14 DAY TRIAL // Android is the operating system powering the majority of today's mobile phones and tablets, but we have also spotted it on some atypical devices.
For example, Acer developed the avtoochFone, a landline phone which runs Android out of the box. If that’s not wacky enough for you, there’s also the Platform 46 coffee table which is powered by Android 4.4 KitKat and allows users to play Minecraft on it. So, at this moment in time, it seems like most gadgets out there can be tweaked to run Android. Even a graphic calculator.
Twitter user @joshumax decided to find out weather he could port Android and make it run on a calculator he had lying around the house. So he took his TI Nspire CX and tweaked it so that it could accommodate Android. Well, sort of.
The TI Nspire CX can be made to run Android
The TI Nspire CX is a graphic calculator (a handheld calculator that is capable of plotting graphics, solving simultaneous equations, and performing other tasks with variables) with a 3.2-inch display with 320 x 240 pixel resolution.
The device is powered by a 150 MHz ARM-based processor fitted with a scant 64MB of RAM and 100MB of storage. It is produced by Texas Instruments and can be purchased from Amazon for about $130 / €115.
The same calculator was made to run Gameboy Advance games by tweaking enthusiasts at some point. And now the TI Nspire CX has also been given the Android treatment.
Anyway, given the low-end nature of the device, @joshumax only managed to squeeze Android 1.6 Cupcake on board. So don’t go hoping to see the most recent versions of Android like KitKat or Lollipop on the TI Nspire CX.
Even so, our tweaker reports that he has managed to make the keyboard work and also claims that video playback is working.
If you are wondering why someone would go into this amount of trouble to put an outdated version of Android on a graphic calculator, the answer is just for fun. It’s pretty fascinating to see folks getting to run software on devices that haven’t originally been designed to support it.
