Well... it seems that the new French exam restrictions coming in place in 2018 have led to LibreCalc demise D:
http://www.librecalc.com/
It was meant to be an open-source calculator dedicated to rival TI, Casio and HP, but they say that the new exam restrictions goes against their wishes of having an open calc, so they have stopped. The lack of interest from teachers was also a factor. I kinda wish that they had continued for at least US and other markets, but I guess in the case of USA since many schools force people to ditch their TI-84+ for a Nspire that would have been hard.
So yet another open source calc project bites the dust...
Well, that sucks. Stupid French regulations.
Their other projects looks quite nice, though.
Well, fack, I'm more and more angry at this poor choice they made. Welp, it could have been a fun calc to program on.
Their goal was to make a free calc you could take your exams with, but it's apparently not doable with the regulations.
Unless they put said exam mode and try to get an permission from the government, but hey, try winning to lottery instead, you'll have better chances to! :|
As much as I hate CollegeBoard, at least they don't have restrictions like this.
:( so sad this was starting to look promising.
Quote from: Juju on March 17, 2015, 07:06:58 PM
Their goal was to make a free calc you could take your exams with, but it's apparently not doable with the regulations.
Yeah. IMHO they should have changed direction a bit and added a LED. It wouldn't have been free anymore but it would have done the job for exams. But again, maybe they planned to allow people to do everything they want with it, which could explain their decision. Still a shame, though.
Also I hope those exam restrictions from France won't ever come to USA, Canada and everywhere else. On the other hand, if they do that, this could at least postpone the arrival of tablets and smartphones at exams, prolonging the life of the calculator community even further and allowing more time for TI/Casio/HP to innovate.
Wait, aren't these restrictions coming from US? I remember reading that the Push to Exam mode was largely used in US Universities thus making TI very used there. (And I remember reading about a patent owned by TI for the Exam Mode with said LED in the design)
It's used and we have restrictions, but AFAIK a LED is not required in every school.
These restrictions are stupid. But again, exams are stupid.
everything is stupid >:( <insert existential crisis>
Quote from: Streetwalrus on March 18, 2015, 10:17:54 PM
These restrictions are stupid. But again, exams are stupid.
It depends what exams. If someone only scores 20% in his native language's grammar and writing tests and he's planning to pursue a career into something where he needs to write letters, for example, then I think exams are justified. Imagine otherwise if you were waiting for a confirmation letter that you got accepted at university, but that latter was riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. >.<
As for calc restrictions, what sucks is that in France, now all calcs that lacks a LED will be banned, meaning calc companies need to spend money to change their calc design and implement exam modes and will most likely send the bill to customers via increased calculator prices. This also means that students will have to replace their calculator if the one they had lacks a LED and won't be able as much to buy an used model for cheaper.
What I mean is, exams aren't representative of any real life situation. Everything that's considered cheating is a tool that you will actually use later on. Forbidding the use of such tools does more harm than good imo because you don't get to learn how to use it and then struggle with it later. In the case of calcs, that's at the same time an anti-progress thing, since modern technology is part of everything now.
This problem is a reflect of our society : we should be able to think by ourselves without any tools, that's why they're forbidding anything else than a calc. The calc is only for solving complex operations (we aren't going to calculate arcsine anymore, that would be stupid and pretty hard) but we should be able to think of the reasonning without having some sort of crutch that could give it for you.
Yeah, what if theres a walriipocalypse, there wont be any modern tools then :P :3=
(http://i.imgur.com/bMuNMG2.gif)
Do you think this is the face of mercy? Walruses will take over the world. Prepare yourselves.
(http://i.imgur.com/bMuNMG2.gif) will probably be the evil villain :P
Oh yess I will.
Duke "Tape" Eiyeron, noble bringer of DOOOOOOOM
Rofl Eiyeron. Futurama is always awesome.
Futurama is the best, you can't deny it and you know it.
i agree :P
I know it and can't deny it. :P
Quote from: Duke "Tape" Eiyeron on March 19, 2015, 03:32:46 PM
This problem is a reflect of our society : we should be able to think by ourselves without any tools, that's why they're forbidding anything else than a calc. The calc is only for solving complex operations (we aren't going to calculate arcsine anymore, that would be stupid and pretty hard) but we should be able to think of the reasonning without having some sort of crutch that could give it for you.
Yeah, that's the issue. Some people are just too lazy to learn in school so they only rely on cheating in order to not fail any class. But instead of blocking everything calc companies should just block the exam mode much harder.
*cough* my sister <_<
Sad days will come when my teachers start to know about calc programing :(
Yeah, it'll be a bkeak era where you will be forbidden to approach any of these! :p
Jokes aside, I only used one or two things around the net, the rest was mine (Nspire takes some time to get his hands on actually)
The only program i didn't make on my calc is Axagon :P
I myself coded games during exams... well actually after, but I mean it was done inside the exam class. I of course finished my exam first but often we were not allowed to leave until 70% of the elapsed time so we could do whatever we want in the classroom. :P Good thing we didn't have exam mode back then (most people had the TI-80, 82 and 83+ and I had both a 83+ and 83+SE)
I wish that they'd let us use our calcs after the big tests but they make us put everything away. Often after the math tests that I have when other people take out their phones I take out my calculator. For some reason it really annoys my friends when I take out my calculator instead of my phone.
Yeah i do that often too. Though most of my friends im in the same class with also have a calculator addiction :P
Wow I wish that was the case here. The most anyone here cares about calculators are like having made 1 text based RPG and basic graphscreeen for loops. I tried to show one of my friends Axe but I think that he's not advanced enough to use it. I'm trying to help him out but I'm definitely the most advanced calc programmer that I know of.
TheCoder first introduced me to Axe (and omnimaga), about 3/4 year ago. Though i didn't really like Omnimaga since it was so full already. Meanwhile im several times better in Axe than him :3. (Also ive been coding for abouts 2 years now and he like 4 or 5 and im waaay better ;D)
Maybe we should have a topic like "how did you get into calc programming" or something :P
You should make it. I don't really like omnimaga either because sometimes it seems harsh. I remember in 8th grade I got in trouble for using the pen feature in class because everyone was so distracted. Then we started finding calculators with not so school appropriate drawings on them (middle schooler maturity levels are just so high).
But the pen feature is so bad :(
Yeah. I was the only one who used pt-change instead. If only I had gotten into programming sooner.
You could use my Draw app :P
Yeah, your draw app is amazing. I really think that it turned out well. If I had a USB calculator I would have downloaded it already.
Thanks :D
@Cumred does it mean you will leave CodeWalrus if it reaches 300 posts per day or 100000 total posts?? O.O
@CKH4 yeah that was an increasing issue IMHO, although not according to some other people. But it's due to changes in policies overall and partly why its userbase split into two sites.
And yeah the draw app is cool :D
No, because i've looked at all the 99700 post from before :P
Oh ok.I guess I am too used to having been here for 13.5 years. When I joined Cemetech they had 7000 posts O.O
Hmmm. Cemetech is from 2005 right? When I joined here I think that there were only like 1500.
It started in 2002 online or so but the first bulletin board had 9000 posts before moving to PhpBB and it opened in late 2004. CodeWalrus forums opened on November 11th 2014, but in invite-only mode. It opened to public on Jan 1st 2015.
I don't remember when I joined cemetech but I wish I had earlier. Everyone that I've seen there is really friendly like here.
And I joined cw on the second of January. There were only like 1600 posts when I joined.
The first thing i did jan 1st after i woke up was go on CW :P (i already had an account waiting for approval)
Although that is not related to Librecalc itself, it is still related to the new exam mode in France: A new ClassPad II, Casio PRIZM and 9750GII will come out with a LED for exam mode in the near future to comply to the new restrictions: http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=179517
Looks like it's a matter of life and death for big calc companies in France now :O
There's no such thing like an exam led in The Netherlands, is this some kind of France-only thing?
And what it is exactly? Something that blocks programs on calc or something?
Yeah, it's a mode which blocks yoi from using already stored programs/utilties/settings until you get access to a computer.
Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on March 23, 2015, 01:08:36 PM
There's no such thing like an exam led in The Netherlands, is this some kind of France-only thing?
And what it is exactly? Something that blocks programs on calc or something?
It's used in USA as well and I bet some other countries use it too. Eg Singapore. But basically it either blocks all apps and programs, parts of them or erase the entire calc while blocking stuff. In TI's case, getting out of exam mode usually requires sending some variable from another calc or computer.
ALso sorry I meant DEL as in the lights. I keep confusing the French and English acronyms. >.< The 84+ lacked one but it had an exam mode.
Does it still have? i mean i don't really see anything of such on my calc
If you mean the light, it was only added starting on the Nspire series. Other calcs only saw it appear in 2015, although the HP Prime got one in 2013.
i mean the exam mode :P
Oh ok. There is a key combo required to trigger it. I forgot what it was, but make sure to not accidentally enable it, since you could lose stuff.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 24, 2015, 08:51:37 AM
It's used in USA as well
I'm in the USA and I've never had to use exam mode. It's not required for AP exams and SAT, at least.
I think it depends of schools. Some school administrations are just cheads when it comes to calculator. The worst are the schools that forces every student to get a TI-Nspire and upgrade it to the latest OS and disallow any other model including the TI-84+ series. I think this happens in Europe as well but it's much less common.