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TI-83 series

Series of graphing calculators produced by Texas Instruments From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TI-83 series
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The TI-83 series is a line of graphing calculators produced by Texas Instruments.[citation needed] Released in 1996, the series remained popular and widely used in schools until the introduction of the TI-84 Plus in 2004.[citation needed]

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In addition to the functions present on normal scientific calculators,[citation needed] the TI-83 includes many features, including function graphing, polar/parametric/sequence graphing modes, statistics, trigonometric, and algebraic functions, along with many useful applications.[citation needed] Although it does not include as many calculus functions, applications and programs can be written on the calculator or loaded from external sources.[citation needed]

The TI-83 was redesigned twice, first in 1999 and again in 2001.[citation needed] TI replaced the TI-83 with the TI-83 Plus in 1999.[citation needed] The 2001 redesign introduced a design very similar to the TI-73 and TI-83 Plus, eliminating the sloped screen that had been common on TI graphing calculators since the TI-81. [citation needed] Beginning with the 1999 release of the TI-83 Plus, it has included Flash memory, enabling the device's operating system to be updated if needed, or for large new Flash Applications to be stored, accessible through a new Apps key. [citation needed] The Flash memory can also be used to store user programs and data.[citation needed] In 2001, the TI-83 Plus Silver Edition was released, which featured approximately nine times the available flash memory, and over twice the processing speed (15 MHz) of a standard TI-83 Plus, all in a translucent grey case inlaid with small "sparkles".[citation needed] The 2001 redesign (nicknamed the TI-83 "Parcus"[1]) introduced a slightly different shape to the calculator itself, eliminated the glossy grey screen border, and reduced cost by streamlining the printed circuit board to four units.

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Editions

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TI-83

The original TI-83 calculator was released in 1996, succeeding the TI-82.[2]

TI-83 Plus

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The TI-83 Plus
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The French version of the TI-83 Plus

The TI-83 Plus was designed in 1999 as an upgrade to the TI-83.[citation needed] The TI-83 Plus is one of TI's most popular calculators.[citation needed] It uses a Zilog Z80 microprocessor[3] running at 6 MHz, a 96×64 monochrome LCD screen, and 4 AAA batteries as well as backup CR1616 or CR1620 battery. A link port is also built into the calculator in the form of a 2.5 mm jack.[citation needed] The main improvement over the TI-83, however, is the addition of 512 KB of Flash ROM, which allows for operating system upgrades and applications to be installed.[citation needed] Most of the Flash memory is used by the operating system, with 160 KB available for user files and applications.[citation needed] Another development is the ability to install Flash Applications, which allows the user to add functionality to the calculator.[citation needed] Such applications have been made for math and science, text editing (both uppercase and lowercase letters), organizers and day planners, editing spread sheets, games, and many other uses.[citation needed]

Designed for use by high school and college students,[citation needed] though now used by middle school students in some public school systems,[citation needed] it contains all the features of a scientific calculator as well as function, parametric, polar, and sequential graphing capabilities; an environment for financial calculations;[citation needed] matrix operations; on-calculator programming; and more.[citation needed] Symbolic manipulation (differentiation, algebra) is not built into the TI-83 Plus.[citation needed] It can be programmed using a language called TI-BASIC, which is similar to the BASIC computer language.[citation needed] Programming may also be done in TI Assembly, made up of Z80 assembly and a collection of TI provided system calls.[citation needed] Assembly programs run much faster, but are more difficult to write.[citation needed] Thus, the writing of Assembly programs is often done on a computer.[citation needed]

TI-83 Plus Silver Edition

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TI-83 Plus Silver Edition

The TI-83 Plus Silver Edition was released in 2001. Its enhancements are 1.5 MB of flash memory, a dual-speed 6/15 MHz processor, 96 KB of additional RAM (which can't be utilized,[citation needed] as the OS was never updated to recognize the extra space), an improved link transfer hardware, a translucent silver case, and more applications preinstalled.[citation needed] This substantial Flash memory increase is significant.[citation needed] Whereas the TI-83+ can only hold a maximum of 10 apps (or more often less, dependent on size), the Silver Edition can hold up to 94 apps.[citation needed] It also includes a USB link cable in the box. It is almost completely compatible with the TI-83 Plus;[citation needed] the only problems that may arise are with programs (e.g. games) that may run too quickly on the Silver Edition or with some programs which have problems with the link hardware[citation needed] . The key layout is the same.[citation needed]

A second version of the TI-83 Plus Silver Edition exists, the ViewScreen (VSC) version.[citation needed] It is virtually identical, but has an additional port at the screen end of the rear of the unit, enabling displays on overhead projectors via a cable and panel.[citation needed] It looks similar to the standard TI-83 Plus, but has a silver-colored frame, identical to the standard Silver Edition, around the screen.[citation needed]

The TI-83 Plus Silver Edition is listed on the Texas Instruments website as "discontinued." [citation needed] In April 2004, the TI-83 Plus Silver Edition was replaced by the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition.[citation needed] They feature the same processor and the same amount of Flash memory, but the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition features a built-in USB port, clock, and changeable faceplates.[citation needed]

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Technical specifications

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Programming

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The TI-83 Plus series are very similar in the languages natively supported by the calculator.[citation needed] These include "TI-BASIC",[citation needed] an interpreted language used by all of TI's calculators, and "TI-ASM", an unofficial name for the native Z80 assembly language on which the calculator is based.[citation needed]

TI-BASIC

Main article: TI-BASIC

TI-BASIC is the built-in language for TI-83 series calculators, as well as many other TI graphing calculators. [citation needed] Due to its simplicity and the ubiquity of TI calculators in school curricula, for many students it is their first experience with programming[citation needed]. Below is an example of a hello world program equivalent to the assembly language example.[citation needed]

:ClrHome
:Disp "Hello World!"

Assembly language

The TI-83 was the first calculator in the TI series to have built-in assembly language support.[citation needed] The TI-92, TI-85, and TI-82 were capable of running assembly language programs, but only after sending a specially constructed (hacked) memory backup.[citation needed] The support on the TI-83 could be accessed through a hidden feature of the calculator. Users would write their assembly (ASM) program on their computer, assemble it, and send it to their calculator as a program.[citation needed] The user would then execute the command "Send (9prgm" (then the name/number of the program),[citation needed] and it would execute the program. [citation needed] Successors of the TI-83 replaced the Send() backdoor with a less-hidden Asm() command.[citation needed]

Z80 assembly language gives a programmer much more power over the calculator than the built-in language, TI-BASIC.[citation needed] On the downside, Z80 assembly is more difficult to learn than TI-BASIC. [citation needed] Z80 assembly language can be programmed on the computer and sent to the calculator via USB port, written by hand directly into the program editor (using the hexadecimal equivalents to the op-codes) or compiled using third party compiler programs[citation needed] . Programs written in assembly are much faster and more efficient[citation needed] than those using TI-BASIC, as it is the processor's native language,[citation needed] and does not have to be interpreted.[citation needed]

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Firmware replacement

Main article: Texas Instruments signing key controversy

TI continued to rely on 512-bit RSA cryptographic signing keys long for many years after it was known[citation needed] that longer keys were necessary for security.[citation needed] 512-bit keys had been publicly cracked in 1999 as part of the RSA Factoring Challenge.[5]

In 2009, a group of hobbyists brute-forced and subsequently distributed methods to find all of the cryptographic signing keys for the TI calculator firmware, allowing users to directly flash their own operating systems to the devices.[6] The key for the TI-83 Plus calculator was first published by a member of the unitedti.org forum; it took several months to crack. The other keys were found after a few weeks by the unitedti.org community through a distributed computing project.[7] Texas Instruments then began sending out DMCA takedown requests to a variety of different websites mirroring the keys, including unitedTI and reddit.com.[8] They then became subject to the Streisand effect and were mirrored on a number of different sites.[citation needed]

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Successor

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Main article: TI-84 Plus series

The TI-84 Plus series was introduced in April 2004 as a further update to the TI-83 Plus line.[citation needed] The main improvements of the TI-84 Plus and TI-84 Plus Silver Edition are a modernized case design, changeable faceplates (Silver Edition only), a few new functions, more speed and memory, a clock, and USB port connectivity.[citation needed] The TI-84 Plus also has a brighter screen with a clearer contrast, though this caused a bug with the LCD driver in some calculators sold.[citation needed] The TI-84 Plus has 3 times the memory of the TI-83 Plus, and the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition has 9 times the memory of the TI-83 Plus.[citation needed] They both have 2.5 times the speed of the TI-83 Plus.[citation needed] The operating system and math functionality remain essentially the same,[citation needed] as does the standard link port for connecting with the rest of the TI calculator series.[citation needed]

While mobile devices and the internet have superseded any calculator's capabilities, standardized testing precludes the use of those devices.[citation needed] Furthermore, textbooks have been tailored for the TI-83 effectively giving the calculator a "monopoly in the field of high school mathematics."[9]

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