A few weeks ago TI released OS 5.3 for the CE, which included many improvements and additions. There are now much-needed programming tools that can be found under [ALPHA] [F5], such as an Undo-Clear command, line copy and paste, and more. Below is a list of the most notable changes:

►Homerun is now native: According to TI, "Programs can be run from RAM or Archive" and "Asm programs can now be run without the Asm( command"

►New program editor tools: With a use of [ALPHA] [F5] finally implemented, there comes many programming tools, some more useful than others. The tools include Execute Program, which executes the program from the editor, Undo Clear, which pastes whatever content was deleted with the last use of [CLEAR], Insert Line Above, which inserts a blank line above the current line, Cut Line, which deletes the current line and puts it into the copy/paste buffer (this is not the same as the Undo Clear buffer), Copy Line, which puts the current line into the copy/paste buffer without deleting it, Paste Line Below, which places the contents of the copy/paste buffer in a new line below the current one, and Insert Comment Above, which uninterestingly places a line with a single quotation above the current line.

►Math functionality: piecewise( and its constituent uses throughout the calculator.

What do you think about the new additions to TIOS? What do you think should be added to the next version? Feedback is appreciated.

I'm stoked about the ability to run archived programs without the Asm(. I wonder then, what's the difference between apps and programs now? And can we use hooks in programs as long as it's run in archive?

Also, can we downgrade to previous versions of the calculator? Is there any reason why I would want to?

Sadly, this feature doesn't change anything about the nature of apps and assembly programs, or the ability to use hooks. It only allows the OS to automatically determine program type.

There are sometimes good reasons to downgrade operating systems, such as a critical bug, but from what I understand this is very difficult. Ask MateoConLechuga or another seasoned programmer here about how to that if it is truly necessary.

Yes you can down grade! It's no harder than upgrading, you just send whichever OS you want using TI Connect.
Right now I can't think of any big reason to down grade from OS 5.3 other than speed. As expected, the more TI adds into their OS, the calculator gets slower and slower. Right now it's not noticeable, but something to keep in mind for later OS updates. I made a topic about the speed issue Here

That's no longer true on 83PCE & 84+CE calculators equipped with a sufficiently recent boot code. Yes, TI did import the anti-downgrade anti-feature from the Nspire series...

Are you sure you can downgrade? I recall that they added downgrade protection a while ago.

I don’t think TI is intentionally slowing down their OS’s.

I think that it is caused by new features being added, and as a side effect, it slightly slows down the OS.

Because I have two CE’s, I ran the same large program (my simple TI-BASIC 3D rendering program) side by side, and there was no substantial difference.

The differences between each CE:
#1 is revision L, running OS 5.2
#2 is revision I, running OS 5.3

Indeed, the newer (or rather, any boot 5.1.5+, so that's now so new anymore) boot versions check the OS version before allowing the install. (if you have 5.0.0.89, you can install and downgrade any OS)
One reason could be that the exam mode (now used in Europe much more than before) has changed its inner workings (for instance, on the 83PCE, PTT now disables programs instead of deleting them, so when you enter PTT you don't lose everything)

Also yeah, they don't slow things down deliberately, in fact, some things got faster IIRC, in newer revs - but then again, some other things got removed, too, so... (see the "im 2" topic by Mateo, which prevents programmers from using some kind of (useful) interrupts).

So far the software related parts of the OS updates have been pretty good though, so not much is lost by not being able to downgrade (so far)

If you press [alpha]+[X,T,0,n] it brings up a fraction skeleton (as if you had pressed [alpha]+[F1]+[1]).
I didn't know about that boot code change. My CE came installed with OS 5.0.

FWIW, I (with help from others as things got discovered) had written a comprehensive changelog here: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=20250.
It's better than TI's since it has a few more things and screenshots for each. That said, they made some efforts recently to have more detailed changelogs, which is appreciated.

Feel free to take items and screenshots from there to complete your list, but to mention the source if you do

(BTW, 5.3 fixed the empty-complex-list crash, too, but IIRC that was mentioned somewhere else as well)

Let me report 2 more hidden things, probably changed in OS 5.3:
- You can put spaces at the end of a line in a program, the OS will just ignore them. - reported by PT_
- You can store a string to a variable, like Str1->A; it seems to have no affect to the variable. - reported by jonbush

TextColor( Foreground, Background ).
That alone would give Basic programmer an aesthetic improvement. As it is now, you have to either have your text on white or grey, or you're gonna get a background on your text that's different than what you're displaying it on. Adding that ^ would fix this. Plus, assembly and C has the ability to change the background color, so why not Basic?

That seems to be a bug. (Both)

The first one could be quite nice, but I use spaces at the ends of lines of code or Pauses as breakpoints.

As for the latter, I don’t know how to explain my confusion over why that exists.
Using the power of dual CE’s, I can confirm this existed at OS 5.2.1:
link to my video proof

Actually it's an old (harmless?) bug that was always there on the CE OS, and even the 82A and 84+C OS (I haven't tried the old z80 )

That's cool! I didn't know that.

I guess we didn't realize it was there because, well, how often do you try to store a string to a variable...

This actually stores the string to a named list apparently.
I figured out last night that you can store a string to a list and it will just interpret the string every time the list is used, so "{A,B,C}" actually corresponds to {A,B,C}, HEREBY LOCKING THE LIST TO THE VARIABLES. This means that the list will change based upon the vars interpreted in the string.
So, if A=1, "{A}" = {1}
then, if you change the value of A, the list will change also!
A useful routine that returns the values of A-Z in a list, and will change EVERY TIME one of the vars is changed:

Code:


Also, Y-vars can be used as strings now, with no consequence, and piecewize sometimes glitches and displays a random string when switching to and from mathprint (seems to have no affect on functionality though)

Oh duh. Makes sense - So it's just the (not so well known?) way to define a list's "symbolic" expression from the homescreen, instead of from the list editor (when you do that, you'll see a lock symbol next to the list's name).
This feature isn't actually new, it was already there on the 84+ for instance.
Here's the manual:


What's more fun is how those lists(' definition) are stored: apparently in some "3F0X" where X is a counter...