*bump* So nearly a month later, what ever happened with this? The JS library to encode/decode data into/out of JPEGs is currently under construction by a colleague of mine; you can check out the repository here.

Regarding other filetypes, I don't believe anything other than .jpg and .mov show up in the Camera Roll. So even if you could get it into an image, the end user wouldn't be able to select it anyways (sadly).

But the point was that it's possible to encode data into JPEGs, losslessly, and read it back from the web application.

If this is actually possible, we just figured out a way to make a filesystem out of Camera Roll >

Well, it's not exactly a new concept, and my colleague Matt Tierney and his collaborators are the ones who actually made it possible. I'd still like to see this concept tested, if anyone at Cemetech has the time and inclination to try it.

I've got an iPhone 4 I could use for beta testing if you'd like.

I too, have an iPhone 4, but no ROM to try it. Maybe you could create an "image" that jsTIfied can recognize that isn't an ISO but jsTIfied just displays "Success" when it's read successfully.

Actually, on a bigger note:

I've noticed significant lag when trying to use the emulator on my netbook. Local emulators work fine. Perhaps this should be taken into consideration, especially since all mobile devices aren't as powerful as their PC counterparts?

Sadly, there's nothing to take into consideration. Javascript is an interpreted language, slower than compiled code, and incurs more overhead. jsTIfied is intended to fill a different niche than desktop emulators, though it includes most/all of the same features. The truth is that I'm operating right on the edge of what Javascript can do in realtime on modern computers and modern browsers, and I'm doing my best to make every cycle count.

Just to keep everyone abreast of what's going on, I built rudimentary support tonight to export your ROM packed into the end of a JPG, then load that image on your iDevice as a photo so you can use jsTIfied. Unfortunately, although the whole process works on a computer, an iPhone badly mangles the extra data. PNGs and BMPs would be great, but they get converted lossily to JPG too. I should mention that since I don't have any iDevices, Runer112 has been working tirelessly to help me test things. Current options:

1) Allow users to load ROMs from a URL (with a big warning about making sure they actually own it)
2) Base64 the ROM into the EXIF data of the JPG and pray it doesn't get stripped
3) Steganography

Im in no way qualified to answer this, but dont forget about the music library... You could store stuff as an mp3/4? *shruggs*?

You can't access the Music Library on an iOS device, only the photos and video.

Oh. Well i mean, I CAN on jailbroken. .-. What about saving urls to the home screen as a link to the ROM for online access? (he said stupidly)

Well, one option being bandied about is letting the user specify a URL to the ROM for jsTIfied. I'm concerned about people just uploading to some central file-sharing site and using that; I'm not sure how much my backside is covered if I insist in big letters that people be honest about using their own ROMs with that.

That, my friend, is some epic hacking - I didn't even know you could do that with JPGs. I'm impressed, and I hope you can get it working perfectly on the iDevices.

Thank you, I hope so too. Any sort of TI calculator emulator on the iDevices would be a huge step forward, I think, considering the number of people who have been asking me for one.

Interfacing with Dropbox/SkyDrive seems like it could be a really nice solution. It solves both the issues of getting the ROM onto the phone and getting it uploaded to jsTified, and with the ROMs stored privately online, there *should* be no issues with legality/sharing.

That seems workable - probably better than the hacked JPG solution, although that's still quite cool.

On a related note, Kerm, would you be OK with jsTIfied being ported to a Windows Store app as well in much the same way, since those can be written in Javascript and use much the same (or better) APIs? I know that I would have no time to do so, but if someone else did, that could work quite well, especially since jsTIfied would be available offline to Windows 8 users and could also be used by Surface RT users.

I wouldn't be opposed to jsTIfied in the Windows Store, but I would want to be the one to make it myself, probably, since I would be concerned about the version on the Store and on Cemetech being in sync. Then again, if Surface users can just use jsTIfied online, what's the draw for them buying it?

That's a good point. One thing that I do know is that you can use most of the APIs available to Windows programmers in your Javascript apps, giving you the ability to interact with the disk and whatnot.


You wouldn't have to sell it on the Store - you could make it available for free, like it is on the site. And the advantage of downloading the app is that they can use it offline or without a Cemetech account.