI community :D

On a more serious note, I think the TI community in general will prevail, but in a different form, and only if we start thinking about the future. In that future, we will see calculators slowly disappearing from the classrooms. I mean look at it that way, what is a calculator nowadays? It's a piece of hardware that can't do half of what a smartphone can, at double the price. The only reason they are still used at schools is that school governing bodies are conservative by nature and fear the new technologies. They are afraid that will lose control over what the kids can do with these tools (and the price of graphing calcs nowadays is determined almost exclusively by this fear).

It was the same when graphing calculators started to be rolled out in the 90s - at my last school they were still forbidden as late as 2003, because "oh my gosh, these kids are gonna do everything with the calculator, how are they supposed to learn teh maths that way". Now it's the same with tablets and smartphones (as much as I despise them personally) - "oh my gosh, the kids are gonna look up everything on the internetz, how are they supposed to learn..." and so on. But once the current generation of young mathematics teachers starts to get into decision making positions, attitudes (and curriculums) will start to change. It's still a few years away, but imo it will inevitably happen someday.

So, the question is, how will the calculator scene survive without calculators? Well, look at the home computer scene. It's all about machines that are obsolete since 20+ years, yet the scene is more alive nowadays than it has ever been since it's heyday in the late 80s/early 90s. Why? Because of nostalgia, because of  "dat retro feeling", obviously. But that's only one part of the medal. Another part is that people simply enjoy pushing these machines to and beyond their limits, because with limitation comes creativity - aka "I know it's a piece of crap, but look at the kewl stuff I can do with it!".

There's a notion of control that plays into this as well (perhaps ironically so, considering what I wrote about school govering bodies earlier). A TI-83+ or 84+ is comprehensible at a very low level, and you can bend it to your will almost entirely. It makes you feel in control. That is a certain appeal that smartphones or even the Nspire/Prime/etc don't have imo.

So, what needs to be done? Most importantly, I think the mission is to carry on and don't panic. Just keep doing cool stuff with calculators and other people will get interested in doing cool stuff with calculators.

Other than that, there is one thing I want to leave you guys with. I don't really know how to put it, so I'll just try to explain my own perspective of things. For me, it's somewhat difficult to feel at home in the TI scene. I'm mostly interested in coding solutions and using TI calcs for creative purposes. But to me it seems none of the 3 major English-language sites (CW, Omni, Cemetech) really have a focus on that. It's mostly games, chit-chat, and some school-related stuff (mostly in case of Cemetech), all of which I don't really care about. (Time gets a more precious resource as you get older, so you tend to set different priorities.) TI Planet seems to offer more in the direction of things interesting to me, but it's in French, which I don't speak very well. Hmmm... don't really know a solution to this. Don't think it's even a real problem tbh. But perhaps in the future there's gonna be more living fossils like myself in the scene, and I don't think they'll be too terribly interested in "the game" and "ponies", y'know?

Aaaaaaanyway, enough rambling.
tl:dr; don't worry, just carry on doing cool stuff with calculators and the ti community will survive.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 26, 2015, 10:53:34 PM
QuoteThe best thing would be to put the site URL in our readmes when we release new games or demos, as well as in Youtube descriptions.
So when I finish my Axe Soccer game, I should put codewalr.us on the title screen or something?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Unicorn on September 27, 2015, 07:48:51 AM
Utz: I get that. I think that if these sites were only about calcs, it would be a litte boring. I mean sure, we do get offtopic, but if all we talked about were calcs, not computers, games, and other stuff, there would probably be a lot less people posting.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 27, 2015, 11:47:01 AM
Quote from: utz on September 26, 2015, 10:38:11 PM
There's a notion of control that plays into this as well (perhaps ironically so, considering what I wrote about school govering bodies earlier). A TI-83+ or 84+ is comprehensible at a very low level, and you can bend it to your will almost entirely. It makes you feel in control. That is a certain appeal that smartphones or even the Nspire/Prime/etc don't have imo.
As an nspire and gamecube programmer I can assure you that larger platforms can give you as much control as 8 bit systems. Sure, they're more complex to work with but the extra power is often a nice plus. In the case of the nspire, I've spent hours reading hardware docs to be able to twist it in ways that no one did before. It's extremely flexible because the OS is not intrusive. While it's not really bare metal development it remains a relatively controllable platform (well, at least with ndless).

Quote from: utz on September 26, 2015, 10:38:11 PM
"the game" and "ponies"
I think it's slightly more varied than that. :P The "offtopic" conversation makes for a healthy community and (imo) doesn't hinder our main interests but instead helps keeping them alive. As Unicorn said, doing only calculator things would be boring. CW isn't dedicated to only calculators, although it's a major focus since we split off from Omni, but everything related to programming is welcome, and other miscellaneous conversation is desirable as I said.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 27, 2015, 04:32:41 PM
Quote from: SiphonicSugar on September 26, 2015, 10:53:34 PM
QuoteThe best thing would be to put the site URL in our readmes when we release new games or demos, as well as in Youtube descriptions.
So when I finish my Axe Soccer game, I should put codewalr.us on the title screen or something?
It depends, since you are not staff you could always just put the site URL in your readme.txt or in the credits section for where to contact you.

Also I think what @utz refers to is for example the AtariAges sub-forums. The Atari 2600 has been discontinued 30 years ago, yet people still makes games for it and their community is growing. It's possible that once calcs are done serving their purposes, then they'll become retro platforms that people programs on as old school computers, just like Commodore and stuff. We can already see it happen with the TI-82 and 85. But since they aren't as known, it's hard to tell if such community would be large.

As for the off-topicness on calc forums, this has been something going on for decades. MaxCoderz forums have about 30% of their posts posted in the off-topic section. Most community members have other interests than calculators and in order to keep them around, forums always tried to allow them to discuss non-calculator stuff from time to time. It's something we have to live with on calc forums and there are some on which the off-topic interest is different than others (for example, Omni has more ponies/K'nex stuff, CW has more gaming and Youtube and Cemetech has more Minecraft/Lego/hardware modding.

CodeWalrus started with fewer calculator sub-forums than the other sites, though, because it was believed when the site started that the TI scene might be on its final miles, so we tried to focus on multiple things from the start.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: DarkestEx on September 27, 2015, 04:36:11 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 27, 2015, 04:32:41 PM
Quote from: SiphonicSugar on September 26, 2015, 10:53:34 PM
QuoteThe best thing would be to put the site URL in our readmes when we release new games or demos, as well as in Youtube descriptions.
So when I finish my Axe Soccer game, I should put codewalr.us on the title screen or something?
It depends, since you are not staff you could always just put the site URL in your readme.txt or in the credits section for where to contact you.

Also I think what @utz refers to is for example the AtariAges sub-forums. The Atari 2600 has been discontinued 30 years ago, yet people still makes games for it and their community is growing. It's possible that once calcs are done serving their purposes, then they'll become retro platforms that people programs on as old school computers, just like Commodore and stuff. We can already see it happen with the TI-82 and 85. But since they aren't as known, it's hard to tell if such community would be large.

As for the off-topicness on calc forums, this has been something going on for decades. MaxCoderz forums have about 30% of their posts posted in the off-topic section. Most community members have other interests than calculators and in order to keep them around, forums always tried to allow them to discuss non-calculator stuff from time to time. It's something we have to live with on calc forums and there are some on which the off-topic interest is different than others (for example, Omni has more ponies/K'nex stuff, CW has more gaming and Youtube and Cemetech has more Minecraft/Lego/hardware modding.

CodeWalrus started with fewer calculator sub-forums than the other sites, though, because it was believed when the site started that the TI scene might be on its final miles, so we tried to focus on multiple things from the start.
It was a very good move to focus on multiple things instead of only calcs. I am glad you did so, because I still enjoy staying here and doing other, non-calc releated things. I don't see CW as a calc forum and I never did so even in my calc days. I always saw it as a programming, hardware, offtopic and calc forum. And this is great.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 27, 2015, 04:45:21 PM
Yeah some people told me they didn't see CW as a calc forum. Of course tho it's our main focus right now since the site we split from was mostly calculator-related, but most founding members were at the end of their calculator "carreer" and doing more non-calc stuff. It's mostly focuses around game programming, hardware, programming in general and retro gaming, as well as pixel art. Mostly the old school-style stuff (even the music sometimes is, since when I make music I use a Playstation 1 software called Music 2000 :P).
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: SiphonicSugar on September 28, 2015, 01:28:53 AM
I wish that forums could run on just on calculator related things...

EDIT: Wait no! I take that back! There are a lot of other cool things that don't have anything to do with calculators...
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Yuki on September 28, 2015, 01:31:51 AM
There's a ton of stuff that don't have anything to do with calcs.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 28, 2015, 01:45:54 AM
I doubt a calculator-only forums would ever work. It was attempted in the past and people felt too restricted, especially that the average time someone spends using calculators for any hobby is 2 years.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Unicorn on September 28, 2015, 04:07:08 AM
True, I know I would be hard pressed to make 2000 posts JUST about calculators. O.O
Title: Is the TI community over?
Post by: princetonlion.tibd on September 28, 2015, 04:10:24 AM
I would be hard pressed to post if it was calc only, and then only vague comments.


Honestly I'm amazed that I am still posting.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 28, 2015, 04:15:55 AM
What are you interested the most in, lately (other than Chess)?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: utz on September 28, 2015, 07:59:22 PM
Just to clarify, I don't mean to say this forum should change directions or anything (and especially the "ponies" comment was more directed at Omni). CW is what it is, and it's great as it is.

What I meant to say with my rather incoherent rambling is this: As others have pointed out, CW doesn't really appear as a TI forum. In fact I'd very much argue about calcs being the primary focus here - the news on the front page are one thing, but the "recent posts" list clearly suggests otherwise. Of course a calc-only forum might be rather difficult to sustain (though TI Planet actually seems to do well doing precisely that). However, with CW's focus being as broad as it is, it's unlikely to get the attention of people who are interested in calc programming/hacking beyond their school years. Yet on the long run, the TI community won't be able to sustain itself at the past activity levels just from attracting newcomers in their school years, cause no matter how long calcs will be a part of the curriculum, kids nowadays have other priorities.

@Streetwalrus: True that. Perhaps complexity is more of an issue than the level of control you can achieve. Because honestly, how many people do you see programming the nspire in asm? Imo programming in C doesn't give you the same level of control, because it adds an extra layer of abstraction.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on September 28, 2015, 08:01:51 PM
Quote from: utz on September 28, 2015, 07:59:22 PM
@Streetwalrus: True that. Perhaps complexity is more of an issue than the level of control you can achieve. Because honestly, how many people do you see programming the nspire in asm? Imo programming in C doesn't give you the same level of control, because it adds an extra layer of abstraction.
Indeed, but it's much simpler to program in C and you can use inline asm too. That's what everyone does on platforms bigger than calcs.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: semiprocoder on September 28, 2015, 08:11:16 PM
Btw how long will it take for ndless to update to 4.0 cause I bought a locked calc with 4.0 os and cant get ndless :(
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Lionel Debroux on September 28, 2015, 08:18:53 PM
For the few past releases, Ndless for a newer OS version was released when it became ready, and without any kind of public advance notice.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Yuki on September 28, 2015, 08:19:30 PM
Quote from: semiprocoder on September 28, 2015, 08:11:16 PM
Btw how long will it take for ndless to update to 4.0 cause I bought a locked calc with 4.0 os and cant get ndless :(
Eventually. One day, when you'll not expect it.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: princetonlion.tibd on September 29, 2015, 03:34:02 AM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 28, 2015, 04:15:55 AM
What are you interested the most in, lately (other than Chess)?
Cold war history, and I'm reading some things about communism from America's POV
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 29, 2015, 03:41:40 AM
Quote from: utz on September 28, 2015, 07:59:22 PM
Just to clarify, I don't mean to say this forum should change directions or anything (and especially the "ponies" comment was more directed at Omni). CW is what it is, and it's great as it is.

What I meant to say with my rather incoherent rambling is this: As others have pointed out, CW doesn't really appear as a TI forum. In fact I'd very much argue about calcs being the primary focus here - the news on the front page are one thing, but the "recent posts" list clearly suggests otherwise. Of course a calc-only forum might be rather difficult to sustain (though TI Planet actually seems to do well doing precisely that). However, with CW's focus being as broad as it is, it's unlikely to get the attention of people who are interested in calc programming/hacking beyond their school years. Yet on the long run, the TI community won't be able to sustain itself at the past activity levels just from attracting newcomers in their school years, cause no matter how long calcs will be a part of the curriculum, kids nowadays have other priorities.

@Streetwalrus: True that. Perhaps complexity is more of an issue than the level of control you can achieve. Because honestly, how many people do you see programming the nspire in asm? Imo programming in C doesn't give you the same level of control, because it adds an extra layer of abstraction.
Yeah I know.  And yeah the thing is some things made CW what it is. While we are open to changes, there are things that are probably here to stay in the short terms, because they were one of the very reason why CodeWalrus split off from Omnimaga in the first place :P.

As for CW not being a calc site, I agree. However, this occasionally reflects in news too, because a few months ago, there was a news article about Iron Maiden's newest album and there are currently two computer games in the news pending queue. We wanted to cover similar but still different fields of interests to cater to a larger amount of people, and we would be more than happy to have more discussions about PICO-8 and old-school games/softwares. :) While our larger focus might deter some older people from sticking around after they move on from calc programming, sometimes it has helped because some people said they would not have stayed around if CW's focus was entirely calc-related. I guess the main deterrent might be the less mature atmosphere overall, but the last website prior CodeWalrus to have a similar atmosphere averaged at 300-400 posts per day at one point.

By the way @utz , do you have any idea of stuff we could add to the site that could help?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: utz on September 29, 2015, 07:36:13 PM
I don't really have any big suggestions, especially not in terms of additions. I prefer minimalism, so I'd rather suggest trimming some things. One thing that could be done is ditch the OT from the "recent posts" list, at least on the front page. Eg. "Funny/Awesome Youtube videos", "What are you listening to", "Funny sites" etc. don't need to be on the front page imo. Similarly, site internals (eg. "CodeWalrus restructure" and "Making forum skin mobile friendly" should only be visible in recent posts when logged in, as they are irrelevant to outsiders.

Other than that, it really depends where you want to go. Do you want to provide a comfy home for the current crowd? Then keep things as they are. Do you want to "grow up", be seen as a more mature/calc-oriented forum? Then consider some radical changes. Like, ditch that "top 5 posters" stuff, collapse/remove the "featured member projects" section (perhaps grant trusted members access to an extended front page newsfeed instead), and perhaps move the board index to the front page while condensing the newsfeed into a linklist of headlines/snippets.

Well, in any case, these are just some ideas. Really, I have no business in telling you folks how to run this forum. It's a nice place as it is, and I very much enjoy the friendly atmosphere.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: DarkestEx on September 29, 2015, 07:56:25 PM
Quote from: utz on September 29, 2015, 07:36:13 PM
I don't really have any big suggestions, especially not in terms of additions. I prefer minimalism, so I'd rather suggest trimming some things. One thing that could be done is ditch the OT from the "recent posts" list, at least on the front page. Eg. "Funny/Awesome Youtube videos", "What are you listening to", "Funny sites" etc. don't need to be on the front page imo. Similarly, site internals (eg. "CodeWalrus restructure" and "Making forum skin mobile friendly" should only be visible in recent posts when logged in, as they are irrelevant to outsiders.

Other than that, it really depends where you want to go. Do you want to provide a comfy home for the current crowd? Then keep things as they are. Do you want to "grow up", be seen as a more mature/calc-oriented forum? Then consider some radical changes. Like, ditch that "top 5 posters" stuff, collapse/remove the "featured member projects" section (perhaps grant trusted members access to an extended front page newsfeed instead), and perhaps move the board index to the front page while condensing the newsfeed into a linklist of headlines/snippets.

Well, in any case, these are just some ideas. Really, I have no business in telling you folks how to run this forum. It's a nice place as it is, and I very much enjoy the friendly atmosphere.
I still think its fine as it is today. Removing off topic from front-page wouldn't be a big problem as long as the RSS feed is not affected in any was as I like getting post updates through the post notifier.
Also I like that the forum is not that mature. We don't need another cemetech. Don't try to be something you aren't. Other forums are way ahead in calc stuff and I doubt CW will ever outperform them. Let CW stay how it is - it's unique in its current way.
Also how big should CW be? Growing is all fine, but with growth comes big management effort. If you won't like another disasterous Omnimaga then having a massive forum is a bad idea.

This is just my opinion on the whole topic, but I think it should be said ;)
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: semiprocoder on September 29, 2015, 08:27:34 PM
I agree. I think that besides some minor changes that were listed before no major changes should be added. This forum is really nice the way it is. If there were to be any major changes, then maybe make like a special subpart of this site, which would be a copy of the new forum, but with the changes, that people could see if they liked it or not.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 30, 2015, 01:00:17 AM
@utz thanks for your suggestions. Regarding the recent posts list, it is in our plans in the future to add checkboxes to allow users to select which content they want displayed there. Similar to TI-Planet news, which allows you to hide exam/off-topic news, CW recent posts will eventually let you show/hide the following categories of posts: Calculator-related, site feedback/suggestions, non-calc programming/hardware, multimedia and off-topic. It will be cookie-based, in order to allow guests to benefit from such feature, but all categories will show up by default. I had this planned on Omnimaga in 2011. We don't want to hide content from the recent posts list, as it would defeat the point of such feature, but we would like it to please more users, by letting them decide if they only want specific range of topics to show up there.

@DarkestEx Yeah I agree. The thing is Omnimaga tried too much to be like Cemetech since 2013 and it didn't work well (and even sent away most active members, who ultimately founded CW to avoid being singled out of the TI community). What I and some others believe is that trying to be like another site won't attract members from that site, because we would look less unique towards them, thus, giving them less reasons to join. As for topics going off-topic often, I noticed this happening on every single new calculator forum I ran into (even Cemetech in 2004-05), so I guess that will change over time.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: semiprocoder on September 30, 2015, 02:31:27 AM
One change I think you should do though is to make the introduction forum stand out more(maybe a different color or make it bigger), instead of just putting a small url at the top of the irc, because I didn't notice it until recently due to how small it is.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 30, 2015, 02:33:22 AM
It's a bit more due to the fact we only have 1 intro thread to avoid cluttering the forums rather than an entire sub-forum. I could always put it somewhere like the board index and more visible, though. Maybe the off-topic/misc descriptions?

On the other hand, when members sign up they automatically get a welcome PM by default, which has a link to the intro thread. :P
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: semiprocoder on September 30, 2015, 02:39:32 AM
 :w00t:  Yeah wow how could I have missed that for like the almost month that I have been active on this forum. Wow. Yeah but I still think it should be visible on the main site more, and I think that putting it on the board index could work.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 30, 2015, 03:46:06 AM
I'll probably insert some welcome box somewhere, but it's hard to think of anything that won't add unnecessary extra scrolling to the board index.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: semiprocoder on September 30, 2015, 03:58:38 AM
Yeah that's true. Maybe though just put it at the top and then let the user close it if they want to or auto close it in a week or something.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: novenary on October 01, 2015, 12:23:25 PM
About threads going off topic, while it should be avoided there are plenty of good reasons to bring up off topic material in a thread. Since this is a small forum it's fine that it happens but when it really starts drifting, we split threads (and members are invited to start new threads for it when they realize that they're hijacking a thread too much).
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: DarkestEx on October 01, 2015, 01:48:32 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 30, 2015, 01:00:17 AM
Similar to TI-Planet news, which allows you to hide exam/off-topic news, CW recent posts will eventually let you show/hide the following categories of posts: Calculator-related, site feedback/suggestions, non-calc programming/hardware, multimedia and off-topic.
I don't want to advertise my post notifier but it already has options to hide topics by name too. So people who like desktop notifications can profit from hiding off-topic posts as well. I plan adding an option to hide posts based on categories too. In the future I might make the interface tabbed with different category tabs.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on October 01, 2015, 04:08:52 PM
Yeah the post notifier is a nice alternative too for people who wants to hide specific content. On top of that it even lets people hide individual boards.

And yeah Darkest category tabs would be a nice addition, as long as there is still a way to view all of them at once.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on December 02, 2015, 07:39:37 PM
So it seems like the spike in traffic this fall was short-lived and actually ended quite abruptly two weeks ago. If 84+CE development doesn't take off with upcoming tools like CSE dev did in fall 2013, then is it time to focus more on music and old school gaming in general?
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: DarkestEx on December 02, 2015, 07:59:34 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 02, 2015, 07:39:37 PM
So it seems like the spike in traffic this fall was short-lived and actually ended quite abruptly two weeks ago. If 84+CE development doesn't take off with upcoming tools like CSE dev did in fall 2013, then is it time to focus more on music and old school gaming in general?
Yes I think so too.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on December 02, 2015, 10:08:44 PM
The question is which platform? What would be cool is if old calc games were ported to PC and maybe consoles or smartphones.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Snektron on December 02, 2015, 10:17:53 PM
i wouldn't mind "General programming" either...
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on December 02, 2015, 10:24:04 PM
Being too broad would cause us to compete against 9000 similar forums, though. I think I like our retro gaming and vintage platform side. Same for music.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: 123outerme on December 02, 2015, 11:21:24 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 02, 2015, 10:24:04 PM
Being too broad would cause us to compete against 9000 similar forums, though. I think I like our retro gaming and vintage platform side. Same for music.
I agree. I think there was something to worry about but this is a niche area of the internet and sometimes, not a lot of people visit. There was the whole French government thing, but it's like that sometimes. I don't mean to sound like I have old wisdom or something because I joined this niche group waaaaaaaaaaay after DJ did, and so he should know better than me. But maybe it's just me and the calc community is pretty much always flowing.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on December 02, 2015, 11:40:26 PM
Well, the strange thing about the TI community is that it actually nearly died in 2008, with almost all forum discussion being off-topic and no release at all, then for some reasons activity skyrocketed like mad in 2010, even though by then smartphones had already been supposed to have their toll on calc programming. It's possible that there are other factors that influenced activity over the years or that when people see that the face of the community, which is ticalc.org, is late on news or inactive, then they think that the rest of the community is the same.

It was still always a niche group, though. Something I think, though, and someone mentioned it on TI-Planet a few times before, is that if our prominent members or staff participated more outside of their topics by commenting on other people's projects, then this would encourage people to finish them more, even if sometimes some of the comments don't necessarily have much content other than praise. Not only that, but it would make calc sites look more like a community.

It might also be worthwhile for us staff to check what are individual members hobbies outside calculators (I think we have a topic about that, right?) to see if we could expand towards those topics.
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: aetios on December 02, 2015, 11:46:40 PM
general interest gravitates toward general science with a slightly higher peak at the more nerdy subjects: Programming, gaming, SciFi, anime. I don't even need a graph to tell you that :P
Title: Re: Is the TI community over?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on December 03, 2015, 12:41:59 AM
Just as long as the site doesn't become 100% about Minecraft, then I'm fine. :P

EDIT: I also fear that CodeWalrus might have arrived a bit too late. Perhaps it should actually have opened one year earlier, or at the very least right after the Omni broken topic links controversy?