Hello everybody

I have uploaded at http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tiemu/downloads/setup.exe a pre-version of TIEmu 3.04 no-GDB, for beta-testing purposes
(*nix users can try http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tiemu/downloads/install_tiemu.sh, start by looking inside the script)

Since TIEmu 3.03, visible changes are fixes in the memory maps and I/O definitions, and fixes in the disassembler. Other changes, more visible to *nix users, include code updates not to use functions deprecated in recent GTK+ versions (2.20). Some updates to internal documentation, too. To sum up things, not much so far.

Before TIEmu 3.04 release, Thibault Duponchelle (a.k.a Contra / azerti, also working on TiLem-NG) and I are working to make TIEmu at least not crash anymore when loading on a 64-bit computer savestates created on a 32-bit computer, and vice-versa. With the ongoing switch to 64-bit computers, we'd better fix TIEmu somewhat before this known bug bites too many users
Note that transparently handling savestates created by buggy TIEmu versions is significantly harder than transparently handling images created by buggy TIEmu versions (which I contributed in 2009 to TIEmu, before becoming a (co-)maintainer, and is already available in TIEmu 3.03).

NOTE: thanks to updates of the shared libti* DLLs, as a side effect of installing this setup program for a beta TIEmu _after_ installing the beta TILP version featuring Jonimus' UI improvements (see another topic down this section), http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilp/beta/setup.exe , you can get Nspire OS 2.x support in TILP, which I added last week-end by integrating (with minor changes) a patch contributed on the SF bug tracker.


The GDB-enabled version will follow later - I think it would be best to try bringing the huge (more than 120 KB !) NSIS definitions to a more manageable state first. NSIS does support wildcards, but there's no single wildcard in the TIEmu+GDB NSIS definitions created by Kevin, weird...


Thanks in advance for testing

OMFG!!! Lionel Debroux it is time for all Windows users of TiLP to rejoice for 2 reasons.

1)libusb-win32 is now WHQL signed so we are now 64bit safe. We just need to update the version of libusb-win32 we package to include this.

2)The filter driver does indeed allow our driver and Ti-Connect to be installed at the same time with no uninstalling of drivers. All that is required is that one add all the device to the filter list and it "Just Works". I would suggest we add an option to the installer to use this route in place of the normal libusb driver.

All this info can be found on the libusb-win32 wiki.

Have you by any chance tried simultaneously executing both TI-Connect and TiLP with two different SilverLinks and seeing what happens? At any rate, this is great news! Congrats, TheStorm.

I sadly only have one Silverlink but that would be interesting to try, though if you think about how the drivers work it shouldn't have any issues talking to either.

Nifty, I'll definitely have to try that, then. Congrats on this again; what's next on your agenda?

This was actually just a random thought I needed to test. BrandonW had mentioned a while back that the iPhone people used the filter driver so they could run exploits without users being required to uninstall iTunes so I figured I try and it worked.

As for whats next, the plan is still for a CLI version of TiLP as well as my Ti-Utils stuff but me poking at the xfwm4 source may distract me from those for a bit.

wait, you got the driver signed?! Epic!

Most certainly. Jonimus, I hope you'll get back to working on the CLI tools sooner or later; I'm quite excited about being able to script with them.

now I no longer need to use my programs that gives the driver a fake signature

might I ask how you managed to sign it?

Some Googling revealed information such as the following, but I have no idea how relevant it is to your question:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/install/drvsign/best-practices.mspx

We didn't get it signed, the people who make the usb library TiLP uses, libusb got it signed.

Ahhh, most excellent. This should make the installation of TiLP significantly less painful and should entice more people to switch.

ohhh, ok, so you didnt have to pay money, that's good!

I presume that the libusb people probably had to pay a pretty hefty fee for the privilege of having their drivers signed, though?

Hm, probably, I bet it cost them a few hundred

It was most likely some company using Libusb with their product's driver paying for the cert and then sending the signed driver for testing that allowed this to take place.

Well, I'm glad that everyone wins as a result of them going through that process, then.

well, now people dont need to use TI-Connect any more

the best calc connection program is finally good to use for people with 64 bit

Making the upgrades in libticables required by this new, very interesting development, will take time

* first of all, as I expect the driver upgrade not to be a drop-in change, it requires getting a good enough knowledge of how libticables and USB works. I don't have such knowledge myself;
* we have to make sure to check, and keep if necessary, the quirks (e.g. the different USB reset sequence for the Nspire);
* and obviously, extensive and debugging testing across the many supported calculators and OS versions needs to be performed...

In other words, this is definitely not material for the next TILP release...

Sorry to hear it, but I appreciate you being realistic about what a change in drivers would entail. Let me know what I could do to help; I have quite a collection of models and OS versions and cables for testing, and since I've not previously had much success with TiLP personally, I would love to be able to successfully test it. If you or others happen to sniff out the truth about whether libticables can indeed set the electrical lines of the SilverLink individually outside of the specifications of the TI-OS linking protocol, I would love to hear it.