I think that teachers should appreciate calc games since if someone's playing games, they won't be talking or disturbing the class. Sure, they won't learn anything, but why would teacher's care? I play games on my calc during math and science class and I have an A in both.

I agree and disagree here. As the one responsible for getting ASM games into my school (as it happened, I own an 86 and 83, and have an 82 issued to me) I'm not entirely happy with the results. It's looking like I may be the single-handed downfall of my AP Calculus class. Any good teacher who cares about his/her students should at least try to get people to pay attention. Erasing the mem of the or taking up calcs is going too far, but they have to right to make you put them away. Teachers usually don't let students sleep in class; gaming should be no different. Still, I've noticed the bin in the front office where taken-up things is full of TI calcs now. Actually, probably the most annoying thing to me is explaining to people why mario won't work on a TI-81, or why ZTetris is so much better than the tetris that had been floating around the school (a slow, crappy basic one) :)
I have no problems with the games themselves; I use them occationally to alleviate boredom (when I can get them away from my friends with no calcs), but I do not go so far as to waste time with them. Like lots of things, games are good in moderation but can be abused.

Just my thoughts, long live TI-Calc games!

Trekyguy

WE MUST THINK ABOUT THIS. IT WILL HAPPEN MAKKING MATH HARD. THINK NO MATH PROGS.

I believe that I am the only student at my High School, which is by the way in Blount Co. Alabama, who has a TI-86. A few Other people have a TI-81 or -82's but they are, how shall I say it, DA's. I began to program a few games on my calc, mainly because I couldn't get my link to work, and let a few people play them. Now my math teacher askes me to teach others to use the matrix functionns.
My teacher, yesterday, took a graphing calc class and I wonder how much he learned from the experence that I could not learn by just experminting. I glad I didn't get my link to work. Now I know my calc better than I ever would.
I believe that many of the students bought calc's after they found out about the games just because they wanted to be popular. In know I did.


Jesse "ColBert" Byrd

This is a bunch of bullcrap. First of all, this idea of "Games are ruining school grades" is a huge misleader.

Take for example, the "A" student. The student is getting GREAT grades, and is now moving into the 9th grade, HighSchool. What's this? The student finds out they must obtain a TI calculator for the following 4 years of school. They buy such a calculator, the simpler one's (82) or the nicer one (83) (irrelevant to story). The person is too busy on work and after-school try-outs/practices (like cheerleading for girls, and track for guys...it would be that season--not to be gender based, only gender majority). The "A" student only uses the calculator for school, for work, and one day he/she learns of "Games." What a good concept, but finds out that they must maintain their grades, so they don't play them.

Take another student, the not-so-good student. The one who is doing as much as he feels is enough and getting from B's to D's. The student also buys a calculator for the HighSchool curriculm. What's this? Games? WOW, a time to relax in class, and the ability to just ask the students for homework later. The student does this, and finds that he is actually doing well in school. Before, (s)he was so bored with the teacher, (s)he would fall asleep and not do any work, but now (s)he is able to stay awake to subconsciously listen to the teacher.

Take the third student, the provider/future programmer. This student is probably making from A's to C's and maybe even lower. (S)He is a pure programmer, who knows EVERYTHING about the calculator. They probably got a calculator for Christmas when they were like 10 or something. This person creates the games and distributes them. This student receives copies of homework FOR the programs themselves, making a great profit (good enough grades for programs). This person doesn't usually play games during class because (s)he's too busy drawing and writing them. This person does grow up to be the next "Bill Gates" because the fact that they got good grades in school (good for college) and they have great knowledge of programming.

So, in these 3 cases, the people were getting the grades they were BEFORE they set eyes on calculators. Teachers cannot change their behaviors. People become what they want to become, and teachers get paid no matter what the students do, so they need to lay off.

I'm almost 19 and out of HighSchool. For 4 years, I have been the "A" student provider. I have given myself an "edge" that noone else could ever imagine. Calculators were a great start for me in programming, and now (8 years later) I am able to program in more than 10 languages and across 2 platforms. If teachers take away these such priveladges, then what do we programmers do in our "bored time"? I know that the only time that I could program was in school between boring sessions of the teacher speaking because once I got home, it was my "play" time, my "go out and party with friends" time...I didn't even have much time for homework, I usually did that in the morning before the bell rang at the beginning of school.

I just want to say to all the teachers "BACK OFF, you may be ruining the students' potential, and in-doing-so you are going against everything the word/job 'Teacher' stands for--which is improving students' potential and getting them ready for the world". Oh, and one more thing before I go, my school even has a TI-calculator programming class that teaches how to create games, and those students get a pass to let them "play" their creations in other classes when they are done with their work.

-Rob

Wow !!! That was a good post.

I do think that the calculators should have gaming potential, but there IS a limit, folks. As has been said by a couple dozen people already, it's an issue of opportunity costs. I do have a Graph-Link and am an infection vector for gaming on almost every platform, but I have a few conditions people must agree to. First, they must agree not to blame me for any bad things caused by the game (crashes, confiscations, etc.). Second, THEY have to give me the program they want me to transfer, because my disk space is way too precious for a horde of 9xz and 86p files. Third, I'm not gonna tell people how to send it unit-to-unit. They should learn how to use their calcs! And fourth, they have to somehow obtain the time necessary to transfer it, 'cuz I'm not touching their machines (in case they get stolen, which happens a lot at my school) and I don't feel like asking my comp sci/physics teacher to let me download some games. This helps a lot, and for the 3 or 4 people with 89s and 92s gaming spreads slowly as people don't usually know about sending libraries or accidentally self-destruct Fargo II programs. And I speak from experience: TIs are heaven compared to the HP48! While HPs often have better games, they have SPEAKERS, and while it's pretty cool in the car or at a friend's house, it's a pain in the ass because not only do people forget that their speakers are on, but some programs don't care what the config is, and worst of all, people discover the BEEP command! At school the last 2 years we had an HP48 fan for a trig/calculus teacher (remember that the 92 was expensive as hell and the 89 was just a demented would-be test cheater's wet dream, so the HP was the only real calculus calc around) and once a year after he handed out the school's HPs on loan there would slowly be a crescendo of beeping, culminating in music, sound effects, and the percussive effect of someone causing errors every time they put 2 + 2 instead of 2 2 +. But I digress. The point is that TIs are incredibly silent and inconspicuous if used properly. That means no obviously dangling link cables, no outbursts, and NO spectators! Having 3 or 4 people standing around squinting at the LCD is just asking for a teacher to come. While I gamed on my HP (and still do occasionally) my 92+ keeps me honest in nonmath classes because nothing can hide it! Remember, game only when nothing important is going on, and for the love of a deity of your choice, DON'T obviously game!

After all, I would like to be able to kick back once in a while and have a quick round of 68000/Saturn goodness in IB higher math, and I can't do that if every Z80 junkie keeps getting TIs and HPs banned.

At my hight school, we are allowed to have games on our calculators, but we can only play them on our free time durring study hall, lunch, etc.. If we are caught playing them, the teacher gives the calculator the a math teacher ant she erases it and charges us $1 to get back (the $$$ goes to buy new lab equipment and calculators). Games take up a lot of space and I usually have the tiny memory on my TI-83 half full with math programs, lists, etc. that i need. If anything, I think that TI should have a way to upgrade a calc's memory without buying a totally new calc.
I also have lots of problems with assembly programs because they tend to screw the calc royally. Mine has frozen of reset itself many times in the middle of class when I haven't played a game in days.
I must admit that I have had my calculator taken away several times, but the teacher was usually in a bad mood and just didn't like anybody that day.

That is illegal. You cannot take something from someone, and then force them to pay money to get it back. I would complain to the principal, and if the principal did nothing, I would complain to the directly to the superintendent.

Instead of pulling the batteries, or confonscating the calculator. Just delete the game they were playing at the time. For a repeat offender, you could then confonscate the calculator, and have a parent come into to get the calculator back.

Okay, here is the bottom line-if you want good grades, don't play games while the teacher is talking or while you're doing something important. If you don't want good grades, do what you want.
The teacher wants the students to do good in the class, but when they play too much it's the student's fault, and they should not resort to reseting calculator memory or banning TI-calcs.
It comes down to whether or not you are a good worker.

Yeah, I think that's true....if you are in a math class advanced enough that you are using a graphing calculator, you should be mature enough to know how much playing is enough. None of my teachers ever tell me to put my calculator away because they know we are mature enough to limit time spent on games. Some idiots are always playing games, but they are also the ones with the bad grades (and they are fat too....PEE-PAY!).

I have noticed many of the same problems at my school, people playing games in class. Another thing that I have noticed at my school is that only the smarter people play games in class, mainly because they don't need to pay attention all of the time, and most of the time, the teacher is just repeating all of the easy stuff for the morons who couldn't get it all the first time. I personally have an 83, but no games, my link port broke before I could get a link and because nobody else had an 83 at my school. Instead of playing games all the time, I program them. I used to create basic games, but they were to slow and took up too much memory. I have just started programming in asm, and am doing well. When I look around in class, I see about 30% of the people playing games. Most of these people have 86's and have no idea what a variable is. This is pathetic. These people have calculators that are waaay better than mine, but all they do is just sit there mindlessley playing Tetris all day. At my school there is only one teacher that takes out the batteries of the calculators, he takes them out, throws them in the trash and spits on them. Other teachers do take them away occasionally, but always give them back at the end of the class with a warning that does absolutely no good. Once, I made a program that emulated adding, it said that 1+1=3 and stuff like that, I showed it to my Math teacher and he actually gave me advice as to how to make the program better. In the end, most teachers don't care about the games, as long as you look up once in a while. Most people like playing my games, because they are different than the arcade style games on the other calculators, but I can't give them to anybody, so I never see anybody offering to give me my own games. I love looking at all of the games that are out there for calculators, it would seem that they will always keep coming and will never be stopped, with the power of the internet behind them. The teachers can't fight them forever, they won't go away, and we will all have to live with them, they are here to stay.

I agree, exept in my case, I have the better calculator. I have an 83 because our school told us to get it, and an 89 because the 83 didn't have enough memory for the programs I was making. I have notised that most of the people in my class don't know much at all about their calculator. One didn't even know that it could do powers, and after having it an entire YEAR, that is indeed verry pathetic.
I don't have any games on my 83, because it dosen't have enough memory for both games AND my programs, and I would rather keep mine because I made them for math. Even now it only has about 2K of RAM free, which is why I got an 89.

Seeems like ewe learned tew speel, Joiseymon!

At my school, the same thing happened :

Before games : Students didn't learn how their calculators worked, and didn't use them unless they had to.

After games : Students didn't learn how their calculators worked, and played a lot of games.

I would love to see a teacher come up and take the batteries from my ti89 or attempt to reset the memory. I assure you that his/her tires would either be missing or slashed within the hour. I am currently taking AP Calculus, AP English, Band, and Economics. The teachers in my band and economics classes understand that their course is fairly easy because it's required for graduation. They realize that my schedule isn't exactly light, so when they see me taking a nap or me whip out my ti89, they make no comment about it. I just don't understand why some parents would go out and buy a $150 calc for their kid, who is in pre-algebra. I think that is what's causing the uproar from the teachers. They understand the difference between a 4.0 student relaxing and a kid with an IQ of 80 trying to get out of participating in class.I've had less understanding teachers threaten such actions, but they've never really acted upon their threats. My teachers, however, have taken such action against some of the stupider kids at my school. I think that teachers are sympathetic with the students who don't abuse their calculators *that's how it is here, anyway*, but they won't put up with struggling students attempting to "escape" from their lecture. It is more a matter of proper use and good timing than a matter of teachers unfairly taking calcs up.

Tubaman

fortunately, I haven't had this problem. My teachers even ask me to put games on their calcs!

Calculators were not meant for games. But some person made games so calculators are now both calculators and gameboys. Take advantage of this. only play if teachers says you may. then you will never be in a mess. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello, I must be the 100 message up to this DATE!!! Pretty cool...Well anyway on to the subject.

It seems like the games have been a problem during class in the beginning of the school year, but now it's under control at out school. The other sad part to this story is that people that are less fortunate at school (A.K.A. Ghetto people. j/k) they want to play with your calculator along with others, and sometimes get abusive. Therefore, the teacher (or the proctor, because s/he's in charge with the study hall) has theaten all those to posses calculators to put them away until the end of the period. You may be thinking "why don't you do your homework?" Well, at most times, I don't have homework at all, and there isn't anything to do.
On the bright side, people have been interested in programming complex programs for the calculator. This could spread programming skills for gerations, and could make the most complicated programs.

Now, I dont really know what your talking about, all this 'memory reseting' and 'confiscation', im at a school with 2100+ students and more than 3/4 have TI-calcs with games, but very few abuse it. Now, I program in assembly and BASIC and can sometimes get carried away in class, but I make up for it with homework and good study habits, hell, im a freshman in Algebra 2 hon and getting a 98! If the calculator user is really stupid enough to play games in class they deserve to have their calc's memory cleared, but I dont think thats a reason to ban calculators!

~noxa

ps-all those teachers are to blame are partly are semi-true, if a teacher can keep the kids attention long enough to prevent them from being able to open their backpack, pull out the calculator, turn it on, play a game, put it back, and zip their backpack up, the teacher shouldnt be there, but if the teacher _IS_ able to keep the attention of the kids and the guy does it anyway, that shows a sign of a attention disorder.

(my .2$)