Published by naga_s 2 days, 11 hours ago on May 11, 2026, 12:11 a.m. | Discuss this article

We're starting off this year with the next contest for Cemetech, and this year we've got good things under our sleeves. You may have heard it being teased a bit, so let's dive into the details! This contest has been masterminded by naga_s/naga_serpentis.

The Tools
For this contest, you will be making a game using "Hybrid BASIC" using TI-BASIC and your preferred library, such as Celtic III, xLib, DoorsCS[E], Celtic CE, etc. With that being said, you will be using any of the following calculators for your entries:

• TI-83/84 Plus/Silver Edition
• TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition
• Any variant of the TI-84 Plus CE/T, TI-83 Premium CE
• Any variant of the TI-84 Plus CE Python/T/Edition Python

Of course, the TI-84 Evo has no Hybrid BASIC libraries yet. In this contest, you will NOT be using any sort of assembly, C, Axe, Ion, ez80 Assembly as the backbone for your entry. The only exception is to provide QoL ("Quality of Life") improvements for your program such as turning off the run indicator.

The Theme
You will be making some sort of a dungeon crawler. If you remember my Base 3 CE game I made a while ago, you'll be making a similar game in your own way. For your entry in the contest, your game must include at least two things:

1. A basic storyline: It doesn't have to be super complex or full of lore. A simple story goes a long way for your title.
2. An HP (Health Points) system: The player and all enemies must have HP. One-hit kills don't count!

Of course, your game shouldn't be limited to these: add other things to make it more fun such as power-ups, levels or rooms, achievements, and more! Whatever you believe will make your game look better, have at it!

Judgement and Scoring
For this contest, your program will be judged on various categories. The highest score you can earn will be 100, and it will be influenced for each category. However, there are some conditions that might push your score above 100.

• Optimization (30pts): Optimization of your code is vital for your game to be snappy and fast for the player.
• Gameplay (20pts): The play-through is also important, you want your game to be fun and exciting to the player. Having an attention-grabbing game encourages more people to play and actually finish the game.
• Graphics (10pts): Your game needs to be stunning to look at! Black text on white background are caveman times; we have the tools to make games look good! Use it! 🙂
• Originality (10pts): Your game should be unique! You can use ideas and inspiration from other games and creators, but don't copycat. You will lose 10 points for a direct copy from someone else!
• Technical skill (20pts): Your usage of Basic and Celtic CE is also vital to being successful in your entry. Pushing them to their limits to deliver something many will enjoy will get you through the long run. This category will also depend on any bugs and/or errors in the program. It is important for your program to have all its bugs squashed to deliver an excellent experience.
• Other Attributes (10pts): The judges will judge your entry to look for clever, unexpected, or otherwise skillful additions. More points are earned if your entry really tickles the judges' fancy!

Extra Credit: That's right, there's extra points that will be given if you go the extra mile and add more to your entry if you feel adventurous enough. Here's a list of what those can be:

• Achievement systems
• Game save-data system (bonus points for anti-tampering)
• Sprite usage over tokens
• And possibly more...

The judges for this contest will be:

• Naga Serpentis (naga_s)
• RoccoLox Programs (roccoloxprograms)
• iPhoenix (i.phoenix)
• KermPhD (kermmartian)
• KaiTheMouse (N/A)

Contest schedule
This contest will have an organized schedule to keep things fair, with these dates:

• May 10th, 2026: Contest announcement, contest begins
• June 4th, 2026: One week before the contest ends
• June 11th, 2026: Contest ends
• June 25th, 2026: Winners Revealed

Users will have one month after the starting day to complete their entry to win.

Prizes and Winners
For this contest, there will only be three winners this contest, and ties will not be permitted.
If you are a winner of CC27, here are the prizes that will be given!

• TI-84 Evo (Lavendar): First Place winner
• TI-84 Plus CE Python (Totally Teal, downgraded): Second Place winner
• TI-84 Evo Emulator License Key (4 years): Third Place winner

The calculators will include an extra battery. The prizes will also include a special hand-written note and sticker! To prize winners both in the United States and internationally, shipping up to $20 is included with your prize, and basic insurance coverage will be added. Your package will be delivered via USPS. Any shipping costs above $20 will be covered by our wonderful friend KermPhD. US "no export" countries are excluded. The unit(s) are "as-is" and are in working condition prior to this contest.

Final information and contact
Good luck everyone! I expect the competition to be intense especially for the prizes! If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or anything else, please hit up naga_s by commenting on the thread to this announcement or by reaching out to the contest judging team. If you have other questions or concerns, please reach out to the administrators of Cemetech and its respective Discord and they will assist you whenever they are available.

Thank you!

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Published by KermMartian 2 weeks ago on April 28, 2026, 5:59 p.m. | Discuss this article

As previously spotted by Cemetech members, a few months ago TI leaked information about a new graphing calculator, the TI-84 Evo. Today, that calculator has officially been released. In a form factor strongly resembling the TI-84 Plus CE, it appears to represent a significant step forward for this much-loved line of graphing calculators.

The headline features that the Amazon listing touts include:

• 50% larger graphing area - The graph has been expanded to be full-screen, instead of a smaller window within the 320x240-pixel LCD.
• Computer version included - Unlike previous calculators, an emulator is included. There's also a web-based file transfer application, similar to WebTILP and the TI-Nspire transfer webapp.
• USB-C included - as we had previously discovered, the now-obsolete mini-USB socket has been replaced with a universal USB-C socket for data transfer and charging.
• Upgradeable - Like every Flash-based graphing calculator since the TI-83 Plus, it supports upgrading the OS with new features (and patches for programming jailbreaks)
• Rechargeable - Without the calculator in-hand, we haven't yet confirmed if it uses the same rechargeable battery as the TI-84 Plus CE.
• 3x Processing Power - Matching one of the speculated options, the calculator appears to use an ARM Cortex CPU, finally retiring the z80 and ez80 family of CPUs that were used in three decades of TI-83 and TI-84 Plus graphing calculators. It's running at 156MHz, compared to the 48MHz of the older calculators. It appears likely that in an unexpected break from over 30 years of TI's operating system codebase, the OS has been re-implemented with new features natively on the ARM CPU rather than using an ez80 emulator to run an updated form of the TI-84 Plus CE operating system.

New screenshots found on Amazon, on TI's own website, and in a lightweight user guide on TI's website show that the interface has been substantially changed: menus use the "small font" instead of the classic larger font and have more explanatory text, the graphing menu has been redesigned, more help text appears in the status area at the top, and of course, the homescreen is now an icon-based menu of "applications". As soon as we get our hands on one of these calculators, we'll bring you a more complete comparison of the tools and capabilities of the TI-84 Evo versus the TI-84 Plus CE.

TI boasts that (unlike smartphones, Chromebooks, or tablets), the Evo offers "No online drift. No off-task detours," one of the main advantages that purpose-built graphing calculators still have versus smartphone or tablet-based calculators. We've confirmed that the Evo does have both Python and TI-BASIC programmability, like the TI-84 Plus CE Python Edition before it, and there are signs that some third-party apps may be supported. However, we are confident that no user C programmability or assembly programmability is included, the lack of colorful games from which may be part of this goal of being distraction-free. The TI-84 Plus CE's history was marked by third-party jailbreaks after C and assembly (ASM) programmability was removed from the TI-84 Plus CE in 2020. It remains to be seen whether any similar jailbreaks will be attempted or released for the TI-84 Plus CE to provide deeper programmability.

We'll share a hands-on look at the TI-84 Evo, and compare it to the TI-84 Plus CE and other calculators, as soon as we actually get our hands on a model. In the meantime, you can learn more from the following links, and be sure to add your discoveries and opinions in the attached topic.

More Information

• Buy the TI-84 Evo (Amazon, affiliate link)
• TI-84 Evo Introduction (TI Education)
• TI-84 Evo Guide (TI Education)
• Buy the TI-84 Evo (Walmart)

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Published by TIny_Hacker 2 weeks, 5 days ago on April 23, 2026, 7:08 p.m. | Discuss this article

February saw Cemetech’s members working on a wide variety of projects, featured in this (better late than never) edition of Projects of the Month. If you missed a project at the time, now’s a great chance to check it out and learn what people have been working on recently.

• 1980s era Rogue port: dsteffen finished saving and restoring game files for their Rogue game, along with tweaking the keyboard repeat speed after receiving some feedback. While dsteffen plans on adding a high score system in the future, they believe the game to be in a pretty playable state and have published a release.
• 8xk Disassembler: ti_kid announced a beta of their 8xk disassembler which locates where app execution starts. Later in the month, they made use of copilot to rewrite the tool in python, along with uploading a release to the Cemetech archives.
• AlarmDuino, the arduino alarm clock.: claculator created an alarm clock using an Arduino Uno paired with a breadboard and LCD1602. The clock supports 24 hour time, a customizable alarm, and a configurable light-triggered shutoff. They've shared the code for the clock for those who are interested in building the project themselves.
  
• All languages for the TI 84 + CE: calcgeek added a number of words to their TI-BASIC Hebrew translator program this month, as well as fixing some typos.
• Astro-Calc: After almost a year, linkjt9 has returned to their multiplayer space fighter game. This month, they fixed a shooting bug, added two new maps, four skins, and are working on some new power-ups. Now that the project is in development again, check out the thread to stay updated and show the linkjt9 your support!
• Banchor: Legend of the Hellspawn (Unofficial) Soundtrack: Inspired by JamesV's popular calculator RPG, FieryFork has created some music to accompany the game. Check out the forum thread for a link to give the tracks a listen!
• Befunge Interpreter for the Ti83+ line of calculators: Jeff calc 84 released their Befunge interpreter this month, along with a converter script and a number of different example programs to run! If you're a fan of esolangs (esoteric programming languages), go check it out.
  
• BrainF: BrainF**k Interpreter for TI84+: Esolang fans ate well this month, with Znak_Pares releasing their BrainF*** interpreter, written in TI-BASIC. Znak_Pares invites your feedback in the forum thread.
• CAMLbot CE: Conversation And Machine Learning bot: ThatOneGuy created an ELIZA-inspired chatbot for the TI-84 Plus CE with TI-BASIC. The program supports custom scripts as well.
• CE Font-Via-Localization Hook: Iambian added a utility to their Font hook program, allowing TI-BASIC programs to read and write the same font files that the project uses.
• Chatbot program for ti 84 plus: Liam P used TI-BASIC to create a simple chatbot program that can respond to various greetings. They invite those who are experienced with chatbot programs to help out with increasing the word database.
• Crates 3D (TI-84 Plus CE): JamesV started work on porting Crates 3D, a classic TI-84 Plus puzzle game by Badja, to the TI-84 Plus CE. They’ve been working on giving the graphics an upgrade to take full advantage of the CE’s improved display, making use of both sharper sprites and different crate colors and textures.
  
• Duck Life Live Duck Renderer for the TI-84+ CE: As a part of a future Duck Life port, slimefolf made a demo program which renders the game's duck character using simple shapes from the graphx library. They've also published the source code for anyone interested in using the code or taking a look at the rendering system behind the scenes.
  
• Emulator without a name.: ti_kid started work on a TI-83/84 Plus emulator this month. They plan on making an initial version for PC and then eventually porting it to the TI-84 Plus CE. After an unfortunate loss of data, they restarted the project later in the month, this time making use of the CE's Z80 mode.
  
• KodyKode OS Evo Pre-View Build 0001!!!:: Genesis_Team released a new version of their hybrid BASIC shell for the TI-84 Plus CE, which they hope will also be compatible with the upcoming TI-84 Evo.
  
• libtexce, A LaTeX Rendering Engine for the TI-84 Plus CE: sightem has written a LaTeX rendering library for the CE C toolchain. The library supports 149 LaTeX commands, full subscript and superscript nesting, auto-sizing brackets, and more. If you're interested in making use of the library, sightem has provided detailed documentation in the forum topic.
  
• lwIP Library with CDC-Ethernet for the TI-84+ CE: Using an x25519 algorithm written by PT_, ACagliano is now in a good spot to finish implementing the TLS 1.3 client-side. They also reworked the ASN.1 parser system and split the keyobject module into pksc8 and x509 modules.
  
• matrix, Step by Step Linear Algebra for the TI-84 Plus CE: Using their LaTeX engine, sightem created a linear algebra program for the TI-84 Plus CE which can perform a number of different operations while showing the answer step by step so you can follow along.
  
• password protected game/chat/game launcher program: Liam P started work on a multi-use TI-BASIC game launcher, that includes a few different games to play against the calculator and requires a password to access. In the future, they plan on adding more games along with a "facts" feature.
  
• Shards of Grandeur PC RPG: 123outerme released a new version of their RPG this month, which adds a side area called the Grandstone Quarry, featuring new equipment, a sidequest, new creatures, and new music! They also added steps to a few other in-progress sidequests. You can check out the game for yourself on GitHub.
  
• Solitaire CElection for TI-84 Plus CE: Geometric Parrot released a solitaire game for the TI-84 Plus CE with some spiffy animations. In the future, they plan on implementing more solitaire games beyond Klondike, game saving, and potentially an animated background.
  
• Sonic 2 CE: A port of 8-bit Sonic 2 for the TI-84+ CE: grubbycoder fixed a few bugs in their impressive Sonic 2 port, including a crash when opening the program outside of a shell. They also implemented priority tiles, which are background tiles that the Master System VDP draws over sprites allowing Sonic (or other sprites) to appear behind the background.
  
• SornaOS CE: Jurassic Park fanfic meets Cemetech: jacober published a program which takes place in the Jurassic Park universe, with the intention of it being a springboard for a Jurassic Park fanfiction or ARG. If you’re a fan of the franchise, be sure to check it out!
  
• Subway surfers on ti 84 plus ce[*And also how to program in C*]: calcgeek started work on a Subway Surfers clone for the TI-84 Plus CE, serving as a way for them to become more acquainted with the C programming language in the process. While an ambitious project, they’ve already made some solid progress on menus and a title screen during February.
• TI84+ CE Notes App Generator, formatted math and text: In another project demoing their LaTeX rendering engine, sightem created a simple notes app generator which can be used to create nicely formatted notes that can be downloaded and viewed on your calculator. The project can be built with GitHub Actions and requires no local setup, making creating your own notes quite convenient.
  
• Tiny Jumper 2: After much anticipation, RoccoLox Programs released Tiny Jumper 2, a speedrunning platformer game which serves as a sequel to their popular Tiny Jumper. This sequel adds new levels, obstacles, and easter eggs for you to discover!
  
• Train Simulator Controller: KermMartian posted two videos focused on their train simulator controller this month. The first video explains the process of integrating a real GSM-R DCP into the controller, and the second video shows the controller in action piloting Train Sim World 6’s new Class 805 "Evero" simulator.
• Tyrian CE: conf began work on a port of the DOS scrolling shooter Tyrian for the TI-84 Plus CE. They’ve shared a demo in the project’s forum thread which features a scrolling background.
• WebTILP: a web version of TILP - now available in v1 (beta): Adriweb added a number of new features to their tilibs-powered calculator transfer webapp this month. The most notable of these include support for CE bundle files, handling for calculators with missing or invalid certificates, a “Leave Exam Mode” button similar to TI’s student software, and internationalization supporting 13 different languages.
• Zero ZGC4 Emulation in QEMU: RoccoLox Programs and TIny_Hacker worked on adding a ZGC4 machine to QEMU in order to emulate the calculator’s firmware. Along the way, they also documented some of the calculator’s hardware for those curious about the inner workings of the new calculator.
  

This month featured an impressive number of projects from both newcomers and old-timers alike. As always, don’t forget to vote for your favorite completed project in the poll!

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Published by KermMartian 1 month, 3 weeks ago on March 22, 2026, 9:33 a.m. | Discuss this article

The results from the Projects of the Year 2025 poll are in! Like last year, there were some strong contenders and a tie for third place. Increasingly veteran community members RoccoLox Programs and TIny_Hacker made their indelible mark on this year's Projects of the Year winners' podium, and we had a good mix of TI-84 Plus-family winners with winners a bit further off our normal beaten track. Without further ado, our winners for 2025:

In third place, we have a tie between a popular calculator-adjacent project and an HP Prime project. A Calculator Flamethrower by TheLastMillennial is our third-place winner from February 2025. TheLastMillennial’s Calculator Flamethrower is, in fact, a real flamethrower: TheLastMillennial built a flamethrower inside the casing of an old Nerf toy, then made it calculator-themed by adding a TI-84 Plus CE that displays the barrel temperature using a Vernier probe.

Also in third place is DYNATRIS - a Tetris clone for the HP Prime by komame. This detailed version of Tetris for the HP Prime graphing calculator takes full advantage of the graphical capabilities of the calculator, achieving over 50FPS for its silky-smooth piece movement (unlike the grid-based movement of most Tetris games, all the Tetris features you expect in a clear interface, and a good-looking main menu to boot.

From here on out, both winners are RoccoLox Programs + TIny_Hacker collaborations, with a cameo by Merthsoft. In second place, we have a new C library for the TI-84 Plus CE: 16-bpp Graphics Library for the CE C Toolchain by this dynamic duo. In May, they released gfx16, a column-major 16 bpp C graphics library for the TI-84 Plus CE. Gfx16 offers several benefits over the row-major graphx library provided by the toolchain, most notably that its column-major rendering avoids screen tearing, plus support for a much wider range of simultaneous colors (256 times as many!).

And our first place winner for the Project of the Year for 2025: ScreenSaver CE: APD powered screensaver animations, by merthsoft, RoccoLox Programs, and TIny_Hacker. ScreenSaver CE is a collection of screensavers for the TI-84 Plus CE, with 16 different screensavers/animations to choose from. Unlike older “screensaver” type programs though, this one uses a hook that replaces the Auto Power Down function on the CE with your screensaver of choice, giving you the true screensaver experience! The screensavers in the pack include some classics, like Flying Toasters, Pipes, and Matrix, some new ones, including Random Walk and Clock, and the soon-to-be-classic Merth Head.

Congratulations to our four winning projects, and especially superb work to all 15 of our Projects of the Month winners in 2025 and to everyone who published a project this year. We look forward to an even more competitive field in 2026!

As a reminder, ballot stuffing (creating fake accounts or asking friends to create accounts for the purposes of voting for your own projects) has been against the spirit of the rules, and is disregarded when toting up PotY votes. Going forward, we are adding an explicit rule regarding ballot stuffing.

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