On my TI Voyage 200, I wrote a program in Basic which I had to learn by googling. It calculated molecule stuff for Chemistry class. Before one exam, I showed it to my teacher and explained to him how I did it. I was then officially allowed to use the program in the exam, which is quite unbelievable. But I argued that in order to write the program, I obviously had to have understood the topic and math behind it - which could easily be demonstrated by going through the source code. And he agreed. Those memories I will never forget.
Wow, sounds like a good teacher. Not all of them understand what you need to know to write a program. Even if they didn't allow it, programming the concepts into a tool is a great way to study that concept.
@@owenevilmakings5433 I think that was the argument, that granted him the use. I used to code a little program which calculates every formula around linear algebra we knew back then I never asked for permission, but I sold it to my classmates for 0,50€. I thought it was like cheating, so I stopped doing it afterwards. But I see your point because it was my best math test ever.
@@moltengears7483 Maybe there exist non-native English speakers in the world who cannot be bothered to look into a dictionary each time they're unsure of a certain terminology. Guess I can take it as a compliment that you didn't think of this as a possibility... because you're surely not just being an ignorant dick
The cx II works now! I recommend buying this one, it's a bit more expensive, but its improved cpu is able to run games at a faster speed, so snes and gba games are perfectly playable
@@wyatt1019 The ti84 CE is obsolete for gaming it's basically a 90s calculator on a new shell with a new screen I'd avoid and get the Nspire CX II or buy a TI89 Titanium/ Voyage 200 used for far less
@@wyatt1019 Why bother with a non CAS calculator at this point? Either get a Ti-36X Pro or a Nspire/HP Prime. No real reason to pay CAS calculator prices for a non-CAS calculator when you can get a 36X Pro that has even more functionality than the 84 in some use cases.
10:26 "No doubt, at least a few who got their start writing simple games to play during class were inspired to become professional software developers". Whew, that hit me in the feels...literally my story.
LOL! Same! I also have a friend that discovered his natural talents for programming on a TI-83. He was trying to clone Halo 2 and ended up creating a really cool map that generated unique mountain ranges.
I remember I really struggled with matrix operations in my Algebra II class, long ago, and ended up writing dozens of programs in TI-basic to solve the most common (and less common) problems. I had a late crisis of conscience, and just before taking my final, I revealed to my teacher what I'd done and asked if it would be okay. To his credit, he let me walk him through those programs- and then with a funny grin on his face, said that was just fine and I could use my tools for the test. I realize, now, that my writing those programs was all the demonstration he needed that I had learned what I needed to learn.
I remember when I installed Tetris on my TI-84 Plus CE, my teacher saw me using it while she was lecturing and said "put down your calculator, I know you're playing that fun game haha"
This puts memories for me too, especially after i switched schools where the fellow students only had a CASIO graphic calculator. I felt like a god among others for what my TI-83 could do and play when the others could just, well, calculate graphs. A calculator i still own and use to this day. Not just for gaming.
lol i have a classic nspire and once the maths teacher walked past and said 'thats a cool calculator' (most people in my class have casio fx83 or 85 or 991) and the person beside me told the teacher that i could play games on it and the teacher was like 'oh thats cool'
The first time I ever held a graphing calculator, It felt just right in my hands, and I understood immediately why the game boy was so beloved. Now i’m thinking about trying to find a good graphing calculator (relatively cheaply, oof) so I can play games on it. Also for math class, so it’s doubly important! :)
I spent the majority of my HS time (and math classes) programing these. I started with Basic and quickly moved to ASM. I wish I still had the source for some of the games I wrote. Mostly RPG's and ways to manage memory. I built and wrote a memory extender using a serial//ttl driven flash chip, and even built a 2400 baud modem I could plug in to the serial port. I would sit in the back of my math class near the exposed patch panel on wall, Aligator clip to the panel and surf Local BBS's on my TI-85 during the class. Nothing says nerd like playing TradeWars or L.O.R.D on a T-85.
I'm also curious ^. I saw the outlines of some pretty cool projects like that, but never actually "met" someone who did; that's snazzy as heck (to give an idea of how far it has come, last night someone had a webserver on their TI-84+CE. Kids these days.)
I use to sell these in school. $150 - $200 per unit. We could pick any lock. 2 man job. First my friends goes and picks all the locks then I go take all the calculators. In high school everybody knew if you want a calculator come see me and I'll do you a good price.
How did you skip the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition successfully running Pokemon Blue/Red/Green/Yellow on some models? What an achievement. They were entirely playable but only on certain models that had more ram than others.
I watched this video somewhere 1 or 2 years ago, this inspired me to get a graphing calculator. I now have 2, 1 more powerful, with a ROMhack of Mario, called Oiram, and a less powerful one to be borrowed mostly. Thank you man for making me inspired.
Finally a video that actually talks about the community and its relationahip with TI, instead of just saying "oooo look, mario on my CE". Props to the creator for actually doing his research.
No, no he didn't. He downloaded an _operating system_ to run on his computer that poses as a calculator. The computer is hardware. You can't download hardware. The more you know...
The first time I saw a graphing calculator and saw it draw a curve, I thought that maybe it was possible to make an animation on it. I did not know people programmed full on GAMES on it. And I appreciate the persistence of those people to keep trying to overcome the resistance the company kept throwing their way.
I remember seeing my friends in high school (early 2000's) playing games on their TI calculators. I set to figuring out how to do it, did exactly like in this video, and used that ZShell website. It was such a fun time with Newgrounds and pre-youtube before Google ruled the world.
Most likely used a computer for a full fledged game but pong wouldn't be too hard to write out and compiled on the calc. I'm thinking about purchasing a graphical calculator, partly to finish math courses for higher education and do some programming on it!
there is a 2d Minecraft for calculators, but it sucks... first of all 2d minecraft is bad as it is. the cursor is hard to get used to. the mobs can glitch through walls and kill you. creative mode is the only cool part, because you can basically draw things using Minecraft blocks. it takes up way too much space as well, but honestly the person who worked on it clearly spent a lot of time, so ill give em credit.
Lemme download a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator into my calculator
Ah, I remember the fun I had with my nspire when I was in school. I was the only one in my class with one, and I feel like that wouldn't have been the case if my classmates knew just how capable it was. It was fun being able to take my test using my calculator, then play pokemon on it immediately afterwards. Even had a dual-boot system on it that could boot it in CAS or non-CAS mode, although I mostly had that simply because I could, and because I found the thought of being able to upgrade my calculator just like that funny.
*human* I don’t think I’ve made it clear enough- they’ve banned phones _completely_ , meaning we aren’t even able to use them during breaks. Also just because we’re at school doesn’t mean we work and study 100% of the time- heck after we’ve done our yearly examinations most students _and teachers_ don’t do any focused studying for the rest of the year. I’m not even mentioning that it’s not just phones that are banned, but every electronic device- no smart watches, laptops, iPads, Nintendo switches, not even old gaming devices such as gamboys are allowed. There are _way_ more rules but I think you get it.
@@acatthatmakeseclairs Exactly as it sounds. Its an emulator, much like a game boy emulator or N64 emulator on PC, but for TI calculators, on phones or PC.
@@TechX1320 honestly I had no idea what an _emulator_ was, I know now so that’s fine, but yeah that’s way easier than doing all the stuff in the video.
They broke into the market by offering the software for Schools for free then forcing the cost onto students when they were required to purchase the calculators. This is how Casio and HP were locked out and almost non existent in the school calculator market. There's an in-depth video on it.
I'm 25 and the t-83 is what got me into programming. my first game was given to all my classmates to such success the school ordered everyone delete off their calculators. it was a simple platformer that generated random levels using the same code from a probability calculator app to generate the random levels. it was simple but got us thru math class.
Basically the cost comes from.... 1. 1990s Calculater war. 2. TI gets contract with government to write standards for calculator operation for the classroom. 3. TI proceeds to make a product that fits that standard exactly. 4. PATENTS the design made accordance to their recommendations. 5. PROFIT.
zshell. That brings back memories. A guy in my pre-calculus class had a nervous breakdown during a midterm when he realized that the modifications he put in place so that he could play games was returning incorrect results for trigonometric functions. Luckily our prof was old school and insisted that we all be able to do the work without the use of calculators and he didn't end up failing the class.
I would be really interested to see what modifications he made, since zshell only overwrote one address in the ROM to add a jump directly to RAM where zshell was stored as a string variable. It shouldn't affect other ROM routines like built in math functions.
I had a Casio. Made a real time fighting game on it without any knowledge of how to code or else. Those class where teachers were just reading a book was where I did that. It was fun and eventually made me want to learn more about code and stuff
@@_bit_ still a personal computer though. Calling it Mac os doesn't negate that fact lol. Mac OS is nothing special so why not make PC OS the generic term for computer operating systems.
@@michealpersicko9531 Mac OS runs on a custom kernel and graphics system based on BSD. Windows runs on its own libraries built from the ground up. They're completely different software, targeted to the same architecture.
I like mini documentaries on subjects like this. It's an original concept on UA-cam, where you always see the same topics over and over. Especially when it comes to gaming.
Do you remember synthetic programming on a HP41, where you can create whole new machine code out of text strings by deleting the string marker code at the beginning of a string? They had an extra rare module to do that.
I have a TI-84 that I’ve used for classes since high school, knew some games were stored in memory, but as a computer and game console enthusiast, I’m absolutely blown away by the support of a device that I thought to be primitive. Really impressed, wondering what I can do with mine now!
I genuinely can’t understand why TI would be so against jailbreaking. You’d think as a tool meant to assist intellectual creation, that it would fit very well as inspiration for that creation too.
There were plenty of games for the Casio's we had at school, but yeah not as many as a TI would have. Likely because afaik TI's are the standard in schools in the USA, whereas here in Aus we use whatever.
I had a TI-84 Pulse SE in high school. Boy I loved that thing. A bunch of us collaborated to make a program with all our physics formulas and we shared with with anyone who had a TI-83 and above. Made that class much easier. I put so many games on it as well, including a "port" of fruit ninja. In collage I had the Nspire-CX. Doom and the PDF viewer saved my sanity and my grades.
Excellent video! Programming TI-BASIC and Z80 assembly on the early TI calculators was fun. These machines were slow and underpowered, but much like the early days of home computing, the limitations of the hardware fostered remarkable creativity in budding programmers.
I'm no programmer but what a missed opportunity to get students interested in coding. I still remember a few friends and I just fell in love with these (Ti83) after first getting them to bring them home in jr high. We would spend soooo many hours writing code for our new games and share them with each other for improvements (clout 🤓). I think I've figured out why I'm obsessed with holding onto AAA batteries.
When I was in school I was given a CASIO graphing calculator. It didn't have anywhere near the software support of the TI calculators, but it had programming capabilities so I got to work. I didn't make anything incredible, but after making some basic math programs (like a fibonacci sequence program) I managed to make a basic program where you were an asterisk and you could move around the screen. Looking back, it wasn't mind-blowing, but at the time I was very proud of what I could accomplish if I got distracted in my precalc class.
I've been a programmer my whole career and it all started for me on my TI-83 Plus in middle school. I used to make games in TI-Basic and shared them with my friends and even carried around the reference manual for the calculator like a real nerd. I even tried to get into programming assembly for the z80 but it was a bit over my head as a kid. I didn't realize at the time you could write C and target for z80. I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't started on that TI-83 Plus though!
I used to be that programmer back in the late 90's and early 2000's for Ti83 plus. I used to make games that were hybrid between ASM and Basic and most of my games were RPG and it took up all memory. I believe I was the only one who made story and cutscenes with the calculator back in the day.
Wow, what a great video! You did a great job capturing the roughly five-year period between 1995 and 2000 where the TI calculator landscape was the cutting edge of hacking for high school students! I remember many nights staying up way too late on ICQ chatting with others in the TI community about some new upcoming game or shell!
Its a graphic calculator programmable.... It is very fun At classroom😅but the price of this machine is very very high (could be 180 $) for just a calculator
When I was student at University, I learnt to code on Matlab. I quickly managed to try these code on my then old TI 89. I realised then how powerful and deep was the code language of this calculator !
I have worked as a software engineer since 2007. Some of my first programming was on my TI-83 Plus so I could do my algebra homework quicker. My teacher was really supportive and said if I understood it enough to make a program for it, I could do it. I bet my life would be pretty different he said it was cheating instead.
You forgot to mention the most important fact, some models are accepted at exams... so obviously students found ways to use them to cheat. I loved to use my 89 to help me remember formulas and stuff. The most extreme trick I remember was to put an 89 board into an 83 case, because the 83 was accepted but the 89 wasn’t, as it had a lot more memory.
I used to code extensively for the 83 over two decades ago. Learned about assembly and efficient code on that thing. Also the "Send(9prgmPROGRAMNAME" command will launch assembly directly. No shell needed. Good video. It was truly a golden age for calculators. At my school, the gifted math students were given 92+ models. Those ran doom lol.
For a brief time, TI-83+SE and TI-84+ calculators were actually manufactured with 128KB RAM instead of 32KB/48KB. A programmer found out and added a way to emulate some of the older calcs. I guess TI switched manufacturing plants though, and they (correctly) switched to 48KB RAM :(
I still have my old TI-83 plus.. I actually came across it the other day and it still worked and still had some of my old games and programs on there.. haha.. good times
Subsequent models made it progressively easier to write software in assembly though TI never made much available in terms of documentation. Enthusiasts still had to pull a lot together on their own but the time period of the late 90’s still managed to become a bit of a golden era in calculator gaming. Some were re-creations of well known titles like Tetris while others were original to the platform.
In college I used to play Doom on my calculator with a buddy of mine. I didn't learn calculus but I had a great time doing deathmatch over serial cable.
Impossible for 3 reasons 1. thhe only way to do it is to spend 3 grand for the TI Nspire Navigator system which is a wifi module that plugs into the top and allows wifi capabilities on the Nspire but you can only buy in bulk because it's meant for classrooms only and costs about 3000 bucks 2. There probably would be a lot of lag since the calculator's cpu probably can't handle texting as well as your smartphone can because it was never designed to in the first place. 3. the keyboard is alphabetically laid out not QWERTY so have fun trying to send a text hunting and pecking on a keyboard with keys about the size of half a tic tac
@@Wertyhappy27 he is talking about how you can get the text you type to somebody without a physical connections ... you have no SIM, No Wi-Fi (unless you pay over $3000 for it) , no radio , or any means to transfer data ... unless someone could offer a hacked walkie talkie like module that can be stealthy hidden inside the device, to receive and transmit data to an other module linked to a mobile phone or laptop.
Damn this brought me back.. 35 now and player a Mario game on the ti that had a level builder with it so you could make levels for the Mario game. Literally was all I did for some classes for years
I was an intern in the TI calculator group in the mid-1990s. One of the things that I worked on was a proof-of-concept of getting GCC to cross-compile to the 68K-based TI-89/TI-92. TI still had the mentality of a hardware company selling consumer electronics, rather than a software company building a platform for third-party developers, though, and as the video says, never followed through with delivering an SDK.
"People want to buy our calculators to use for amateur games programming." "They want to WHAT! Buy our calculators!!?!? This cannot stand!" Wait, what?
man this brings back memories, back in high school every student had to get one of these, and somehow i was the only one who knew how to load emulators onto them. i helped out the first couple ones for free, but as more requests came i realized i could charge them lol so i did, 5 quid per calculator mod. i made tons of money but the school found out and the principal banned me from ever modding one again but at that point basically everyone had a gameboy in their hands. didn't know there was such a big community around this
Dang i didn't even know about this. When I was going through high school the ti82 came out and I got into programming pretty heavily. Now I'm a software developer and without these calculators back in the day I would not be here. Glad to see there is something better now, but it think with to much power people will cheat and just import rather than create. There are still those of use that dream in code and we'll always be around.
I remember a couple of years ago while solving an engineering exam, everyone in the class had a TI nspire CX CAS, wheter their own or borrowed from another student...I was the only one using a CASIO fx570...and as you can imagine I failed myserably due to time restrictions, I had to calculate all the matrix on paper and obsviously many students just saved pdf files with the notes in those calculators...
I had the TI83+, and remember fondly gaming on it, even one of my math teachers had his own program we would use to destroy any test and it would show workings, also in uni days it was easy to store info to retrieve during exams, as teachers were useless at tech
The first game system that was not a game system that I ever saw was a MAME emulator running on a high end DSLR camera. It was very impressive, especially for the time (late nineties). It could only run certain old school ROMs, such as Pacman or Donkey Kong (and had no sound), but still pretty freaking impressive!
The TI-85 is the first "computer" I ever learned to program on. TI-BASIC was my first programming language. The biggest thing I made on it was a small text based escape room game. Well over 15 years of full stack programming later, I'm still proud of that stupid little game.
Correction: TI-85 was not 3 times MORE powerful (8MHz), it was 3 times AS powerful (6MHz). More means increment over, as means multiply. Where X is existing, Y is new... 3x More: Y = X + 3X 3x As: Y = 3X I mean, you are doing a documentary ON math equipment.
so let me get this straight.....this WHOLE TIME.. I could have been playing games on my calculator whenever i was bored at school this WHOLE TIME!?😐 I wanna redo☹
The benefits of having older siblings who went through high school when I was in elementary school is that I already knew that these calculators could do this but not exactly how
My parents were so proud when I asked for a calculator for my b-day. I had a lot of fun playing drug wars in class. Thanks mom!
Goat 🐐!
lmao
Respect
Hey son I'm your mom I wondered why you wanted that lmao! Joke I'm actually a male lmao
@@GlitchTTG The Tech Mom
On my TI Voyage 200, I wrote a program in Basic which I had to learn by googling. It calculated molecule stuff for Chemistry class. Before one exam, I showed it to my teacher and explained to him how I did it. I was then officially allowed to use the program in the exam, which is quite unbelievable. But I argued that in order to write the program, I obviously had to have understood the topic and math behind it - which could easily be demonstrated by going through the source code. And he agreed. Those memories I will never forget.
Wow, sounds like a good teacher. Not all of them understand what you need to know to write a program. Even if they didn't allow it, programming the concepts into a tool is a great way to study that concept.
I don’t get it; he was allowed to use the program on the exam, so what was he/she arguing for after?
@@owenevilmakings5433 I think that was the argument, that granted him the use.
I used to code a little program which calculates every formula around linear algebra we knew back then
I never asked for permission, but I sold it to my classmates for 0,50€. I thought it was like cheating, so I stopped doing it afterwards. But I see your point because it was my best math test ever.
“Molecule stuff” is too vague. So your either lying to sound smart or are just being vague
@@moltengears7483 Maybe there exist non-native English speakers in the world who cannot be bothered to look into a dictionary each time they're unsure of a certain terminology. Guess I can take it as a compliment that you didn't think of this as a possibility... because you're surely not just being an ignorant dick
And this is why "Doom on a Calculator" is such a long running meme
it is possible tho. u can play gba games, and doom Is on the gba
@@truechillboi2967 exactly
Doom and legend of Zelda ran on the TI83+ . GBA versions are overkill and require the nspire line. Surprised this info didn’t make the video.
Doom rpg on a calculator is the best
"Dad, can I have a Gameboy for Christmas?"
-No, it will take you away from your studies."
"So... What about a calculator?"
-Sure, why not?
Lol
hehe boi
Good luck getting them to pay 200+ for a calculator.
@Meproi Studios *facepalm*
@Meproi Studios the nspire calculators do not have built-in speakers
I used to charge a dollar each to write Drug Wars to everyone's calculator back in school. Good memories.
is that true can i write could on a sharp calaulator
Sounds interesting, care to show a bit of gameplay?
Youngin
You were technically selling drugs, in game form
Same. 🤣🤣
The cx II works now!
I recommend buying this one, it's a bit more expensive, but its improved cpu is able to run games at a faster speed, so snes and gba games are perfectly playable
Thanks for the update!
picodrive and quake run great too
How does a ti84 plus ce compare to the cx II?
@@wyatt1019 The ti84 CE is obsolete for gaming it's basically a 90s calculator on a new shell with a new screen
I'd avoid and get the Nspire CX II or buy a TI89 Titanium/ Voyage 200 used for far less
@@wyatt1019 Why bother with a non CAS calculator at this point? Either get a Ti-36X Pro or a Nspire/HP Prime. No real reason to pay CAS calculator prices for a non-CAS calculator when you can get a 36X Pro that has even more functionality than the 84 in some use cases.
10:26
"No doubt, at least a few who got their start writing simple games to play during class were inspired to become professional software developers". Whew, that hit me in the feels...literally my story.
Damn, I hope your travels go well
That's awesome! Good job!
LOL! Same! I also have a friend that discovered his natural talents for programming on a TI-83. He was trying to clone Halo 2 and ended up creating a really cool map that generated unique mountain ranges.
Her: "Oh you're a gamer? What's your favorite console?"
Me: "...calculator"
I think a calculator is a handheld
I think it should be reversed
kodoku nai I like your profile pic
This is lol
dang stronger than my gba
I remember I really struggled with matrix operations in my Algebra II class, long ago, and ended up writing dozens of programs in TI-basic to solve the most common (and less common) problems. I had a late crisis of conscience, and just before taking my final, I revealed to my teacher what I'd done and asked if it would be okay. To his credit, he let me walk him through those programs- and then with a funny grin on his face, said that was just fine and I could use my tools for the test. I realize, now, that my writing those programs was all the demonstration he needed that I had learned what I needed to learn.
Wholesome story
Introducing Skyrim Calculator Edition "It just works"
ua-cam.com/video/YPN0qhSyWy8/v-deo.html
Is that a Jojo refference?
Is that a Jojo refference?
@@Kromiball *sigh* _Can you not._
@@Kromiball is this repeat a jojo reference?(diavolo repeating).
I remember when I installed Tetris on my TI-84 Plus CE, my teacher saw me using it while she was lecturing and said "put down your calculator, I know you're playing that fun game haha"
😂
This puts memories for me too, especially after i switched schools where the fellow students only had a CASIO graphic calculator. I felt like a god among others for what my TI-83 could do and play when the others could just, well, calculate graphs. A calculator i still own and use to this day. Not just for gaming.
I had a similar situation, except with my teacher helping me install games on my calculator
lol i have a classic nspire and once the maths teacher walked past and said 'thats a cool calculator' (most people in my class have casio fx83 or 85 or 991) and the person beside me told the teacher that i could play games on it and the teacher was like 'oh thats cool'
@@I_Love_Chinese_Food L + ratio + didn't ask + no u + touch grass + not everyone has the same religion
The first time I ever held a graphing calculator, It felt just right in my hands, and I understood immediately why the game boy was so beloved.
Now i’m thinking about trying to find a good graphing calculator (relatively cheaply, oof) so I can play games on it. Also for math class, so it’s doubly important! :)
I do own 1 nspire CX ? Leave me a message for your thoughts about having again ? I'm also thinking about selling my own 1. Thanks ☺️
I spent the majority of my HS time (and math classes) programing these. I started with Basic and quickly moved to ASM. I wish I still had the source for some of the games I wrote. Mostly RPG's and ways to manage memory. I built and wrote a memory extender using a serial//ttl driven flash chip, and even built a 2400 baud modem I could plug in to the serial port. I would sit in the back of my math class near the exposed patch panel on wall, Aligator clip to the panel and surf Local BBS's on my TI-85 during the class. Nothing says nerd like playing TradeWars or L.O.R.D on a T-85.
what a true gamer
I'm also curious ^. I saw the outlines of some pretty cool projects like that, but never actually "met" someone who did; that's snazzy as heck (to give an idea of how far it has come, last night someone had a webserver on their TI-84+CE. Kids these days.)
9th nerdiest post in the history of UA-cam.
I use to sell these in school. $150 - $200 per unit. We could pick any lock. 2 man job. First my friends goes and picks all the locks then I go take all the calculators. In high school everybody knew if you want a calculator come see me and I'll do you a good price.
Please tell me how you did this. I’d like to try dialing in to a bbs on a calculator
Teacher sees me typing and making a lot of noise on my calculator
Me: Sorry, I was just doing some INTENSE calculations.
:)
The Advocate you tried with the pfp
@@uhhhhhh6919 dude get back to making heaven or something
Micah Connor nah I got bored, I reserved a place in hell for you, though.
@@uhhhhhh6919 I'm so sorry but I don't believe in you, I believe in the force
Your thumbnail made me think there was a hair on my screen
How did you skip the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition successfully running Pokemon Blue/Red/Green/Yellow on some models? What an achievement. They were entirely playable but only on certain models that had more ram than others.
Definitely did this!
Yeah idk why he skipped over the TI-84 series... I had Fruit Ninja on my base TI-84!
The TI-Nspire can run GBA games so you can run Gen 3 in the TI-nspire
and also i have a ti84 with built in python support /srs
Imagine sitting behind someone in math and they whip out Tetris on a 1.5" long screen
would sit and watch
*long*
So long as the teacher doesnt catch them and decide their grade based on if they beat tetris or not. No pressure or anything lol
I actually played tetris in algebra-I a while ago
this happened to me today so thats why i came to this video to find out how he was playing on a calculator
This is the type of super specific niche type of video that nobody else is doing on youtube that made me subscribe in the first place. Great video
Niche is the ultimate word to make your nanna cringe
SCARRIOR “cringe” isn’t much better.
Low spec gamer has a vid on this that's pretty good. He shows a couple of games like Tetris and Wolfenstein
In my school these calculators are mandatory and it didn't take long until most people had games on them
Programming on calculator is not niche for kids of the 80s :p
I watched this video somewhere 1 or 2 years ago, this inspired me to get a graphing calculator. I now have 2, 1 more powerful, with a ROMhack of Mario, called Oiram, and a less powerful one to be borrowed mostly. Thank you man for making me inspired.
The TI-84 Plus CE Python I used, has Mario.
Finally a video that actually talks about the community and its relationahip with TI, instead of just saying "oooo look, mario on my CE". Props to the creator for actually doing his research.
ö womp womp
This guy just downloaded a computer onto his calculator just to open the calculator app 😂
No, no he didn't. He downloaded an _operating system_ to run on his computer that poses as a calculator. The computer is hardware. You can't download hardware. The more you know...
@Huy Hang r/iamverysmart*
@@memes_gbc674 lol
@@UnitSe7en There was no point of correcting his sentence.
r/ihatewhenpplexpressthemselvesincomments
The first time I saw a graphing calculator and saw it draw a curve, I thought that maybe it was possible to make an animation on it. I did not know people programmed full on GAMES on it. And I appreciate the persistence of those people to keep trying to overcome the resistance the company kept throwing their way.
I remember seeing my friends in high school (early 2000's) playing games on their TI calculators. I set to figuring out how to do it, did exactly like in this video, and used that ZShell website. It was such a fun time with Newgrounds and pre-youtube before Google ruled the world.
Most likely used a computer for a full fledged game but pong wouldn't be too hard to write out and compiled on the calc. I'm thinking about purchasing a graphical calculator, partly to finish math courses for higher education and do some programming on it!
Mojang should make an official Minecraft calculator edition
Y'all wanted me to remove the edit so here u go
There is a game called crafti on the to nspire cx
there is a 2d Minecraft for calculators, but it sucks... first of all 2d minecraft is bad as it is. the cursor is hard to get used to. the mobs can glitch through walls and kill you. creative mode is the only cool part, because you can basically draw things using Minecraft blocks. it takes up way too much space as well, but honestly the person who worked on it clearly spent a lot of time, so ill give em credit.
@@overfoxed too much space on a calculator with 100mb of soace???
@@LunarEclypse its shown in the video
@@LunarEclypse Are you implying that 100mb is a lot of space?
Calculator hackers be like: yo dawg, i heard you like calculators so we put calculator inside a calculator so you can calculate while you calculate
Hahaha!
Pleassssse Pijen! Pimp my Calculator!!! Can’t wait to see what Mad Mike will do with it 😆
Lemme download a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator in to a calculator into my calculator
This feels like something Matt Parker would do
🤯🤯
Ah, I remember the fun I had with my nspire when I was in school. I was the only one in my class with one, and I feel like that wouldn't have been the case if my classmates knew just how capable it was. It was fun being able to take my test using my calculator, then play pokemon on it immediately afterwards. Even had a dual-boot system on it that could boot it in CAS or non-CAS mode, although I mostly had that simply because I could, and because I found the thought of being able to upgrade my calculator just like that funny.
9:00
*Thanos: I used the calculator to download the calculator*
What did it cost?
Neal [NWL] a calculator for a calculator
Heh
Thanos: They called me a mad man
@@talentlessasian330 and overpriced calculator
They’ve banned phones completely from my school, so I guess this a loophole. Those teachers will never see it coming.
Why don't you just study instead
*human* I don’t think I’ve made it clear enough- they’ve banned phones _completely_ , meaning we aren’t even able to use them during breaks.
Also just because we’re at school doesn’t mean we work and study 100% of the time- heck after we’ve done our yearly examinations most students _and teachers_ don’t do any focused studying for the rest of the year.
I’m not even mentioning that it’s not just phones that are banned, but every electronic device- no smart watches, laptops, iPads, Nintendo switches, not even old gaming devices such as gamboys are allowed.
There are _way_ more rules but I think you get it.
@@TechX1320 I’m sorry but I live under a rock, so what exactly is a calculator emulator?
@@acatthatmakeseclairs Exactly as it sounds. Its an emulator, much like a game boy emulator or N64 emulator on PC, but for TI calculators, on phones or PC.
@@TechX1320
honestly I had no idea what an _emulator_ was, I know now so that’s fine, but yeah that’s way easier than doing all the stuff in the video.
PC in 2021: I'm the strongest
Calculator in 2050: laughs at RTX
they are so expensive because instructors are groomed to make them required, just like specific books.
They broke into the market by offering the software for Schools for free then forcing the cost onto students when they were required to purchase the calculators. This is how Casio and HP were locked out and almost non existent in the school calculator market. There's an in-depth video on it.
Paul Bondarev Yep. I’ve seen it too. Very sneaky considering that Casio had a superior calculator.
@@huejass8932 in some country HP was the standard and you can´t even get a TI
I'm 25 and the t-83 is what got me into programming. my first game was given to all my classmates to such success the school ordered everyone delete off their calculators. it was a simple platformer that generated random levels using the same code from a probability calculator app to generate the random levels. it was simple but got us thru math class.
@@huejass8932 Can you hook me up with the video please?
Basically the cost comes from....
1. 1990s Calculater war.
2. TI gets contract with government to write standards for calculator operation for the classroom.
3. TI proceeds to make a product that fits that standard exactly.
4. PATENTS the design made accordance to their recommendations.
5. PROFIT.
So basically the setup for part of Demolition Man? :D
The calculator war was in the 70s
8:49 A calculator inside a Calculator!
(I guess it's not that weird)
Thank you TI for making my math and chemistry lessons less boring....and for giving me the passion for programming :)
FACT: TI-82 is stronger than the computer that calculated the exact course to the Moon.
And that doesn't raise some questions?...
@@RamathRS at that time, the best supercomputers were worse than a TI-82.
@@yeahuh4128 crazy how tecchnology has advanced
cz nobody went to the moon lol
@@Rickandmorty_com good one
This brings me back to high school days. I loved playing mini-games on my TI-83 at the end of physics class junior year!
zshell. That brings back memories. A guy in my pre-calculus class had a nervous breakdown during a midterm when he realized that the modifications he put in place so that he could play games was returning incorrect results for trigonometric functions. Luckily our prof was old school and insisted that we all be able to do the work without the use of calculators and he didn't end up failing the class.
I would be really interested to see what modifications he made, since zshell only overwrote one address in the ROM to add a jump directly to RAM where zshell was stored as a string variable. It shouldn't affect other ROM routines like built in math functions.
My Ti-83 is to thank for my passion of programing. I nerded out for years on that thing.
@@StrawberryKitten ok
I had a Casio. Made a real time fighting game on it without any knowledge of how to code or else.
Those class where teachers were just reading a book was where I did that.
It was fun and eventually made me want to learn more about code and stuff
That's awesome! Do you still code?
-Downloads a PC OS on a Calculator.
-Opens Calculator app.
- Type BOOBS
Mac os
Some guy put windows 10 iot on an HP calculator lol
@@_bit_ still a personal computer though. Calling it Mac os doesn't negate that fact lol. Mac OS is nothing special so why not make PC OS the generic term for computer operating systems.
@@michealpersicko9531 Mac OS runs on a custom kernel and graphics system based on BSD. Windows runs on its own libraries built from the ground up. They're completely different software, targeted to the same architecture.
9:00 , a calculator inside a calculator
CALCULATORSCEPTION
And displays BOOBS (58008)
That is recursion.
But then you could copy the calculator in that’s cauclator
🤑🤑
Calculator inside Minecraft inside Minecraft inside a calculator
I played countless hours of Tetris in high school on my TI-83 Plus. Great memories!
I am a developer full time, I caught the big of coding from my ti83 back in 1996 for pre-calculus. I owe my awesome life to Texas Instruments.
I like mini documentaries on subjects like this. It's an original concept on UA-cam, where you always see the same topics over and over. Especially when it comes to gaming.
We need more niche minidocs!
Do you remember synthetic programming on a HP41, where you can create whole new machine code out of text strings by deleting the string marker code at the beginning of a string? They had an extra rare module to do that.
Introducing: GTA V Calculator Edition “Expanded and Enhanced”.
Lmao.
Hmmm
I have a TI-84 that I’ve used for classes since high school, knew some games were stored in memory, but as a computer and game console enthusiast, I’m absolutely blown away by the support of a device that I thought to be primitive. Really impressed, wondering what I can do with mine now!
I genuinely can’t understand why TI would be so against jailbreaking. You’d think as a tool meant to assist intellectual creation, that it would fit very well as inspiration for that creation too.
Wish the more affordable casio calculators had a community
There were plenty of games for the Casio's we had at school, but yeah not as many as a TI would have. Likely because afaik TI's are the standard in schools in the USA, whereas here in Aus we use whatever.
They do.
@@0ia I guess I should have said as large as the TI community
s8wc3 in Melbourne all our text books referenced the ti calculators. I graduated in 2006.
@@medz3398 Dam your old as &*+t
Opens calculator on a calculator
The snow is snowier then before.
The KPBS Is Also WPBS, Which Is Also PBS.
I had a TI-84 Pulse SE in high school. Boy I loved that thing. A bunch of us collaborated to make a program with all our physics formulas and we shared with with anyone who had a TI-83 and above. Made that class much easier. I put so many games on it as well, including a "port" of fruit ninja. In collage I had the Nspire-CX. Doom and the PDF viewer saved my sanity and my grades.
Mom can I have a phone
Mom: we have a phone at home
Phone at home:
That doesnt make sense lol
@@someone6101 wdym the phone at home is the calculator thats the whole joke r/woooooosh
romelian or Me:
@@someone6101 the phone at home is the calculator and that is the joke lol
@@Sqvce Oh thanks xD i didnt understand that, and I still dont!
Excellent video! Programming TI-BASIC and Z80 assembly on the early TI calculators was fun. These machines were slow and underpowered, but much like the early days of home computing, the limitations of the hardware fostered remarkable creativity in budding programmers.
Some of the first coding I ever did.
I wish it came with string-based differentiation by default. Would have been way faster.
I'm no programmer but what a missed opportunity to get students interested in coding. I still remember a few friends and I just fell in love with these (Ti83) after first getting them to bring them home in jr high. We would spend soooo many hours writing code for our new games and share them with each other for improvements (clout 🤓). I think I've figured out why I'm obsessed with holding onto AAA batteries.
God this is nostalgic. I used to write games for my TI-83+ all the time back in high school ...
"The TI-83 Model was Launched in 1996"
Woah, my school needs to upgrade their technology
This is such a healthy community I love coders for this ❤️
When I was in school I was given a CASIO graphing calculator. It didn't have anywhere near the software support of the TI calculators, but it had programming capabilities so I got to work. I didn't make anything incredible, but after making some basic math programs (like a fibonacci sequence program) I managed to make a basic program where you were an asterisk and you could move around the screen. Looking back, it wasn't mind-blowing, but at the time I was very proud of what I could accomplish if I got distracted in my precalc class.
I've been a programmer my whole career and it all started for me on my TI-83 Plus in middle school. I used to make games in TI-Basic and shared them with my friends and even carried around the reference manual for the calculator like a real nerd. I even tried to get into programming assembly for the z80 but it was a bit over my head as a kid. I didn't realize at the time you could write C and target for z80. I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't started on that TI-83 Plus though!
I used to be that programmer back in the late 90's and early 2000's for Ti83 plus. I used to make games that were hybrid between ASM and Basic and most of my games were RPG and it took up all memory. I believe I was the only one who made story and cutscenes with the calculator back in the day.
Wow, what a great video! You did a great job capturing the roughly five-year period between 1995 and 2000 where the TI calculator landscape was the cutting edge of hacking for high school students! I remember many nights staying up way too late on ICQ chatting with others in the TI community about some new upcoming game or shell!
1,900s: By the early 2,000s, we will have flying cars.
Early 2,000s: Calculator that opens a calculator app.
It's genius
Doont put commas
@@toone1562 i think in Europe . = ,
We have now flying cars
@@Nerizwith he meant that when you write in years, there's no comma~
Ndless now supports also the newest models (CX II and CX II-T) with 5.2 and 5.3 OS. It runs very well 😁
I never thought I would be so interested in a calculator 😂lol
Its a graphic calculator programmable.... It is very fun
At classroom😅but the price of this machine is very very high (could be 180 $) for just a calculator
Tbh, me too
Ikr
This brings back memories of me and my friend spending HOURS in class recreating tetris on the TI-83.
When I was student at University, I learnt to code on Matlab. I quickly managed to try these code on my then old TI 89. I realised then how powerful and deep was the code language of this calculator !
I have worked as a software engineer since 2007. Some of my first programming was on my TI-83 Plus so I could do my algebra homework quicker.
My teacher was really supportive and said if I understood it enough to make a program for it, I could do it. I bet my life would be pretty different he said it was cheating instead.
You forgot to mention the most important fact, some models are accepted at exams... so obviously students found ways to use them to cheat. I loved to use my 89 to help me remember formulas and stuff.
The most extreme trick I remember was to put an 89 board into an 83 case, because the 83 was accepted but the 89 wasn’t, as it had a lot more memory.
I used to code extensively for the 83 over two decades ago. Learned about assembly and efficient code on that thing.
Also the "Send(9prgmPROGRAMNAME" command will launch assembly directly. No shell needed.
Good video. It was truly a golden age for calculators. At my school, the gifted math students were given 92+ models. Those ran doom lol.
Never had an 84. Or an 83+. I wanted one of those so bad. I had an 85. Eventually got an 86. These days I just emulate one on my phone lol.
Him: Opens Calculator on MacOS on a calculator
Me: *trying not to have a seizure*
9:00 Ok, someone really needs to get an OS running on one of these that's capable of running a TI calculator emulator.
TInception.
Firebird for iOS but you have to install it manually (not using the app store)
Woah
For a brief time, TI-83+SE and TI-84+ calculators were actually manufactured with 128KB RAM instead of 32KB/48KB. A programmer found out and added a way to emulate some of the older calcs. I guess TI switched manufacturing plants though, and they (correctly) switched to 48KB RAM :(
TI System is basically an emulator. It runs an interpreted shell by default.
I still have my old TI-83 plus.. I actually came across it the other day and it still worked and still had some of my old games and programs on there.. haha.. good times
Calculator: *open calculator in a jailbroken os*
Calculator: am I joke to you?
Confusion 100
Wht
I never thought I would see a user with a Neptune profile picture in this comment section.
Yes, you "Atomiz".
No Drug Wars? How can you have a history of TI gaming without Drug Wars?
Very well said, I think that was one of the most important games back in the day.
He kinda glossed over that early 2000s era
dwarf fortress
@@brucebutkus1251 more like the mid - late 90's era.
idk
Subsequent models made it progressively easier to write software in assembly though TI never made much available in terms of documentation. Enthusiasts still had to pull a lot together on their own but the time period of the late 90’s still managed to become a bit of a golden era in calculator gaming. Some were re-creations of well known titles like Tetris while others were original to the platform.
In college I used to play Doom on my calculator with a buddy of mine. I didn't learn calculus but I had a great time doing deathmatch over serial cable.
Did anybody catch you?
@who needs a good name? In college nobody cares what you do unless you are being disruptive.
Imagine texting in exams on this calculator
Impossible for 3 reasons 1. thhe only way to do it is to spend 3 grand for the TI Nspire Navigator system which is a wifi module that plugs into the top and allows wifi capabilities on the Nspire but you can only buy in bulk because it's meant for classrooms only and costs about 3000 bucks 2. There probably would be a lot of lag since the calculator's cpu probably can't handle texting as well as your smartphone can because it was never designed to in the first place. 3. the keyboard is alphabetically laid out not QWERTY so have fun trying to send a text hunting and pecking on a keyboard with keys about the size of half a tic tac
@@michealpersicko9531 texting requires very little power, most modern calculators have more than enough ram
@@Wertyhappy27 he is talking about how you can get the text you type to somebody without a physical connections ... you have no SIM, No Wi-Fi (unless you pay over $3000 for it) , no radio , or any means to transfer data ... unless someone could offer a hacked walkie talkie like module that can be stealthy hidden inside the device, to receive and transmit data to an other module linked to a mobile phone or laptop.
Damn this brought me back.. 35 now and player a Mario game on the ti that had a level builder with it so you could make levels for the Mario game. Literally was all I did for some classes for years
Never realized a calculator can be played like this. Thanks for the inspiration!
Nspire(ation)?
Noone else seemed to notice that, when he opened the calculator inside of the calculator, it said 80085 ;)
Because its BOOBS
58008
I was an intern in the TI calculator group in the mid-1990s. One of the things that I worked on was a proof-of-concept of getting GCC to cross-compile to the 68K-based TI-89/TI-92. TI still had the mentality of a hardware company selling consumer electronics, rather than a software company building a platform for third-party developers, though, and as the video says, never followed through with delivering an SDK.
Ahh these calculators remind me of my university years in France! I was having fun programming on the TI and HP calculators 🤙
Did lots of programming on the HP 48, I loved using the stack too it was brilliant!
Olivier Massoud Same! I had the HP 48 when i was in “prépa”. I still have it somewhere in my parents’ attic :)
Exocet Babal48 👌
Tu peux me la filer ?
AKS haha.. faut aller la chercher en Bretagne et remplacer les piles!
1:33 this calculator : "math is boring"
me: that explains everything.......
"People want to buy our calculators to use for amateur games programming."
"They want to WHAT! Buy our calculators!!?!? This cannot stand!"
Wait, what?
Alright class please take out your calculators
me: OK I WILL GLADY DO THAT
Top 10 Ways to Get Away with Playing Games in Class
2010 : We will have Hover-cars in 2020
2020 : Installs mac-OS on calculator to open calculator
Close enough.
man this brings back memories, back in high school every student had to get one of these, and somehow i was the only one who knew how to load emulators onto them. i helped out the first couple ones for free, but as more requests came i realized i could charge them lol so i did, 5 quid per calculator mod. i made tons of money but the school found out and the principal banned me from ever modding one again but at that point basically everyone had a gameboy in their hands. didn't know there was such a big community around this
Dang i didn't even know about this. When I was going through high school the ti82 came out and I got into programming pretty heavily.
Now I'm a software developer and without these calculators back in the day I would not be here. Glad to see there is something better now, but it think with to much power people will cheat and just import rather than create.
There are still those of use that dream in code and we'll always be around.
This brings back some memories, played through A Link to the Past, Pokemon TCG and Pokemon Crystal during classes on this calculator
I remember a couple of years ago while solving an engineering exam, everyone in the class had a TI nspire CX CAS, wheter their own or borrowed from another student...I was the only one using a CASIO fx570...and as you can imagine I failed myserably due to time restrictions, I had to calculate all the matrix on paper and obsviously many students just saved pdf files with the notes in those calculators...
Someone: what is your favorite console
Me: what got me through middle and high school
I had the TI83+, and remember fondly gaming on it, even one of my math teachers had his own program we would use to destroy any test and it would show workings, also in uni days it was easy to store info to retrieve during exams, as teachers were useless at tech
Let it be known that the gameboy was originally inspired by a Nintendo employee messing with a calculator. We've come full circle.
Hell the game & watch was basically a calculator but instead of numbers and calculating it was those characters
This is how I got into programming in the early aughts
The first game system that was not a game system that I ever saw was a MAME emulator running on a high end DSLR camera. It was very impressive, especially for the time (late nineties). It could only run certain old school ROMs, such as Pacman or Donkey Kong (and had no sound), but still pretty freaking impressive!
that is cool as hell! im trying to find a picture or something about that mame emulator on a camera, but google doesnt return anything useful..,
10:28 This is me! I started programming in 7th grade writing games in TI Basic, and I'm a software engineer today! Thanks for the nostalgia
Wrote a semi roguelike game for the TI-85 back in the day, on the actual calculator on breaks, about 25kb in total. Good memories.
@Mykel Hardin nO yOu dIdNT.
@Mykel Hardin k
Thats it Colin, I am sending you a case of Windex! LOL always love learning and your video quality is excellent.
The TI-85 is the first "computer" I ever learned to program on. TI-BASIC was my first programming language.
The biggest thing I made on it was a small text based escape room game. Well over 15 years of full stack programming later, I'm still proud of that stupid little game.
Snake is the one game I remember playing on this calculator.
Am I alone in starting to appreciate the beauty of math with graphing calculators like desmos or geogebra?)
Correction: TI-85 was not 3 times MORE powerful (8MHz), it was 3 times AS powerful (6MHz). More means increment over, as means multiply.
Where X is existing, Y is new...
3x More: Y = X + 3X
3x As: Y = 3X
I mean, you are doing a documentary ON math equipment.
so let me get this straight.....this WHOLE TIME.. I could have been playing games on my calculator whenever i was bored at school this WHOLE TIME!?😐
I wanna redo☹
Well...you could pass it on to your kids(if you have them).
The benefits of having older siblings who went through high school when I was in elementary school is that I already knew that these calculators could do this but not exactly how
lol