[baby_souffle]

> I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

It'll depend a lot on who/where/how is doing the screening and what tools (if any) are permitted.

Remember that bogus program for TI8{3,4} series calculators that would clear the screen and print "MEMORY CLEAR"? If the proctor was just looking for that string and not actually jumping through the hoops to _actually_ clear the memory then it was trivial to keep notes / solvers ... etc on the calculator.

[Dwedit]

It's actually somewhat of a challenge to display "Mem cleared" without access to the lowercase font. You have access to any uppercase character, spaces, and BASIC functions. With stat vars, you also get lowercase "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" and "r". And you can display text at a specific row and column.

I ended up displaying "M" "e" "min(" "c" "log(" "e" "a" "r" "e" "d". Then covered up the "in(" with spaces.

Then you lower your contrast for the full effect.

[MrDarcy]

Was I at university in a small window in time when a TI-89 and TI-92 was allowed?

In the years since, I’ve only ever heard mention of older models, not newer ones which makes me wonder if this is a special case and situation where technology is frozen in time intentionally to foster learning.

[vintermann]

I was in such a window. TI-89 was allowed by mistake, we were allowed to keep using it since it was expensive. Next year they were back on TI-83s.

Oh yes, they're frozen in time, but since the people who pay for them are not the same people who demand they must be used, they're not frozen in price. It's the most expensive kilobytes you'll ever buy.

[stonemetal12]

They are not "older models" just lower end. TI-92 came out in 1995 and discontinued in in 1998. TI-83 was introduced in 1996 and discontinued in 2004. TI-89 came out in 1998 and was discontinued in 2004.

At my high school we were allowed to have TI-83s but not TI-89s, because 89s had built in CAS (computer algebra system) and could do your algebra homework for you. When I went to college I already had an 83 so I didn't feel the need to upgrade.

[jmb99]

I wasn’t allowed anything more complex than a Casio FX-300ES. Even my 991ES wasn’t allowed, let alone something like a TI83/4. This (from what I’ve heard) is pretty standard in Canadian universities for calc 1-3, linear algebra, discrete, etc.

[neepi]

Supposed to be the same thing in the UK but no one cares. In fact most of our students (undergrad mathematics) appear to have HP Prime now which has a full CAS built in. The questions are designed to break the CAS sometimes. Try expanding (a-2b)^1000 on a calculator to get a coefficient out. It gets stuck and hoses the whole calculator.

[cjbgkagh]

Or just have two calculators and swap them