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Great read and great work. TI’s move to disallow developing native applications is not good. By definition, these calculators are educational devices, not walle
by mikeknoop 6y ago
Great read and great work. TI’s move to disallow developing native applications is not good. By definition, these calculators are educational devices, not walled curated platforms. While I admit programming is a secondary function on these calculators, a large community of folks (including myself) learned to code on these relatively accessible machines and many took those skills forward to help build really cool and useful things for the world.
- rsa25519 6y ago> By definition, these calculators are educational devices, not walled curated platforms Note that some TI calculators are specifically branded as restrictive enough to be compatible with standardized tests such as the ACT or SAT.
- mikeknoop 6y agoThe 83+/84+ line has been ACT/SAT certified for over 15 years while enabling this open educational vector. TI’s policy change is a recent one from this year.
- reanimus 6y agoSupposedly, it was in response to this video going viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JIPqcK3wwY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JIPqcK3wwY Although it features an outdated OS (up-to-date OSes weren't even vulnerable), TI made a move to protect the reputation of exam mode. :(
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoSince that video is in French and the screen is too small for me to seen what he’s doing on the calculator (I’m watching on a phone), could you TL;DR summarize?
- emmelaich 6y agoI had quick look. It appears to hold cheatsheets. Possibly among other things.
- tasogare 6y agoThe teacher says that a student came and demo him that it’s possible to retrieve custom programs even in exam mode. Then there is a demo of it.
- boogies 6y agoNot GP or French-speaking but what I got through auto-translate of the autosubs was tl;dw: When in exam mode one can access notes that it isn't supposed to allow (seemingly by performing the actions to create a new TI-BASIC “program” with the name of one that existed before entering exam mode, containing the notes).
- LEARAX 6y agoWhile I agree with your sentiment, a big part of why the TI-84 is so ubiquitous is because they're required for standardized tests. I suppose their reasoning is that supporting assembly programs makes it trivial to break/fake the test mode on their calculators. That said, they didn't even use test mode when I took the SAT, so I don't know.
- Polylactic_acid 6y agoIt seems like calculators exist for the features they don't support more than the features they do support.
- abakker 6y agoI still remember before test mode, when the teacher would just come around and do 2nd, +, 7,1,2 and that would reset the calc to factory settings. It became mandatory to have the USB adaptor to reload apps. The Ti83 is how I learned to program.
- tyingq 6y agoInteresting...is that roughly uncapturable by an application, sort of like ctrl-alt-del in windows?
- e2e8 6y agoNo, you could simply write a program that you ran ahead of time that would simulate the correct screens in response to their inputs and make it look like the calculator was reset when in fact it was not.
- cjsawyer 6y agoFor my engineering college tests I wasn’t allowed to use my TI84, I had to use a non programmable model.
- appleflaxen 6y agoThis is trivial to solve: the testing centers can purchase and maintain whatever model of calculator they wish to.
- nbardy 6y agoI also learned to program on these things. Figured out how to make my BASIC program lead me to the TIGCC and machine code and ultimately took me from messing around with programs to falling in love with them.