The Specs page mentions the CBL2 and CBR which are I/O cable only last I checked so it must still have the I/O port.

Well that's good to hear.

They probably did put more memory in it, possibly to support a buffer for that big memory. I can only explain the whole address space issue so many times.

I also see a little hole on the top left in the pictures where the link cable port is supposed to be (not the port itself, but the larger cavity cut into the calculator) as well as the square hole on the right, so it seems quite likely that the I/O port is still there. I also remember them mentioning link compatibility with TI 83 Plus, which is I/O only.

If it's got an ARM, though, that begs the question everyone's been asking: "Why so little RAM?" You can't really use the the 16-bit address space as an excuse anymore. An ez80 would be cool, though I have a feeling it will just be our good ol' z80. How we'll be able to interact with the LCD, however, is still a complete mystery...

See, here's the thing. If it is an ez80, it will act just like a z80. It emulates the 16-bit addresses and such. I can see them changing it because that means that they can reuse code as well as use more memory.

*bump* As Ahelper reminded me to post, I confirmed with the PR people at TI that information about the CPU is still under NDA. Sorry to keep you guys waiting for longer.

I think I'll buy it online when it comes out. Hopefully it comes out early this spring, not June 19th. I can't see stores where I live offering it until at least next school year, considering they only started carrying the TI-84+ in 2006 and the TI-Nspire in 2008.

How silly and damaging are those embargoes on pieces of information to a whole community of users and programmers...
Granted, I might have had those pieces of information as well if I had signed an NDA, but I precisely refuse to sign any of that kind of legal crap.

I can completely understand why a company would want people to sign NDAs: it prevents the competition from getting the dirt too fast. In the specific case of TI, TI most likely wants to make sure that the first apps that are released for the calculator are its own: if information about the processor type got out too quickly, everyone would be busy writing up programs to compete with TI's apps.

Of course, but I fail to see the outcome of withholding such basic information as something without drawbacks. They're showing once again that they don't really care about users and developers.

But on the other hand, they show that they still do care somewhat because they're supporting Asm/Apps and releasing a new SDK.

To quote one of the head marketing/development people, who shall remain nameless:
"I can't wait to see what developers do with the capabilities of this new device. I mean, when I saw Super Mario on the TI-83 Plus, I was blown away."

In fact, I wrote "don't really care" rather than "really don't care", which would have been inappropriate

I agree with Lionel. Besides, even if we knew what the processor type is, we still don't know how to interact with the screen, saferam locations, system calls, or even where programs are run/how they are stored in memory. And even if we did, community programs only make their hardware more useful and more attractive to their "consumers". I think most of us here bought our first calculator(s) more for the community around them than for the actual software that comes bundled with them.

I just don't understand why you'd spend so much effort trying to LIMIT what your hardware can do and prevent the community from improving it for free.

(EDIT: And that's just from a business ($$$) standpoint)