Re: A couple of questions
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Re: A couple of questions
Midnight Wells asks (along with other questions about the TI-92):
> 2. Is it possible, when performing calculations on the home screen, to
> provide comment text that would not be interpreted as a variable?
>
> I ask because the history will be very useful to me, but I would like
> to identify the operations I am performing so that I can locate them
> more easily when I work back through the history.
>
> Something like:
>
> Bev's WS: 23*600/12
>
> or
>
> Mike's WS: 23*500/11
>
> So that in the history it appears as "Bev's WS: 23*600/12 = 1150"
>
> and then
>
> "Mike's WS: 23*500/11 = 1045.46"
>
> I use the ":" character simply as a convenient separator -- I would
> assume it has a very different meaning in the syntax of the TI-92.
>
> Thanks for any help with the questions above.
You can certainly enter a comment line directly on the home screen, the same
way as in a program (by using 2nd X to create a "copyright" symbol © at the
start of the line). Nothing on the line will be executed, and the TI-92 will
report "Done" and move on to the next line.
But if you are going to be working extensively with entries in the
history area, the power to _save_ the history as a re-executable
script is much more significant. Details on this are curiously hidden in
scattered parts of the manual, but I consider this one of the key features of
the calculator, if properly exploited,
>From the home screen you can choose F1 and then 2:Save Copy As... (or just
press diamond-S) at any time. When you supply a name, the TI-92 creates a
_script_ with that name, which is a text file containing the text of the
current entries in the history area. This file can then be examined in the
Text Editor application, and the entries can be re-executed at will. Thus you
can create a bunch of related entries, save them, clear out the memory, and do
it again.
You will find that each of the entries in the resulting text file has a neat C
(for Command) in front of it. This is explained on page 288 of the manual. You
can fix up the text any way you like, including inserting plain lines
explaining the commands if that is what you want. And you can (as mentioned
above) re-execute the commands, and in fact can "re-play" the entire script to
demonstrate or re-create a particular calculation (perhaps incorporating
changes in subsequent replays). The example in the manual shows using the
split-screen feature of the TI-92 (which probably won't be as effective on the
TI-89) to show the results as you work through the script. I haven't yet had a
chance to teach in a situation where all of my students had their own TI-92's,
but as soon as I do I will start assigning, as homework problems, simple tasks
like annotating a given script to explain what it is doing, fixing up a script
that contains an error of some kind, creating (or completing) an annotated
script to demonstrate a particular point, etc. All assignments to be
distributed and collected by link, of course! Seems like a lot better idea to
me than collecting and grading papers....
RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623
>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<