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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

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.
        thanksforfish 6y ago
        Are exam proctors really auditing this to that level? I've been out of school for a while, but I think I only remember the honor system being used.
        avhon1 6y ago
        My calculator was never checked before standardized tests, but some math teachers checked before giving class tests.
        thanksforfish 6y ago
        Theres some interesting incentives for teachers administering standardized tests to ignore cheating. Students who do well reflects well on the teacher and the school. I wonder how schools report cheating to standardized test administrators and what the rules are for scoring a cheater.
    - VistaBrokeMyPC 6y ago
      If you group the programs then archive the group, clearing ram doesn't delete it. Once proctor walks away, unarchive!
  - lilyball 6y ago
    I had a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition back in the day, and if I recall correctly, it had twice as much RAM available as the OS exposed, and you could load a third-party assembly program that would wire up a specific hotkey to essentially swap banks of memory. This way you could have what appeared to be a clean calculator with no programs on it, then swap over to the other memory bank and all your programs would be accessible. Even telling it to clear RAM would only clear the current bank.
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    just quit allowing calculators at all. what in the world.
pickdenis 6y ago
That's awesome! I really wish I had teachers like that. In high school, I had a fancy TI Nspire which had an incredibly hobbled language that vaguely resembled the classic TI-BASIC. It was missing a TON of important programming features but it had symbolic manipulation which I loved to abuse. I wrote a program to balance arbitrary chemical equations using a series of ridiculous hacks. First, I parsed chemical compounds (like CO2 and H2(CO2)3, notice the nesting) by running through them char-by-char and translating them into expressions and then "eval"ing them: "CO2" -> e.C + 2 e.O (where e.C and e.O are free symbols). Then, I used the feature where you can type "X + Y | X=3, Y=5" to get 8 to extract the coefficients from the expression which I then shoved into a matrix and solved the system of equations. If you look at the code, you'd vomit, but it was a night of furiously typing on the abcdef keyboard that I will never forget. I never actually used it in class because during this process I became so quick at balancing the simple equations they would give us that it took longer to type them in than simply doing it in my head.

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.
      - thanksforfish 6y ago
        Are exam proctors really auditing this to that level? I've been out of school for a while, but I think I only remember the honor system being used.
        avhon1 6y ago
        My calculator was never checked before standardized tests, but some math teachers checked before giving class tests.
        thanksforfish 6y ago
        Theres some interesting incentives for teachers administering standardized tests to ignore cheating. Students who do well reflects well on the teacher and the school. I wonder how schools report cheating to standardized test administrators and what the rules are for scoring a cheater.
  - VistaBrokeMyPC 6y ago
    If you group the programs then archive the group, clearing ram doesn't delete it. Once proctor walks away, unarchive!
- lilyball 6y ago
  I had a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition back in the day, and if I recall correctly, it had twice as much RAM available as the OS exposed, and you could load a third-party assembly program that would wire up a specific hotkey to essentially swap banks of memory. This way you could have what appeared to be a clean calculator with no programs on it, then swap over to the other memory bank and all your programs would be accessible. Even telling it to clear RAM would only clear the current bank.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  just quit allowing calculators at all. what in the world.

pickdenis 6y ago

That's awesome! I really wish I had teachers like that. In high school, I had a fancy TI Nspire which had an incredibly hobbled language that vaguely resembled the classic TI-BASIC. It was missing a TON of important programming features but it had symbolic manipulation which I loved to abuse. I wrote a program to balance arbitrary chemical equations using a series of ridiculous hacks. First, I parsed chemical compounds (like CO2 and H2(CO2)3, notice the nesting) by running through them char-by-char and translating them into expressions and then "eval"ing them: "CO2" -> e.C + 2 e.O (where e.C and e.O are free symbols). Then, I used the feature where you can type "X + Y | X=3, Y=5" to get 8 to extract the coefficients from the expression which I then shoved into a matrix and solved the system of equations. If you look at the code, you'd vomit, but it was a night of furiously typing on the abcdef keyboard that I will never forget. I never actually used it in class because during this process I became so quick at balancing the simple equations they would give us that it took longer to type them in than simply doing it in my head.