Every Major Windows Release Up to XP Now Runs on a TI-Nspire Calculator

Running desktop operating systems on calculators has reached a new milestone as every major Windows release up to XP now boots on a TI-Nspire CX II CAS calculator. For hobbyists who own this specific hardware, this means you can technically load full desktop Windows environments on your handheld device.

The project runs on a calculator featuring a 396 MHz ARM 9 processor, 64 MB of RAM, and 90 MB of storage, though only 44 MB is available to Windows. Running Windows XP specifically required using XP Embedded because it is lighter and easier to trim down. Since the default TI-OS reserves a large memory chunk that leaves only about 21 MB for the emulator, the creator bypassed it by booting a tiny Linux environment on the calculator first.

Storage limitations posed another hurdle. Fitting a bootable desktop image with a pagefile directly onto the device is impossible, so the emulator uses a custom protocol to stream the XP image from a host machine over a USB cable. Booting to the desktop takes over an hour and a half. Interestingly, Windows 2000 takes even longer to boot than XP due to its reliance on PIT timing, whereas XP handles synthetic timing fine.

The project is open source. You can check out the Repository if you want to try running Windows on your own calculator.