Comment by badc0ffee
2 days ago
30 years ago, we had the option of the TI-82 Or (83?) and the 85. A bunch of the kids with the 85 were playing Tetris and some were writing little programs. I got the cheaper 82/83, and I don't actually remember using it for anything, even once, even though I did the IB track (stats, trig, algebra, calculus, etc).
I was in the not-TI-85 club for a while. I think I had the TI-84? You could still write programs but your variable names could only be one letter. When I upgraded to a TI-85 and got Tetris a friend who had the not-TI-85 asked if his could play Tetris. I checked out the Tetris code and saw there were less than 26 variables, so I figured it could be done. I spent several English class periods porting the TI-85 Tetris code to the not-TI-85 and I got it to work. All the not-TI-85 owners loved me, lol!
How is that possible?
I wouldn’t have been able to function without it in school (20 years ago). But we also didn’t have iPhones.
Back in the mid-90's we had a TI version of sneakernet where you would copy programs from one student on to your TI-85 via a link cable; this is how I got Tetris back in the day. I assume OP did the same.
IIRC there was a way to connect the TI-85 to your serial port and use some Windows or DOS software to copy files onto it. (Everyone's PC still had at least one serial port on it back then).
Was it that only the 85 could connect to a com port, but then you could connect the 85 to the 82/83? I seem to remember pleading with the one kid with an 85 (who didn't even care about games).
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(Edit: I am assuming you were asking how it's possible I didn't use it, not how it's possible that people were copying programs onto their calculators.)
I don't know. It's been too long. We must have done graphing on paper.
I don't remember a lot of coursework in math that required me to produce a decimal value. For example, we wanted √2 instead of 1.414.
In physics, I think we used regular calculators.
I used to be bewildered at my parents not remembering certain things from high school. But, now I'm living it :).