Published by Alex on September 5, 2017 at 9:44:59 PM CST | Discuss this article (1)

By far the most popular graphing calculator this year on Cemetech was the TI-84 Plus CE. To celebrate this, we've compiled a list of the popular games. School just started and you have a few weeks to get settled in to your classes. For those of you that started this last week, may the odds be forever in your favor. When you're passing time between classes, or riding to and from school, we know that you probably have explored games on your calculator. To help you, here is a list of 7 popular games for the TI-84+CE calculator that were released - not updated - this year. I've excluded the entries from the contests we've held, since those may have seen inflated numbers from the publicity. They are still wonderful programs, so check out the topics for the three contests we have wrapped up this year: Contest 18, Contest 19, and the recently finished Contest 20. We are looking forward to more contests this year and in the coming years, spanning calculators and computers, so enjoy these games and hopefully you'll be inspired to start making your own and consequently motivated to participate in future contests! Without further ado, here's our lists and check out the full forum topic to read more about them!

Here's a straight list of the Top 7.

1. Oiram
2. Geometry Dash
3. Color Switch CE
4. Donkey Kong CE
5. Boxman CE

Honorable Mentions

1. SnakeCE
2. Sqrxz CE

There are dozens of other programs that were released this year and there will be more by the end of the year. So keep checking the archives! Graphing calculators is a wonderful way to be introduced into programming, it's always on you and is capable of running programs written on the calculator itself, written in a variant of the BASIC language. You can then go further and branch into ASM or C which will get you ready for programming on computers or mobile devices such as Android or iOS. We've got a wonderful community that will help you with questions about programming your own games or programs on a bunch of platforms. Hopefully we'll see you programs on the next list we do! Now, that you've seen the top 7 programs from this year here are the top 10 programs that were released since the TI-84 Plus CE was released.

1. Pac-Man
2. FlappyBird
3. Tetric A (Tetris)
4. 2048
5. Portal Returns CE
6. Calcuzap 1042
7. CMonster 1202
8. Spaze Invaders
9. Ultimate Pong
10. ADVENTUR - A Game About Choice

- -

Calcuzapp 2042 | Oiram | Sqrxz CE

Continue Reading

Permalink

Published by KermMartian on September 3, 2017 at 7:31:33 PM CST | Discuss this article (16)

Nine months ago in December of 2016, long-time Cemetechian Peter "PT_" Tillema was promoted to Global Moderator. PT_ had long been a particularly enthusiastic Cemetech member, both in his projects and in his work to promote and manage the community. He was already a moderator of three subfora, and had shown the leadership potential beyond his technical prowess for which we look in our moderation team. Since then, PT_ has continued his hard work, writing news articles, creating the ICE language, working on PHP and HTML backend work for Cemetech, and actively participating in behind-the-scenes work to keep Cemetech active and lively. The administration team has unanimously decided to promote PT_ to the rank of full Administrator. PT_ is also the first of our administrators to be based in Europe; we anticipate this will help ensure that Cemetech stays as relevant as possible to our European members and visitors. We look forward to continuing to work with PT_, and if you have any questions, concerns, bug reports, or ideas for Cemetech, don't hesitate to give him a shout!



Permalink

Published by jonbush on August 20, 2017 at 5:08:20 PM CST | Discuss this article (8)

Now that Cemetech Contest 20: Transit Time has ended, it is time to announce the prize winners.



As you may know, the contest was divided into three parts: land, water, and air (or space). Contestants were challenged to create programs related to transport on or through these media. Overall, this six-week challenge resulted in the making of twenty new programs, most of which are available for download in the Cemetech Archives. I would like to give special congratulations to dankcalculatorbro, Iambian, _iPhoenix_, and OldNewTimer, all of whom created a program for each of the three categories.

At the conclusion of each two-week contest segment, Cemetech members were asked to select their favorite entry for that category. The results of these polls decided the winner for each category:

• Land: commandblockguy, with Taxi Simulator
  
• Water: Iambian, with 20,000 Loon Under the Sea
  
• Air: OldNewTimer, with The Plain Plane Game
  

Each of these contestants will receive a $10 Steam credit (or equivalent).

---

After painstakingly reviewing the entries submitted, the grand prize winner has also been selected. I am pleased to announce that the overall quality and entertaining gameplay presented by Iambian's loony games has earned him top honors in this contest. Along with Land Loons and 20,000 Loons Under the Sea, I have greatly enjoyed playing Loonar Lander, where the operator attempts to carefully land on the moon without malfunctioning.



In the way of prizes, Iambian will be receiving a commemorative CC20 plaque, and an additional $20 Steam gift card (for a total of $30).

---

In addition to the programs listed above, other notable entries include:

• Escape The Buoy! by OldNewTimer
• Calculator Controlled Boat using ArTICL by deuteriumoxide
• Electric Circuit by PT_
• Plane Mania! by _iPhoenix_

I sincerely hope that everyone who participated in the contest had a good time and an educational experience, and I look forward to administering more Cemetech contests in the future.

Permalink

Published by KermMartian on August 15, 2017 at 11:25:14 PM CST | Discuss this article (7)

Back in 2011, Casio released the Casio Prizm calculator, a revolutionary device that added a bright full-color screen to the classic graphing calculator. It offered 384x216 pixels of space for numeric math, graphing, and user-made programs, powered by a 58MHz processor that could be clocked up to nearly 100MHz. Here at Cemetech, we embraced the calculator, building up lots of documentation and creating plenty of programs. We even wrote a forceful editorial promoting the Casio Prizm over the subsequently announced color-screen TI-Nspire CX, citing the latter's lack of programmability (which was subsequently ameliorated). The Casio Prizm's popularity eventually waned in favor of the admittedly weaker and slower TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition and TI-84 Plus CE, the latter being by far the calculator with the most active set of projects these days.

This March, we announced that Casio was following up the trusty Casio fx-CG10 / fx-CG20 Prizm with a new fx-CG50 calculator. Casio was kind enough to send along a review model of this calculator, so we had the opportunity to go hands-on with it. I outlined my initial impressions in a hands-on review video, while Cemetech administrator Daniel "tifreak8x" Thorneycroft explored the speed of user-made BASIC programs on the new calculator. We found that the calculator represented a significant improvement on the physical design of the older calculator, with a brighter, crisper screen and a zippier experience. On the other hand, the interface remains somewhat unintuitive, and the calculator continues to rely on now-outdated AAA batteries. Among our most important takeaways:

• Pro: More modern, squarer case design, with attractive white and pseudo-carbon-fiber plastics separated by a thin aqua line, and a more comfortable keyboard, with a few chromed keys as accents.
  
• Pro: Iterated color screen, brighter, crisper, and with truer colors (but the same resolution as the fx-CG10/20)
  
• Pro: Significantly faster interface, especially for running Casio BASIC programs, as shown in tifreak8x's video below.
  
• Pro: New built-in (limited) 3D graphing application
  
• Pro: Unrestricted BASIC, C, and SH ASM programming features (the latter two only unofficially supported)
  
• Con: Same arguably unintuitive OS interface as the older calculator
  
• Con: Necessarily thicker than the TI-Nspire CX and TI-84 Plus CE due to continued use of AAA batteries for power.

The vast majority of our criticisms about the new calculator could be solved by updating the operating system, but we also believe that avid Casio calculator users will find the interface much more intuitive than those of us trained on TI graphing calculators. We just wish there was more official documentation on the Casio BASIC programming language! Are you considering getting a Casio Prizm fx-CG50 for the upcoming school year? For that matter, have you taken a look at our Back to School Graphing Calculator Guide yet? We're more than happy to field questions or comments on Casio's newest calculator in the comments, and be sure to check out our video reviews below.



Permalink