Have you always wanted to be able to program your calculator? It's tradition in the computer programming world to have your first program display "Hello World" so that's where we'll start.
- Turn your calculator on, then click PRGM and scroll over to NEW.
- Hit ENTER and it will prompt you for the name of your program. Notice that it is already in alpha-lock mode (you can tell this from the A in the blinking cursor.)
- Type HELLOWLD. Notice that the cursor changes after the last letter since program names are limited to 8 characters on the TI-83. Hit ENTER.
- Press the PRGM button, then scroll over to I/O and down to DISP. Press ENTER.
- Press 2nd ALPHA to get in alpha-lock mode, then type "HELLO WORLD". (To get a space, press the 0 key.)
- Press 2nd QUIT to leave the program edit mode and return to the home screen.
- To run your program, press PRGM, scroll up or down to HELLOWLD and press ENTER.
- When you see prgmHELLOWLD on your screen, hit ENTER to run it.
- Congratulations!! You just wrote and ran your first TI graphing calculator program!
Alternatives and Additions
- If you'd like the calculator to clear the screen before it displays your text, before you type the first command, click PRGM, go over to I/O and down to 8:ClrHome and press ENTER. Hit ENTER again to put this command on a line by itself.
- If you'd like the program to wait to display Done after showing your text, on a line after the Disp command, click PRGM and go down the CTL menu to 8:Pause and press ENTER. Now when you run the program, it will wait for you to press enter before saying Done.
- Obviously you can change the text to say whatever you'd like it to say.
- Play around with this and see what it does. You won't do anything to damage your calculator by writing one of these programs.