Survey posted 2008-05-15 20:31 by Astrid.

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It's been almost four years now...Seems like a lot longer.

I put I got it as a gift, even though that isn't quite how I got mine.

For me (and my family):
TI-84+SE #1: got at National Mathcounts for free
TI-84+SE #2: I broke the free calculator (#1) and got a free replacement
TI-84+SE #3: my dad got for free for being a national mathcounts coach
TI-84+SE #4: my mom got for free for doing some teacher workshop thing
TI-83+ #1: my mom got this for free for a teacher workshop as well
TI-83+ #2: for $-9 =D there was a sale at Office Depot involving buying $100 worth of school supplies to get a free TI-83+, but my mom is a teacher and got a discount, so we ended up getting paid $9 to take it off their hands =)
TI-89: mom bought on Ebay, unknown price

As you can see, my family does not spend much money on calculators...

YEAH National Mathcounts!
I got my 84 Silver last year at nationals in Ft. Worth, Texas. I completely bombed the contest, but the calculator was worth it.

I got my TI-Nspire for my birthday. I'm such a geek.

Hmm...it seems my last 4 calculators were given to me, & all but one were gifts.

TI-92+ for Christmas a few years ago
TI-83+ because it had no OS (easily remedied)
TI-89 Titanium for my birthday
TI-92 with plus module for another birthday

In fact, I do not think I have ever bought a calculator. My grandma still tries to spoil me (even though I am 21), & my dad got some for himself & then did not know what to do with them. :)

I might buy a V200 or N-Spire for myself some time, though. PDAs & laptops may be more powerful, but calculators' batteries last so much longer.

An 83+ without an Operating System; that to me makes little sense. Anything that calculates would have an OS (even if it is not expressed); part of an OS is reading content, and recognizing things would not be possible without an OS.
And if it really did not have an OS, how could it then recognize the graph link software/hardware (or whatever is used to transfer)? (Kind of a rhetorical question.)

I think the reason that he got it for free is because it had no OS, So basically the person that owned it had no use for it, so they simply gave it to him, who happened to know how to put an OS on it. It is not true that anything that calculates has an OS. You could easily write Machine language to a computer to perform calculations without an OS. How do you think TI made an os in the first place?

A mysterious crash erased the flash (including the OS). This resulted in it displaying the "Press i to install OS" prompt (not sure of the exact wording any more). They said they did not really need it anymore anyway. So I took it home & downloaded the latest version off TI's website, & now I have a working TI-83+.

"don't have a calculator", that option to me makes little sense. Though the TI released Graphlink software allows for programming in them.
Having neither would be impracticable for this site; yet programmers would need some way to test their programs, which is possible with the TI released 83+ SDK (but I am not aware of any equivalent with the other TI graphing calculators).

And where is the "replacement" option? As a number of posts mentioned, it is possible for a calculator to be gotten that way.

A correction:: From the TI site I found 2 SDKs: one for the 83+, the 84+, & the 73; the other for the 92+, & the 89.
Well actually there is a third for TalkTI.

Testing programs for other calculators, the programmer would need those calculators.

You don't need that crappy SDK stuff, you can just use an emulator (though you aren't *supposed* to do that without owning the calculator).

Getting the calculator (with its files) to computer would require the calculator it self; and I think getting new files would also.
I think I would prefer the SDK; dealing with the graph link cable would not be required.

Well, think about it. A lot of schools, to prevent theft, or at least to ensure students are held accountable for their calculators, are leasing the calcs out to students. My sister had an 83+ the school leased her. The school get's to hang on to their calculators that way, and the parents reimburse the school for lost ones.

The very first time I ever came to TICalc.org I was using a TI82 the school so trustingly lent me. At the time the idea of stealing it never even crossed my mind. I owned a link cable before I ever owned a TI.

That to me would be closer to a "lent/rented to me" option; and not having a calculator is not completely like that (only during the non-school periods).

I answered "I stole it" just because that was the closest answer to what actually happened. My first calculators were a TI-81 and a TI-85 that were found in the Lost and Found at the college where my dad works. No one had claimed them for some time (presumably, the original owners had graduated), so we got to keep them.

Gift or given sounds closer to your situation than stealing.

honestly does someone giving you a calc to repair then they move and are unable to contact again count as stealing?

I would say "no," but that is the closest option of the ones in the survey.

The first or second option would to me the closest.

Well, I was traveling through space, and I, like, came across this white hole, and, uh, it just sort of suddenly ejected a TI-89 Titanium, so I grabbed it. :-P

Actually I bought it as a replacement for my HW2 TI-89, mainly for the additional Flash and because I was sick of looking at the cosmetic wear and tear of my old 89 for the last six years.

My teacher lent me an 82 and i was hooked. then 2 days before an exam said she needed it back so around 4 hour later i high tailed it to officeworks and bought my 84+