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Ti-84 Evo

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Re: Ti-84 Evo

#431

Post by swasheck »

clamprecht wrote: post #271

My TI-85 story. While I was in prison, around 1996 or 1997, I found out a friend had a TI-85 calculator. I realized it was programmable, so I borrowed it over the weekend and wrote a program to track his stock portfolio. It was the first time I had programmed anything in 2 or 3 years. Then I learned that the US Bureau of Prisons had a rule against any calculator (or device) that was "programmable". So I programmed th…

i created a program to make it appear like i wiped my formulas before before a calc 2 final in high school so that when the teacher witnessed us wipe the phones it seemed legit.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#432

Post by ndriscoll »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #430
ndriscoll wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really? I've worked with people who were super productive with high quality work, and my reaction was to... gravitate toward working more with them. Some people are status driven. Some are not. Some are apparently pathologically status driven such that they'll compete with a literal child. In any case refusing to nurture such a child (even in effectively passive ways like letting them quietly do something more ad…

That’s what all people say. Everyone who is status driven will not admit or even realize they are status driven. But the fact of the matter is… it is human nature to be status driven. Everyone recognizes status symbols and possesses such a drive within them. It is also clinically tied with serotonin levels and observed in cross species behavior. To say you have no drive for status is an either a lie or delusional. Th…

Again, I think you're entirely off base here. Maybe you are status driven enough that you can't wrap your head around someone who isn't, but I'm really just not interested in it. I want to give my family a comfortable life and spend time with them. That's it.

To color that a little, I've literally told the last 4 managers I've had very explicitly that I'm not at all interested in career advancement. When I was asked to lead my current team, I said "I've done it in the past and can if you want, but check with A and B first to see if they want to". I literally do not care about it. Work is a means to provide, and it does well enough that I don't need to chase it anymore. Actually the marginal pay for the increased responsibility kind of doesn't make it worth it, but like I said I'll do it if they need that. And so my focus is generally thinking about "how do I get one of my team members in a place where they can replace me?"

If we're talking about who's more human, I'd put forward that caring about who's best seems less humanizing than seeking to spend time with people you care about, remembering how lucky you are to have that time, and ignoring outside noise.

Especially when it comes to teaching, if your identity is "better than child" instead of "person who helps children reach their potential" I'm not sure what to say. Sounds like a narcissist.

On LLMs, I found them to be useless but interesting right up until December, at which point I started a hard push for my team to adopt it (and get excited about it). I'm very explicit that my mental framing with them is "how do I get it to do my job". I'm well aware that "programmer" per se is not going to be a job in the future. That much seemed obvious as far back as the original chatgpt release. That's fine, and just means we have to ask ourselves what else needs doing. If we ever get to the point where the answer is "nothing" then I guess we're all doing pretty well.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#433

Post by cbondurant »

Personally, I don't think I have much benefit in a new generation TI-84. I still own a TI-85, a model that was discontinued before I was born, and it is still an objectively superior tool for doing small calculations than any other alternative.

For instance, we compare the phone calculator. My phone fills a lot of really important roles besides being a calculator, ones that necessitate a password. So first I have to unlock my phone. Then I have to leave whatever app I had open before. Then I need to find the damn calculator app.

That's 5-6 seconds of friction, depending on how responsive my phone feels like being and how many times I fatfinger my password because the concept of "muscle memory" on a touch screen is practically an oxymoron. Not to mention, you cant just walk away from the desk for a moment with the calculator app left open on your phone, ready to come back at a moments notice, like you can with a dedicated calculator. Phones are just too important for that.

There's arguable pros and cons to using your PC over a calculator, but I think that discussion is a lot more nuanced. Either way, a PC is definitely less portable than your phone or a calculator.

Maybe I'll be convinced to upgrade at whatever point they add usb-c and a rechargeable battery to their lowest trim model. Not before that though.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#434

Post by charles_f »

It runs python!?

I still have my ti89, and my brother's 83. My kids will learn to write text based dealer simulation in ti-basic, then 68k assembly, like real men^.

^ they're boys so that cliche works

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#435

Post by anthk »

noworld wrote: post #415
anthk wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can write a game in almost every language. Check these ones written even on really low specs VM's: https://codeberg.org/luxferre/mu808 This could be adapted https://codeberg.org/luxferre/scoundrel-ports More info at https://luxferre.top

One time I wrote a game in English.

With Inform7 targeting the ZMachine VM you can literally say that =).

Inform6 it's a 'small' OOP language where with the English library the syntax it's dumber than VB6, Lua or anything else. Basically the objects and logic describe themselves as a dumbed down config file. You create a meta-object for rooms and light, and then copy and paste to create rooms, containers and tools based on atributes (again as if it were a simple config file).

Inform6 example:

https://jxself.org/git/?p=cloak-of-darkness.git;a=blob_plain...

Inform6 compiler:

https://jxself.org/git/inform.git

(cc -o inform src/* )

Inform6 lib

https://jxself.org/git/informlib.git

To compile Cloak...

       inform +lib  cloak-of-darkness.inf
Lib should be the English library, you can get it with

      git submodule update --init --recursive
or copy informlib to lib/

To play the game:

       frotz cloak-of-darkness.z5
Or LectRote under Mac... or WinFrotz under Windows, it will work the same.

With Inform7 you just write clauses in English, the interpreter will write IF6 code for you and then call the inform6 compiler to create a Z5-8 game ready to run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Inform_7

As you can see, no AI needed, no LLM's, no huge GB sized software, just a Pentium MMX could be enough for i7, a 8-16 bit machine for Puny Inform games (kinda like Inform6 'lite'), a 16 bit machine for z3-z5 games and maybe a 'high end' 16 bit computer for Z8 games. A 386 PC would be enough to run 'complex' text adventures. And consistent enough unlike LLM's where the objects' enviroment is lost everytime.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#437

Post by abustamam »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #385
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a hero of mine so here is my story. Me in math class in 1996 - I had a TI-82 things are programmable so I have no formal education, my parents are illiterate, and taught myself to program, and I begged them to buy me one. I spent time learning how to code on it, writing from scratch, the game Spyhunter. I couldn't figure out how to draw with lines or pixels so I used ASCII or text. I presented this to my teach…

Seems like everyone has such a story about a teacher. „No you can’t read more advanced books because the current ones bore you“ etc etc What is the matter with these people.

Makes me realize how lucky I was to have teachers who pushed me to actually excel in areas I was gifted in (and also pull me back in areas I was not gifted in :))

When I was in 7th grade I was getting 100% on all my math exams so my teacher had me test into 8th grade math (algebra). Then when I was a sophomore I was supposed to take precalc but my teacher thought I obviously didn't belong there either so she put me in her Calc AB class, which was the highest math class my school offered, but had me self-study for the Calc BC AP test during class time, taking her own time to sit down with me whenever I had questions.

A couple years later I TA'd for her precalc class and I spent most of my time in that class playing with my TI 8x (can't remember the exact model, maybe 84?) and programming very basic games on it. I showed her what I made and she was so impressed she said I should study computer science.

Guess what I did? Not that. I studied something completely different in college but now I've been a programmer for ten years and wonder why I ever doubted her at all.

Just goes to show how much impact a good teacher has on a student's life.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#439

Post by kmacdough »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #156
ndiddy wrote: post #86

From here: https://www.cemetech.net/news/2026/4/1062/_/ti-84-evo-calcul... > 3x Processing Power - Matching one of the speculated options, the calculator appears to use an ARM Cortex CPU, finally retiring the z80 and ez80 family of CPUs that were used in three decades of TI-83 and TI-84 Plus graphing calculators. It's running at 156MHz, compared to the 48MHz of the older calculators. It appears likely that in an unex…

Much nostalgia. The TI-83 Z80 was how I learned assembly as a teenager, so I could write better calculator games than was possible with TI Basic. Many others here had a similar experience, I’m sure. It’s been a couple decades, but I’m sure I’d still remember most of it if you put me down in front of a bunch of Z80 asm code. One thing that I remember vividly was you had no MUL or DIV, so you have to implement them you…

I learned much of what I know about computer and low-level systems engineering from Minecraft. Watched lots of videos making CPUs and built many components myself including a full ALU with a look-ahead adder and hardware multiplication.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#440

Post by abustamam »

Sardtok wrote: post #405
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a hero of mine so here is my story. Me in math class in 1996 - I had a TI-82 things are programmable so I have no formal education, my parents are illiterate, and taught myself to program, and I begged them to buy me one. I spent time learning how to code on it, writing from scratch, the game Spyhunter. I couldn't figure out how to draw with lines or pixels so I used ASCII or text. I presented this to my teach…

What a shit teacher: "No, don't be creative and learn. Do only as you're told."

I do not learn from textbooks at all. I learn from playing. I played with all my toys "wrong" when I was a kid, or so I was always told. I always turned to the last chapter of a math book to see what I'm going to learn or to see if I could figure it out from what I already knew (what I would now call "first principles"). I took appliances apart and tried to put them back together. If I failed to do so my dad would help me put them back together, as long as I didn't tell my mom he was encouraging that behavior :) I watched my older sister play piano and learned the songs she was playing by ear, then asked her to teach me to read music.

This behavior often came out as rebellious or prodigy behavior in grade school but I don't think it's any of that. I think it was just a matter of giving a curious kid space to play and learn and grow. kids like me often don't thrive in rigid environments not because we don't like rules or think they shouldn't apply to us but because our brains just don't work completely linearly.

I'd wager that most kids actually learn better like this but it's not super efficient to cater to 30 different curious kids wanting to learn 30 different things.

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