[znpy]

Since we’re sharing stories…

In high school my stats teacher told us we had to get a proper calculator. She didn’t set any upper limit so i went down the calculators rabbit hole… and got an used ti-86 from 1999 off ebay for 35 euros (this was in 2007 or so).

I programmed software to solve exercises in ti-basic and spent every lesson doing essentially software testing: basically whenever a classmate was called to the blackboard to solve an exercise I’d input the exercise data and verified I got the right results.

I got 9.5 out of 10 to the immediate next test. The teacher took off half a point because i miscopied a number (0.3 rather than 0.03, i still remember that after almost 20 years). It would have otherwise been a perfect test.

Fun times.

I still have that calculator, i turn it on every now and then.

I remember naming that calculator “Annarita”, like a girl I used to like and that (of course, lol) barely knew I existed at all.

[hcrisp]

My TI-85 story involves the fact that it only had 2D plotting (though I think newer models such as the TI-89 had 3D).

I had a 3D calculus class so I wrote a program in it to plot a 3D isometric mesh of a surface using the 2D rendering library. It was slow but got the job done. I used it to help pass a test or two.

I also experimented with drawing random surfaces and objects like a tire. They looked pretty cool for a calculator screen.

The math lab at the college had a cable which you could use to take data off or put it on so you could in theory have exchanged programs with others but this was before the internet so I didn't.

I still have mine and enjoy the sliding the cover off - a trip down memory lane.

Later I rewrote the program in QBasic on a PC for fun and it was lightning fast!