After the exhaustive list of May 2025 projects, June is much more subdued: some combination of end-of-semester projects and exams, plus summer vacation and travel, have greatly reduced the number of projects that progressed last month. It's still great to see the projects that did move forward, so without further ado:

• 3D Minecraft for TI-84 Plus CE!: In June, TimmyTurner62 "completely remade" this C language interpretation of Minecraft for the TI-84 Plus CE, which he has been creating alongside ChatGPT. It's a pre-alpha version, but the speed continues to improve: share your encouragement (and your 3D rendering reference books) in the topic!
  
• Crossword: Potchkee announced that they have finished a Casio Prizm (fx-CG) crossword program that they started several month ago. It has its own format for storing crosswords, but was looking for an open source for crosswords to feed into the program. If you have a suggestion of such a dabase, please let Potchkee know in the topic.
• Graph3CE: 3D Graphing for the TI-84 Plus CE: After a lull of several months, KermMartian completed and published his 3D graphing tool for the TI-84 Plus CE. This application adds the missing 3D graphing functionality that the TI-84 Plus CE lacks: multiple equations, customizable colors/axes/bounds, tracing, etc. It uses a modified version of Cemetechian AHelper's gCAS2 CAS engine in place of the slower TI-OS EOS, and with the help of users, Kerm has already identified improvements to make for the next version, such as support for implicit multiplication.
  
• KiloFight: StephenM challenges himself to make a Lua beat-em-up style game in less than 1KB, and succeeded - the current version is 1,003 bytes. You fight a series of 20 enemies, but you can only take five hits before you succumb to your wounds, so play cautiously! Give it a try and share your feedback with StephenM, or if you have Lua tips to compress the nearly highly optimized source code even further, let him know!
• Mario Bros. Arcade CE: Last month, we showed an impressive Mario Bros Arcade port to the TI-84 Plus CE by lannoene. They worked hard in the intervening month, fixing bugs, adding features, developing a local multiplayer mode, and adding 11 new levels to the 20 existing levels. You can download the beta on their Github page, and be sure to share your feedback, kudos, and bug reports in the topic.
• Quickzoom: the best graph zooming utility out there for TI-89/T: twisted_nematic57 has been on a roll with a series of utilities and Quality-of-Life tools for the 68k calculators like the TI-89. This month, they released a new improvement for the graphing feature of the TI-89 and TI-89 Titanium calculator, where you can use a pannable, resizable box to choose an area of a graphed function on which you want to zoom in. It also lets you easily back up to previous graph bounds, and has nine slots to store specific window settings for quick recall. TI might tout the intuitive dragging and zooming of graphs on the TI-Nspire, but now your TI-89's graphs can be just as easy to navigate.
  
• Radioactive Wastes for HP Prime - update v2.00 (multilingual): Ten years ago, komame wrote their first game for the HP Prime in the calculator's built-in PPL language. It was a great first project, but komame acknowledges that as their first HP Prime programming project, it had plenty of opportunities for optimization and improvement. A decade later, komame has optimized it, turned it into an aplpication, translated it to 8 languages, and more. In this 2D arcade-style game, you remotely operate a bulldozer as you try to clear the map of radioactive waste, through 30 increasingly challenging levels. This looks to be a must-have for your HP Prime: grab it in the topic, and share your accolades.
  
• Space Invaders for TI-83+: Monado07 is trying their hand at an always popular subject for relatively new community programmers: Space Invaders. Monado07 has been learning z80 assembly for the past four months, and after making Pong and Snake (two other excellent self-teaching opportunities!) is moving on to a more graphically challenging project. It's still very much a work-in-progress, but we look forward to seeing their steps forward, and if you have any great z80 ASM tips, tricks, and tutorials, don't hesitate to chime in.
  
• Sudoku CE: Cars and Ice Cream has shared that since the school year ended, they have translated 75 Sudoku puzzles to this TI-84 Plus CE Sudoku engine, and will be releasing them soon.
  
• Train Simulator Controller: KermMartian posted yet another update on his elaborate physical Train Simulator controller (think complex flight simulator rig), this time adding a UK-style train horn control to the system. As always, he shares photos and technical details summarized from his blog, so if you're enthusiastic about hardware hacking or trains, check it out!
  
• TXTADV: a text adventure engine for the TI-84+CE: EYETEADISH is writing a text-based adventure game engine in the TI-84 Plus CE's ICE programming language. The engine can currently handle rooms, items, and custom commands, but EYETEADISH is aware that as the engine expands, they may need to re-write it for speed and space. Screenshots are still on their way, but in the meantime, if you have written a similar engine, or have an idea for a text-based adventure game that their engine could make possible, post in the topic!

Three of the above projects were finished, so each advances to the Project of the Month poll: vote for your favorite!

"2018?", you say. "That was seven years ago, did you forget what year it is?" No, but World Maker Faire has now been gone from New York City for nearly as long as it existed, and this is a perfect opportunity to reflect back on what the Faire was for us (and for the people of New York), how 2018 went for us, and what's next for graphing calculators at Maker Faire-style venues. For some reason, we also never wrote a recap of our 2018 experiences (my then-two-year-old startup was probably a factor...), and this article rights that wrong.

World Maker Faire started in 2010 as the latest expansion of the then-rising idea of Maker Faires, opportunities for DIYers, hackers, hobbyists, and nerds of all stripes to show off their projects. I actually attended the first World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York with a friend, but only as a visitor, not an exhibitor. Two years later, Cemetech had its first presence at the Faire: Alec "Qazz42" Szigeti joined me at the Faire to show off a small set of graphing calculator hacks: CALCnet2 networking, the CALCnet Chat! client, FloppyTunes, the Ultimate Calculator 2, and of course, hands-on exhibits of a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition and Casio Prizm with games galore. All seven years from 2012 to 2018, Cemetech exhibited a growing set of displays showing off projects from around the community, on calculators from TI, Casio, and HP. The Cemetech and sister community members attending grew in sync. Every year, we handed out hundreds of Cemetech bookmarks, showed visitors young and old what could be made with graphing calculators, and collected a handful of new Cemetechians.

• geekboy1011 and elfprince13 joined us in 2013, going from a tent to a parking lot (the only one of seven years we spent not under a tent) and showing our displays to a much larger number of visitors.
• Eeems joined us in 2014, bringing the crew to five, along with new sturdy, plexiglass-covered displays spearheaded by geekboy1011. We added a TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition-powered Whack-a-Mole demonstrating using TI's MSP430 with the calculator.
• These five joined again for World Maker Faire 2015, with even better displays from geekboy1011, 3D-printed batteries to save AAAs, and many new displays. We added a pink TI-84 Plus Silver Edition that knew exactly where it was, thanks to a GPS module, a demo of the ArTICL library for connecting Arduinos and calculators, a "Program a Game in 60 Seconds" board featuring a giant jsTIfied-emulated calculator, and more.
• elfprince13 skipped 2016, leaving Eeems, geekboy1011, Qazz42, and yours truly, Kerm Martian, to show off substantially the same displays.
• 2017 was our banner year: Pieman7373 and Mr Womp Womp joined Qazz42, geekboy1011, and me to show off even more displays, adding a calculator-controlled model train plus refreshes of existing displays.
• And unbeknownst to us, 2018 was our last year (and the last year of the Faire), bringing Qazz42, Mr Womp Womp, Qazz42, and myself back one last time to show New Yorkers graphing calculator hacking.

The following summer, less than four months before World Maker Faire 2019 was set to begin, the Hall of Science announced the cancellation of the Faire due to financial difficulties at Maker Media. This was perhaps prophetic: the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 would no doubt have cancelled the event the following year anyway, but it was a painful blow.

In 2018, we announced our decision to attend in July, with the 2017 displays plus a new RadioShack LED cube controlled by a calculator, a collaborative project between Cemetechians Nik, geekboy1011, and me. The Faire was our usual success (Maker Faire 2018 photo album): we handed out bookmarks, we showed off our displays, and we collected a list of improvements we could make the following year.

We had about nine displays/demos: calculator networking, hands-on calculators with games, calculator music with a floppy drive, a GPS-connected calculator, the calculator-controlled LED cube, the Whack-a-Mole, the calculator-driven model train, the Arduino-calculator pairing, and the emulated TI-84 Plus CE inside our "Program a Game in 60 Seconds" board.

World Maker Faire was a unique opportunity for us: it gave us the opportunity to meet other graphing calculator community members for the first time, and it was also the first and for most of us, only, chance that we've had to talk about our passions for programming and hacking graphing calculators with a wider audience in person. In the seven years of our World Maker Faire booths, I'm confident that we spoke to many thousands of visitors about our hobby, and the value of graphing calculators as a STEM tool, and that tens of thousand had the chance to at least see that graphing calculators fit into a Faire all about creativity, technical passion, and thinking outside the box. Every year, I returned home from World Maker Faire absolutely exhausted but energized about the work we do to spread STEM skills, and brimming with ideas of what we could do next, not only at the next World Maker Faire but at TI's T^3 conference and other venues in between.

Sadly, with the end of World Maker Faire and the shrinking of TI's T^3 conference to an invite-only affair, we have mostly lost this opportunity. There are still similar Faires and conventions out there, though. For example, last year, Cemetechian and Youtube star TheLastMillennial brought a variety of graphing calculator projects to a "Calculator Hacking" booth at OpenSauce 2024, a "celebration of Makers and Creators" in San Francisco. Adult life and lack of planning made it impossible for us to get a contingent together this year, but I ardently hope OpenSauce and/or similar venues will make it possible for us to once again show off our projects. The loss of World Maker Faire was also a profound loss for the people of New York, especially teens and kids who otherwise have very few opportunities to see people passionate about STEM and the amazing things you can do with curiosity and some self-taught hardware and software skills. If I had a dollar for every time a visitor to our booth said, "wow, I had no idea calculators could do that!", Cemetech wouldn't need ads. And I know that wasn't unique to our booth: over the seven years that we exhibited, and the nine-year span during which I attended the Faire, I saw it rapidly grow in scope to encompass a huge range of impressive projects, from the amateur to professional, 3D printing galore to drones to microcontrollers, individuals to makerspaces and school clubs showing off their imagination and ingenuity.

As phones, ChatGPT, and the removal of ASM/C programming from modern graphing calculators renders them ever-less-used in and out of the classroom, we have gradually seen graphing calculators fading as the STEM teaching tool that got so many of us into STEM fields in the first place. Nevertheless, they remain a great niche hobby, and a fun, challenging platform to use to write powerful software or create interesting (non-cheating) hardware hacks. I would love to once again be able to show off a whole new set of calculator-based projects, and I wager more Cemetechians than TheLastMillennial and me are interested as well. If you would be interested in joining us or even hosting community projects at a Maker Faire-style event near you, please let us know!

May was an incredibly productive month for our members. Prepare yourself for a deluge of delightful digital devisings!

• 16-bpp Graphics Library for the CE C Toolchain: The dynamic duo of RoccoLox Programs and TInyHacker strike again with a 16-bit graphics library, usable in your C and Assembly programs. At the cost of some speed, this program allows you to use a much larger number of colors in your programs.
  
• 3D Minecraft for TI-84 Plus CE!: TimmyTurner62, aided by the very latest in LLM technology, is developing a 3D Minecraft clone. While the program is currently unplayably slow, the author is working on speed improvements to the graphics. Take a look at the thread for more interesting development details.
  
  
• Attack of the PETSCII Robots for the TI-84 Plus CE: prime17569 has released version 1.0 of their port of the 8-Bit Guy's top-down combat game Attack of the PETSCII Robots. Available from both the Cemetech Archives and as shareware on the 8-Bit Guy’s website, this port makes excellent use of the CE’s color display and even has the ability to produce audio output through a MIDI library written by prime.
  
• Bomb Defuse Simulator: Cemetech member the CE guy has started work on a “bomb defusing simulator”. While it does have a few bugs to iron out, the game features wire-cutting and a timer so far. You can find the code for a playable version in the thread.
• CalcStronaut: Newcomer DumbPenguin released their first TI-BASIC game, paying homescreen homage to Asteroids. Their game features selectable difficulty. Check out the thread for a download link!
• CEVidium - Video playback for the CE: This month, Iambian picked his video player project back up, continuing a 2019 project, inspired by a 2016 project, continuing a 2013 concept, inspired by the perennial popular Bad Apple video. He aims to add welcome usability features like a streamlined UI for the video converter and has already included more comprehensive details in the project’s README.
• Dungeons & Diagrams CE: euphory returns, with a completed version of their port of Dungeons and Diagrams (a D&D-flavored nomogram game). This game, their third in the Cemetech archives, features delightful sprites and puzzling gameplay. It’s definitely worth a try.
• graphy (Column-Major graphx): The popular graphx graphics library on the CE, while remarkably fast, suffers from diagonal tearing in many situations. ZERICO is building a nearly drop-in replacement and continues to close the speed gap between the two pieces of software. This month, numerous graphics functions were ported from C to hand-crafted assembly for a considerable speed boost.
• Jetpack Joyride for the TI-84 Plus CE: King Dub Dub, after a couple of years away from Cemetech, returns with promising work on a rewrite of his most popular game. He tweaked the physics math to be more efficient, and has enabled compression, saving dozens of kilobytes in just the background assets alone.
• JezzBall clone for the HP Prime: komame programmed a gorgeous version of the enduring JezzBall game for the HP Prime. This port prominently features buttery-smooth graphics and glorious gradient lettering, all with the speed we’ve come to expect from HP Prime games.
  
• KhiCAS, a full-featured CAS for Casio CG50/Graph 90+e: parisse released another update for his advanced computer algebra system for the Casio CG50 and Graph 90+e. This release includes compression to reduce the hefty file size.
• Live Base Converter CE: TheLastMillennial, dissatisfied with existing base conversion options, has developed a live-updating "programmer's calculator"-like tool that rapidly converts numbers between four customizable numeric bases. This program is a fast, convenient option for anyone who needs to convert bases fluently!
  
• MIDI Player CE: prime17569's MIDI Player supports loading MIDI files and playing them back over the calculator's USB port into any synthesizer that understands MIDI input over USB. This month, they polished up the interface to include modal error reports.
  
• Pac-Man Museum CE: A collection of Pac-Man ports for the 84+ CE: grubbycoder released a significant 1.0 release for their celebration of Pac-Man's many iterations. This release includes manual ports of two arcade versions of the classic game, as well as numerous improvements to every other port included in the collection. Check out the thread for a link to an engaging writeup of the porting process!
  
• Port of Fluct to the Ti-84 plus CE: New member “CarJeepTruckson” posted a port of the game Flucht to the TI-84+CE. Featuring slick animations, fluid arcade-style gameplay, procedural generation, and a high scores table, this game is an excellent addition for your library.
  
• Shards of Grandeur PC RPG: 123outerme released a flurry of updates for Shards of Grandeur, his open-source Godot game. This month, he added a series of enemies with animations and attacks for the game's turn-based combat system. Check out the thread for some videos.
• tivars_hexfiend_templates Development Thread: LogicalJoe continued refining his state-of-the-art hexfiend templates for wrangling naughty calculator files. This month, he added support for file formats found on TI’s 68k line of graphing calculators.
  
• Train Simulator Controller: KermMartian continues his efforts to build an incredibly realistic controller for the Train Simulator series of games. This month, Kerm improved his air gauge solution, invasively reconfiguring his CAN-driven hardware to match the form factor he needs. Check out the thread and associated blog post for more details.
  

That's a wrap for this month. Remember to examine the threads and vote for your favorite completed project in our poll. See you in a couple of weeks with a much tamer June 2025 project review!

April showers bring May flowers and a host of projects and updates from the community. Let’s take a look!

• Astro-Calc: linkjt9 has released a stunning new local PvP game for the CE, pitting two players in a space battle to the death. Customizable controls and skins are to come, so be sure to give this one a play!
  
• Data Converter v1.0: CarlosTI84 has released a unit converter for the HP Prime, rife with conversions for various bit measures.
  
• graphy (Column-Major graphx): ZERICO2005 continues their work on graphy, showing off their code in (now packed in library form) with an OIRAM demo that removes diagonal screen tearing. Better yet, you can now play as Luigi!
  
• RPG Starter Kit CE: tifreak8x has completed porting their first RPG Starter Kit to the CE, packed with mapmaking and character interaction utilities. TI-BASIC coders old and new alike looking to make an RPG should definitely give it a try.
  
• SD Picture Viewer [BASIC] [TI-84 Plus CE]: TheLastMillennial has remade their somewhat silly TI-BASIC picture viewer using Python as the backend, with generated code improvements that accelerate the rendering time from several minutes to slightly fewer several minutes.
  
• TI-85 Scrolls Caves games updated: After a mere three decades, cbusch has updated two of their original games for the TI-85, fixing bugs and adding new levels. These retro classics both deserve a play!
  
• sendkey: enabling new possibilities in AMS BASIC: twisted_nematic57 has released a utility program for 68k BASIC which enables reading arbitrary keypresses during execution. 68k enthusiasts would do well to check it out and see what new stuff they can make with this tool.
• Sudoku: Potchkee has released an update for their Sudoku game on the Casio Prizm (fx-CG), with smoother drawing and a dark mode option. Give it a play!
• TI-81 ViewScreen modded for reading screen signals using a logic analyzer: rootboy and TIny_Hacker have continued investigating the TI-81 ViewScreen protocol. They hope to soon read screen data directly, so keep an eye out!

And that’s it for April’s Projects of the Month. Be sure to vote in the poll for your favorite completed project