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TI removes access to assembly programs on the TI-83 Premium CE

337 points by dTal 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
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tyingq 6y ago
Interesting that a vendor is securing access to Z80 assembler in 2020.
- simias 6y ago
  Unless things have changed since my high school years it's a Motorola 68k CPU, not a Z80.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    I think it's 68k for the TI-89 and up, and Z80 for the lower models.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      The eZ80, I believe, which is backwards compatible but clicked higher and with 24-bit arithmetic.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    The headline says TI-83 Premium. It has a Zilog EZ-80, which is basically a hopped up Z80. As far as I can tell, all of the TI-83 models have Z80's.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    Only the Ti-89 (and the rarely seen 92 / Voyage series) use a 68k. Ti-86 and below all use Z80s. Although the 83 premium CE (and the 84 Plus CE) uses a pretty monstrous (compared to the original Z80s) 48MHz eZ80.
markus92 6y ago
Weren't these devices utterly broken because the private RSA key was actually refactored? Or is this a different type. There's some wonderful software for these calculators out there. Even a functional Gameboy emulator exists, used it to play Pokemon during math classes back in the days!
- codys 6y ago
  The TI-84 Premium/Plus CE uses a larger RSA key that has not been factored.
  - imglorp 6y ago
    Well that sounds like a challenge. Got it handy?
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      It’d be nice if the bitcoin community put their brute forcing power towards something meaningful like brute force factoring of RSA keys. Sadly, that doesn’t make money.
      - kohtatsu 6y ago
        The proof-of-work for Bitcoin is leading 0's in SHA-256 sums. It doesn't make money, it's just a simple way of proving you did an approximate unit of work.
        colejohnson66 6y ago
        It doesn’t make one money directly, but when a block is mined, bitcoin are created and can be sold for money. I’m not saying it’s a good idea; it’s not. But wouldn’t putting that computing power to factoring RSA keys be a better use of electricity? It could be run in a distributed fashion where, if a node says it found it, it’s checked?
wgetch 6y ago
This is unfortunate, assembly programs were the strongest aspect of the TI homebrew community. Some really great games and applications were made possible by native binaries on the older TI calculators. A couple of details I found in another article[1]: - The new OS prevents the calculators from being downgraded - The OS prevents running Asm/C programs, only Basic (and on some editions Python) programs are allowed - Applications can still be installed if signed by approved TI vendors Sounds like the TI homebrew community is about to get splintered. You'll have the jailbreakers fighting for code execution, but this could easily end up a small underground operation mirroring other jailbreak efforts. It could become too much of a hassle to get asm programs back (custom OS?), if so most people will accept the limitations and move on. At least there's still Basic and Python, if nothing else. [1] https://www.cemetech.net/news/2020/5/949/_/ti-removes-asmc-programming-from-ti-83-premium-ce https://www.cemetech.net/news/2020/5/949/_/ti-removes-asmc-p...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- saagarjha 6y ago
  This is basically just a repeat of how other platforms locked down code execution on their devices. Hopefully TI is incompetent enough to make jailbreaking trivial, but it opens up a cat-and-mouse game…
  - kick 6y ago
    TI is fairly competent overall. That said, maybe the bottom 10% get sent to the calculator division, given that it's barely moved since 1980...
    - dsjimi 6y ago
      Less than 5% of their revenue is calculators, and much less than 5% of their R&D or engineering budgets. It's an incredibly small part of their business.
      - 6y ago
simias 6y ago
I got into programming almost 20 years ago by coding on my TI-89, first in BASIC and later in ASM and C. Sad to see this platform closing down more, although on the other hand I'm also surprised to see that these devices are still relevant given how overpriced and under-powered they are by today's standards.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Note that TI-89 is a different “family” of models, which is as far as I can tell still OK with that :) Of course, they’re only really still relevant because teachers and a number of entrenched institutions (College Board…) keep it that way.
- jgalt212 6y ago
  It's been hard to make an underpowered calculator for 30+ years. What computationally intensive tasks does one even try to attempt on a calculator? I do remember IRR calcs on an HP-12C taking a few seconds, or so. And that machine is not cheap either. That being said, who's running IRR on a pocket calculator?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > What computationally intensive tasks does one even try to attempt on a calculator? Back in high school I regularly hit integrations that took minutes to do on my TI-89.
    - jgalt212 6y ago
      must have been some pretty big integrals, these examples in exact form seem to be close to instant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoDkeg166xU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoDkeg166xU maybe not the TI-89 which ran 68K processor.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        Those are all fairly simple, I'm talking much bigger stuff. (I actually had a Titanium, but it also has a 68k.)
mycall 6y ago
In the world of Matlab, python, Octave and Wolfram Alpha, why bother with the TI-83 still?
- slezyr 6y ago
  “A lot of [TI’s] graphing calculator success was due to really aggressive lobbying for certain policies,” a source in the education space told The Hustle. “They made it so that that the types of things you were allowed to bring into a test were essentially limited to their devices.” https://thehustle.co/graphing-calculators-expensive/ https://thehustle.co/graphing-calculators-expensive/ And this step might be the reason why they do this now to make it impossible to cheat by using them with custom software. It provides them an argument why students can continue to use them on the tests.
  - mrkstu 6y ago
    And simultaneously remove old versions from the re-sale market that they have to compete against, since of course, they aren't secure.
- scottLobster 6y ago
  Because schools aren't about to let students use phones/laptops during exams, and not every student has readily available access to the internet. Also on occasion I need to do some simple plotting/multi-step math and my old high school TI-83 in the desk drawer is simply more convenient than firing up a Mathematics suite and looking up the arcane commands to get it to show what I actually want. But for professional use, yeah there are better tools.
  - oldsklgdfth 6y ago
    > Because schools aren't about to let students use phones/laptops during exams I was totally blown away when I entered a US high school only to find that math class was basically teaching you how to use the calculator, not how to do that math.
sevenf0ur 6y ago
Does anyone know what might be the Youtube video that the article suggests kicked off this change?
saagarjha 6y ago
This is really sad and a huge about face from the TI-83 Plus, which let you program in assembly on the calculator itself (fun fact: I wrote a CTF challenge based around this, https://github.com/saagarjha/ictf-carprey https://github.com/saagarjha/ictf-carprey). I’m not looking forward to the next generation of students being stuck with TI-BASIC unless they “jailbreak” their calculators…
EvanAnderson 6y ago
Removing an advertised feature of a product in a firmware update? That reminds me of OtherOS[1] and Sony. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  Is that legal?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Sony paid out on a class-action lawsuit over it.
    - musicale 6y ago
      In spite of having a launch model PS3 I wasn't able to claim my $9 of PSN credit or whatever; iirc you had to prove you had installed linux before a firmware update vaporized it.
  - corndoge 6y ago
    TI will make it legal
- BubRoss 6y ago
  A huge part of modern software updates seems to be bait and switching your users.
  - bredren 6y ago
    It isn’t a “huge” problem but I have noticed this happens in physical goods as well. Backpacking / soft goods companies sometimes release multiple versions of the same SKU. The initial version will be reviewed in detail. Then for various reasons the product is changed. Often it fixes issues however sometimes different materials or even zippers are used that are lower quality. No notice of these changes are given to consumers.
throwaheyy 6y ago
What next, a TI App Store?
- jeegsy 6y ago
  I think you might be right!
Ansil849 6y ago
Wow, this is incredibly sad news. One of my fondest memories with the TI was a chemistry instructor saying that we were completely free to use any programs we wanted on examinations -- as long as we coded the programs ourselves. This inspired me to create a fairly comprehensive TI chemistry formula program, and my mates did likewise. It was really a forward-thinking move that contrasted strongly with just a blanket ban, as instead it fostered creativity. It is sad to me that future generations will not be able to experience this.
- Scaevolus 6y ago
  This isn't a ban on TI-BASIC, which is what most students use when programming formulae and other helper programs.
  - hamandcheese 6y ago
    It’s common for exam proctors to require you clear all programs from your calculator. I think the reason for banning native programs is that it was trivial to spoof the memory clearing in a way that was difficult to detect.
    - avhon1 6y ago
      You can actually spoof the "RESET RAM" menu in TI-Basic, but only dedicated students would do it.
      - Mattwmaster58 6y ago
        Was this because you would have to plot it line/pixel-by-line/pixel?
        avhon1 6y ago
        Something like that. You'd have to plot all of the text in all the right places, and also script the menu, delay, and keyboard response.
stevebmark 6y ago
This sucks :( having a little mini battery powered computer with insane capabilities like running a separate operating system was a great entry into tech for many of us
analognoise 6y ago
Hey everyone, since we're on the topic - Is there an open source computer algebra system designed to run on one of these microcontroller-level devices that might serve as a replacement for the math capabilities? Something at least as good as DERIVE, and doesn't resort to Python - something barest of metal? Because I've always wanted to make a calculator...
- moonchild 6y ago
  Why does it need to run on a microcontroller? Why not use something like a raspberry pi 0: size of a credit card, but has a 1GHz arm core that can run linux, python, whatever.
  - avhon1 6y ago
    Power usage. The classic TI-83+ can last for a whole school year on four AAA batteris.
- scottlocklin 6y ago
  Yacas looked like it might work, but I haven't looked at it in something like 20 years. Derive had the sweetest front end though. Using it with the HP200lx was amazing.
- nsajko 6y ago
  I do not know much about it, but I remember Giac being hacked onto the Numworks Epsilon software. Maybe check out Numworks, too, I am going to make a comment now about it here, too. https://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~parisse/giac.html https://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~parisse/giac.html Seemingly relevant thread found by a quick Web search: https://xcas.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=694 https://xcas.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69...
  - analognoise 6y ago
    Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for!
gxqoz 6y ago
As someone who widely appreciated being able to have a calculator out in some classes to play Assembly games in classes this is sad news. That said, I can't recall using an Assembly program for any legitimate use. Are there real apps out there a student would use that are written in Assembly? By the way, my favorite TI-83 Assembly game was Uncle Worm, a fun variant on snake that lets you move in all directions. I even made a Windows port. https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/96/9683.html https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/96/9683.html
- flatiron 6y ago
  i used my ti-83 in the late 90s for exactly what there were talking about. our teachers would hard reset our calculators before each test but there was a program you could load that would just simulate the menus and pop up the "yeah we reset it" screen and they would hand it back with all my test notes on the calculator intact. so i know why they are doing it. it just won't stop it
- swiley 6y ago
  In college I wrote a quick program to plot 3D curves and surfaces, a lot of my classmates used it. I would have written it in assembly if it were possible to put an assembler on the calculator easily because basic was almost too slow.
- non-entity 6y ago
  The assembler games were the best, but I managed to hack some sort of game together using TI Basic and the graph. Really sad they're removing it and super lame, but I guess there weren't a ton of "legitmate" assembler programs.
nullc 6y ago
I'm really happy with the very well build swissmicros DM42 calculator: https://www.swissmicros.com/dm42.php https://www.swissmicros.com/dm42.php It is inspired by the venerable HP42 and an e-ink like display that persists when powered off, an arm cpu running at 24MHz when powered by a cr2032 (or 80MHz when on USB power). Both the display and the key action are a big advantages over using a calculator app on a phone. The software is entirely free software. They will have a new model coming out in the next year or so which is on the same hardware platform (but a different model because the key layout is different) with an even more powerful software stack. Unfortunately dedicated calculators are a seriously niche market, except for education. And education results in weird user hostile features as well as being extremely overpriced. (DM42 is also not super inexpensive, but at least there its because its extremely well built and made in very small quantities). A lot of really awesome things could be done but without a bigger market it's hard to justify the development costs and manufacturing NREs.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Can you use it on the SAT? Otherwise, I don't think this would be relevant for 99% of the people who own a TI calculator. (I appreciate you sharing it here anyways: just saying that it's not a replacement for most people.)
  - disabled 6y ago
    No, you definitely cannot use this calculator on the SAT. I also think that the College Board posts a list of permitted calculators.
  - avhon1 6y ago
    Definitely not. The requirements on https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-test/calculator-policy https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-tes... say: > Only the calculators listed on this page are acceptable for the Math Test—Calculator portion of the test. The page has a table of calculators which does not include the SwissMicros DM42. The brands present on the table are Texas Instruments, Casio, Helwett-Packard, Radio Shack, Sharp, Datexx, Microtona, NumWorks, and Smart2. If you had one of SwissMicros scientific calculators (rather than the DM42, which is their only graphing calculator), you could try to bring it in. Farther down the page: > Calculators permitted during testing include: > * Most graphing calculators (see chart) > * All scientific calculators > * All four-function calculators (not recommended) So you could make a solid case for bringing in a scientific calculator which doesn't have any of the disallowed features (wireless connectivity, QWERTY keyboard, touch input...), but a proctor might still tell you it's not on the list of specifically-approved calculators and therefore not allowed. --- Amusingly, some of the allowed calculators have disallowed features. Off the top of my head, the HP 50G has wireless (infrared) communication, and the HP Prime has a touchscreen.
joshstrange 6y ago
ticalc.... I spent so many hours on their forums in high school. It's one of the first online communities I was super-active in. I did a TON of TI-BASIC programming and it's how I got my start programming. There are even 1-2 of my old BASIC programs on ticalc that I uploaded over a decade ago. I never got into assembly much because it required a a computer and I could code and run BASIC on the calculator itself. I remember a few ASM programs you could drop on your calculator and then call them from your BASIC programs. So certain things that could be done faster in ASM were all put together in a "library" that you could use to speed up your BASIC programs (most were visual in nature, clear screen, draw sprite, etc). I still have my TI84+ SE from high school, I really love that calculator.
- avhon1 6y ago
  You can actually enter ASM code on the calculator, but it is very limited, and non-trivial programs are extremely tedious to enter. http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/asm-command http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/asm-command
  - joshstrange 6y ago
    Interesting, I remember the "ASM(" command to run those helper libraries but yeah, the issues around trying to write ASM on the calculator would have been a non-starter for me (both back them and now lol): > Using AsmPrgm is the only built-in way to create assembly programs on the calculator, and it's not very convenient. To use it, after AsmPrgm itself, you must type in the hexadecimal values (using the numbers 0-9, and the letters A-F) of every byte of the assembly program. Even for assembly programmers, this is a complicated process: unless you've memorized the hexadecimal value of every assembly command (which is about as easy as memorizing the hexadecimal value of every TI-Basic token) you have to look every command up in a table.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Even more than that, computing the branch offsets by hand is tedious and error prone. You remember the important opcodes pretty quickly, but recomputing the branches every time you modify the program is a huge pain.
qubex 6y ago
I’d like to take the opportunity to recommend the HP Prime G2 (for those of you who, like myself, appreciate the flexibility of a reasonably-powered CAS) and the NumWorks (which, when loaded with the Omega fork of the open-source Epsilon firmware) provides excellent functionality in very minimalist package and even supports CAS (through the easy installation of khiCAS).
- nsajko 6y ago
  I also wanted to point to Numworks as an alternative calculator. It uses a 216 MHz ARMv7-M Cortex-M7 microcontroller and is almost open-source (both the hardware and the software, called Epsilon). https://www.numworks.com/resources/engineering/ https://www.numworks.com/resources/engineering/ There was (and probably still is) a Numworks pet peeve of mine, though. As far as I understand, on many kinds of calculations (e.g., calculating a power of a number, or a derivative at a point) the Numworks software does an artificial "rounding" step with the purpose of presenting "nicer" results to high-schoolers in trivial cases. See https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/pull/1376 https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/pull/1376 and https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/issues/1373 https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/issues/1373 . It seems like the Numworks dudes have no concept of the accumulation of rounding errors :( ? On top of removing precision intentionally being a weird choice, the implementation is too naive as far as I understand. This is basically what they do: result = std::round(result / error) * error See, e.g., https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/blob/c92b770112e38bd906ae2467d89e0e3cd02ec10b/poincare/src/derivative.cpp#L80 https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/blob/c92b770112e38bd906a... Would it not be both faster and less destructive to numerical accuracy to just clear some least significant IEEE 754 bits? EDIT: forgot to mention it is approved for the SAT and ACT already. EDIT2: More relevant to this thread; one can not run assembly on the Numworks written from the Numworks (it would be hard to fit all the prerequisites on its RAM and/or flash, e.g. Epsilon does not even have a file system), but it is possible to write C++, C, or assembly on your Linux or Windows PC, compile it and push it to the Numworks.
- boricj 6y ago
  I'm a contributor to Epsilon and Omega. It's too early to guess how much of a backlash this will generate, but calculator forums are extremely pissed right now. TI completely destroyed any goodwill they had remaining at this point. I'm not sure how this will unfold, but they've pissed off a fair number of smart people that know their calculators inside and out. I expect jailbreaks, boycotts and people switching to other platforms fairly quickly.
frob 6y ago
I don't see this being a huge hurdle to programs to help with problem solving. Back in the aughts, I would regularly write programs to solve basic kinematic equations in basic and distribute them to my fellow classmates under the blessing of the instructor. I got to reinforce my mental models of kinematics and I removed some hurdles for my fellow students who were good at problem solving and rearranging variables but weaker at math. Ultimately, I learned so much from that class.
transitivebs 6y ago
I released dozens of TI-basic and TIGCC apps back in the day and this is a very, very sad turn of events. The biggest advantage TI has for attracting new developers is that their platform is ubiquitous for high schoolers. This is really amazing for adoption and it's how I got started with programming back in the day. I hope this trend doesn't continue. https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/78/7869.html https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/78/7869.html
stuntkite 6y ago
TI's strangle hold on the education market is stupid. Anyone that's looking for an affordable ($99)and modern calculator, check out the Numworks. It's fantastic. It does all the normal things a calculator should do and comes with a Python interpreter out of the box. Check out their simulator[0]. Also the hardware and software are open source[1]. [0] https://www.numworks.com/simulator/ https://www.numworks.com/simulator/ [1] https://github.com/numworks https://github.com/numworks
- pests 6y ago
  Is it accepted on tests?
  - Allezxandre 6y ago
    I don't know for other countries, but as for France, it's compliant with the exam-mode that all calculators must comply to for national exams. So I can't say for your specific case, but if you're a teacher, at least this feature exists and you can use it with your students. By the way, even the iPhone has some apps compliant with this feature, where you're basically locked into the App. If you do manage to leave the App (i.e. by force restarting your phone), you void the exam start timestamp that the App saved
  - jedieaston 6y ago
    It’s acceptable on the SAT and (I believe) AP exams. https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-test/calculator-policy https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-tes...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TomatoTomato 6y ago
    The NumWorks graphing calculator is approved for use on the PSAT, SAT and ACT college entrance exams.
- faizshah 6y ago
  I find a programmable hardware interface like that for python programs to be enticing. Does it work with anaconda? This led me down a rabbit hole of looking at the weird newer calculators like TI nspire. Do any of these calculators have a wifi interface? Would love to see whats possible if I can use urllib...
birdyrooster 6y ago
> the new, upcoming chapters of a still ongoing story :) I love this spirit. Glad to see it will continue with or without TIs blessing. I have been using ticalc.org since I was a teenager and calculator enthusiasm is and was a great way for kids to get interested in software engineering.
lxe 6y ago
That is a sad news. What a trip down memory lane though... I remember since I discovered that TI-83 is much more powerful than simply running BASIC programs, I've been spending most of my free time on TICALC. I remember installing a gameboy emulator that used some neat tricks to make TI-83's monochrome display render 4-shade greyscale. I think there was a Doom port. There's been a way to load and play rudimentary music through the IO port. TICALC was/is a treasure. I wrote and published a simple sprite and asm editor which since has been deleted. I had a z80 opcode table pretty much memorized so I can try writing small native programs in hex directly on the calculator. I think it helped me pave my life path for the next 20 years.
tehwebguy 6y ago
Oh wow, ticalc.org still has the same header and color scheme as it did in 2001 (or 2002?), I used to check this site constantly in high school to download new games (including a mind-blowing Link's Awakening port demo which sadly never was finished) Check it out, those menu buttons at the top use javascript to simulate CSS `:hover` because at the time IE6 didn't support it for non-link elements! <th onmouseover="mOvr(this);" onmouseout="mOut(this);" onclick="mClk(this);" style="cursor: default; background-color: rgb(255, 238, 204);">
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
frellus 6y ago
No issues, so long as you can still amuse your friends by typing: 6006135
- saagarjha 6y ago
  googies?
hedora 6y ago
I wonder how hard it would be to build a software-compatible TI calculator clone. They haven’t exactly innovated in this space in the last quarter century, but it was a nice product back in the day. The bill of materials for a modern version of these couldn’t be more than a few dollars. I wish copyright terms were shorter.
andrewstuart 6y ago
Anyone know of any other devices using the eZ80 that can be purchased now and are available (i.e. not retired)?
013a 6y ago
I remember, in maybe 9th grade, after learning Newton's Method in a pre-calc course, writing a TI-83 program to do N iterations of Newton's Method for me. I showed it to my math teacher. He wasn't much of a nerd, and this was the early 2000s so technology wasn't quite as prolific as it is today; he was blown away. Come exam time, we were allowed to use our calculators. I asked if I should clear mine out given I had a program which could "cheat" (I was a teachers pet). He said something to me (privately) along the lines of, "don't worry about it. the way I see it, you've already proven to me you know the content." Ironically, today I could probably piece together a TI83 assembly program from memory, but I couldn't even tell you what Newton's Method does, let alone how to do it. Not sure what lesson to glean from that. I remember eating lunch one day, maybe a year or so later, in his classroom with some friends, and he was browsing around the internet trying to find a job I'd like in math. Looking back, I find it funny that he was landing on things like "actuarial science" and "accounting" instead of the obvious. I think that was his way of trying to make up for the piss-poor guidance counseling in my school of 80 people in the middle of nowhere. I ended up wasting a semester in Computer Engineering doing CAD and coding MatLab before a professor took me aside and basically said "you're finishing these matlab assignments faster than my grad students would. Are you sure you don't actually want to do Computer Science?" It sucks to see this. The accessibility of coding today has never been better, so I'm not going to pretend like this is a doomsday thing for helping kids get into the field, but it did have power in its ubiquity. Teaching computer science in high schools isn't a tenth as effective as students coding up a program to make their math classes easier, or modding CounterStrike after hours, or "hacking" the school computer labs to play Halo with their friends. Technology, and the ability to shape it to help us, should be ubiquitous. It shouldn't be thrown out the window just so one teacher can more easily proctor a hundred tests instead of twenty.
- linuxftw 6y ago
  I think you have articulated something I've been thinking of for some time. Most of what I learned on the PC was in a furthering of my own interests. I learned how to interact with IRC bots and use the shell because I wanted to get shared files. Learned about compression because everything I downloaded was in winrar format. I learned about memory addresses because I wanted to cheat in a particular video game. I learned about audio formats because I wanted to listen to mp3s, had to learn how to rip CDs. So much of what many of us did back in the day is now just available out of the box. No need to learn how to use IRC, all the music is on Spotify. You no longer need to be resourceful, you just need to consume.
data_ders 6y ago
RIP. My first program was a Pythagorean formula solver. I probably spent more time playing games and programming on my TI83 than actually doing math
mekael 6y ago
It’s strange to read comments about people “cheating” using graphing calculators, as I can’t remember a single time where one would have helped me in a single class. That might be because I majored in maths and everything at that level is abstract ?
Causality1 6y ago
TI calculators are a racket. They begged, bribed, and threatened their way into being the standard for educators and used that monopoly position to avoid competition and innovation. It's why a TI-84, a device with a $15 manufacturing cost, costs the student $130. https://youtu.be/zoGl8-Wc-L0 https://youtu.be/zoGl8-Wc-L0
javert 6y ago
Does anybody know of a powerful calculator model (e.g. multi-line display like a graphing calculator) that has the ability to display commas out of the box? For example, if the result is 1,998,241 it should display that way---not 1992241. I don't usually need powers of ten notation. I don't mind adjusting settings, but I don't want to have to download stuff to make it do this.
blitmap 6y ago
This is the only reason to buy these calculators.
nsxwolf 6y ago
My friend and I started a little "demoscene" on our TI-85s in high school, trying to outdo each other with little graphics demos... this is sad.
jrockway 6y ago
I assume they did this because of pressure from standardized test administrators. That other article from today about universities phasing out standardized tests is bad news for TI, because nobody would choose their calculators on technological merits. With standardized tests gone, there is no reason to pay $200 for 1 cent microcontroller and a 3 cent screen. Now kids can learn mathematics with something like Mathematica; rich graphics, smart algebraic expansion/simplification, etc. (Like many others, I have fond memories of programming my TI-80, TI-83, and TI-89... but I also got to use Mathematica at school and kind of wondered why these calculators existed then. I got so much out of animating and exploring everything. Waiting 10 seconds for a TI-80 to graph a parabola was just not as exciting after using that.)
physicsguy 6y ago
I find it incredible that these calculators are even allowed in exams. In the UK, for University, we were allowed at most a Casio fx series scientific calculator, nothing more sophisticated. At A-Level (pre-college) you were allowed very basic graphical calculators but I knew of nobody that bought one and they were seen as being pointless.

337 points by dTal 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tyingq 6y ago

Interesting that a vendor is securing access to Z80 assembler in 2020.

simias 6y ago
Unless things have changed since my high school years it's a Motorola 68k CPU, not a Z80.
- wtallis 6y ago
  I think it's 68k for the TI-89 and up, and Z80 for the lower models.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    The eZ80, I believe, which is backwards compatible but clicked higher and with 24-bit arithmetic.
- tyingq 6y ago
  The headline says TI-83 Premium. It has a Zilog EZ-80, which is basically a hopped up Z80. As far as I can tell, all of the TI-83 models have Z80's.
- masklinn 6y ago
  Only the Ti-89 (and the rarely seen 92 / Voyage series) use a 68k. Ti-86 and below all use Z80s. Although the 83 premium CE (and the 84 Plus CE) uses a pretty monstrous (compared to the original Z80s) 48MHz eZ80.

markus92 6y ago

Weren't these devices utterly broken because the private RSA key was actually refactored? Or is this a different type. There's some wonderful software for these calculators out there. Even a functional Gameboy emulator exists, used it to play Pokemon during math classes back in the days!

codys 6y ago
The TI-84 Premium/Plus CE uses a larger RSA key that has not been factored.
- imglorp 6y ago
  Well that sounds like a challenge. Got it handy?
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    It’d be nice if the bitcoin community put their brute forcing power towards something meaningful like brute force factoring of RSA keys. Sadly, that doesn’t make money.
    - kohtatsu 6y ago
      The proof-of-work for Bitcoin is leading 0's in SHA-256 sums. It doesn't make money, it's just a simple way of proving you did an approximate unit of work.
      - colejohnson66 6y ago
        It doesn’t make one money directly, but when a block is mined, bitcoin are created and can be sold for money. I’m not saying it’s a good idea; it’s not. But wouldn’t putting that computing power to factoring RSA keys be a better use of electricity? It could be run in a distributed fashion where, if a node says it found it, it’s checked?

wgetch 6y ago

This is unfortunate, assembly programs were the strongest aspect of the TI homebrew community. Some really great games and applications were made possible by native binaries on the older TI calculators. A couple of details I found in another article[1]: - The new OS prevents the calculators from being downgraded - The OS prevents running Asm/C programs, only Basic (and on some editions Python) programs are allowed - Applications can still be installed if signed by approved TI vendors Sounds like the TI homebrew community is about to get splintered. You'll have the jailbreakers fighting for code execution, but this could easily end up a small underground operation mirroring other jailbreak efforts. It could become too much of a hassle to get asm programs back (custom OS?), if so most people will accept the limitations and move on. At least there's still Basic and Python, if nothing else. [1] https://www.cemetech.net/news/2020/5/949/_/ti-removes-asmc-programming-from-ti-83-premium-ce https://www.cemetech.net/news/2020/5/949/_/ti-removes-asmc-p...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
saagarjha 6y ago
This is basically just a repeat of how other platforms locked down code execution on their devices. Hopefully TI is incompetent enough to make jailbreaking trivial, but it opens up a cat-and-mouse game…
- kick 6y ago
  TI is fairly competent overall. That said, maybe the bottom 10% get sent to the calculator division, given that it's barely moved since 1980...
  - dsjimi 6y ago
    Less than 5% of their revenue is calculators, and much less than 5% of their R&D or engineering budgets. It's an incredibly small part of their business.
    - 6y ago

simias 6y ago

I got into programming almost 20 years ago by coding on my TI-89, first in BASIC and later in ASM and C. Sad to see this platform closing down more, although on the other hand I'm also surprised to see that these devices are still relevant given how overpriced and under-powered they are by today's standards.

saagarjha 6y ago
Note that TI-89 is a different “family” of models, which is as far as I can tell still OK with that :) Of course, they’re only really still relevant because teachers and a number of entrenched institutions (College Board…) keep it that way.
jgalt212 6y ago
It's been hard to make an underpowered calculator for 30+ years. What computationally intensive tasks does one even try to attempt on a calculator? I do remember IRR calcs on an HP-12C taking a few seconds, or so. And that machine is not cheap either. That being said, who's running IRR on a pocket calculator?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > What computationally intensive tasks does one even try to attempt on a calculator? Back in high school I regularly hit integrations that took minutes to do on my TI-89.
  - jgalt212 6y ago
    must have been some pretty big integrals, these examples in exact form seem to be close to instant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoDkeg166xU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoDkeg166xU maybe not the TI-89 which ran 68K processor.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Those are all fairly simple, I'm talking much bigger stuff. (I actually had a Titanium, but it also has a 68k.)

mycall 6y ago

In the world of Matlab, python, Octave and Wolfram Alpha, why bother with the TI-83 still?

slezyr 6y ago
“A lot of [TI’s] graphing calculator success was due to really aggressive lobbying for certain policies,” a source in the education space told The Hustle. “They made it so that that the types of things you were allowed to bring into a test were essentially limited to their devices.” https://thehustle.co/graphing-calculators-expensive/ https://thehustle.co/graphing-calculators-expensive/ And this step might be the reason why they do this now to make it impossible to cheat by using them with custom software. It provides them an argument why students can continue to use them on the tests.
- mrkstu 6y ago
  And simultaneously remove old versions from the re-sale market that they have to compete against, since of course, they aren't secure.
scottLobster 6y ago
Because schools aren't about to let students use phones/laptops during exams, and not every student has readily available access to the internet. Also on occasion I need to do some simple plotting/multi-step math and my old high school TI-83 in the desk drawer is simply more convenient than firing up a Mathematics suite and looking up the arcane commands to get it to show what I actually want. But for professional use, yeah there are better tools.
- oldsklgdfth 6y ago
  > Because schools aren't about to let students use phones/laptops during exams I was totally blown away when I entered a US high school only to find that math class was basically teaching you how to use the calculator, not how to do that math.

sevenf0ur 6y ago

Does anyone know what might be the Youtube video that the article suggests kicked off this change?

saagarjha 6y ago

This is really sad and a huge about face from the TI-83 Plus, which let you program in assembly on the calculator itself (fun fact: I wrote a CTF challenge based around this, https://github.com/saagarjha/ictf-carprey https://github.com/saagarjha/ictf-carprey). I’m not looking forward to the next generation of students being stuck with TI-BASIC unless they “jailbreak” their calculators…

EvanAnderson 6y ago

Removing an advertised feature of a product in a firmware update? That reminds me of OtherOS[1] and Sony. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
Is that legal?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kube-system 6y ago
  Sony paid out on a class-action lawsuit over it.
  - musicale 6y ago
    In spite of having a launch model PS3 I wasn't able to claim my $9 of PSN credit or whatever; iirc you had to prove you had installed linux before a firmware update vaporized it.
- corndoge 6y ago
  TI will make it legal
BubRoss 6y ago
A huge part of modern software updates seems to be bait and switching your users.
- bredren 6y ago
  It isn’t a “huge” problem but I have noticed this happens in physical goods as well. Backpacking / soft goods companies sometimes release multiple versions of the same SKU. The initial version will be reviewed in detail. Then for various reasons the product is changed. Often it fixes issues however sometimes different materials or even zippers are used that are lower quality. No notice of these changes are given to consumers.

throwaheyy 6y ago

What next, a TI App Store?

jeegsy 6y ago
I think you might be right!

Ansil849 6y ago

Wow, this is incredibly sad news. One of my fondest memories with the TI was a chemistry instructor saying that we were completely free to use any programs we wanted on examinations -- as long as we coded the programs ourselves. This inspired me to create a fairly comprehensive TI chemistry formula program, and my mates did likewise. It was really a forward-thinking move that contrasted strongly with just a blanket ban, as instead it fostered creativity. It is sad to me that future generations will not be able to experience this.

Scaevolus 6y ago
This isn't a ban on TI-BASIC, which is what most students use when programming formulae and other helper programs.
- hamandcheese 6y ago
  It’s common for exam proctors to require you clear all programs from your calculator. I think the reason for banning native programs is that it was trivial to spoof the memory clearing in a way that was difficult to detect.
  - avhon1 6y ago
    You can actually spoof the "RESET RAM" menu in TI-Basic, but only dedicated students would do it.
    - Mattwmaster58 6y ago
      Was this because you would have to plot it line/pixel-by-line/pixel?
      - avhon1 6y ago
        Something like that. You'd have to plot all of the text in all the right places, and also script the menu, delay, and keyboard response.

stevebmark 6y ago

This sucks :( having a little mini battery powered computer with insane capabilities like running a separate operating system was a great entry into tech for many of us

analognoise 6y ago

Hey everyone, since we're on the topic - Is there an open source computer algebra system designed to run on one of these microcontroller-level devices that might serve as a replacement for the math capabilities? Something at least as good as DERIVE, and doesn't resort to Python - something barest of metal? Because I've always wanted to make a calculator...

moonchild 6y ago
Why does it need to run on a microcontroller? Why not use something like a raspberry pi 0: size of a credit card, but has a 1GHz arm core that can run linux, python, whatever.
- avhon1 6y ago
  Power usage. The classic TI-83+ can last for a whole school year on four AAA batteris.
scottlocklin 6y ago
Yacas looked like it might work, but I haven't looked at it in something like 20 years. Derive had the sweetest front end though. Using it with the HP200lx was amazing.
nsajko 6y ago
I do not know much about it, but I remember Giac being hacked onto the Numworks Epsilon software. Maybe check out Numworks, too, I am going to make a comment now about it here, too. https://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~parisse/giac.html https://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~parisse/giac.html Seemingly relevant thread found by a quick Web search: https://xcas.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=694 https://xcas.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69...
- analognoise 6y ago
  Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for!

gxqoz 6y ago

As someone who widely appreciated being able to have a calculator out in some classes to play Assembly games in classes this is sad news. That said, I can't recall using an Assembly program for any legitimate use. Are there real apps out there a student would use that are written in Assembly? By the way, my favorite TI-83 Assembly game was Uncle Worm, a fun variant on snake that lets you move in all directions. I even made a Windows port. https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/96/9683.html https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/96/9683.html

flatiron 6y ago
i used my ti-83 in the late 90s for exactly what there were talking about. our teachers would hard reset our calculators before each test but there was a program you could load that would just simulate the menus and pop up the "yeah we reset it" screen and they would hand it back with all my test notes on the calculator intact. so i know why they are doing it. it just won't stop it
swiley 6y ago
In college I wrote a quick program to plot 3D curves and surfaces, a lot of my classmates used it. I would have written it in assembly if it were possible to put an assembler on the calculator easily because basic was almost too slow.
non-entity 6y ago
The assembler games were the best, but I managed to hack some sort of game together using TI Basic and the graph. Really sad they're removing it and super lame, but I guess there weren't a ton of "legitmate" assembler programs.

nullc 6y ago

I'm really happy with the very well build swissmicros DM42 calculator: https://www.swissmicros.com/dm42.php https://www.swissmicros.com/dm42.php It is inspired by the venerable HP42 and an e-ink like display that persists when powered off, an arm cpu running at 24MHz when powered by a cr2032 (or 80MHz when on USB power). Both the display and the key action are a big advantages over using a calculator app on a phone. The software is entirely free software. They will have a new model coming out in the next year or so which is on the same hardware platform (but a different model because the key layout is different) with an even more powerful software stack. Unfortunately dedicated calculators are a seriously niche market, except for education. And education results in weird user hostile features as well as being extremely overpriced. (DM42 is also not super inexpensive, but at least there its because its extremely well built and made in very small quantities). A lot of really awesome things could be done but without a bigger market it's hard to justify the development costs and manufacturing NREs.

saagarjha 6y ago
Can you use it on the SAT? Otherwise, I don't think this would be relevant for 99% of the people who own a TI calculator. (I appreciate you sharing it here anyways: just saying that it's not a replacement for most people.)
- disabled 6y ago
  No, you definitely cannot use this calculator on the SAT. I also think that the College Board posts a list of permitted calculators.
- avhon1 6y ago
  Definitely not. The requirements on https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-test/calculator-policy https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-tes... say: > Only the calculators listed on this page are acceptable for the Math Test—Calculator portion of the test. The page has a table of calculators which does not include the SwissMicros DM42. The brands present on the table are Texas Instruments, Casio, Helwett-Packard, Radio Shack, Sharp, Datexx, Microtona, NumWorks, and Smart2. If you had one of SwissMicros scientific calculators (rather than the DM42, which is their only graphing calculator), you could try to bring it in. Farther down the page: > Calculators permitted during testing include: > * Most graphing calculators (see chart) > * All scientific calculators > * All four-function calculators (not recommended) So you could make a solid case for bringing in a scientific calculator which doesn't have any of the disallowed features (wireless connectivity, QWERTY keyboard, touch input...), but a proctor might still tell you it's not on the list of specifically-approved calculators and therefore not allowed. --- Amusingly, some of the allowed calculators have disallowed features. Off the top of my head, the HP 50G has wireless (infrared) communication, and the HP Prime has a touchscreen.

joshstrange 6y ago

ticalc.... I spent so many hours on their forums in high school. It's one of the first online communities I was super-active in. I did a TON of TI-BASIC programming and it's how I got my start programming. There are even 1-2 of my old BASIC programs on ticalc that I uploaded over a decade ago. I never got into assembly much because it required a a computer and I could code and run BASIC on the calculator itself. I remember a few ASM programs you could drop on your calculator and then call them from your BASIC programs. So certain things that could be done faster in ASM were all put together in a "library" that you could use to speed up your BASIC programs (most were visual in nature, clear screen, draw sprite, etc). I still have my TI84+ SE from high school, I really love that calculator.

avhon1 6y ago
You can actually enter ASM code on the calculator, but it is very limited, and non-trivial programs are extremely tedious to enter. http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/asm-command http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/asm-command
- joshstrange 6y ago
  Interesting, I remember the "ASM(" command to run those helper libraries but yeah, the issues around trying to write ASM on the calculator would have been a non-starter for me (both back them and now lol): > Using AsmPrgm is the only built-in way to create assembly programs on the calculator, and it's not very convenient. To use it, after AsmPrgm itself, you must type in the hexadecimal values (using the numbers 0-9, and the letters A-F) of every byte of the assembly program. Even for assembly programmers, this is a complicated process: unless you've memorized the hexadecimal value of every assembly command (which is about as easy as memorizing the hexadecimal value of every TI-Basic token) you have to look every command up in a table.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Even more than that, computing the branch offsets by hand is tedious and error prone. You remember the important opcodes pretty quickly, but recomputing the branches every time you modify the program is a huge pain.

qubex 6y ago

I’d like to take the opportunity to recommend the HP Prime G2 (for those of you who, like myself, appreciate the flexibility of a reasonably-powered CAS) and the NumWorks (which, when loaded with the Omega fork of the open-source Epsilon firmware) provides excellent functionality in very minimalist package and even supports CAS (through the easy installation of khiCAS).

nsajko 6y ago
I also wanted to point to Numworks as an alternative calculator. It uses a 216 MHz ARMv7-M Cortex-M7 microcontroller and is almost open-source (both the hardware and the software, called Epsilon). https://www.numworks.com/resources/engineering/ https://www.numworks.com/resources/engineering/ There was (and probably still is) a Numworks pet peeve of mine, though. As far as I understand, on many kinds of calculations (e.g., calculating a power of a number, or a derivative at a point) the Numworks software does an artificial "rounding" step with the purpose of presenting "nicer" results to high-schoolers in trivial cases. See https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/pull/1376 https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/pull/1376 and https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/issues/1373 https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/issues/1373 . It seems like the Numworks dudes have no concept of the accumulation of rounding errors :( ? On top of removing precision intentionally being a weird choice, the implementation is too naive as far as I understand. This is basically what they do: result = std::round(result / error) * error See, e.g., https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/blob/c92b770112e38bd906ae2467d89e0e3cd02ec10b/poincare/src/derivative.cpp#L80 https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/blob/c92b770112e38bd906a... Would it not be both faster and less destructive to numerical accuracy to just clear some least significant IEEE 754 bits? EDIT: forgot to mention it is approved for the SAT and ACT already. EDIT2: More relevant to this thread; one can not run assembly on the Numworks written from the Numworks (it would be hard to fit all the prerequisites on its RAM and/or flash, e.g. Epsilon does not even have a file system), but it is possible to write C++, C, or assembly on your Linux or Windows PC, compile it and push it to the Numworks.
boricj 6y ago
I'm a contributor to Epsilon and Omega. It's too early to guess how much of a backlash this will generate, but calculator forums are extremely pissed right now. TI completely destroyed any goodwill they had remaining at this point. I'm not sure how this will unfold, but they've pissed off a fair number of smart people that know their calculators inside and out. I expect jailbreaks, boycotts and people switching to other platforms fairly quickly.

frob 6y ago

I don't see this being a huge hurdle to programs to help with problem solving. Back in the aughts, I would regularly write programs to solve basic kinematic equations in basic and distribute them to my fellow classmates under the blessing of the instructor. I got to reinforce my mental models of kinematics and I removed some hurdles for my fellow students who were good at problem solving and rearranging variables but weaker at math. Ultimately, I learned so much from that class.

transitivebs 6y ago

I released dozens of TI-basic and TIGCC apps back in the day and this is a very, very sad turn of events. The biggest advantage TI has for attracting new developers is that their platform is ubiquitous for high schoolers. This is really amazing for adoption and it's how I got started with programming back in the day. I hope this trend doesn't continue. https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/78/7869.html https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/78/7869.html

stuntkite 6y ago

TI's strangle hold on the education market is stupid. Anyone that's looking for an affordable ($99)and modern calculator, check out the Numworks. It's fantastic. It does all the normal things a calculator should do and comes with a Python interpreter out of the box. Check out their simulator[0]. Also the hardware and software are open source[1]. [0] https://www.numworks.com/simulator/ https://www.numworks.com/simulator/ [1] https://github.com/numworks https://github.com/numworks

pests 6y ago
Is it accepted on tests?
- Allezxandre 6y ago
  I don't know for other countries, but as for France, it's compliant with the exam-mode that all calculators must comply to for national exams. So I can't say for your specific case, but if you're a teacher, at least this feature exists and you can use it with your students. By the way, even the iPhone has some apps compliant with this feature, where you're basically locked into the App. If you do manage to leave the App (i.e. by force restarting your phone), you void the exam start timestamp that the App saved
- jedieaston 6y ago
  It’s acceptable on the SAT and (I believe) AP exams. https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-test/calculator-policy https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-tes...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TomatoTomato 6y ago
  The NumWorks graphing calculator is approved for use on the PSAT, SAT and ACT college entrance exams.
faizshah 6y ago
I find a programmable hardware interface like that for python programs to be enticing. Does it work with anaconda? This led me down a rabbit hole of looking at the weird newer calculators like TI nspire. Do any of these calculators have a wifi interface? Would love to see whats possible if I can use urllib...

birdyrooster 6y ago

> the new, upcoming chapters of a still ongoing story :) I love this spirit. Glad to see it will continue with or without TIs blessing. I have been using ticalc.org since I was a teenager and calculator enthusiasm is and was a great way for kids to get interested in software engineering.

lxe 6y ago

That is a sad news. What a trip down memory lane though... I remember since I discovered that TI-83 is much more powerful than simply running BASIC programs, I've been spending most of my free time on TICALC. I remember installing a gameboy emulator that used some neat tricks to make TI-83's monochrome display render 4-shade greyscale. I think there was a Doom port. There's been a way to load and play rudimentary music through the IO port. TICALC was/is a treasure. I wrote and published a simple sprite and asm editor which since has been deleted. I had a z80 opcode table pretty much memorized so I can try writing small native programs in hex directly on the calculator. I think it helped me pave my life path for the next 20 years.

tehwebguy 6y ago

Oh wow, ticalc.org still has the same header and color scheme as it did in 2001 (or 2002?), I used to check this site constantly in high school to download new games (including a mind-blowing Link's Awakening port demo which sadly never was finished) Check it out, those menu buttons at the top use javascript to simulate CSS `:hover` because at the time IE6 didn't support it for non-link elements! <th onmouseover="mOvr(this);" onmouseout="mOut(this);" onclick="mClk(this);" style="cursor: default; background-color: rgb(255, 238, 204);">

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

frellus 6y ago

No issues, so long as you can still amuse your friends by typing: 6006135

saagarjha 6y ago
googies?

hedora 6y ago

I wonder how hard it would be to build a software-compatible TI calculator clone. They haven’t exactly innovated in this space in the last quarter century, but it was a nice product back in the day. The bill of materials for a modern version of these couldn’t be more than a few dollars. I wish copyright terms were shorter.

andrewstuart 6y ago

Anyone know of any other devices using the eZ80 that can be purchased now and are available (i.e. not retired)?

013a 6y ago

I remember, in maybe 9th grade, after learning Newton's Method in a pre-calc course, writing a TI-83 program to do N iterations of Newton's Method for me. I showed it to my math teacher. He wasn't much of a nerd, and this was the early 2000s so technology wasn't quite as prolific as it is today; he was blown away. Come exam time, we were allowed to use our calculators. I asked if I should clear mine out given I had a program which could "cheat" (I was a teachers pet). He said something to me (privately) along the lines of, "don't worry about it. the way I see it, you've already proven to me you know the content." Ironically, today I could probably piece together a TI83 assembly program from memory, but I couldn't even tell you what Newton's Method does, let alone how to do it. Not sure what lesson to glean from that. I remember eating lunch one day, maybe a year or so later, in his classroom with some friends, and he was browsing around the internet trying to find a job I'd like in math. Looking back, I find it funny that he was landing on things like "actuarial science" and "accounting" instead of the obvious. I think that was his way of trying to make up for the piss-poor guidance counseling in my school of 80 people in the middle of nowhere. I ended up wasting a semester in Computer Engineering doing CAD and coding MatLab before a professor took me aside and basically said "you're finishing these matlab assignments faster than my grad students would. Are you sure you don't actually want to do Computer Science?" It sucks to see this. The accessibility of coding today has never been better, so I'm not going to pretend like this is a doomsday thing for helping kids get into the field, but it did have power in its ubiquity. Teaching computer science in high schools isn't a tenth as effective as students coding up a program to make their math classes easier, or modding CounterStrike after hours, or "hacking" the school computer labs to play Halo with their friends. Technology, and the ability to shape it to help us, should be ubiquitous. It shouldn't be thrown out the window just so one teacher can more easily proctor a hundred tests instead of twenty.

linuxftw 6y ago
I think you have articulated something I've been thinking of for some time. Most of what I learned on the PC was in a furthering of my own interests. I learned how to interact with IRC bots and use the shell because I wanted to get shared files. Learned about compression because everything I downloaded was in winrar format. I learned about memory addresses because I wanted to cheat in a particular video game. I learned about audio formats because I wanted to listen to mp3s, had to learn how to rip CDs. So much of what many of us did back in the day is now just available out of the box. No need to learn how to use IRC, all the music is on Spotify. You no longer need to be resourceful, you just need to consume.

data_ders 6y ago

RIP. My first program was a Pythagorean formula solver. I probably spent more time playing games and programming on my TI83 than actually doing math

mekael 6y ago

It’s strange to read comments about people “cheating” using graphing calculators, as I can’t remember a single time where one would have helped me in a single class. That might be because I majored in maths and everything at that level is abstract ?

Causality1 6y ago

TI calculators are a racket. They begged, bribed, and threatened their way into being the standard for educators and used that monopoly position to avoid competition and innovation. It's why a TI-84, a device with a $15 manufacturing cost, costs the student $130. https://youtu.be/zoGl8-Wc-L0 https://youtu.be/zoGl8-Wc-L0

javert 6y ago

Does anybody know of a powerful calculator model (e.g. multi-line display like a graphing calculator) that has the ability to display commas out of the box? For example, if the result is 1,998,241 it should display that way---not 1992241. I don't usually need powers of ten notation. I don't mind adjusting settings, but I don't want to have to download stuff to make it do this.

blitmap 6y ago

This is the only reason to buy these calculators.

nsxwolf 6y ago

My friend and I started a little "demoscene" on our TI-85s in high school, trying to outdo each other with little graphics demos... this is sad.

jrockway 6y ago

I assume they did this because of pressure from standardized test administrators. That other article from today about universities phasing out standardized tests is bad news for TI, because nobody would choose their calculators on technological merits. With standardized tests gone, there is no reason to pay $200 for 1 cent microcontroller and a 3 cent screen. Now kids can learn mathematics with something like Mathematica; rich graphics, smart algebraic expansion/simplification, etc. (Like many others, I have fond memories of programming my TI-80, TI-83, and TI-89... but I also got to use Mathematica at school and kind of wondered why these calculators existed then. I got so much out of animating and exploring everything. Waiting 10 seconds for a TI-80 to graph a parabola was just not as exciting after using that.)

physicsguy 6y ago

I find it incredible that these calculators are even allowed in exams. In the UK, for University, we were allowed at most a Casio fx series scientific calculator, nothing more sophisticated. At A-Level (pre-college) you were allowed very basic graphical calculators but I knew of nobody that bought one and they were seen as being pointless.