Today I am releasing the third of three key pieces of Cemetech software that have finally reached fruition this week after about two years of development. In order of release, the three programs are Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3, gCnClient 2.0, and Sandpaper 1.0. Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3 is final beta release of Doors CS 7.2, which brings new networking features to the popular calculator shell. gCnClient v2.0 is a stable, final version of the Windows/Linux/Mac OS software for connecting calculators to the internet. Sandpaper 1.0 is a completed FTP server/client for transferring files across a room or around the world.

This final article in the trifecta presents Sandpaper v1.0. Although I released Sandpaper v0.95 earlier this week, the previous version came out in November 2011. I began Sandpaper as a bit of a toy project to challenge myself while riding a bus up to Massachusetts and Maine to visit fellow Cemetech administrators Merthsoft and elfprince13, but it blossomed into a much larger project than I first anticipated. I entered it into the TI Concours 2011 contest and won second place in the ASM category, and continued working on it only very occasionally in the intervening two years. I'm very happy to finally have it completed and off my to-do list.

What is Sandpaper? Sandpaper v1.0 is an FTP client and server for TI graphing calculators, with two major purposes. The first is to let you transfer files between two (or more!) calculators, even if you're not close enough for a link cable. You can connect over CALCnet or globalCALCnet, connect to a remote calculator, browse the programs, groups, pictures, appvars, matrices, lists, GDBs, and strings, and send files to and from the remote calculator.
Its second purpose is to let you download (or potentially back up) files directly from and to the internet. A bridge for ticalc.org is complete, meaning you can browse the ticalc.org file archives directly on your calculator, view the contents of zip files and readmes, and then download calculator files directly from those zips onto your calculator.

Check out the video below for a demonstration of downloading files from ticalc.org using Sandpaper v1.0, and of course download the final version and give it a try. You'll need Doors CS 7.2 beta 3 to run it, and if you want to use Sandpaper with gCn, you'll also need gCnClient v2.0. Please let me know if you encounter any bugs, or if you have feedback or comments about Sandpaper.

Download:
Sandpaper v1.0

Over June 13th and 14th, I am releasing three key pieces of Cemetech software that have finally reached fruition after about two years of development. In order of release, the three programs are Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3, gCnClient 2.0, and Sandpaper 1.0. Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3 is final beta release of Doors CS 7.2, which brings new networking features to the popular calculator shell. gCnClient 2.0 is a final, stable version of the Windows/Linux/Mac OS software for connecting calculators to the internet. Sandpaper 1.0 is a completed FTP server and client for transferring files across a room or around the world.

This second article in the trifecta introduces the long-suffering version 2.0 of the globalCALCnet client (gCnClient), two and a third years after version 1.0. While Doors CS 7.2 beta 3 contains everything you need to network calculators together locally, you can't easily connect your calculator to the internet or to other calculators dozens or thousands of miles away. That's where globalCALCnet comes in. First, gCn allows you to connect CALCnet networks together, making calculators that are far apart think they are locally networked. Secondly, gCn lets non-calculator services like HTTP, IRC, and FTP be easily connected to CALCnet networks. This means that you can browse the internet with Gossamer, chat on IRC with CALCnet Chat!, or browse the ticalc.org archives with Sandpaper, all directly from your calculator.

To connect your calculator to gCn, you need a computer to mediate between gCn and CALCnet (although that may soon change). On that computer, you run the gCnClient software, which you can download below. gCnClient 2.0 lets you use a mini-USB cable with a single TI-84+/SE, or an Arduino or AVR as a bridge to a large network of TI-83+/SE and TI-84+/SE calculators. This version adds the mini-USB ("direct USB") support, as well as greatly improving the stability of the entire client.

If you want to connect your calculator to the internet, or to friends' calculators across the internet, grab the download below! Be sure to read the included readme for a quick guide to setting it up, or the comprehensive PDF for a full description of how gCn works. Don't hesitate to post up any bug reports or comments and questions you might have about globalCALCnet. Oh, and enjoy the video below of me explaining the high-level view of how gCn works.

Download:
globalCALCnet (gCn) Client v2.0

In the next two days, I will be releasing three pieces of software that have been the result of years of work. All three were last updated roughly two years ago, and two out of the three may be the final versions. In order of release, the three programs are Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3, gCnClient 2.0, and Sandpaper 1.0. Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3 is final beta release of Doors CS 7.2, which brings new networking features to the popular calculator shell. gCnClient 2.0 is a final, stable version of the Windows/Linux/Mac OS software for connecting calculators to the internet. Sandpaper 1.0 is a completed FTP server and client for transferring files across a room or around the world.

This article features Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3, the latest and greatest version of the venerable Doors CS shell for TI graphing calculators. The last Doors CS beta, version 7.2 beta 3 was released one day shy of two years, the same day that Gossamer, the widely-publicized web browser for TI graphing calculators. The next version will (hopefully) be the full Doors CS 7.2, which will probably be the last release for the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus line of non-color-screen graphing calculators. So what does Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3 bring? The three major changes:

• Across-the-board optimizations, bug fixes, and speed improvements
• Greatly-improved direct USB (miniUSB) globalCALCnet stability
• BASIC CALCnet, a set of libraries within the DCSB Libs to let TI-BASIC programmers use the CALCnet networking system in their own programs.

Special thanks go to Tim "Geekboy" Keller for his hard working writing the BASIC CALCnet libraries and helping to debug and repair other CALCnet/gCn features. If you want to try making multiplayer TI-BASIC games, if you want to use direct USB CALCnet, or if you simply want the latest and greatest in Doors CS versions, you should grab this update. I particularly encourage you to report back in the attached thread whether everything worked perfectly or if you encountered errors, as I can't release the final Doors CS 7.2 update until I feel sufficiently reassured that testing has shown this beta to be stable and reliable. Enjoy, and I look forward to your feedback.

Download:
Doors CS 7.2 Beta 3

In November 2011, I announced the release of Sandpaper v0.8, a CALCnet-powered FTP client and server for TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus graphing calculators. That version, first hacked together when I visited Maine for a Cemetech retreat with fellow administrators Elfprince13 and Merthsoft, could send and receive unarchived programs and could list directories in the ticalc.org archives. Other than a few hours spent fixing bugs in July 2012, the code lay dormant until three weeks ago, when an internet-deprived plane ride inspired me to finish Sandpaper off once and for all.

During my commutes to and from my summer internship these three weeks, I have fixed sending and receiving programs, pictures, groups, AppVars, strings, GDBs, matrices, and lists to and from RAM and Archive. Although the program weighs in at a hefty 7KB, it is extremely full-featured, using the Doors GUI API and CALCnet to offer a friendly and fast user interface. You can connect to a friend's calculator across the room or around the world, browse their Doors CS folders, and send programs directly between their calculator and yours. You can also use the globalCALCnet FTP bridge to directly download files from the ticalc.org archives onto your calculator. No longer do you need to install TILP or TI-Connect: simply connect your calculator to the 'FTPHub' gCn hub, open Sandpaper, and start browsing. You can even view readmes (and other .txt files) directly through Sandpaper.

So why is this v0.95, and not v1.0? In the past, Cemetechians have been invaluable in helping me track down all of even the most subtle corner-case bugs in programs like Doors CS. I call on your once again to lend your eyes and calculators to testing out Sandpaper. To make your life easier, the Sandpaper v0.95 download even includes a preview of the newest gCnClient and Doors CS 7.2 beta 2c, which bring a great deal of stability to Direct USB-based globalCALCnet. Please give Sandpaper a try and report any and all bugs in the attached thread.

Download:
Sandpaper v0.95

A video of Sandpaper in action from the v0.8 release (left) and Sandpaper connected to the ticalc.org archives (right)