Ndless v3.1 beta Released
Posted by Ryan on 23 January 2012, 19:59 GMT

A lot of us in calc community have been waiting with baited breath for months now as Ndless v3.1 beta has loomed around the corner. After much speculation about the release date, a huge (largely) synchronized release was planned for this, and our archives are now in possessorship of this outstanding release. The official statement that we received from Oliver "ExtendeD" Armand is quoted below, with a link added:

• v3.1 of Ndless now allows to develop and run third-party C and assembly programs on the protected TI-Nspire OS v3.1. This is the first version of Ndless compatible with the TI-Nspire CX and its bright and clear color display
• The TI-Nspire emulator nspire_emu is now compatible with the CX
• PolyDumper is a universal dumper for the TI-Nspire, required for CX emulation by nspire_emu
• nRGBlib is a color graphics library that eases development of GUIs
• The NESpire and gbc4nspire emulators have been updated with color display on the CX
• The overclocker Nover is now compatible with the CX and can overclock it to nearly 220MHz
• nDOOM, the port of the original Open Source Doom by Id Software has been enhanced and made compatible with the CX. It now brings a impressive gaming experience to the calculator world.

Oh, Armand, you never cease to amaze us!

An ASMDREAM Come True
Posted by Ryan on 4 January 2012, 20:08 GMT

There are an awfully large number of us who spend such a great amount of time using our calcs that it becomes more natural to program on-calc than anywhere else. For those of us with this affliction, this bit of news is all the more exciting. This week, Benjamin "the_mad_joob" Mahdjouba has realized an early but functional version of my childhood dream, an on-calc assembler for the TI-8X+ series, appropriately named ASMDREAM. Furthermore, it appears to be Benjamin's first ticalc.org release!

ASMDREAM is incredibly feature-rich, especially for an early build of the software, and will leave programmers swooning at the mere whisper of the name "mad joob". The assembler is capable of reading source in both RAM and archive, handle macros, errors, and nesting, and, well, just take a look for yourself! The author has also included very nice documentation on the usage and syntax adoptions, as well as the limitations, that programmers should keep in mind, making this a very strong release indeed. A big tip of the hat goes to everyone involved in this project.

Periodic Table Evolution
Posted by Ryan on 2 January 2012, 18:49 GMT

What better way to ring in the new year than to celebrate the grand stream of software releases that have graced the imperial archives of ticalc.org? We would like to start off by going outside of the usual area of interest and bringing to your attention Multi(language)Periodic. This delicious bit of scientific holiday delight is brought to you by none other than Nick Steen, an author who is steadily building an impressive Lua portfolia.

One look at the software page will tell you all that you need to know about the release. While it may seem intuitive that the addition of color is a logical "next step" in the slew of periodic tables that have graced our calcs over the years, the sheer amount of information included with each element really goes above and beyond what would be an "adequate" or even a "really good" periodic table application. The icing on the cake? An animated, 3D illustration of the crystal structure is included with the elements. Great work, Nick!

2011 POTY Results
Posted by Travis on 30 December 2011, 02:31 GMT

The results for 2011's Program of the Year are now available! This was an exciting contest. Congratulations to all POTY winners and featured program authors. You're all winners in my book.