TI Gives TI-83+ FLASH Applications for Free
Posted by Eric on 1 September 2000, 17:51 GMT
Texas Instruments has released several of its TI-83+ FLASH applications for free as a back-to-school offer. You can now download Organizer, Periodic Table, Interactive Graphing, and Inequality Graphing for free until October 31st. After that they'll presumably be $28 as before. More information here. Note that you must have purchased your TI-83+ between August 15th and October 15th to qualify for this offer. Thanks to John Wyrwas for the link.
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The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.
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Re: TI Gives TI-83+ FLASH Applications for Free
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John Wyrwas
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A few comments on the download process
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Ti does not validate that you purchased your ti-83+ between those dates. Anyone can download the software.
To download, you use the online store on ti's website. The items come up with the price $0.00 but you are required to enter your name/address/etc. to sign up for an account with them. (these are not validated by ti, and no credit card information is required)
The online store requires you to enter your calculator's ID, (found under MEM, about) before downloading, so you are only able to use the software on that particular calculator, and can not transfer it to your friends.
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1 September 2000, 18:26 GMT
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Re: Re: TI Gives TI-83+ FLASH Applications for Free
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Scott Noveck
(Web Page)
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Yes, note that TI is _TRUSTING_ you, the PUBLIC, and assuming you have the honesty and integrety so as not to download the apps if you did not purchase your calculator within the aforementioned dates.
That means that all of you who signed the TI News petition betted have the dignity not to pirate these programs. It's incidents like this that convince corporations such as TI to act like they do - when a fan site encourages piracy, of course they're going to shut it down.
So, if you don't want ticalc shut down, it'd be wise not to have everyone and their mother download this when their calculator was not purchased within the specified timeframe. The serial numbers DO encode the date when the calc was manufactured, and they're obviously going to be suspicious if people with year-and-a-half old calcs claim they JUST claimed them off the shelf.
On a side note, I hear "these apps suck" anyway. I haven't used them myself, I'm just quoting several people I know who have. But I think that they're surely not so useful as to be worth pirating them and convincing TI not to try such a promotion ever again.
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2 September 2000, 00:40 GMT
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Re: TI Gives TI-83+ FLASH Applications for Free
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amicek
(Web Page)
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Are they trying to make up for bullying fan sites?
amicek
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1 September 2000, 18:30 GMT
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Re: TI Gives TI-83+ FLASH Applications for Free
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deuist
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<sarcasm> As opposed to getting a periodic table from ticalc.org for free, I think I'll just pay TI $28 for a copy of their version. </sarcasm>
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1 September 2000, 19:23 GMT
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Re: Re: Re: Re: TI Gives TI-83+ FLASH Applications for Free
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calcfreak901
(Web Page)
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Hello World is not *entirely* dead *yet*. However, math programs are the first, followed quickly by science programs, assuming the programmer is to sufficient level of education at which these would become beneficial.
I started programming shortly after i got my 83 in the middle of 8th grade (mathcounts district 3rd place). At that time, there was little point to programming very much, as algebra 1 has nothing sufficiently difficult. I got a lot of programming experience the following summer on both that and my 85, mainly doing text display programs (which is still one of my specialties). That fall, I entered high school, the pre-international baccalaureate program, where i was exposed to the power of assembly on the 86. I promptly got my parents to buy me one, and happily coded just about everything that was possible to code in geometry that fall (in TI-BASIC) (related note: I recommend against debugging code during a final). It was also about this time that I started carrying my calcs in my pockets, as a certain person who sat behind me in biology would get one of my calcs out of my backpack and start playing games on it. I started doing science programs when I started chemistry my sophomore year, about the time I got my 89. At one point, I was working on a periodic table program for each of my calcs in TI-BASIC (that would be 3 or 4, as I do not recall if I was doing separate ones for my 85 and 86). The 85 version was, to the best i remember, well over 12KB when development ceased out of then-temporary boredom. I plan to at least do a version for the 89, despite the already-blatant overredundance of these programs, in TI-BASIC most likely.
e of pi and the unimatrix's 45.59985035114 overlylongwinded cents
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2 September 2000, 00:50 GMT
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Re: Re: Re: Re: TI Gives TI-83+ FLASH Applications for Free
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David Phillips
(Web Page)
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> However, I agree that the Periodic Table doesn't
> require enough programming skill to cost $28.
Your view on programming skill versus cost is interesting. If TI's version of the periodic table was the only one available, then you could either pay $28 for it or write one yourself. How you judge how much your time is worth is debatable, although how much you are paid for your time is a good place to start. Assumming you are paid $7 an hour, then you would need to be able to write a comparable program in 4 hours or less for it to be worth your time. For me that would be somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour and a half. I couldn't write a comparable program in z80 assembly language in an hour, even with several years of z80 experience, therefore it would be more worthwhile to purchase the program.
Consider this scenario. I am the manager of an IT department and I am paying my programmers on average $20 an hour. I require a software product, and a suitable commercial product is available at the cost of $2000. Putting aside issues such as licensing (either I will only need one, or the purchase price covers the needed number of licenses) and reselling (I am not in the business selling software, or the market is small enough not to make it feasible), consider the software's worth. It is worth 100 hours of programmer time. This means a single programmer would need to write it in two and a half, or a team of two in a week and a day. If it would take one of my programmers a month to write it, then by not purchasing the already available software I would be losing $1200.
This is one reason why many, many IT departments use Windows instead of Linux/UNIX. It is far cheaper to purchase easier to use and configure software rather than hire qualified administrators and to train employees. In many cases, the highest priced resource in an IS department is the employee.
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2 September 2000, 13:19 GMT
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