
Tihle: A new emulator targeting TI graphing calculators - jonhcalc
https://www.taricorp.net/2020/introducing-tihle/
======
mikeknoop
Great read and great work. TI’s move to disallow developing native
applications is not good. By definition, these calculators are educational
devices, not walled curated platforms. While I admit programming is a
secondary function on these calculators, a large community of folks (including
myself) learned to code on these relatively accessible machines and many took
those skills forward to help build really cool and useful things for the
world.

~~~
LEARAX
While I agree with your sentiment, a big part of why the TI-84 is so
ubiquitous is because they're required for standardized tests. I suppose their
reasoning is that supporting assembly programs makes it trivial to break/fake
the test mode on their calculators.

That said, they didn't even use test mode when I took the SAT, so I don't
know.

~~~
jcfields
It's been a while since I've taken the ACT or SAT, but it seems unnecessary to
me to allow graphing calculators at all. I'm pretty sure you can get through
any 4-year engineering program without ever using more than a good scientific
calculator on an exam (and that's all you're allowed to use on the FE/PE
exams), so it ought to be more than sufficient for high school algebra or
trig.

I would actually take it a step further and say that graphing calculators
aren't even that useful in instruction, especially now that students all have
computers and can run Desmos, MatLab, or whatever. I had a TI-86 in high
school, and the only class in which I found it indispensable was A.P.
Statistics. Maybe I'm being narrow-minded, but I always thought those things
were a bit silly and gimmicky and sort of resented that my parents had to buy
me one for school.

~~~
G4E
I don't know if it is common, but that's exactly what my engineering school
did : no graphical calculator allowed through all the cursus. They would
provide a "basic+ calculator" (a basic calculator with square, square root,
and some "advanced" math but not a lot) to each test and you'll have to deal
with that.

I hated it while in school, but retrospectively i think it was a pretty good
idea actually :)

------
anamexis
Wow, seeing Phoenix instantly brought on a heavy wave of nostalgia. Back in
high school I was the kid who bought a USB link cable for my TI-83+ and
distributed games to people. An effective way to get in the good favor of the
jocks.

I'll have to give this a spin!

------
abalaji
The most interesting part about this page was the audio version of the page. I
really enjoyed that. Would love to see more authors record their essays so we
can hear it in their voice!

~~~
cxr
I agree wholeheartedly and have considered this a lot. I've wondered if it
could be a _thing_ for people to start doing this for their (most important)
blog posts, but I suppose it is in some way exclusionary—to participate you no
longer have to simply present your thoughts clearly, but to have the
confidence and competence to narrate it, too, or have the money to pay for
someone else to do it.

------
techwizrd
This is pretty cool. I still use a TI-89 Titanium regularly, as well as a
TI-89 Titanium emulator on my phone. I remember spending hours writing code
for my TI-84SE in middle and high school. I loved that it was so easy to see
and use my code in my hands, and to share with others. I remember learning TI
BASIC and z80 assembly on it. My favorite achievement was writing a networked
(over the TI cables), raycasted FPS for the TI-84SE. Performance was awful,
but it felt amazing that it was at all possible.

This is a big blast from the past. I can't wait to try running some of my old
code on this emulator.

~~~
duskwuff
If you're familiar with the AMS environment from the TI-89, you might be
interested in a project I put together a while ago to emulate the TI
Voyage-200 (a variant of the TI-92):

[https://github.com/duskwuff/v200/](https://github.com/duskwuff/v200/)

Which runs great under Emscripten:

[https://woofle.net/v200/](https://woofle.net/v200/)

------
Blackthorn
Are there any good TI-like calculators one can still buy that aren't from
Texas Instruments?

~~~
nichos
Casio makes arguably better calculators, with more features and are cheaper.
TI has a monopoly because that's what teachers know.

~~~
Blackthorn
Any recommendations? I was thinking of buying one for my shop. That or buying
a graphing calculator app for my phone (which I could also use recommendations
for).

~~~
randtrain34
Check out
[https://www.numworks.com/features/](https://www.numworks.com/features/) which
seems like a super fresh take on calculators (eg. can program python)

~~~
boogies
The article mentions Python on TI calculators and a quick web search reveals
at least one Casio one ships with micro python (although as the page you
linked says numworks was the first to offer it, so maybe there are other
innovations that haven't spread).

~~~
souprock
You could use C with the TI-84 Plus CE. That gave direct hardware access to
the memory-mapped display. Python is no substitute for C. Languages like C are
far better for getting a feel for how computers truly work.

------
siraben
Seeing projects like this from time to time always brings renewed interest to
the TI graphic calculators. A while back I wrote a Forth-based operating
system for the TI-84+[0] which uses the TiLem emulator[1]. I didn't want the
software to bit-rot as well, so having a Nix build file would ensure the OS
and emulator stay working into the future.

[0] [http://github.com/siraben/zkeme80](http://github.com/siraben/zkeme80)

[1] [http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilem/](http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilem/)

------
gazzini
This is so nostalgic!

I personally learned to program on a TI 84+ Silver Edition in 10th grade. I
got _so good_ at writing TI-Basic on the calculator, pressing 2nd->catalog &
scrolling to a specific command... because you didn’t type function names or
keywords, you selected them from a list.

I even put some games & programs on ticalc.org — I just checked, and they’re
still around! One of my apps is “zz” at the bottom of this list... man, the
good ole days:

[https://www.ticalc.org/pub/83plus/basic/math/trigonometry/](https://www.ticalc.org/pub/83plus/basic/math/trigonometry/)

------
andrewstuart
Now the TI calculators have banned user code, I wish there was some
alternative device available that uses the ez80 processor.

~~~
souprock
Yep. The C compiler is fascinating. You get sizeof(int)==3 and
sizeof(void*)==3 with that compiler. Alignment and padding do not exist.

------
guidione
This is so cool.

