TI-Nspire Hack Enables User Programming

An anonymous reader writes "Texas Instruments' most recent, ARM-based series of graphing calculators, the TI-Nspire line, has long resisted users' efforts to run their own software. (Unlike other TI calculator models, which can be programmed either in BASIC, C, or assembly language, the Nspire only supports an extremely limited form of BASIC.) A bug in the Nspire's OS was recently discovered, however, which can be exploited to execute arbitrary machine code. Now the first version of a tool called Ndless has been released, enabling users, for the first time, to write and run their own C and assembly programs on the device. This opens up exciting new possibilities for these devices, which are extremely powerful compared to TI's other calculator offerings, but (thanks to the built-in software's limitations) have hitherto been largely ignored by the calculator programming community."

Comments

Re:What's the point?

[Sir_Lewk]

It's the fact that it is such a limited piece of hardware that makes it interesting. These people are hackers in the most flattering sense of the term, they take resources that they have and make something more. They get their kicks by seeing what different things they can make calculators do that they were never supposed to, and by besting TI in all things calculators. If you can't see the value or fun in any of that, then quite simply you just lack a proper hacker mindset and I feel sorry for you.