As some of you may know, an investigation into the g1m (program) format at the behest of tifreak8x led me to re-examine the g3p (picture) format used on the Casio Prizm. I succeeded in reverse-engineering the format sufficiently to both parse existing 3-bit and 16-bit images and to generate new 3-bit and 16-bit images that fx-CG10 calculators will accept. I later discovered that some of the format information I discovered through strenuous reverse-engineering had been previous published in obscure locations, but that other components were previous completely unknown. Notably, I believe this is the very first time that a third-party tool has generated images acceptable to all Casio Prizm calculators (or, in fact, any Casio Prizm calculator).
While technically impressive and a lot of fun to work through (with periods of frustration that make the eventual success that much more fun), this uncovers some ethical issues that have lain dormant for a few years. Back when the Prizm was first released, community members fxdev and SimonLothar uncovered some information about the image formats, and were considering going further. In fact, Simon even produced an OS patch to turn fx-CG10 (North American) Prizms into fx-CG20 (European/Asian) Prizms that could accept images from Casio's official image converter. He never released that patch, and community pressure forced fxdev to stop his reverse-engineering work as well. At the time, the only calculator that could accept arbitrary images was the TI-Nspire. The community, including vocal leaders such as myself, largely felt that breaking Casio's image format might lead them to lock down the Casio Prizm, making it as bad as the older TI-Nspires that lacked even the Lua language.
With the introduction of the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, for which SourceCoder and TI-Connect can both generate arbitrary images, the HP Prime, and the more open TI-Nspire, these concerns seem less important. If Casio's competitors allow images to be loaded despite concerns about smut and cheating, it seems reasonable to assume that we no longer need to fear retaliation from Casio as much. In addition, our third-party work has never been acknowledged officially either positively or negative by Casio itself, although its social media team appears peripherally aware of our work. Therefore, I put the question to you: should I unlock the currently-crippled SourceCoder feature that generates 3-bit and 16-bit .g3p images from 384x192-pixel images, in the hopes that it will promote more cool Prizm programs and games and continue to push the calculator as a viable platform in the US and abroad? Should I only open 3-bit images and keep my 16-bit image work for myself? Or should I keep both 3-bit and 16-bit image exporting disabled? Discuss!
While technically impressive and a lot of fun to work through (with periods of frustration that make the eventual success that much more fun), this uncovers some ethical issues that have lain dormant for a few years. Back when the Prizm was first released, community members fxdev and SimonLothar uncovered some information about the image formats, and were considering going further. In fact, Simon even produced an OS patch to turn fx-CG10 (North American) Prizms into fx-CG20 (European/Asian) Prizms that could accept images from Casio's official image converter. He never released that patch, and community pressure forced fxdev to stop his reverse-engineering work as well. At the time, the only calculator that could accept arbitrary images was the TI-Nspire. The community, including vocal leaders such as myself, largely felt that breaking Casio's image format might lead them to lock down the Casio Prizm, making it as bad as the older TI-Nspires that lacked even the Lua language.
With the introduction of the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, for which SourceCoder and TI-Connect can both generate arbitrary images, the HP Prime, and the more open TI-Nspire, these concerns seem less important. If Casio's competitors allow images to be loaded despite concerns about smut and cheating, it seems reasonable to assume that we no longer need to fear retaliation from Casio as much. In addition, our third-party work has never been acknowledged officially either positively or negative by Casio itself, although its social media team appears peripherally aware of our work. Therefore, I put the question to you: should I unlock the currently-crippled SourceCoder feature that generates 3-bit and 16-bit .g3p images from 384x192-pixel images, in the hopes that it will promote more cool Prizm programs and games and continue to push the calculator as a viable platform in the US and abroad? Should I only open 3-bit images and keep my 16-bit image work for myself? Or should I keep both 3-bit and 16-bit image exporting disabled? Discuss!
