
Show HN: I built an open-source kernel for Texas Instruments calculators - Sir_Cmpwn
You know that old TI calculator you used in high school, then put in a box and forgot about? Have you ever wished you had an operating system for your calculator with preemptive multitasking, dynamic memory management, a tree filesystem conforming to the FHS, and all the comforts of Unix?<p>Well, good news: that&#x27;s totally a thing that exists.<p>I&#x27;ve been working on my kernel for about three and a half years now and I&#x27;m looking for new contributors to help out. It&#x27;s written entirely in z80 assembly, and it&#x27;s both challenging and fun to work on.<p>There&#x27;s an IRC channel for contributors or people who are just generally interested. You should stop by! It&#x27;s #knightos on irc.freenode.net.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;KnightOS&#x2F;kernel
======
yzzxy
I wonder what the viability of a similar OS would be on the nSpire platform,
which is fully ARM-based IIRC. nSpires have some very nice options for
mathematical programming (the CAS being a standout feature) but as far as I
know lack anything like this. (Most of the advanced nSpire dev is done on a
french-language site that I can't fully understand through Google Translate).

That said my nSpire CAS CX is pretty kitted out even in the TI Kernel with
overclocking, file readers, etc. It even runs Doom!

I'm actually amazed that the SAT allows nSpire CAS calculators on their tests
(The ACT does not). Apparently the SAT's defining factor for approval is a
non-QWERTY keyboard to prevent note input, despite the fact that the nSpire
platform allows notes to be transferred to the calculator even before you
sideload third-party utilities onto it.

The CAS system also allows pretty much any problem to be solved without
complex problem manipulation. Most SAT tutors urge students not to solve
algebra on calculators because they invariably make mistakes when transforming
functions for solver(), but the nSpire's algebra functions will do all kinds
of transformations and solve multi-equation functions without much work. You
could even solve a lot of geometry problems with the (built in!) geometry
program if you forget theorems, and a little competence with things like
modulus will take care of the rest of the test without any human computation
(though this is slower than solving on your most of the time)

~~~
S4M
I'm French, so if you want I can help you to understand the website you're
interested in.

~~~
yzzxy
Thanks for the offer... thankfully some of my friends are french-fluent as
well as the bulk of my family, so I can get help if I need something specific
translated. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. If you're personally
interested the site is available at

[http://tiplanet.org/](http://tiplanet.org/)

~~~
S4M
Thanks for the link. It brings to me lots of nostalgia reminding me the fun I
have with my calculators in high school... You're free to ping me by email (in
my profile) if you have any specific question.

------
kjs3
This is really a remarkable bit of work. I spent some quality time in the
distant past working with CP/M-80 on the Z-80, and it's pretty remarkable what
you've done with a very limited platform (relative to now...back then it was
the i7 of day). Cudos.

