Contrary to thebelief that calculators cause bad grades, In all of my classes I have sarted playing games all of the time. Maybe it is only a gaming tool but that is why I bought it. All of my grades have actually gone up since playing with the calc. This maybe due to the fact that i am forced to learn the crap on my own, but I do not for one second believe that calculators are the cause of bad grades. I do have mixed feelings however. I see your poi8nt Jimi. Not that I'm tryingto go against you but this is how I feel!
Cullen Logan

Cullen Logan's a wuss.

I got busted by my teachers many times by playing games on my calc in class. Stupid calcs, making me wanna play them in class =)

Hey... its the infamous Dinobot from the battle.net forums.... too bad he'll never read this, as it was posted quite long ago...

I agree on boring teachers. I play games mostly when I get done with work ahead of time, but sometimes I play them while I listen to the teacher. Puzzle games seem best to me when teachers talk cause you can't get into the game as much but still have some goal to reach like TI-Vex for the 89 or Sokoban for the 83.

I play my calculater in only a couple of classes where if you get caught, then nothing happens..

I think that we should be more slick with them and only use them where the teacher really won't do any thing.

Insane game is a pretty good game to play for the ti-86 because it is a simple puzzle game
and you can always look up every minute or so.

and mario is pretty good because you can it more and it will appear that the calculater is off and when you turn it back on, the game will be right where you left off. If you have a ti-86 or 82 then icq me at 10734081 but i do check my email alot so give me an email at sluz@phreaker.net

Heh, I like Insane game. I play that game the second most. In most of my classes, I have friends who also have TI-85's and we play multiplayer of Tetris. There needs to be more multiplayer games so we can against friends in our classes. Those of you who've been to my site and seen some previews of StarCraft for TI-85 and bugged me for beta versions, I cancelled the game(Programming the AI for the characters takes WAY TOO LONG and a crap load of RAM for that matter). I'm devoting programming solely into computers again. I've found math teachers don't mind TI calcs. Anybody who plays StarCraft, Diablo or Brood Wars on Battle.Net can find me by my names: -=^Inferno^=- and -=^Okaji^=- (Japanese for Inferno)

That's pretty funny because in my classes last year, we would have tetris competitions. It was pretty funny because me and my friends would always have usfake or O3 (Remember O3? It was the beta to MemMess) to hide the games. But I know for a fact that games on the calc hurt more than help. I, personally had no self-control. My grades showed that as well. I finally got over it because of Quake :)

But it's inevitable when the teachers will soon not even allow you to have your calcs out. It's already happened in math. I also agree that it's your choice to listen or not TRUST ME! It's not worth IT!!!

I personally think calculators in math class are not needed, the teacher should avoid requiring one, and, even on test, allow one to just set up a problam in calculator ready format. I have gone from 1st grade math to calculus without a calculator, and i have learned more than if i used a calculator, though i am not without my calculators for ap calc exams and such, they are a godsend. All I have to say, though calculators are nice, they help in math and have cool games, they are not required.

The key here isn't to put the calc's away, but to hide them well and avoid being caught. For one thing, shells should provide a 'boss' screen (remember old DOS games?). What i do if i see a teacher coming and know they see my calc, is quickly exit and go into a HomeWork organizer screen. This almost always works. Even if they want to see the calculator, just have a prog where you have secations for each class. Also, pause games every now and then and look around for teachers coming. Mario-86,for example, turns the calc off too, when you pause it. Why have the tyranical rule of teachers overcome gaming fun? I mean, if you don't listen anyway, why not just play? Also, if the class is an advanced math or science course, where the calc is required, they won't be able to get rid of them in labs.

Jimi's point is well taken. The teachers here are real pieces of crap. I have personally been suspended from school many times because teachers are "sick and ****ing tired of my disrupting classes I'm not even in" by "giving my filth (read: Tetris Arcade, Video Poker 8472) to innocent freshmen (if they pay for it they deserve whatever they get)". I have had many conversations with my principal about "subverting school-owned equipment for personal uses (the school loans out 82s)" and "disregarding the school guidelines on software distribution (people pirate my software, I pay fines for it)". I see calc gaming as going downhill... Teachers should have to be open-minded in these things.

After reading this article, I got to say that I totally agree with it. I agree with it solely on the fact that I almost seen his scenario happen first hand.

Some of you might know that I developed the KCHS Punisher, a game where you go around the school where I attended and killed evil clones of actual teachers. before it was released by one of the owners in my school, the total amount of Ti-85's in my class was 6 Including myself. When It was Leaked, that number doubled within a week, and doubled again within the end of the year. It got to the Point where the Local Wal-Mart, which carried at one time only 3 or 4 Ti-85's Decided to buy an Entire Shelf of Ti-85 the next school year. More people got Intrested in the calculators and started to program games themselves, making more and more people buy Ti calcs. Now the Math Teachers Loved this because frankly, they thought the Students were actually doing math or something. The Other Teachers, however, Abhorred this because people were playing these games in their classes. When the teachers finally found out about the punisher game, they actually had a discussion over this in a teacher meeting. In the Meeting they debated wheather all of the calculator owners should be forced to reset their calculators, but it didn't happen simply because they couldn't keep track of all of them. (this was of course told to me second hand from a teacher I knew, so it could have been a lie). A lot of Teachers after this particular meeting got almost violent when they saw anyone use a calculator in a non Math class. Considering that It was a catholic school, Im amazed that I didn't get repremanded or expelled for making the game.

If your going to play games in class, fine. Just make sure that you fully understand the material that the teacher is teaching, and avoid playing them in a non math entensive class, like english, history, ETC.

I agree with Jacob Barandes to a point....
There are teachers who are very boring and don't know how to "teach". I have a couple of those.
Especially my networking teacher. Besides most of the stuff we learn I already know... but that's besides the point... I have some really great teachers... and I pay attention to them. There are others that i just like to whip out the 89 and just go at the games. There is just no contest between a bad teacher and a calculator.

Back to the original article: TI makes great equipment, and they are not building these calcs for the gamer. The extra memory is very useful when you have Physics, Chembio, and several hundred data points all co-existing at once. For a while in High School, my mem was completely full of data... no games. The purpose of school is to learn, and how you do that is your own responsibility. Worrying about the ethics of "getting busted", or discussing the best ways to hide a calc are trivial concerns in the overal scheme of things. I applaud TI for making such great machines, and the programmers here for releasing so many great apps, games and otherwise. How these tools are used is a personal decision, and a measure of responsibility.

I totally agree. I use my TI-89 for both games and schoolwork. In fact, when I bought my 89, I had no intent of getting any games for it. I did decide to get Tetris, and I am glad I did. But I agree that these calculators are designed mainly for classes. I chose the 89 because of its great features, such as 3d graphing and upgradeability. If anyone claims that TI has put too much power and memory into its calculators, try graphing the TI-89 manual's differential equation example on pages 164-165 and see how long it takes the 89, an extremely powerful calculator, to graph it. Gaming power is just a side effect of the power needed for other features, not the reason for the power.

Calculators are great tools, AND good for programming, thats why they are so succesful. Teachers CANT tell you to not have a calculator in a Math class for example so where ever you go, they are harder to ban, than Gameboys for example.

As I have stated before, I own the TI-85 and the TI-92(+, as of my birthday a few short weeks ago).
"98K of RAM for solving linear equations?" Well, what degree of linear equations are you proposing to solve? Consider the TI-92, with the 3D-graphing mode. Next, consider the fact that it has 1024 K of ROM (for a TI-92, 2048 for a TI-92 +). Now, think about how many calculations it's performing in order to display this picture on your screen. I can hear the whine..."It's got a meg of ROM!" Yes, exactly! One meg of R////O////M, by definition not available to write to! Where, pray tell, will it do its temporary calculations? In the RAM? I would assume so...would you like to think about wireframe calculations, or better yet indefinite integration (using the definition, I believe) in, oh say a TI-85's 28K of RAM? Symbolic manipulation, in an ASM-level execution, is not exactly compact or clean. Granted, I see the TI-89 as primarily a tool for gaming and to "cheat" (Boy, I can sense the flames already) on standardized tests, because TI just put the -92 in an -8x shell and called it a different model, but that's a different topic entirely.
People who use their calculators exclusively to game are only fouling themselves up in the long run, because you need to know how to press the buttons to make it do the work in the first place. (Example: You have 10 problems on implicit differentiation. You have alloted 20 minutes to work on them. In 15 minutes, how many of you "hard core gamers" can write a program for a -92 that will do implicit first and second derivatives, in TI-BASIC, and have it give you the correct answers? I have done this. Will I distribute the program? NO...)
Gaming is a potential use, yes, but those who cannot put the calculator down long enough to focus on the lecture do not deserve to have such a calculator, as they apparently have too short of an attention span to concentrate.
And a final note...remember the old games for the HP-48, anybody? I don't recall anybody making a fuss over those.
This article, I sense, comes from either a misguided opinion or a simple need for filler material from this site, as today marks the first update in one week.
Stupid flames are not welcome, don't waste bandwidth. Reasoned, intelligent responses are welcomed.
--Piloter

You are absolutely right! Maybe the calculator doesn't have to have that much memory and power for high school maths but for higher math courses even the TI-89 is to slow and has to little memory (I personally miss many things on the calculator, such as fourier transformations (I just now noticed that it could handle hermitian matrixes) and double integrations without limits).

I don't know which is worse: the morons who post vulgar, senseless messages, or the pedants who try to convince everyone that they are geniuses.

I am not claiming that I am a genius. I am just trying to make it clear that there is more maths than high-school maths and that the TI-89 could have even more ROM and RAM. Not for playing games, but to handle more maths.

I couldn't agree with you more. I just recently sold my 85 and bought an 89, which have just now come out in stores in my area (I live in Washington). The symbolic manipulation is great, but even for its compactness and optimization I find that there's no room for games, and I wouldn't have enough time to play them even if there was.

And yes, I've done some BASIC programming myself. In about 20 minutes I hacked out a triple-layer predator-prey model on my 86 that simulated a very involved experiment. Our results corresponded with those of the rest of the class, the only difference being that my lab group was done 15 minutes after the programming was finished, and the teacher had scheduled 3 consecutive days to work on it. Gotta love those calcs! (Ironically, this left me 2 full days to play calculator games, and I had deleted them all to make room for my program.)

I personally have nothing against calculator games, it's just like everything else in life; you have to deal with it. Unfortunately, like everything else, you can get too much of it too easily, and most people haven't enough self-control to know when to stop.

A final thought: If all the calcs WERE taken away, we would find something else to do. Teachers might not disapprove of it, or they might protest it even louder than some do today. But if it wasn't calcs, it would be something else, guaranteed.

I agree fully. I regularily go to math contests around this state (South Dakota) and some of them require to wipe calc before we come in the room. The hard core games have no idea how to use the functions on the calculator or to write a simple program to do synthetic division (or something similar). All they know is to "press the little yellow button in the upper left hand corner to make Mario junp." On a different note, I hate it when people write a program for something that's built in to the calculator. For example, most of the people in my precalc class have a Cramer's rule program. They have 85's and Cramer's rule programs, but I'm not going to be to one to tell them the Simult funtion does the same thing and much faster.

$.02 ;-)

Heh...don't I know it. People back in HS (have had the '85 now for 5 years...!!) kept asking me to write a program for the quadratic formula...and wondered why I glared at them and walked off. Poly, anybody?
(up to about what, $.06?) --Piloter

Here's a reasoned response :

You have no right to determine whether anyone deserves to own something. In the US, you are allowed to own anything, assuming its legal (which a TI calculator is).

A lot of the gamers, already either can make the same program you made, or, even if they never played games, couldn't do, because they can't program. If you get right down to it, some gamers are very good at programming and could write not only the same program you wrote, but all the ROM functions that comprise the BASIC language you programmed it in. Being a gamer and not paying attention in class has bearing on anything if you already know the subject matter and have the ability to think through problems in the subject well, but are bored out of your mind at having to pay attention to something you already fully understand.