About Cemetech
Cemetech combines a philanthropic mission to teach programming and electronics with a practical mission to develop hardware and software. On its philanthropic side, Cemetech aims to instill a passion for programming, embedded and DIY electronics, and engineering in its members, offering free tools, resources, and guidance. We focus on teaching programming via graphing calculators like the TI-84 Plus, TI-Nspire, Casio Prizm, and HP Prime models, but we also help members with computer languages like Python, Java, C, C++, Rust, PHP, and many others as well as web and mobile programming. Our own projects cover academic and professional pursuits including distributed systems, high-performance computing, machine learning, embedded systems, CAD, and more. Founded in 2000, Cemetech has developed into a thriving community of expert volunteer teachers and dedicated engineers tutoring the next generation of technology professionals while embodying Cemetech's official motto, "Leading the Way to the Future."
 
Contact

To contact the site staff privately, please email cemetech-staff. This will deliver your message to staff members as a group and allow your message to be addressed by whoever is best able to (whereas if you attempt to reach somebody individually there is no guarantee they will be able to help you in a timely fashion, or even at all).

 
Cemetech Staff
Christopher "Kerm Martian" Mitchell, Ph.D. Christopher "Kerm Martian" Mitchell, Ph.D., Site Founder and Administrator
Christopher, known as Kerm Martian, founded Cemetech in 2000 as a software and hardware development company/group to host his personal projects, an extension of a concept company known as "CTech" that he had envisioned from an early age. Christopher is currently the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Geopipe, a startup using AI to build the virtual twin of Earth. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science focusing on distributed systems and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Christopher previously earned his Bachelors and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering at Cooper Union. Christopher codes in dozens of languages for calculators, desktop applications, and web applications, and loves hacking on hardware projects. He lives in New York City, one of his several loves along with calculators, technology, and trains. You can find his résumé at z80.me.
  • Founded Cemetech: Early 2000
Peter "Tari" Marheine Peter "Tari" Marheine, Admin & Server Admin
Peter's long-time participation at Cemetech and his broad exploration of software and hardware projects for calculators, computers, and embedded devices led to his joining the Cemetech staff in 2013. He is currently employed by a technology company you've heard of as a software engineer.
Alex "comicIDIOT" Glanville Alex "comicIDIOT" Glanville, Strategy & UX
Alex, Cemetech username Alex (previously comicIDIOT) or on IRC as comic, joined Cemetech as a TI-BASIC programmer in 2006, like so many others. He gradually moved on to photography and web design, then spent a tenure as maintainer of Cemetech's mobile website. Today, Alex is our Tech News Editor, an administrator on our Minecraft server, and helps maintain our website.
  • Promoted to Administrator: April 20, 2013
  • Promoted to Global Moderator: September 13, 2010
John "commandblockguy" Cesarz John "commandblockguy" Cesarz, Administrator
John, also known as commandblockguy, joined Cemetech in early 2017 after discovering the C toolchain for the TI-84 Plus CE. He has since developed many calculator-related projects, including clones of Wordle, Celeste Classic, and the Chrome dinosaur game. Prior to becoming an administrator, John served as an editor for our Projects of the Month articles and as a moderator on the Cemetech Discord server. He is currently studying Computer Science at Rice University.
Ryan "iPhoenix" Pitasky Ryan "iPhoenix" Pitasky, Administrator
Ryan, alias iPhoenix, first joined Cemetech in 2016 after being introduced to TI-BASIC through Kerm's guidebooks. Since then, his interests have blossomed to include a wide variety of languages and techniques, most notably including compilers and Rust. Before being promoted to administrator, Ryan supported the site at various times by acting as a Discord moderator, contest host, news author, front-end developer, and more. He currently studies Computer Science and Mathematics at Case Western Reserve University.
Jon "TheStorm" Sturm Jon "TheStorm" "Jonimus" Sturm, Administrator
Jon, alternately known on the Cemetech forum as TheStorm or on IRC as Jonimus, joined Cemetech as a TI-BASIC programmer, like so many others. He also gradually has learned web and computer programming, and has been a contributor to Cemetech projects like globalCALCnet and community projects such as TiLP II. He is currently working as a CAD-CAM Technical Support Representative in Wisconsin.
  • Promoted to Administrator: April 14, 2011
  • Promoted to Global Moderator: April 28, 2010
Tim "geekboy1011" Keller Tim "geekboy1011" Keller, Global Moderator
Tim, also known as geekboy1011 or on IRC as geekboy, has been an assembly programmer and hardware hacker for over six years. As a member of Cemetech and staff at community site Omnimaga, he made a name for himself as knowledgeable, fair, and friendly, so in November 2014, he joined Cemetech's staff as a global moderator. Tim has been instrumental in recent Cemetech events like our presence at World Maker Faire, and serves an important role in mediating community relations.
Theodore "Rivereye" Davis Theodore "Rivereye" Davis, Administrator Emeritus
Theo, known as Rivereye, was another of Cemetech's earliest and most dedicated members, spending his time learning TI-BASIC and z80 ASM, participating in the multiplayer brick-building game The Better Mod / Blockland, and fishing.
Thomas "Elfprince13" Dickerson Thomas "Elfprince13" Dickerson, Ph.D., Administrator Emeritus
Having once made an abortive attempt to retire from Cemetech, Thomas, alias Elfprince13, subsequently led one of Cemetech's larger non-calculator project, FreeBuild, and has now finally succeeded in retiring. Thomas started as a calculator programmer in Cemetech's early days, simultaneously working his way up through the Cemetech ranks and learning more about desktop computer programming. The FreeBuild project, led by Thomas and progressing with the support and testing of many Cemetech members, aims to create an extensible multiplayer sandbox game utilizing the LDraw parts library for LEGO-like CAD software. He completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Brown University, having previously earned his Bachelor's in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics at St. Michael's College in Vermont. Thomas and his wife Courtney also helped found, and served on the board of directors of, The Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative, an award-winning nonprofit organization. After several years of needing to step back from Cemetech, he officially became Emeritus staff on January 22, 2023. Thomas is the co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Geopipe along with Cemetech founder Christopher Mitchell.
Shaun "Merthsoft" McFall Shaun "Merthsoft" McFall, Admin Emeritus& VP Emeritus of Public Relations
A long-time Cemetech lurker, Shaun joined in 2010 as Merthsoft. He has shown great promise in participating in Doors CS testing, z80 ASM and TI-BASIC coding, and enthusiastically helping with CALCnet 2.2 and globalCALCnet development. Most recently, Shaun has joined the Cemetech effort to promote programming on the Casio Prizm and TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition calculator. Shaun works as a professional software engineer. He officially became Emeritus staff on July 3, 2017.
  • Promoted to Administrator: April 14, 2011
  • Promoted to Global Moderator: August 24, 2010
Jonathan "JPez" Pezzino Jonathan "JPez" Pezzino, Administrator Emeritus
Jonathan, or JPez, was Cemetech's second administrator after Daniel, promoted in 2005. As with many of our members, he started with calculator programming, began to explore computer programming, and eventually moved on to other pursuits.
Daniel "TIFreak8x" Thorneycroft Daniel "TIFreak8x" Thorneycroft, Administrator Emeritus
Daniel, known as TIFreak8x or TIFreak, was one of the earliest Cemetech members, joining back in its earliest iteration as a Geocities website with a simple message board-style forum. He has long been a dedicated community member and expert TI-BASIC programmer, and also founded TIFreakware, a calculator community site focusing on high-quality tutorials. Daniel wears many hats in his real life: past roles have included auto mechanic, computer repair technician, tow truck driver, and newspaper deliverer. He once owned one of the community's largest and most complete calculator collections, and is rebuilding a more selective version at his home in Indiana. Although Daniel was officially made Emeritus staff on January 22, 2023, Daniel remains active as a dedicated administrator of Cemetech's Minecraft server.
  • Promoted to Administrator: Date unknown, likely pre-2003
Peter "PT_" Tillema Peter "PT_" Tillema, Administrator Emeritus
Peter, or PT_, joined Cemetech in 2014, and has built graphing calculator projects in TI-BASIC, Assembly, and C. Among his most well-known projects is ICE, a compiled language for the TI-84 Plus CE. PT_ worked his way up through the ranks from Moderator to Global Moderator to Administrator while tirelessly working to continue to build and promote Cemetech's tight-knit community of peers and friends. PT_ is studying Computer Science at the Saxion University of Applied Sciences. With decreasing time to dedicate to Cemetech, Peter became Emeritus staff on January 22, 2023, but remains around to help as he is able.
History of Cemetech

Cemetech was started in 2000 by Kerm Martian as a prototype group to develop his inventions; it was briefly named CTech before the name Cemetech was chosen. In late 2000 Kerm began to program on Texas Instruments' graphing calculators. This site was originally hosted at http://cemetech.homestead.com. In late 2002 it moved to http://www.geocities.com/kerm_martian/, reachable through the Tokelau-based redirect site http://www.cemetech.tk (now expired). After the site was accidentally deleted, it was recreated at http://www.geocities.com/kermmartian/, still reachable through http://www.cemetech.tk. In July of 2004 a complex forum system was added via InvisionFree, with a member and username system; it was integrated into the Geocities site from here. In the fall of the same year, a new archive system written in Perl was deployed with statistics. Thanks to the efforts of member patl411, March 2005 saw Cemetech move to a better server at http://cemetech.designerz-core.com (no longer accessible). With CGI and PHP access, no ads, and more space and bandwidth than Cemetech previously boasted, this seemed to be the ideal host for Cemetech. The site could be found through the familiar http://www.cemetech.tk. When the site moved to Designerz-Core, the old Invisionfree forum was abandoned, so the forum was recreated with phpBB2.

In June of 2005, Cemetech purchased the domain http://www.cemetech.net, still the main domain for Cemetech. Designerz-Core became increasingly unstable and was eventually abandoned by its owner, so Cemetech followed suit in October of 2005, purchasing a $30/year hosting package from Jatol.com. Jatol providing ample features for Cemetech's rapidly growing needs, including additional databases, email addresses, scripting languages, and space/bandwidth. Jatol remained stable for close to two years, suddenly disappearing in September 2007 among suspicion that its owner either died of cancer or was forced to skip the country by debt. After a week of uncertainty whether data could be rescued, the site was resurrected on SurpassHosting, a host with a five-year positive track record, 200GB of space, and 2TB of monthly bandwidth. On May 30th, 2008, a new visual style was rolled out across Cemetech, and various tweaks were undertaken in the following two weeks to greatly improve functionality over the previous CemetechLite and Cemetech5. The culmination of about two years of work, Cemetech6 was an attempt to freshen Cemetech's look and make navigation more straightforward. Shortly thereafter, we acquired http://cemete.ch for use as an in-house URL shortener.

Since 2008, Cemetech has conslidated its mission to teach programming and provide a safe, friendly venue for collaborating and presenting projects. In the spirit of our current unofficial tagline "Make Cool Things, Teach Cool Stuff" (our official motto is "Leading the Way to the Future"), we have pursued a variety of new avenues for promoting programming education. We attended World Maker Faire in New York City from 2012 to its final show in 2018: over those seven years, a rotating group of Cemetechians showed thousands of students, parents, and hobbyists how they can learn programming with graphing calculators. We have repeatedly attended Texas Instruments' T^3 conferences, showing teachers how they can introduce their students to programming via calculators. The publication of founder Christopher Mitchell's books Programming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus, Using the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus, and Using the TI-84 Plus, Second Edition have marked new resources available for those looking to go further with their calculators. Finally, we have continued to encourage useful, educational, and fun programs for graphing calculators, including educational programs, games, and Doors CSE for the newer color TI-84 Plus calculators. Into the 2020s and beyond, Cemetech retains a core group of enthusiastic graphing calculator hobbyists, with ancillary interests in programming, hardware hacking, and gaming of many kinds.

 

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