The hacks on scientific calculators are endless. Thanks to their hardware resources, extensive documentation, and the impressive creativity of their owners, we've seen these devices do things the original manufacturer never imagined. This time, someone took a Texas Instruments Nspire CX and ran a modified version of Android Donut 1.6 on it.
When it comes to games, we've seen Doom, Super Smash Bros., Portal, and Skyrim. When it comes to operating systems, the chosen one was Debian. Users of scientific calculators challenge their devices' specifications constantly, running software far from their original functions. The Texas Instruments Nspire CX is one of the favorites among enthusiasts thanks to its hardware parameters, which include 64 MB of RAM and about 100 megabytes of internal storage. If the code modifications are advanced enough, the calculator should have no trouble behaving like a miniature computer. Of course, choosing an operating system can be quite complicated...
Josh Max decided to adapt none other than Android Donut 1.6, creating the nDroid Project. For comparison, the first commercial Android smartphone, the HTC Dream, had three times the RAM and double the internal space, but even so, Android Donut manages to offer very basic functionality. Another improvement developed by Max was keyboard and WiFi support, with the help of a USB adapter. The nDroid code is compatible with the CX and CX CAS models. In the Android universe, Donut is little more than a museum piece, but thanks to the magic of open source, nothing prevents taking the original code, modifying/cleaning it to taste, and running it on other hardware platforms.
The demo is based on the game Lunar Lander, and from what we can observe, its only problem is performance. This also helps us explore the past of Android more closely. Today, Google's operating system is colorful, has many integrated services, and its hardware requirements are much higher. In contrast, Donut was Spartan, sharper around the edges, and erratic in its performance. I don't know how practical the Nspire CX will be as a home for Android, but the point is that it can be done.
