cool article on the atlantic about programming on TI calculators

General
1

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/go-ahead-mess-with-texas-instruments/278899/

found the link off of slashdot but it’s kind of the reason that i am trying to learn programming in codea… having a small, focused and limited environment is hugely desirable for me in this world of multi-threaded 50ghz machines with 20 terabytes of ram etc etc etc…

interestingly, they do get it wrong that ipad doesn’t have a programming environment (namely, codea!) but it’s true that such an environment doesn’t come native to the ipad and with an ipad, you do have a LOOOoooooooooot of distractions… especially for kids.

imo, if codea was hardcoded into a machine designed specifically for it - that would be a great tool for kids. like a “lua pad”. all shell commands are executed from an interactive interpreter. 800 x 600 screen. not very powerful at all and in fact, just powerful enough so that codea comprises everything that the device can do. something limited enough so that kids can hit the limits. that would be great.

anyway, thought peeps here might find the article of interest.

2

Nice article. But it’s 2013 and he didn’t know there are MANY programming apps for iPad/iPod.

3

Sites devoted to calculators are an inexhaustible source of ideas.

I think especially in hpcalc.org, ticalc.org, tiplanet, casio…

Like codea it’s programming in lua :

  • TiNspire CX CAS last version integrates lua
  • Future HP-Prime (for September) use Fast BASIC like HP39GII ( unfortunately not RPL/LISP )
  • Casio Classpad 400
  • Basic4PPC for WinPhone ( Lua with integrated GUI )
  • PSP Homebrew ( LuaPlayer )
  • OPL on PSION 5MX, REVO ( With Dialog UI )
  • HP-ASM for HP48S(X)G(X) and RPL-SYSTEM is awesome programming language using list of objects like lisp or lambda-calcul

I wish programming babal ( a simple game in 3D playable on hp or ti …)
but it requires shaders for light and shadows. For the moment i finish
a bombermaze.

you can view babal at :
http://www.gametion.com/download-games/sky-roads-games/babal-3d-games-free-download.htm

4

I still have my TI-SR56 programmable calculator that I got in 1975. It has a whopping 100 steps for programming and I wrote a lot of programs in those 100 steps or less. I just recently picked up 2 TI-59 programmable calculators. Those have 960 program steps which can be saved on a magnetic strip. One TI-59 is in perfect condition, but the mag strip reader on the 2nd one doesn’t work right. I might be able to fix it, but it doesn’t matter right now. My latest is a TI-89 Titanium with a lot more memory than my 1st PC had, even after I upgraded it to it’s max memory size.