[HN Gopher] TI removes access to assembly programs on the TI-83 ...
___________________________________________________________________
TI removes access to assembly programs on the TI-83 Premium CE
Author : dTal
Score : 233 points
Date : 2020-05-21 14:12 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ticalc.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ticalc.org)
| stuntkite wrote:
| TI's strangle hold on the education market is stupid. Anyone
| that's looking for an affordable ($99)and modern calculator,
| check out the Numworks. It's fantastic. It does all the normal
| things a calculator should do and comes with a Python interpreter
| out of the box. Check out their simulator[0]. Also the hardware
| and software are open source[1].
|
| [0] https://www.numworks.com/simulator/ [1]
| https://github.com/numworks
| pests wrote:
| Is it accepted on tests?
| jedieaston wrote:
| It's acceptable on the SAT and (I believe) AP exams.
|
| https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-
| tes...
| Allezxandre wrote:
| I don't know for other countries, but as for France, it's
| compliant with the exam-mode that all calculators must comply
| to for national exams.
|
| So I can't say for your specific case, but if you're a
| teacher, at least this feature exists and you can use it with
| your students.
|
| By the way, even the iPhone has some apps compliant with this
| feature, where you're basically locked into the App. If you
| do manage to leave the App (i.e. by force restarting your
| phone), you void the exam start timestamp that the App saved
| mycall wrote:
| In the world of Matlab, python, Octave and Wolfram Alpha, why
| bother with the TI-83 still?
| centimeter wrote:
| Because school policy is driven mostly by lobbying and
| tradition, not by careful consideration of the best available
| options.
| avhon1 wrote:
| When I was in High school (in the early 2010's), I certainly
| didn't have room for a laptop or tablet on my desk! Just a
| notebook or binder would fill most of the available area, with
| room for an eraser and spare pen or pencil along the top edge.
| My calculator would sit on either the left or right page of my
| notebook, whichever I wasn't writing on at the moment. The
| textbook would be open in my lap.
|
| The only way a laptop or tablet would have fit would have been
| to either have my notebook over the keyboard and touchpad, do
| away with the notebook and do all work digitally, or do away
| with the physical textbook and put it on the laptop. My
| experience with e-learning and e-textbook platforms suggests
| that I _very strongly_ recommend against the latter two
| options.
|
| ---
|
| Off the top of my head, a few more reasons:
|
| Although TI's calculators are expensive ($100-$150 each,
| depending on the model), they are cheaper than almost all
| devices that can run Matlab, Octave, etc. The dirt-cheapest of
| Android devices are cheaper to buy, but have higher
| administrative requirements, are probably too slow to run CAS
| well anyway.
|
| Calculators are _much_ sturdier than smartphones, tablets, or
| laptops. Frangible case, thick ABS shells, rounded edges, low-
| tech big-pixel LCD. Calculators are subject to, and withstand,
| a great deal of use, neglect, and outright vandalism at the
| hands of teenagers. Tossed in backpacks, dropped onto floors or
| sidewalks, sharpied, spray-painted, engraved with anything
| available... The calculators survive this environment pretty
| well; it is entirely possible and reasonable for a student to
| be given and use a ten or even twenty-year-old calculator in
| class.
|
| Not only physically enduring, the calculators remain relevant
| for long periods of time. Even though TI has released new
| models since the TI-83, many classes will allow any calculator
| in the family. Some students will have brand-new instances of
| the latest model, some will have hand-me-down or secondhand
| calculators, and other students will use loaner calculators
| from a fleet that the school has retained for years.
| Maintaining such a fleet is _far_ cheaper and easier than
| maintaining a fleet of up-to-date, secure, and working laptops
| or tablets.
|
| Calculators require less charging than laptops or tablets. A
| cheap quartet of AAA batteries can last a semester, or even a
| whole school year, in a calculator. If the batteries do die at
| a bad time, teachers will often have a stash of extras that can
| be swapped in by the student, allowing them to finish the class
| or exam. Tablets or laptops require banks of chargers, usually
| on mobile carts, and all of the cables need to be properly
| plugged in every afternoon, and sometimes before then. Any
| failure will result in a student who has to switch to an
| entirely new device (if one is available at all) in order to
| keep working.
|
| Calculators are instantaneous-on. You don't need to wait
| agonizing minutes of valuable class time for the OS to boot,
| the network to connect, typing a username/password, loading the
| desktop, and launching a CAS program. At best, that process
| could take only a few seconds. At worst, it could take many
| minutes. Anecdote: halfway through one of my semesters of high
| school, some of the school computers (including one I was
| assigned to) were updated from Windows XP to Windows 7. The
| login system recreated your profile from scratch at every
| login. The result was that it took about ten minutes every day
| just for me and the 6 or 7 other guinea-pig students to log in
| to our computers -- a big impediment in a computer graphics
| class, in a school where classes were only 47 minutes long.
|
| Calculators always work, and they always work the same way.
| They don't have mandatory security updates, certificate
| expirations, obsolete network configurations, missing user
| profiles, misconfigured product key servers, surprise UI
| updates, cloud-only functionality, or anything else like that.
| If it turns on, it works, and is exactly the same as it always
| has been. Another anecdote: In college, my ios app class was
| thrown in to disarray when we came in and found out that the
| university had updated to the latest version of xcode. The new
| IDE also came with a new version of swift. Our project was due
| later that week, and none of our code would compile. The
| instructors had to push the deadline back and create a "what we
| told you last week is different now" lecture the next day.
|
| Calculators are much less of a classroom distraction. Even
| though they can have third-party applications and games
| installed on them, they have an overridingly clear purpose: to
| perform calculations. Doing anything else on a graphing
| calculator is tedious and difficult. Calculators can only
| communicate by wire, have no sound, and have smaller (and
| usually un-backlit black-and-white) displays pointing straight
| up from the desk, so they can't really engage/distract more
| than one student. Contrast with laptops or tablets, which
| students know are able to browse the internet, watch videos,
| and engage socially with their peers. Even though the devices
| can be "secured", the value of workarounds is much greater than
| for calculators. Savy students will spend more effort
| developing workarounds for internet-capable devices, and their
| peers will jump through more hoops to perform them. When
| workarounds are in place, their use can also be much more
| distracting than a calculator: students covertly chatting in
| class, playing flashy games, or having sound play out the
| speakers.
| slezyr wrote:
| "A lot of [TI's] graphing calculator success was due to really
| aggressive lobbying for certain policies," a source in the
| education space told The Hustle. "They made it so that that the
| types of things you were allowed to bring into a test were
| essentially limited to their devices."
|
| https://thehustle.co/graphing-calculators-expensive/
|
| And this step might be the reason why they do this now to make
| it impossible to cheat by using them with custom software. It
| provides them an argument why students can continue to use them
| on the tests.
| mrkstu wrote:
| And simultaneously remove old versions from the re-sale
| market that they have to compete against, since of course,
| _they_ aren 't secure.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Because schools aren't about to let students use phones/laptops
| during exams, and not every student has readily available
| access to the internet.
|
| Also on occasion I need to do some simple plotting/multi-step
| math and my old high school TI-83 in the desk drawer is simply
| more convenient than firing up a Mathematics suite and looking
| up the arcane commands to get it to show what I actually want.
|
| But for professional use, yeah there are better tools.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| > Because schools aren't about to let students use
| phones/laptops during exams
|
| I was totally blown away when I entered a US high school only
| to find that math class was basically teaching you how to use
| the calculator, not how to do that math.
| kube-system wrote:
| This was not my experience in a US high school. We weren't
| permitted to use calculators until we demonstrated paper-
| and-pencil proficiency with a topic, and we always had to
| show each step of our work.
|
| But education is mostly regulated by state and local
| authorities in the US, so YMMV.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| > demonstrated paper-and-pencil proficiency with a topic
|
| That was my experience in Europe, but without moving to a
| calculator.
|
| I attended a public east coast high school.
| scottLobster wrote:
| School quality in the US is very location dependent, as
| public schools are largely funded by property taxes. I
| also went to a public east coast high school, and
| calculator use was mixed. Some exams allowed calculators,
| others not. Often the exam was designed such that it was
| testing your knowledge of a concept more than the
| numerically correct answer, showing work was required. So
| a calculator was useful for checking answers but correct
| answers with no work would get you a 20% at best.
| avhon1 wrote:
| > School quality in the US is very location dependent, as
| public schools are largely funded by property taxes
|
| Also because curricula are designated at the state level,
| and teacher certification requirements vary by state and
| county.
| kube-system wrote:
| I think _never_ using a calculator is just as misguided
| as _always_ using one would be. Using a calculator is a
| skill in and of itself.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| I agree with that.
|
| You should pick up some way of automating that effort,
| while still knowing how to do it yourself.
| chongli wrote:
| That's silly. None of my (I'm a math major) university
| calculus courses (calc 1, calc 2, calc 3, differential
| equations) allowed calculators on quizzes or exams. Graphing
| calculators are a zombie technology kept alive by completely
| bogus, artificial means.
|
| There's no reason to use a calculator on a properly-designed
| calculus exam. We were doing everything from Taylor series to
| triple integrals without them. Teaching kids to rely on a
| calculator from a young age severely limits their ability to
| develop the basic arithmetic "muscle memory" (for lack of a
| better term) needed to manipulate equations quickly in more
| advanced math classes. It's a real shame.
| drdaeman wrote:
| But what's the value of this arithmetic muscle memory, in a
| world of ubiquitous computing?
|
| As long as you don't treat this computing as magic that
| _somehow_ solves your math problems (hah, true I was guilty
| of that when I was a school kid), but is fully aware about
| how it does it (the algorithm) and just let the machine do
| the boring bits.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Are you joking? Number sense is hugely useful in daily
| life. What if I have a recipe for three servings but five
| dinner guests? If I just passed milepost 472 and I
| average 55 miles per hour, how long will it take me to
| reach Mexico? How many bottled liters of water can I fit
| in this box? How much is the 1.35% annual property tax on
| a million-dollar house, per month? You really want to
| whip out your laptop for all that?
| dTal wrote:
| >How much is the 1.35% annual property tax on a million-
| dollar house, per month? You really want to whip out your
| laptop for all that?
|
| I'll bite. In what scenario would it be useful to do this
| calculation in my head?
| jeffbee wrote:
| You're trying to figure out if you can afford that house
| based on your monthly pay?
| chongli wrote:
| _But what 's the value of this arithmetic muscle memory,
| in a world of ubiquitous computing?_
|
| It's the same as knowing the editor commands, of whatever
| text editor you're using, so that you don't have to look
| them up constantly while working. It's the same as
| knowing the basic functions and methods of the libraries
| and frameworks you use so that you can type them quickly
| without going to look them up.
|
| Auto completion is a powerful tool but, in general, it's
| not very helpful if you don't know at least a prefix of
| the name of the function you're looking for.
|
| Basic arithmetic skills are like math literacy. If you're
| constantly having to look words up in the dictionary then
| you probably won't get through Lord of the Rings.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Aside from the other examples brought up, pulling up an actual,
| physical calculator and typing into that can sometimes be
| faster and easier than using computer tools.
| lasagnaphil wrote:
| But one thing I don't really understand is (as someone
| outside the US) ... how do you really type code (like BASIC)
| with that thing? The ones I've seen had really weird alphabet
| layouts, and I couldn't understand how can students be able
| to be productive with such a finicky device.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Code is somewhat annoying to type, but when you're a bored
| high schooler with nothing else to do in class you might as
| well go through the two menus to type out the TI-BASIC
| commands.
| avhon1 wrote:
| TI-BASIC code is entered with a menu-based system. For
| example, while editing a program on a TI-84+, pressing the
| PRGM button yields this menu: [CTL] I/O
| EXEC 1:If 2:Then 3:Else 4:For(
| 5:While 6:Repeat 7:End 8:Pause
| 0:Goto A:IS>( B:DS<( C:Menu( D:prgm
| E:Return F:Stop G:DelVar H:GraphStyle
| I:OPenLib( J:ExecLib
|
| You can navigate up and down the menu with the arrow keys
| and pick the keyword you want with the ENTER key, or you
| can just press the corresponding number/letter (which is
| much faster). You can also left-arrow and right-arrow to
| related submenus. For example, that "I/O" next to "CTL" is
| this menu: CTL [I/O] EXEC 1:Input
| 2:Prompt 3:Disp 4:DispGraph 5:DispTable
| 6:Output( 7:getKey 8:ClrHome 9:ClrTable
| 0:GetCalc( A:Get( B:Send(
|
| There are never more than 3 submenus associated with any
| key, so you either get the menu you want, or you are only a
| single left or right arrow away. Menus (except the
| "Catalog" of _all_ commands) have a maximum length of 35
| entries, so you can always select a menu item by typing its
| corresponding number or letter (assuming you already know
| it). The worst case is 4 keypresses: faceplate button (like
| PRGM, MATH, or LIST), left- or right-arrow (if you need a
| non-default submenu), the ALPHA key (to type a letter), and
| the letter of a command more than 10 entries down in the
| menu.
|
| This is _exactly_ the way that all menus work on the
| calculator, and all of the actions you can pick at the REPL
| are also valid program entries. The more familiar you are
| with using the calculator in general, the easier it gets to
| program them. I wrote a _lot_ of TI-BASIC in high school in
| the early 2010 's, and had a lot of the menus memorized.
| Typing the programs in was definitely not the hard part.
|
| The only times you use alphabetical input when writing TI-
| BASIC are: * writing string literals * typing a one-letter
| variable name * referencing a custom-named list that hasn't
| yet been created, or has been deleted and already deleted.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's interesting to note that this is essentially a
| domain-specific structural editor; each keypress is a
| full lexical token that happens to be valid in the TI-
| BASIC programming language, and a different input mode is
| triggered for full alpha/numeric input. That's how one
| can cope with an input method that's as low in bandwidth
| as a fiddly calculator keyboard.
| avhon1 wrote:
| Eh, not really. The calculator won't stop you from
| creating syntactically-incorrect programs. You can enter
| any nonsense you like. Errors are detected at runtime.
| You get one of 8 (I think?) error codes, and can Goto the
| line that the error is on. Figuring out what is actually
| wrong is up to the user, and often requires consulting
| the manual.
|
| While I was in high school, some people figured out that
| they could write notes in their calculator as programs,
| and covertly reference them during tests. The calculators
| didn't care at all about having unquoted strings and
| nonsense math stored in the programs, because the
| students never ran them. The teachers caught on to this
| and started checking that calculators were wiped before
| tests.
| vulcan01 wrote:
| They have computer software for Windows & Mac so you can
| connect your calculator to your computer and write code
| like that, but it is a _pain_ to set up.
| avhon1 wrote:
| The TI-84 and newer have USB ports, but the TI-83+ and
| older require a special cable to connect to a desktop
| computer. (USB-A or RS-232 on one end, a logic board in
| the middle, and a 3.5mm jack on the calculator end.) I
| never had one of those, so I entered everything via the
| keyboard. It must have been an experience very similar to
| my dad's, who copied BASIC programs out of Compute!
| magazines into his Atari 800XL in the 80's.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The last time I used an 83/84, all the functions and
| keywords were strictly token-based, so you went into menus
| to pick them out. Variable names and strings were directly
| typed, using one of the modifier keys.
|
| The 89 let you either type the names of functions or get
| them out of menus at your leisure.
|
| It's not the best experience in the world, but it's not
| significantly worse than typing on a touch screen. Remember
| that people tolerated typing on _phone keypads_ for years,
| and this beats that by a mile.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Calculator-like platforms are still very useful. A cheap
| microcontroller-class CPU and a tiny LCD or e-paper display can
| perform useful work whilst being highly energy-efficient, which
| is important for something that's as portable as a calculator
| and has to rely on battery power.
| dTal wrote:
| Don't underestimate the value of having a useful, programmable
| microcomputer as a ubiquitous element of education. These
| calculators are (were) a portal to computing, accessible in a
| way unmatched by any heavyweight system. What RaspberryPi,
| MicroBIT, PocketC.H.I.P etc were all trying to achieve, TI
| calculators (practically inadvertantly!) achieved to a level of
| success undreamt of by those systems. Every student in high
| school owned a BASIC terminal. That's huge.
| Mirioron wrote:
| But people who set education policy or companies that lobby
| for education policy aren't in it to teach kids new things.
| markus92 wrote:
| Weren't these devices utterly broken because the private RSA key
| was actually refactored? Or is this a different type.
|
| There's some wonderful software for these calculators out there.
| Even a functional Gameboy emulator exists, used it to play
| Pokemon during math classes back in the days!
| codys wrote:
| The TI-84 Premium/Plus CE uses a larger RSA key that has not
| been factored.
| imglorp wrote:
| Well that sounds like a challenge. Got it handy?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| It'd be nice if the bitcoin community put their brute
| forcing power towards something meaningful like brute force
| factoring of RSA keys. Sadly, that doesn't make money.
| kohtatsu wrote:
| The proof-of-work for Bitcoin is leading 0's in SHA-256
| sums.
|
| It doesn't make money, it's just a simple way of proving
| you did an approximate unit of work.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| It doesn't make one money directly, but when a block is
| mined, bitcoin are created and can be sold for money. I'm
| not saying it's a good idea; it's not. But wouldn't
| putting that computing power to factoring RSA keys be a
| better use of electricity? It could be run in a
| distributed fashion where, if a node says it found it,
| it's checked?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Much slower to verify than a hash, and who makes the keys
| so that you can trust them not to cheat?
| imglorp wrote:
| It's be real nice if PoW was protein folding, or SETI
| matches, or anything else that benefitted humanity
| instead of random speculators.
| npongratz wrote:
| It can be! Hasn't worked so well in practice, however:
|
| https://foldingcoin.net/
|
| Not much going on there... seems the last on-chain
| transaction happened about a month ago:
|
| https://xchain.io/asset/FLDC
| andai wrote:
| Has this been tried, or at least discussed? I often
| contemplate the vast CPU resources even just in a small
| radius around me, doing nothing most of the time.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Is there a way to get a partial match on factoring an RSA
| key, so you can use it as proof of work?
| monocasa wrote:
| Not really, that'd break the cryptographic requirements
| of a hash.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Partial matches on a secure hash don't break anything.
| They don't get you any closer to a full match. And it's
| _trivial_ to match the first few bits of a hash; just try
| a hundred random values. Or for 20 bits, do about a
| million, etc.
| monocasa wrote:
| Right, so my point is that there isn't a way to incentive
| partial matches in a way to break these. Partial matches
| don't get you any closer to the complete solution.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The payouts for partial matches aren't because partial
| matches are useful. They're incentive to keep guessing.
|
| If you have an 70 bit hash to break and offer a pile of
| money to whoever cracks it, you won't get a whole lot of
| attention. Instead you can offer a steady stream of
| rewards to anyone that matches at least the first 50
| bits, building up a swarm of miners. Eventually someone
| will match all 70.
|
| The question is whether you can set up a scheme like this
| for factorization. We already know it's a viable mining
| method for hashes.
| monocasa wrote:
| I think it's RSA 2048, in which case even if you ran all
| the computers until the the sun supernovas, you wouldn't
| be able to factor it probably.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| Does anyone know what might be the Youtube video that the article
| suggests kicked off this change?
| frellus wrote:
| No issues, so long as you can still amuse your friends by typing:
| 6006135
| gxqoz wrote:
| As someone who widely appreciated being able to have a calculator
| out in some classes to play Assembly games in classes this is sad
| news. That said, I can't recall using an Assembly program for any
| legitimate use. Are there real apps out there a student would use
| that are written in Assembly?
|
| By the way, my favorite TI-83 Assembly game was Uncle Worm, a fun
| variant on snake that lets you move in all directions. I even
| made a Windows port.
| https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/96/9683.html
| non-entity wrote:
| The assembler games were the best, but I managed to hack some
| sort of game together using TI Basic and the graph. Really sad
| they're removing it and super lame, but I guess there weren't a
| ton of "legitmate" assembler programs.
| flatiron wrote:
| i used my ti-83 in the late 90s for exactly what there were
| talking about. our teachers would hard reset our calculators
| before each test but there was a program you could load that
| would just simulate the menus and pop up the "yeah we reset it"
| screen and they would hand it back with all my test notes on
| the calculator intact. so i know why they are doing it. it just
| won't stop it
| swiley wrote:
| In college I wrote a quick program to plot 3D curves and
| surfaces, a lot of my classmates used it. I would have written
| it in assembly if it were possible to put an assembler on the
| calculator easily because basic was almost too slow.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| > the new, upcoming chapters of a still ongoing story :)
|
| I love this spirit. Glad to see it will continue with or without
| TIs blessing. I have been using ticalc.org since I was a teenager
| and calculator enthusiasm is and was a great way for kids to get
| interested in software engineering.
| saagarjha wrote:
| This is really sad and a huge about face from the TI-83 Plus,
| which let you program in assembly _on the calculator itself_ (fun
| fact: I wrote a CTF challenge based around this,
| https://github.com/saagarjha/ictf-carprey). I'm not looking
| forward to the next generation of students being stuck with TI-
| BASIC unless they "jailbreak" their calculators...
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Wow, this is incredibly sad news.
|
| One of my fondest memories with the TI was a chemistry instructor
| saying that we were completely free to use any programs we wanted
| on examinations -- as long as we coded the programs ourselves.
| This inspired me to create a fairly comprehensive TI chemistry
| formula program, and my mates did likewise. It was really a
| forward-thinking move that contrasted strongly with just a
| blanket ban, as instead it fostered creativity. It is sad to me
| that future generations will not be able to experience this.
| pickdenis wrote:
| That's awesome! I really wish I had teachers like that. In high
| school, I had a fancy TI Nspire which had an incredibly hobbled
| language that vaguely resembled the classic TI-BASIC. It was
| missing a TON of important programming features but it had
| symbolic manipulation which I loved to abuse.
|
| I wrote a program to balance arbitrary chemical equations using
| a series of ridiculous hacks. First, I parsed chemical
| compounds (like CO2 and H2(CO2)3, notice the nesting) by
| running through them char-by-char and translating them into
| expressions and then "eval"ing them: "CO2" -> e.C + 2 e.O
| (where e.C and e.O are free symbols). Then, I used the feature
| where you can type "X + Y | X=3, Y=5" to get 8 to extract the
| coefficients from the expression which I then shoved into a
| matrix and solved the system of equations. If you look at the
| code, you'd vomit, but it was a night of furiously typing on
| the abcdef keyboard that I will never forget.
|
| I never actually used it in class because during this process I
| became so quick at balancing the simple equations they would
| give us that it took longer to type them in than simply doing
| it in my head.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| This isn't a ban on TI-BASIC, which is what most students use
| when programming formulae and other helper programs.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| It's common for exam proctors to require you clear all
| programs from your calculator. I think the reason for banning
| native programs is that it was trivial to spoof the memory
| clearing in a way that was difficult to detect.
| avhon1 wrote:
| You can actually spoof the "RESET RAM" menu in TI-Basic,
| but only dedicated students would do it.
| Mattwmaster58 wrote:
| Was this because you would have to plot it line/pixel-by-
| line/pixel?
| avhon1 wrote:
| Something like that. You'd have to plot all of the text
| in all the right places, and also script the menu, delay,
| and keyboard response.
| thanksforfish wrote:
| Are exam proctors really auditing this to that level?
| I've been out of school for a while, but I think I only
| remember the honor system being used.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Removing an advertised feature of a product in a firmware update?
| That reminds me of OtherOS[1] and Sony.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS
| BubRoss wrote:
| A huge part of modern software updates seems to be bait and
| switching your users.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Is that legal?
| kube-system wrote:
| Sony paid out on a class-action lawsuit over it.
| [deleted]
| lxe wrote:
| That is a sad news. What a trip down memory lane though... I
| remember since I discovered that TI-83 is much more powerful than
| simply running BASIC programs, I've been spending most of my free
| time on TICALC. I remember installing a gameboy emulator that
| used some neat tricks to make TI-83's monochrome display render
| 4-shade greyscale. I think there was a Doom port. There's been a
| way to load and play rudimentary music through the IO port.
| TICALC was/is a treasure. I wrote and published a simple sprite
| and asm editor which since has been deleted. I had a z80 opcode
| table pretty much memorized so I can try writing small native
| programs in hex directly on the calculator. I think it helped me
| pave my life path for the next 20 years.
| analognoise wrote:
| Hey everyone, since we're on the topic -
|
| Is there an open source computer algebra system designed to run
| on one of these microcontroller-level devices that might serve as
| a replacement for the math capabilities?
|
| Something at least as good as DERIVE, and doesn't resort to
| Python - something barest of metal?
|
| Because I've always wanted to make a calculator...
| nsajko wrote:
| I do not know much about it, but I remember Giac being hacked
| onto the Numworks Epsilon software. Maybe check out Numworks,
| too, I am going to make a comment now about it here, too.
|
| https://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~parisse/giac.html
|
| Seemingly relevant thread found by a quick Web search:
| https://xcas.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69...
| moonchild wrote:
| Why does it need to run on a microcontroller? Why not use
| something like a raspberry pi 0: size of a credit card, but has
| a 1GHz arm core that can run linux, python, whatever.
| avhon1 wrote:
| Power usage. The classic TI-83+ can last for a whole school
| year on four AAA batteris.
| scottlocklin wrote:
| Yacas looked like it might work, but I haven't looked at it in
| something like 20 years.
|
| Derive had the sweetest front end though. Using it with the
| HP200lx was amazing.
| nullc wrote:
| I'm really happy with the very well build swissmicros DM42
| calculator: https://www.swissmicros.com/dm42.php
|
| It is inspired by the venerable HP42 and an e-ink like display
| that persists when powered off, an arm cpu running at 24MHz when
| powered by a cr2032 (or 80MHz when on USB power). Both the
| display and the key action are a big advantages over using a
| calculator app on a phone.
|
| The software is entirely free software.
|
| They will have a new model coming out in the next year or so
| which is on the same hardware platform (but a different model
| because the key layout is different) with an even more powerful
| software stack.
|
| Unfortunately dedicated calculators are a seriously niche market,
| except for education. And education results in weird user hostile
| features as well as being extremely overpriced. (DM42 is also not
| super inexpensive, but at least there its because its extremely
| well built and made in very small quantities).
|
| A lot of really awesome things could be done but without a bigger
| market it's hard to justify the development costs and
| manufacturing NREs.
| bbarn wrote:
| Thanks for that link. While I have little use for a graphing
| calculator these days, the DM-16 is something I could use all
| the time. Ordered one :)
| chinathrow wrote:
| Ha, that brings back memories from high school.
|
| Some classes had HPs, other TIs, it was like Vim vs emacs
| during puperty.
|
| I was in the TI-85 class and we programmed the heck out of the
| devices (for cheating too, obviously). I re-wired the link
| cable with a phone cable and was able to chat over that link
| with class mates 5m away.
| IshKebab wrote:
| That doesn't look like an e-ink display to me? Perhaps you
| meant e-paper? Or do they have one that is actually e-ink?
| neilpanchal wrote:
| Not quite e-ink, but a proprietary memory display
| manufactured by Sharp Japan, like the one sold on Adafruit:
| https://www.adafruit.com/product/3502
| StreakyCobra wrote:
| You can also have it in you pocket all the time with Free42 and
| a skin I made: https://github.com/StreakyCobra/dm42-skin
|
| "Almost" have it though, because the display is a bit different
| on the real DM42, but all functionalities are the same
| otherwise.
| neilpanchal wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words. Regarding the build quality - we
| strongly believe in buy-it-for-life philosophy, and the chassis
| is designed with repairability in mind [1]. Battery life is
| also one of the top concerns for us and we don't want our users
| to take the calculator out of the drawer after a long period
| only to find that the battery is dead. We've had suggestions to
| add a color screen or OLED display, but that would eat into the
| battery budget by a few orders of magnitude.
|
| We are also launching DM41X[2], about 100 units have been sent
| out for beta testing and should be in production later this
| year.
|
| We appreciate feedback and would love to hear from you:
| neil[@]swissmicros.com
|
| [1] Teardown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ong91Ji3iDk
|
| [2] DM41X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrU4sGWt45M
| pengaru wrote:
| > Teardown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ong91Ji3iDk
|
| That video doesn't strike me as particularly flattering.
|
| I'm no calculator aficionado, but just watching it already
| had me experiencing pangs of buyer's remorse and no money had
| even left my pocket.
|
| Echoes of the clamshell sharp zaurus; a well built piece of
| hardware with very poor software support relegating it to
| dust collector status.
| onli wrote:
| The reviewer is very enthusiastic about the calculator and
| loves that thing. How can a teardown be more positive and
| flattering?
| kgwxd wrote:
| I have very little need for a calculator of any caliber, but
| this narrative makes me want one on my desk. I wish that
| mindset was financially rewarded more often.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Do you ever plan to do the same thing for the HP-48 series?
| neilpanchal wrote:
| Definitely, we have intentions and there are significant
| challenges, but certainly on the horizon.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Great! I'll buy one without hesitation.
|
| I still have my beloved HP-48 GX on my desk, I created a
| multitasking kernel and a few apps for this hardware
| while I was a student (1998)
|
| https://www.hpcalc.org/details/79
|
| If you want some input or beta testers, I'm in :)
| na85 wrote:
| Oooh, colour me interested. Is there a mailing list or
| something I can subscribe to for development updates on
| an HP 48-alike?
| neilpanchal wrote:
| Not yet, but we will be launching a new store/branding
| shortly, there will be a place to sign up for
| newsletters.
| disabled wrote:
| Thank you so much for posting info about this calculator! This
| looks extremely similar and almost identical to my beloved HP
| 50g graphing calculator, which I still use. However, the HP 50g
| has been discontinued. Thanks to you, now I have a perfect (and
| even better) replacement!
| saagarjha wrote:
| Can you use it on the SAT? Otherwise, I don't think this would
| be relevant for 99% of the people who own a TI calculator. (I
| appreciate you sharing it here anyways: just saying that it's
| not a replacement for most people.)
| disabled wrote:
| No, you definitely cannot use this calculator on the SAT. I
| also think that the College Board posts a list of permitted
| calculators.
| avhon1 wrote:
| Definitely not. The requirements on
| https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-
| tes... say:
|
| > Only the calculators listed on this page are acceptable for
| the Math Test--Calculator portion of the test.
|
| The page has a table of calculators which does not include
| the SwissMicros DM42. The brands present on the table are
| Texas Instruments, Casio, Helwett-Packard, Radio Shack,
| Sharp, Datexx, Microtona, NumWorks, and Smart2.
|
| If you had one of SwissMicros scientific calculators (rather
| than the DM42, which is their only graphing calculator), you
| could try to bring it in. Farther down the page:
|
| > Calculators permitted during testing include:
|
| > * Most graphing calculators (see chart) > * All scientific
| calculators > * All four-function calculators (not
| recommended)
|
| So you could make a solid case for bringing in a scientific
| calculator which doesn't have any of the disallowed features
| (wireless connectivity, QWERTY keyboard, touch input...), but
| a proctor might still tell you it's not on the list of
| specifically-approved calculators and therefore not allowed.
|
| ---
|
| Amusingly, some of the allowed calculators have disallowed
| features. Off the top of my head, the HP 50G has wireless
| (infrared) communication, and the HP Prime has a touchscreen.
| unsignedint wrote:
| As far as infrared communication, they didn't have problems
| with HP48 like 20-some years ago. i think the rationale was
| that it only allows limited short range communication, thus
| was not much of the concern.
|
| Though, I'm curious why some of those "disallowed features"
| exist, particularly for keyboard and touch input...
| jedieaston wrote:
| They don't want you to write down full length questions
| into the calculator for taking out of the test site. It's
| just hard enough to type a sentence on the TI-84 that
| nobody would bother, but a qwerty keyboard that you could
| touch type on would be a different story.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| They probably know infrared never works anyway
| [deleted]
| joshstrange wrote:
| ticalc.... I spent so many hours on their forums in high school.
| It's one of the first online communities I was super-active in. I
| did a TON of TI-BASIC programming and it's how I got my start
| programming. There are even 1-2 of my old BASIC programs on
| ticalc that I uploaded over a decade ago.
|
| I never got into assembly much because it required a a computer
| and I could code and run BASIC on the calculator itself. I
| remember a few ASM programs you could drop on your calculator and
| then call them from your BASIC programs. So certain things that
| could be done faster in ASM were all put together in a "library"
| that you could use to speed up your BASIC programs (most were
| visual in nature, clear screen, draw sprite, etc). I still have
| my TI84+ SE from high school, I really love that calculator.
| avhon1 wrote:
| You can actually enter ASM code on the calculator, but it is
| very limited, and non-trivial programs are extremely tedious to
| enter.
|
| http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/asm-command
| saagarjha wrote:
| I would argue that it is not limited at all, as it gives you
| full arbitrary code execution.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Interesting, I remember the "ASM(" command to run those
| helper libraries but yeah, the issues around trying to write
| ASM on the calculator would have been a non-starter for me
| (both back them and now lol):
|
| > Using AsmPrgm is the only built-in way to create assembly
| programs on the calculator, and it's not very convenient. To
| use it, after AsmPrgm itself, you must type in the
| hexadecimal values (using the numbers 0-9, and the letters
| A-F) of every byte of the assembly program. Even for assembly
| programmers, this is a complicated process: unless you've
| memorized the hexadecimal value of every assembly command
| (which is about as easy as memorizing the hexadecimal value
| of every TI-Basic token) you have to look every command up in
| a table.
| monocasa wrote:
| Even more than that, computing the branch offsets by hand
| is tedious and error prone. You remember the important
| opcodes pretty quickly, but recomputing the branches every
| time you modify the program is a huge pain.
| throwaheyy wrote:
| What next, a TI App Store?
| jeegsy wrote:
| I think you might be right!
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Oh wow, ticalc.org still has the same header and color scheme as
| it did in 2001 (or 2002?), I used to check this site constantly
| in high school to download new games (including a mind-blowing
| Link's Awakening port demo which sadly never was finished)
|
| Check it out, those menu buttons at the top use javascript to
| simulate CSS `:hover` because at the time IE6 didn't support it
| for non-link elements! <th
| onmouseover="mOvr(this);" onmouseout="mOut(this);"
| onclick="mClk(this);" style="cursor: default; background-color:
| rgb(255, 238, 204);">
| tyingq wrote:
| Interesting that a vendor is securing access to Z80 assembler in
| 2020.
| simias wrote:
| Unless things have changed since my high school years it's a
| Motorola 68k CPU, not a Z80.
| masklinn wrote:
| Only the Ti-89 (and the rarely seen 92 / Voyage series) use a
| 68k.
|
| Ti-86 and below all use Z80s. Although the 83 premium CE (and
| the 84 Plus CE) uses a pretty monstrous (compared to the
| original Z80s) 48MHz eZ80.
| wtallis wrote:
| I think it's 68k for the TI-89 and up, and Z80 for the lower
| models.
| saagarjha wrote:
| The eZ80, I believe, which is backwards compatible but
| clicked higher and with 24-bit arithmetic.
| tyingq wrote:
| The headline says TI-83 Premium. It has a Zilog EZ-80, which
| is basically a hopped up Z80. As far as I can tell, all of
| the TI-83 models have Z80's.
| hedora wrote:
| I wonder how hard it would be to build a software-compatible TI
| calculator clone.
|
| They haven't exactly innovated in this space in the last quarter
| century, but it was a nice product back in the day. The bill of
| materials for a modern version of these couldn't be more than a
| few dollars.
|
| I wish copyright terms were shorter.
| wgetch wrote:
| This is unfortunate, assembly programs were the strongest aspect
| of the TI homebrew community. Some really great games and
| applications were made possible by native binaries on the older
| TI calculators. A couple of details I found in another
| article[1]:
|
| - The new OS prevents the calculators from being downgraded
|
| - The OS prevents running Asm/C programs, only Basic (and on some
| editions Python) programs are allowed
|
| - Applications can still be installed if signed by approved TI
| vendors
|
| Sounds like the TI homebrew community is about to get splintered.
| You'll have the jailbreakers fighting for code execution, but
| this could easily end up a small underground operation mirroring
| other jailbreak efforts. It could become too much of a hassle to
| get asm programs back (custom OS?), if so most people will accept
| the limitations and move on. At least there's still Basic and
| Python, if nothing else.
|
| [1] https://www.cemetech.net/news/2020/5/949/_/ti-removes-
| asmc-p...
| andrepd wrote:
| It's sad that this is happening to essentially every computing
| platform.
| [deleted]
| randtrain34 wrote:
| It's still possible on the TI-84 series right?
| saagarjha wrote:
| TI-84 calculators have not seen an update in ages, so I doubt
| that TI will add restrictions to them now. I think they'd
| just rather push people to the "CE" calculators. (Which I
| personally dislike for other reasons, but I digress...)
| ihuman wrote:
| > TI-84 calculators have not seen an update in ages
|
| The last update for the TI-84 Plus CE came out about 11
| months ago. Its not recent, but it wasn't ages ago.
|
| https://education.ti.com/en/software/search/ti-84-plus-ce
| saagarjha wrote:
| This is basically just a repeat of how other platforms locked
| down code execution on their devices. Hopefully TI is
| incompetent enough to make jailbreaking trivial, but it opens
| up a cat-and-mouse game...
| kick wrote:
| TI is fairly competent overall. That said, maybe the bottom
| 10% get sent to the calculator division, given that it's
| barely moved since 1980...
| dsjimi wrote:
| Less than 5% of their revenue is calculators, and much less
| than 5% of their R&D or engineering budgets. It's an
| incredibly small part of their business.
| epanchin wrote:
| 5% of revenue requiring much less than 5% of engineering
| time sounds like an awesome part of a business. Hardly
| small, either.
| simias wrote:
| I got into programming almost 20 years ago by coding on my TI-89,
| first in BASIC and later in ASM and C. Sad to see this platform
| closing down more, although on the other hand I'm also surprised
| to see that these devices are still relevant given how overpriced
| and under-powered they are by today's standards.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| It's been hard to make an underpowered calculator for 30+
| years. What computationally intensive tasks does one even try
| to attempt on a calculator?
|
| I do remember IRR calcs on an HP-12C taking a few seconds, or
| so. And that machine is not cheap either.
|
| That being said, who's running IRR on a pocket calculator?
| saagarjha wrote:
| > What computationally intensive tasks does one even try to
| attempt on a calculator?
|
| Back in high school I regularly hit integrations that took
| minutes to do on my TI-89.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| must have been some pretty big integrals, these examples in
| exact form seem to be close to instant.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoDkeg166xU
|
| maybe not the TI-89 which ran 68K processor.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Those are all fairly simple, I'm talking much bigger
| stuff. (I actually had a Titanium, but it also has a
| 68k.)
| saagarjha wrote:
| Note that TI-89 is a different "family" of models, which is as
| far as I can tell still OK with that :)
|
| Of course, they're only really still relevant because teachers
| and a number of entrenched institutions (College Board...) keep
| it that way.
| apple4ever wrote:
| I did as well, but with the TI-85. Learned Z80 assembler and
| have loved it ever since.
| [deleted]
| qubex wrote:
| I'd like to take the opportunity to recommend the HP Prime G2
| (for those of you who, like myself, appreciate the flexibility of
| a reasonably-powered CAS) and the NumWorks (which, when loaded
| with the Omega fork of the open-source Epsilon firmware) provides
| excellent functionality in very minimalist package and even
| supports CAS (through the easy installation of khiCAS).
| nsajko wrote:
| I also wanted to point to Numworks as an alternative
| calculator. It uses a 216 MHz ARMv7-M Cortex-M7 microcontroller
| and is almost open-source (both the hardware and the software,
| called Epsilon).
|
| https://www.numworks.com/resources/engineering/
|
| There was (and probably still is) a Numworks pet peeve of mine,
| though. As far as I understand, on many kinds of calculations
| (e.g., calculating a power of a number, or a derivative at a
| point) the Numworks software does an artificial "rounding" step
| with the purpose of presenting "nicer" results to high-
| schoolers in trivial cases. See
| https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/pull/1376 and
| https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/issues/1373 . It seems like
| the Numworks dudes have no concept of the accumulation of
| rounding errors :( ?
|
| On top of removing precision intentionally being a weird
| choice, the implementation is too naive as far as I understand.
| This is basically what they do: result =
| std::round(result / error) * error
|
| See, e.g.,
| https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/blob/c92b770112e38bd906a...
|
| Would it not be both faster and less destructive to numerical
| accuracy to just clear some least significant IEEE 754 bits?
|
| EDIT: forgot to mention it is approved for the SAT and ACT
| already.
|
| EDIT2: More relevant to this thread; one can not run assembly
| on the Numworks written from the Numworks (it would be hard to
| fit all the prerequisites on its RAM and/or flash, e.g. Epsilon
| does not even have a file system), but it is possible to write
| C++, C, or assembly on your Linux or Windows PC, compile it and
| push it to the Numworks.
| boricj wrote:
| I'm a contributor to Epsilon and Omega. It's too early to guess
| how much of a backlash this will generate, but calculator
| forums are extremely pissed right now. TI completely destroyed
| any goodwill they had remaining at this point.
|
| I'm not sure how this will unfold, but they've pissed off a
| fair number of smart people that know their calculators inside
| and out. I expect jailbreaks, boycotts and people switching to
| other platforms fairly quickly.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Anyone know of any other devices using the eZ80 that can be
| purchased now and are available (i.e. not retired)?
| stevebmark wrote:
| This sucks :( having a little mini battery powered computer with
| insane capabilities like running a separate operating system was
| a great entry into tech for many of us
| [deleted]
| 013a wrote:
| I remember, in maybe 9th grade grade, after learning Newton's
| Method in a pre-calc course, writing a TI-83 program to do N
| iterations of Newton's Method for me. I showed it to my math
| teacher. He wasn't much of a nerd, and this was the early 2000s
| so technology wasn't quite as prolific as it is today; he was
| blown away.
|
| Come exam time, we were allowed to use our calculators. I asked
| if I should clear mine out given I had a program which could
| "cheat" (I was a teachers pet). He said something to me
| (privately) along the lines of, "don't worry about it. the way I
| see it, you've already proven to me you know the content."
| Ironically, today I could probably piece together a TI83 assembly
| program from memory, but I couldn't even tell you what Newton's
| Method does, let alone how to do it. Not sure what lesson to
| glean from that.
|
| I remember eating lunch one day, maybe a year or so later, in his
| classroom with some friends, and he was browsing around the
| internet trying to find a job I'd like in math. Looking back, I
| find it funny that he was landing on things like "actuarial
| science" and "accounting" instead of the obvious. I think that
| was his way of trying to make up for the piss-poor guidance
| counseling in my school of 80 people in the middle of nowhere. I
| ended up wasting a semester in Computer Engineering doing CAD and
| coding MatLab before a professor took me aside and basically said
| "you're finishing these matlab assignments faster than my grad
| students would. Are you sure you don't actually want to do
| Computer Science?"
|
| It sucks to see this. The accessibility of coding today has never
| been better, so I'm not going to pretend like this is a doomsday
| thing for helping kids get into the field, but it did have power
| in its ubiquity. Teaching computer science in high schools isn't
| a tenth as effective as students coding up a program to make
| their math classes easier, or modding CounterStrike after hours,
| or "hacking" the school computer labs to play Halo with their
| friends. Technology, and the ability to shape it to help us,
| should be ubiquitous. It shouldn't be thrown out the window just
| so one teacher can more easily proctor a hundred tests instead of
| twenty.
| frob wrote:
| I don't see this being a huge hurdle to programs to help with
| problem solving. Back in the aughts, I would regularly write
| programs to solve basic kinematic equations in basic and
| distribute them to my fellow classmates under the blessing of the
| instructor. I got to reinforce my mental models of kinematics and
| I removed some hurdles for my fellow students who were good at
| problem solving and rearranging variables but weaker at math.
| Ultimately, I learned so much from that class.
| transitivebs wrote:
| I released dozens of TI-basic and TIGCC apps back in the day and
| this is a very, very sad turn of events.
|
| The biggest advantage TI has for attracting new developers is
| that their platform is ubiquitous for high schoolers. This is
| really amazing for adoption and it's how I got started with
| programming back in the day.
|
| I hope this trend doesn't continue.
| https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/78/7869.html
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