zlacker

I can never be too mad at TI for this, since I'm only a programmer today because of a Ti-83+ and TI-BASIC

Or at least that's what I thought about I got to the part about the guilt the author felt over the purchase, and the teacher trying to buy them out of pocket. It really is despicable that we require 100$+ purchase every student's education when there are so many realistic cheaper alternatives

>>Booris+(OP)
Shouldn't there be millions of used Ti-83s by now? Seems like there shouldn't be a real need to buy new when the market should be saturated with used. I know I have 2 Ti-83s in a box somewhere collecting dust.

This could be solved with a simple sellback program.

1. Purchase from school for $100

2. Sell back for $95

3. Repeat forever until calculator breaks

>>umvi+N
Do most people them them on to college as well though?

>>chriss+M1
I only needed a TI-83 in high school, but I think my college classed wanted me to buy a new TI-89. I still have my TI-89 in my office though I haven't used it ever... no idea where the TI-83 went.

>>umvi+N
There are tons of them already for sale cheaper, enough I don't think the overhead of running such a program would be justified: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=ti+83

But there's concerted effort to keep the perceived value of used calculators from being too high from TI and their partners.

Things like peripherals that only work with new devices for lab work, to textbook examples that rely on color (which only newer ones have).

As soon as you go up a couple of levels in age you see the prices start to spike: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=ti+nspire+cx

I say perceived value, because in reality the Ti-83 would still work for 99% of use cases, but TI has it's finger in the education pie, so it's easy for them to get textbooks to say things like "TI Nspire CX recommended" or have images and button presses that will only match their newest calculators

>>chriss+M1
In my college experience, students weren't permitted to use graphing calculators in math classes, and other math-heavy classes (eg, physics, chemistry, etc) used simple math on exams and permitted laptops during labs/classwork.

>>Booris+(OP)
I used to make games during class, then continue on the bus, and some more at home. Text input on that was quite slow though.

>>localh+q3
Same, the only time I used a TI graphing calculator was during one unit of high school math. I don't think we used them during the test for that semester either.

The general rule was scientific calculator only.

>>chriss+M1
I wasn't really a math person in grade school, but I remember needing a scientific calculator in middle school and a graphing calculator in highschool.

When I got to college I retook the remedial math courses (starting with the equivelent of Algebra II) before I could take calculus (and the other math courses for a CS degree).

Not a single professor of a math course let us use a graphing calculator, and infact, most had a "no calculator" policy.

I never really put that together: you can learn the same curriculum with or without a calculator.

>>Booris+(OP)
That's sort of how I started programming, as well. First TI Basic, then Z80 assembly. I still have my TI-83 and TI-89 some 20 years after graduating. Also still have the parallel port link (not that I have a working computer with a parallel port anymore).

When I was in HS, my teachers became wise to the existence of apps that would display the mem cleared message, so they would go around to each student and clear the memory themselves. This annoyed me as I'd written a lot of useful to me utilities (not cheats) and games, so I wrote a not-so-little program that emulated all of the system menus. You have to enter a hidden key combo to get out of it.

Looking back at it, the code embarrasses me because it is so goddamn awful. I didn't know how to write functions or use the stack properly. It was just one giant mess of jumps and conditional branches. But hey, it worked.

Sadly, I think all of my Z80 assembly is lost. I don't think I shared it on any sites, either.

>>chriss+M1
The only time I was allowed to use a graphing calculator in college was a statistics class. My batteries actually crapped out right before the final and the professor was nice/trusting enough to let me use a TI-89 emulator on my phone.

>>Booris+a3
In reality a $5 “scientific calculator” (or a slide rule) works for 99% of use cases (high school math homework/exams). The only thing I know of which strictly needs the TI calculator is the AP calculus test. Students should just borrow a calculator a few times to prepare and then for a few hours for this single test. Getting them to spend $100 each to keep the calculator is a total racket.

Better still would be to eliminate the need for a TI calculator from the AP exam, and then there would be no need for it whatsoever.

>>Booris+(OP)
My very earliest programming experience was making games and math utilities on a TI-82 in the early 1990s. That little machine helped me cultivate skills that still pay my bills to this day.