What is the hardware for the new NSPIRE TI Calc - can you still use the same development tools (ASM, TI-Basic, C) as for the TI-*$ line?
Thank you.

The Nspire has an ARM9 processor and a 320x240 16 grayscale screen (of terrible quality, it's very slow and leaves blurry tails behind objects). IOW, it's different from all other previous TI calculator models.

The Nspire was released in 2006, so it's not exactly new. It was first released without any TI-BASIC programming abilities (!!!) - and even nowadays, the BASIC is still sub-par compared to the one on TI-68k calculators (no getKey() function, no pixel-level screen drawing, etc.).

What's fairly new, though (end of February 2010) is the community cracking open this closed platform and enabling limited C/ASM programming on the oldest OS version, 1.1.
Many good C/ASM toolchains target ARM processors, e.g. YAGARTO.

In conclusion, it sucks

It sucks a lot less now, though. At least we can run unsigned code on it. And it is much faster and has far more RAM than any other calculator to date.

Yeaaah, ndless requires OS 1.1 which has many problems


1. LCD bug

2. No BASIC programming

3. Unstable

etc...

True, but for the novice coder used to TI-BASIC coding on the TI-8x line, the Nspire would be a huge disappointment until the community's software and tools are much further along.

Well, if I knew nspire asm, or nspire C, I would first make an omnicalc for the nspire, adding many needed commands

input
getcalc
getkey
etc


EDIT: It does have alot of memory

Well, we currently know just about nothing about interfacing with the OS, such as adding the equivalent of hooks, and I'm not even sure that such a mechanism exists. Does anyone know?

As of now, nothing resembling hooks is known to exist on the Nspire.
The Nspire's BASIC environment is so hostile to game programming that we are better off writing/porting our own on-calc editor/interpreter/compiler.

Or learning ARM assembly (which is significantly different from z80, qazz) and using the full power of the device.

Dmn it, reLLY?

Really that ARM assembly is different from z80 assembly? Absolutely. I'd say that even x86 assembly is more similar to z80, since they share the common ancestor of the 8080 processor. The z80 was originally an enhanced clone of the 8080, which later became the 286-486 series, then the Pentiums, then the Cores, and now the i3/5/7s.

Well, in that case, Ill stick to z80 asm, when I am ready

Axe Parser for the TI-Nspire would be cool. We would have a programming language even easier than TI-Nspire BASIC, assuming the syntax was exactly the same (or very close) as on the 83 Plus series, and it would almost be as fast as assembly.

Sounds like a plan.

Lionel and bwang, can you tell me in what direciton current efforts are headed?

A common ancestor, yes, but not a common instruction language ancestor. The 8086 already had a fairly different instruction language from the 8080. x86 is nothing like z80.