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Fundamental Calculator Questions (Ti-83+)

Started by mazhat, May 05, 2017, 09:18:49 PM

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mazhat

I have some questions in order of how desperate I am to have the question answered:

1. Does the amount of read and write operations on a calculator affect it in anyway?
    Will writing a lot eventually deem it inoperable? ex: USBs after a certain amount of time start failing after so many writes.

2. What is the "best" calculator? (I define "best" as what you personally prefer, and say why.)

3. This one is specifically for you calculator hoarders. I'm looking at you Dj ;)
     Everything break eventually, so the question is:  what is the cause of your broken calculators?
     Physical damage (blunt force), wear and tear, bought it like that, or something unexpected?

Edit: Moving the questions for you guys to see!

4) What is the most interesting calculator program that you've encountered. (Let it be pushing the hardware to the limits, or something you really like)

5) Is C programming possible with the ti-84+ series of calculators? If so, is it even feasible?

6) What big projects have you worked on? ex. Are you a pioneer of programming on calcs? Did you help create the first Mario clones?
   6++) Explain your journey through the programming world, how did you start and where are you today?

  • Calculators owned: TI-83Plus, TI-84Plus
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Samsung TAB A (Cheap), DSI, Rasperry PI 3
Sketti

_iPhoenix_

#1
1: I have emptied and filled up my RAM 3 times, if that's what you mean. There seems to be little to no decrease in capacity. Archive, I'm about 15% there to my first one :P
Also, you can buy spare calculator cables for USD+-2 on ebay.
2: I prefer the CE because the 85 sucks.
3: My CE is physically broken (still works, though) because I use it ~5 hours a day, straight. That is not a healthy relationship.
By physically broken, I'm talking about like deep scratches, the 1 or 2 missing internal screws (idk how that happened.. <_< ), or the fact that all rubber slidey things are missing. I also may or may not have lots of random dust and pencil shavings inside my calc, but I had them before I even opened it up...
The current estimated value of my calculator, to a "average" user is about USD5. For me, however, you'd have to get me a new one before I gave you mine :P

EDIT:
Here's the original post. IDK why, but I feel like putting it here in case of new questions:
Quote from: mazhat on May 05, 2017, 09:18:49 PM
I have some questions in order of how desperate I am to have the question answered:

1. Does the amount of read and write operations on a calculator affect it in anyway?
    Will writing a lot eventually deem it inoperable? ex: USBs after a certain amount of time start failing after so many writes.

2. What is the "best" calculator? (I define "best" as what you personally prefer, and say why.)

3. This one is specifically for you calculator hoarders. I'm looking at you Dj ;)
     Everything break eventually, so the question is:  what is the cause of your broken calculators?
     Physical damage (blunt force), wear and tear, bought it like that, or something unexpected?


  • Calculators owned: Two TI-84+ CE's
Please spam here: https://legend-of-iphoenix.github.io/spam/

"walruses are better than tuxedo chickens, all hail the great :walrii:" ~ me
Evolution of my avatar:

TheMachine02

1 yes for flash but you can do whatever you want with RAM
2 CE cause ez80 :p
3 usually m'y calc tend to be a bit damaged by scratches and such but they are usually fine

E37

1) You can overwrite ram as many times as you want without any problems. There is technically a limit to how many times you can archive something, but unless you need to garbageCollect 100 times a day for the next several years, you shouldn't worry about it. For the USB's, I have never herd of them going bad from transmitting data. I would be more worried about the physical parts breaking after extensive use.
To sum it up, you have nothing to worry about.
2) If you are talking about the best b/w calc, the 84+ SE is the best. It has the most memory of all the b/w 83/84's and can run any program that works on your 83.
3) I have had my 84+ for 3 years and the usb port is going bad (probably because I hit it when a cord was plugged in) and my trace key is broken. Unless you mess up the boot code, physical damage is the only thing that clearing all memory won't fix.
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Ti83,Ti84!
I've never finished a project, there is always a way to improve!
What's my calc's name? Convert $37 to decimal. Look up that element in the periodic table. Then take the abbreviation of that element and you have it!
Look! A slime!    <(^.^)>

mazhat

Woah, thanks for the speedy responses guys!

I have so much confidence in all your answers for question one due to it being reconfirmed.

It seems that some of the newer TI-8* series calculators are pretty popular, but expensive.

Here's some more questions for you, and probably the last for now.

4) What is the most interesting calculator program that you've encountered. (Let it be pushing the hardware to the limits, or something you really like)

5) Is C programming possible with the ti-84+ series of calculators? If so, is it even feasible?

6) What big projects have you worked on? ex. Are you a pioneer of programming on calcs? Did you help create the first Mario clones?
   6++) Explain your journey through the programming world, how did you start and where are you today?
           
  • Calculators owned: TI-83Plus, TI-84Plus
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Samsung TAB A (Cheap), DSI, Rasperry PI 3
Sketti

c4ooo

Quote from: mazhat on May 05, 2017, 10:13:46 PM
4) What is the most interesting calculator program that you've encountered. (Let it be pushing the hardware to the limits, or something you really like)

5) Is C programming possible with the ti-84+ series of calculators? If so, is it even feasible?

6) What big projects have you worked on? ex. Are you a pioneer of programming on calcs? Did you help create the first Mario clones?
   6++) Explain your journey through the programming world, how did you start and where are you today?
           

4) Assembly, although i never released anything made in asmebly. (I have however put large chunks of asm into one axe game though)

5) On the CE, yes. On the non CE calcs: also yes, although there is no SDK for it.

mazhat

Assembly for me was always a hassle. I'll leave it to you guys to wrap your heads around it!

Back when I didn't have a calculator cable, I had to program with an opcode table.
Failure to remember the exact byte your data was in meant counting all the way through the program again.
Graphics were and are a nightmare, thank the heavens for AXE.

Z80 assembly has taught me a lot about low-level programming though, so I'm thankful!
  • Calculators owned: TI-83Plus, TI-84Plus
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Samsung TAB A (Cheap), DSI, Rasperry PI 3
Sketti

_iPhoenix_

6: I've created the first (published) demos of machine learning on a calculator, followed by the first (published) perceptron, all in BASIC. I also wrote a raycaster, in BASIC. 8)
4: see #6
5: Errm. Ask Mateo...  (-_(//));
6++:
the story of my life
Welp, I started programming in first or second grade, making slotmachines, math programs and the like. I quickly picked up LOGO, and GameMaker. I later progressed to JS and dabbled in HTML before switching to Java to write Minecraft mods. I got bored after a year or so, and wrote a platformer, then a raycaster. I made my first RPG after that, and started work (never finished) on a combination of all 3 styles of games. (Basically a 3d parkour game with quests). By then, I was in middle school skipped 3 grades in math and needed a calculator. I got Kerm Martian's book as a gift, and got hooked on calculator development, and with my years of BASIC and Logo (and lua. I was really bad at lua, but I knew the, uh, Basics...). (I also started work on this song later called "Tranquillity"...) quickly mastered it.

With my even more numerous years of OOP, I wanted Basic to be OOP, which is why I made my neural network.
[close]

I typed that all on mobile, too.
* _iPhoenix_ is both proud and frusterated...
  • Calculators owned: Two TI-84+ CE's
Please spam here: https://legend-of-iphoenix.github.io/spam/

"walruses are better than tuxedo chickens, all hail the great :walrii:" ~ me
Evolution of my avatar:

mazhat

Looks like you got a lot of languages under your belt. Very versatile.
Skipping 3 grades is AMAZING! I love math, but am very terrible at it. I'm jealous of you, IPhoenix.

I have another question. It's about Axe actually:

7) How should I go about making title screens and pictures and stuff. Should I make an assembly routine?
//Here's my rough idea:
10 Start HL at "byte 0" (The start of the drawing buffer)
20 Draw on that byte
30 Increase the HL
40 Goto 20 until you've drawn everything

Otherwise should I make a collection of sprites? Maybe Axe has a built in picture display?


Trivial Info:
Thanks for all the help guys. Codewalr.us has helped me feel less hopeless about this stuff. In the past if I wanted to know something I'd have to look for hours, and most of the time I'd never find anything. You guys are great!
  • Calculators owned: TI-83Plus, TI-84Plus
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Samsung TAB A (Cheap), DSI, Rasperry PI 3
Sketti

p2

okeyyyy

1. even I didnt get to that point lol
2. The TI 84+ CE Teachers Edition: Same software as the 83+/84+ family but more space plus faster, plus u can connect it to an external screen (teachers edition, but U cant buy it regulary)
3. Messing around with an old unstable version of axe, corrupting data necessary to receive new Operating systems or file transfer in general, then deleting the old OS x.x (was fixed, but took a loooot of time)
4. A version of cannon hill (old game some of u might remember) in TI basic. It used incredibly advanced methods for everything, for example it drew a FILLED circle about twice as fast, as the calc took to draw a regular circle, which totally amazed me. It was an xLib game, and didn't contain any asm snippets. I still dont know how they did it and probably never will as I dont have the game anymore.
5. wrong guy to ask sorry
6. I created an axe clone of 2048, with animations, greyscale, everything... lost the data without having it ever shared >.< Also once created a 1 on 1 2D soccer game with quite realistic physics, greyscale animated characters, fancy graphic effects, ... Took me forever, but was lost in the same incident as my 2048 clone >.<
6++. learned programmign on a ti 83+ (basic) then discovered xLib which was amazing. Found my way to omnimaga and wanted to do stuff on a pc, too. Started with stuff like AntMe, learned a bit of visual basic but didnt like it. Tought myself AutoIt3 which I used for a few years and still did until about half a year ago. Used my skills all the time in exams, even bruteForced formulas whenever I didnt know how to solve them. Teacher hated me for that, gave me 0 points if I had not written down HOW I solved it (even tho I had the correct results which was unfair). After final exams started going to a governmental academy for information technology, learning a lot of stuff. learning Java. Then came to a little company, where I did web dev for a few months. Now I'm still in that company but doing Augmented Reality apps on the HoloLens in Unity and C#. Thinking about staying in that area (game dev) and probably learning Swift, we'll see.
7. /me hides
  • Calculators owned: ti-83+, ti-84+, ti-84+, ti-84+se, ti-84+se(te), ti-nsphire, ti-nsphire CAS, ti-nsphire CX-CAS, ti-voyage, ti-voyage, Who reads this list anyways...?
Anyway war sucks. Just bring us your food instead of missiles  :P ~ DJ Omnimaga (11.10.2016 20:21:48)
if you cant get a jframe set up, draw stuff to it, and receive input, i can only imagine how horrible your game code is _._   ~ c4ooo (14.11.2016 22:44:07)
If they pull a Harambe on me tell my family I love them ~ u/Pwntear37d (AssangeWatch /r/)
make Walrii great again ~ DJ Omnimaga (28.11.2016 23:01:31)
God invented the pc, satan the smartphone I guess ~ p4nix (16.02.2017 22:51:49)

mazhat

#10
I never knew that there were Teacher Edition Calculators! If I ever get my hands on one I'd be a happy boy.

I find it kinda funny that a lot of people have "incidences". It's apocalyptic out here!

School is a bit of a show case, in my naive opinion is not too important. That's why we even do stuff even if we'll "never use it". It's so you can choose what you want to do when you grow up (Well you're beyond this point, lol). Brute force programs, doing stuff your own way, asking for help and using the internet is not allowed in school (What I say is a generalisation), but all that is allowed in real life. Why? I think they just want to see what you can do "naked", as an individual without tools.

EDIT: I know how to rephrase this, yeah! They're teaching you to prepare for a worse case scenario if you're ever naked!

OooOoo, you have a job! How hard is it compared to what you program as a hobby? I'd love to program for a living.
  • Calculators owned: TI-83Plus, TI-84Plus
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Samsung TAB A (Cheap), DSI, Rasperry PI 3
Sketti

_iPhoenix_

Quote from: mazhat on May 06, 2017, 09:05:43 PM
Looks like you got a lot of languages under your belt. Very versatile.
Skipping 3 grades is AMAZING! I love math, but am very terrible at it. I'm jealous of you, IPhoenix.

Trivial Info:
Thanks for all the help guys. Codewalr.us has helped me feel less hopeless about this stuff. In the past if I wanted to know something I'd have to look for hours, and most of the time I'd never find anything. You guys are great!

Don't be jealous, I got like ~10 min of hw in ELA, History, Science, but got like 2 hrs of Math HW.

And I can't say I remember any Lua, GameMaker, or Logo. Not that the last two are of any use to me now :) If I gave it an honest try I could remember, but I got "big kid" tools now lol
I'm probably only useful in like 3 languages now. :P

Erm.. Axe seems cool but TI-83+ [tex]\not\in[/tex] {my calculators}

I had to look up TeX for that ^^  I hope it works...
  • Calculators owned: Two TI-84+ CE's
Please spam here: https://legend-of-iphoenix.github.io/spam/

"walruses are better than tuxedo chickens, all hail the great :walrii:" ~ me
Evolution of my avatar:

c4ooo

Quote from: mazhat on June 22, 1970, 10:17:27 PM
7) How should I go about making title screens and pictures and stuff. Should I make an assembly routine?
//Here's my rough idea:
10 Start HL at "byte 0" (The start of the drawing buffer)
20 Draw on that byte
30 Increase the HL
40 Goto 20 until you've drawn everything
If you are going to use axe, then just use axe >.<

CVSoft

1. Nope. Even the weaker Flash chips have a life expectancy longer than that of the LCD. The OTP-ROMs used in early calculators (TI-81, TI-85, TI-82, TI-83) are approaching their MTBF but I don't think that is related to usage.
2. I'd say the TI-83. From a classroom perspective, almost nothing useful has been added to the product line since the TI-83's introduction, besides the elimination of primary cells.
3. Between all of my calculators, the only thing that has failed is a single LCD column on a TI-82. The vast majority of my collection is over 20 years old, so connection aging is the primary concern.
4. This.
5. Yes, but learning assembly is easier.
6. The biggest project I have worked on is probably CBLM. I'm not sure if people use it (it's got quite a niche role), but it's probably the most advanced calculator solution for using the CBL.
7. I don't know enough about Axe (read: I know nothing about Axe) to advise on this.
  • Calculators owned: TI-73, TI-81, TI-81, TI-81, TI-81, TI-81, TI-81, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-82, TI-83, TI-83, TI-83 Plus, TI-84 Plus, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89 Titanium

p2

#14
Quote from: mazhat on May 06, 2017, 09:26:33 PM
I never knew that there were Teacher Edition Calculators! If I ever get my hands on one I'd be a happy boy.

I find it kinda funny that a lot of people have "incidences". It's apocalyptic out here!

School is a bit of a show case, in my naive opinion is not too important. That's why we even do stuff even if we'll "never use it". It's so you can choose what you want to do when you grow up (Well you're beyond this point, lol). Brute force programs, doing stuff your own way, asking for help and using the internet is not allowed in school (What I say is a generalisation), but all that is allowed in real life. Why? I think they just want to see what you can do "naked", as an individual without tools.

EDIT: I know how to rephrase this, yeah! They're teaching you to prepare for a worse case scenario if you're ever naked!

OooOoo, you have a job! How hard is it compared to what you program as a hobby? I'd love to program for a living.
in my company (tiny one <10 workers) I'm like supporting another guy. We're doing all projects together and split up the work, but he reviews my work before it's published. It's just like doing it at home, but with a few differences:
- you can't chose the project to work on (you might chose, but can't bring in new projects yourself)
- you have to leave ur room for it (usually sat on my bed with a laptop, now I have a fancy desk in a tiny office)
- you're getting a looot of money for pretty much the same stuff you would do anyways

as long as u find a company where they support you and teach u something, as well as a few really exciting projects (like my AR project) it's really fun!  :thumbsup:

edit:
A regular TI 84+ SE and a TI 84+ SE Teachers Edition
  • Calculators owned: ti-83+, ti-84+, ti-84+, ti-84+se, ti-84+se(te), ti-nsphire, ti-nsphire CAS, ti-nsphire CX-CAS, ti-voyage, ti-voyage, Who reads this list anyways...?
Anyway war sucks. Just bring us your food instead of missiles  :P ~ DJ Omnimaga (11.10.2016 20:21:48)
if you cant get a jframe set up, draw stuff to it, and receive input, i can only imagine how horrible your game code is _._   ~ c4ooo (14.11.2016 22:44:07)
If they pull a Harambe on me tell my family I love them ~ u/Pwntear37d (AssangeWatch /r/)
make Walrii great again ~ DJ Omnimaga (28.11.2016 23:01:31)
God invented the pc, satan the smartphone I guess ~ p4nix (16.02.2017 22:51:49)

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