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Author Topic: April Fools prank... well... for now  (Read 12305 times)

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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April Fools prank... well... for now
« on: April 01, 2011, 11:10:14 pm »
Since today is April Fools Day, it is hard to believe most stories on the Internet that are posted on April 1st or shortly before. Most of them often turns out to be hoaxes.

Well, I am sure a lot of you expected OS 2.71MP to be fake and that a lot of people played around, pretending to have fallen for it. You were right.

So happy April Fools day everyone! Don't worry, TI did not screw the community over this time... at least... not yet. :P

OS 2.71MP was meant to be a parody of Texas Instruments stance against hobbyist programmers, taking it to the highest extent possible. I got this April 1st prank idea last July after TI released Nspire OS 2.1, which contained an anti-downgrade protection, and due to the cease and desist letter sent to TI-BANK a few months before for the removal of OS 1.1 from their site. Around that time, while some people believed that they could eventually discontinue the 84+ line to make people switch to the crippled TI-Nspire, I and a few others kinda worried that instead they would simply attempt at crippling down the 84+ programming abilities too, as an attempt to eliminate calculator gaming from schools. Also, since OS 2.53MP broke some programs and introduced some new bugs, we worried that future OS updates would continue to do so in the future. All of this gave birth to the OS 2.71MP idea, which was meant to be a joke, but also as some sort of wake-up, because due to everything that happened so far, a real OS 2.71MP could very well be possible in the future. That said, I doubt these chances are very high and I seriously doubt the OS would be THIS bad. O.O

We would like to thank everyone who helped planning the joke and participate into it, and especially ThePenguin77, who modified OS 2.55 to add randomizing code to cause crashes for 1% of every keypress, get rid of the no-stub assembly commands, add a 2-page APP limit, artificially slowing down the home screen output commands, remove some other code involving the parser hook and his idea of replacing the F1-F4 shortcut message with a TI-Nspire CX advertisment. Our apologies to Texas Instruments for over-exaggerating their low support toward 3rd-party calculator programming and using them in an April Fools joke for the 2nd year in a row, and also for temporary linking to files containing some of their code.

The OS links will go down in a few minutes and replaced with an OS patcher program to turn OS 2.55MP into OS 2.71MP, for those who would still like to see how it was like.

We hope we did not scare anyone too much. With OS 2.1 and compatibility issues in all MathPrint OSes, this might have made OS 2.71MP easier to fall for. :P We also hope that this April Fools joke doesn't become real, one day. O.O

On an unrelated note, as if this wasn't enough evilness, March 2011 had a total of 12666 posts, setting a new monthly record.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2011, 11:46:41 pm by DJ_O »
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Offline thepenguin77

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2011, 11:10:32 pm »
Back in January, DJ came to me with a PM and asked me if I wanted to add make a fake OS for April fools day. This was after a whole bunch of OS mods by me so of course I said yes. Now 3 months later it has finally arrived.

Official list of things changed:
-OS 2.71
-Parser Hook bcall disabled
-USB hook bcall disabled
-Asm(, AsmComp(, and AsmPrgm tokens removed and deactivated
-Crash if ( (apdSubTimer) * (R & %00111111) ) == 0 when a key is pressed
-ClrHome, Output(, Disp, and ClrDraw are slowed down with a halt looop
-Apps over 2 pages throw Err:Invalid
-Output( won't display in row 8
-Asm(, AsmComp(, and AsmPrgm no longer appear in the catalog
-The CX ad

These started out as easy mods like changing all the 55's to 71's. But then things started requiring extra code, like the delays and such. So I made a reverse bcall routine at the end of page 0. It jumped to the end of page $73 where it check to see what address you jumped there from. Then depending on where you came from, it routed you to a subroutine. This meant all I had to do was insert a CALL into the regular code and I could mod it.

After the OS was good and dead came the whole converting it to an OS. I exported it from wabbitEmu and used some of brandonW's OS2Tools. While they did a good job of making an 8xu, it wasn't signed or compatible. So I then had to send it through RabbitSign and Packxxu to get it to it's final state. But unfortunately as Critor so well pointed out, RabbitSign doesn't add that ending to the 8xu which I didn't notice.

Anyways, hope you had fun. And I learned enough from this that I can probably free up about 64kb from OS's >=2.53.

Patcher | patch file
« Last Edit: April 01, 2011, 11:23:17 pm by thepenguin77 »
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Offline leafy

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2011, 11:11:05 pm »
I KNEW IT
WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING
« Last Edit: April 01, 2011, 11:11:43 pm by leafiness0 »
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Offline Happybobjr

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2011, 11:12:18 pm »
first!
No! I was ninja'd :p

I feel that as it was a prank, I must do a "first" :P
« Last Edit: April 01, 2011, 11:12:57 pm by Happybobjr »
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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2011, 11:12:53 pm »
Hahaha, it was so evil :D

So happy April fool day. :P
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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2011, 11:15:42 pm »
Nicely done, actually.  The 2.71 made it a little unbelievable.  I'm excited for certain OS projects that will replace a certain industries current OSes.  But I'm not naming names or pointing fingers, mind you...
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Offline ralphdspam

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2011, 11:17:12 pm »
:w00t:
HOW CAN YOU DO SUCH A THING!
No, seriously, though that.  Wow.  How the heck? :\ :D

Great job, thepenguin.  I can't believe it.  That was the best hoax ever!  So clever! And a functioning os.  And the audacity of these people... :P
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2011, 11:22:55 pm »
On a side note, after posting the fake news, I realized something about the version number (which was chosen randomly):

2.71MP -> 2-7-1-2 letters -> 2-7-1-2 -> 2nd>MEM>Reset>All RAM>Reset

Interesting coincidence O.O
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Offline thepenguin77

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2011, 11:23:53 pm »
Quote from: ralphdspam on April 01, 2011, 11:17:12 pm
:w00t:
HOW CAN YOU DO SUCH A THING!
No, seriously, though that.  Wow.  How the heck? :\ :D

Great job, thepenguin.  I can't believe it.  That was the best hoax ever!  So clever! And a functioning os.  And the audacity of these people... :P

Thanks it took a while.


Check back to post #2.
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Offline ralphdspam

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2011, 11:26:33 pm »
:D
All of you are the greatest pranksters.  This is the greatest prank in TI-Calc history! :)
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #10 on: April 01, 2011, 11:32:37 pm »
Haha nice changes Thepenguin, I actually never knew you changed the parser hook until nearly the end of this prank. XD

The sad thing, however, is that one day this might actually be real! O.O
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Offline Deep Toaster

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2011, 12:05:51 am »
I knew it! :D (Well, DJ told me. And all other staff. I probably would have fallen for it otherwise.)

Epic job thepenguin77. That was a work of art :thumbsup:

Quote from: DJ_O on April 01, 2011, 11:22:55 pm
On a side note, after posting the fake news, I realized something about the version number (which was chosen randomly):

2.71MP -> 2-7-1-2 letters -> 2-7-1-2 -> 2nd>MEM>Reset>All RAM>Reset

Interesting coincidence O.O

Whoa... Who knew :crazy:
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Offline ikemike

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2011, 12:24:18 am »
This certainly was extremely effective at bringing this issue to the community's attention. 14 pages of speculation and planning will greatly prepare us for when this day comes for real.
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Offline ralphdspam

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2011, 12:27:42 am »
Deep_Thought, NO! I thought you were on my side to stab DJ and thepenguin! :(
Who will stab them now?
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Offline Darl181

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Re: April Fools prank... well... for now
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2011, 01:00:35 am »
Well, let's not give TI any more ideas then they already have :P

Oh and...
* Darl181 stabs ralphdspam
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