TI Aims Lawyers at Calculator Hackers



#12

The Register


#13

So this has to be to do with calculators in education. Firstly, it's an enormous amount of work to rewrite a new calculator, or "OS" as they call it. it takes literally years to get all the bugs out - and then you still find some. It's not something that Ti should be afraid of. ie repurposing.

so presumably this is to prevent exam approved calculators from being repurposed into better calculators that can be used to cheat. Frankly, anyone who can repurpose a Ti83 into a Ti89 should be hired by TI !


#14

Hugh,

I'm not kidding - there are "kits" available to convert the TI-83 Plus to a TI-89 or a TI-84 Plus to a TI-89 Titanium ;-))

Basically you just swap the printed circuit boards ;-))

Regards,
Joerg


#15

Hi,

Yes i've heard of these case swaps. So what you're thinking is that you could hack the ti89 firmware to identify itself as a Ti83, then re-sign it and load it onto a ti83 with a 89 internal board, and thus fool the invigilators?

cracking idea!

#16

Quote:
Firstly, it's an enormous amount of work to rewrite a new calculator, or "OS" as they call it. it takes literally years to get all the bugs out - and then you still find some.

I'd see new OSes more targeted to something special purpose. It's an embedded platform with a screen, I/O, and a keyboard. Could be a game machine, data collector, etc...

Why not embrace this? Have a repurposing kit and a contest.

Quote:
It's not something that Ti should be afraid of. ie repurposing.

Furthermore the percentage of people that would actually do this rounds to zero.

#17

Quote:
Furthermore the percentage of people that would actually do this rounds to zero.

Maybe on a TI calculator. What would be the percentage on a HP calculator? :-)


#18

The same. The new 20b and 12C can be repurposed and with HP's blessing. See http://www.wiki4hp.com/doku.php for details. Incredible! However, I'd wager that < 10 people have actually done it. How many 10s of 1000s of HP financial calculators are sold each year?

IMHO, the repurposing of anything (cars, computers, calculators, etc...) will only attract a very small minority.


#19

Quote:
IMHO, the repurposing of anything (cars, computers, calculators, etc...) will only attract a very small minority.

I'm not so sure. One reason for the success of the Palm Pilot was that they made it easy to customize it and develop new software for it. I think the same is true of the iPhone and iTouch - they're nice platforms for 3rd party applications.

I'm currently working on an application for the 40gii. When in the field, the calculator will basically be a dedicated platform for this application and will probably not be used as a calculator at all (or very little).

Tim Wessman's surveying program is another example of a repurposed calculator.


#20

Quote:
I'm not so sure. One reason for the success of the Palm Pilot was that they made it easy to customize it and develop new software for it. I think the same is true of the iPhone and iTouch - they're nice platforms for 3rd party applications.

Applications for an existing platform using the platform API is not repurposing. It's actually a supported purpose of the device.
Quote:
I'm currently working on an application for the 40gii. When in the field, the calculator will basically be a dedicated platform for this application and will probably not be used as a calculator at all (or very little).

Tim Wessman's surveying program is another example of a repurposed calculator.


My point exactly, very small minority.

#21

So the motive is clear. TI don't want you to repurpose their calculators because they would be banned from school exam. Although, only a very few would do it, many teachers may take the safe side and ban them all.


#22

I'd say lets make sure that happens! ;-)

Would it be a bad thing?

TW


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