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Overclocking Calculators?

Klar writes "If you're looking for something new to prove your tech prowess, Richard Piotter has a great how to on overclocking Texas Instruments graphing calculators. You can actually double the cpu speed, which is noticeable when graphing complex functions."

345 comments

  1. Not only is it faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    But I get better results! Before, 1+1 was always 2, but now it's 2.0358!

    1. Re:Not only is it faster by Aero+Leviathan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Wow, just like a Pentium II!

      --
      ~ Aero
    2. Re:Not only is it faster by Rangsk · · Score: 2, Funny

      1+1=3 for extremeley high values of 1.

      --
      "Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." --Douglas Adams
    3. Re:Not only is it faster by vwjeff · · Score: 0, Redundant

      1+1 does =2.0358 if 1=1.0179

    4. Re:Not only is it faster by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 3, Funny

      As always, Hewlett Packard got there first and better. (Yes, HP was once a great company, before the current management took over.) The very first hand-held scientific calculator, the HP35 in 1972, calculated exp(ln(2.02))=2. reference.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    5. Re:Not only is it faster by the+angry+liberal · · Score: 1

      "Yes, HP was once a great company, before the current management took over."

      Ya think? Don't blame management. Blame the investors for being ready to fire or sue the pants off that management if they don't produce numbers.

      You have not noticed this phenomenon going around lately?

    6. Re:Not only is it faster by aichpvee · · Score: 0

      I always thought 1+1=10. But maybe that's only for regular values of 1.

      --
      The Farewell Tour II
    7. Re:Not only is it faster by coredumpman · · Score: 1

      wouldn't 1+1 for high values of 1 be closer to 4? :)

    8. Re:Not only is it faster by TheAntiCrust · · Score: 1

      No, 1.4 + 1.4 = 2.8

      You are thinking it could be 1.9 instead, but it couldnt be, becuase then it would be rounded up and it would be a 'kind of small value of 2' instead of an 'exetremely large value of 1'.

    9. Re:Not only is it faster by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      No, 1.4 + 1.4 = 2.8

      Where 1.4 gets rounded down to 1 and 2.8 gets rounded up to 3, giving you 1+1=3

    10. Re:Not only is it faster by TDO48 · · Score: 1

      Yes... we did it first with the HP and in particular the HP48GX. Still have this HP with the overclock switch. Works fine with and without overclocking, however don't use the overclocking mode because it fucks up the clock (same oscillator for CPU and timer). Google group

    11. Re:Not only is it faster by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Ya think? Don't blame management.

      You surely jest. The investors being increasing a pile of sheeple morons, intermixed with a few PHBs are demanding not profits (although in their deluded perception that is probably what they are thinking) but a buzzword-spewing, mindless technophobes with acting abilites to play a "part" of a "visionary" CEO, because that makes them feel that they "understand" tech companies. Look up the ./ article on buzzword bullshit just on the front page today, this is the same thing in different form. Hence Carly Fiorina, a total dumb-fuck whose claim to fame is revolving in the "right" circles of self-congratulatory aristocratic-born dimiwts. HP as a tech company is toast, but HP as yet-another mediocracy mass-consumerism crapola maker tied to fads and whims of "pop culture" and locked in endless "race to the bottom" against Chinese crap makers is just beginning.

    12. Re:Not only is it faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ha, I overclocked a TI-30 (with a nice LED-segment display) in 1981 or so. It didn't have a crystal, but a simple RC-circuit. I replaced the R with a variable one, outside the box. I could also clock it down so it spent 20 seconds on computing arctan.

  2. News flash! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Graphing calculators! Wow! What will they think of next?!

  3. Next: by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 4, Funny

    Beowulf clusters of overclocked T.I. calculators!!!

    1. Re:Next: by SydneyAgent20 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      They should invent calculators that eliminate such people with so much time on their hands so that we dont have to read stupid articles like these and these calculators shall be named The " I. E. Imbecile Eliminator "

    2. Re:Next: by Taladar · · Score: 1

      2. ??? 3. Profit

  4. What's so hard about complex functions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean, you have the imaginary value on the Y axis, the real value on the X axis, and...

    Oh. Never mind, I'm thinking of something else...

  5. From the by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too Much Time On Their Hands Department.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:From the by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny coming from someone posting on Slashdot.

    2. Re:From the by RonnyJ · · Score: 5, Funny
      Too Much Time On Their Hands Department.

      Just wait til someone finally manages to overclock their watch :)

    3. Re:From the by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Actually, I had managed, but 4 hour days were too stressful.

    4. Re:From the by jcuervo · · Score: 1

      Just pop another crystal in.

      --
      Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
    5. Re:From the by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Done that like 20 years ago in the 80's... My buddy showed my the Japanese magazine that OC Casic calacultors. Been doing that since.

      They use resistor or capacitor or crystal for clock generation. Most of the calculators can be overclocked in the old day by at least 70% if you don't mind more power consumption. Even got me designing switch mode power supply (before Maxim Semi 's time), learning how to interface to memory etc.

    6. Re:From the by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      If you do, don't stand too close to the microwave, or the whole room will get sucked back in time, your cat will eat a critical dinosaur, and you'll return to the present with a completely messed up time-line. Trust me, it happens all the time.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    7. Re:From the by ebingo · · Score: 1

      Time will fly...

    8. Re:From the by carcosa30 · · Score: 1

      Nah, this is actually useful. Those calculators are really powerful little devices, like a mini-PDA. They can also be piss-slow for performing their designed function, so this improves the usefulness of the device, unlike so many other Slashdot projects.

      Things like scene-by-scene remakes of Citizen Kane all done in legos.

      --
      Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
    9. Re:From the by zcat_NZ · · Score: 1

      Just wait til someone finally manages to overclock their watch :)

      Unlike computers, there has been absolutely no progress in the field of clockmaking for a very long time. Clocks today run no faster than they did 20 years ago!!

      --
      455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
    10. Re:From the by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess anyone can miss the subtlety of a joke and then restate it in obvious terms. Dingaling.

    11. Re:From the by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      When things like these are modded +4 insightful, you know /. is going downhill.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    12. Re:From the by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then you'd have the too many hands on their time department?

    13. Re:From the by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      ...and then you'll need partake of a different sort of crystal to keep up.

    14. Re:From the by FlyByPC · · Score: 1

      Hmm. I might just; I have an OnHand watch PC!

      --
      Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
  6. Sooo.... by Squatchman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Slashdot, putting the "New" back in news.

    Personally I think my calculator calculates rather well. If I was going to use it on a gaming platform(what's the point?) then I guess something like this would come in handy.

    1. Re:Sooo.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As well as yesterday's hack a day...

    2. Re:Sooo.... by ottothecow · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Well none of it is really new considering there were plenty of instructions when I got my 83+ in 7th grade. They even prompted me to try to overclock a little 4function calculator...it kind of worked; the screen was sometimes a little garbled but the big square roots were slightly faster.

      Not that I would do something like this to my beautiful TI-89...its amazingly difficult to find one in a store but I really dont like the feel of the titanium's shape or buttons (especially the arrow keys).

      Boo TI for getting rid of the bombproof black case in exchange for changable faceplates!

      --
      Bottles.
    3. Re:Sooo.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fark, putting the "New" back in news.

      This is news?!?! "Old news for Nerds. Stuff that mattered 5 years ago."

    4. Re:Sooo.... by DakotaK · · Score: 1

      Not to mention this has been online for several years already. This dosen't change the fact that it's very useful and cool...just makes it very old news.

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      I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
    5. Re:Sooo.... by LordNightwalker · · Score: 1

      Yup, actually had the Richfiles bookmarked like 7 or 8 years ago(I think it was hosted on geocities back then), and the overclock page was already on there. The SPInterface looked rather cool too and I had plans to build one, but then I switched from engeneering tot informatics and the TI-85 I owned became kind of obsolete...

      It's cool, I'll give you that, but not exactly news.

      --
      Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
    6. Re:Sooo.... by nijk · · Score: 1

      "What's the point?" you ask? To play game in school of course!

  7. pfft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pfft, tell me when you've over clocked a pencil and paper.

    1. Re:pfft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
      Pfft, tell me when you've over clocked a pencil and paper.


      I've tried. The increased friction leads to heat problems and the paper catches fire.

    2. Re:pfft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      You have to use water cooling

    3. Re:pfft by SamSim · · Score: 3, Funny

      What do you call a printer?

    4. Re:pfft by fcw · · Score: 4, Funny

      I dunno, but I know how to call one: "Heeere, printy, printy, printy."

    5. Re:pfft by slashname3 · · Score: 1

      They have done this. It is called taking speed.....

    6. Re:pfft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      This exchange would make a great addition to the fortune file... :)

    7. Re:pfft by syousef · · Score: 1

      Pfft, tell me when you've over clocked a pencil and paper.

      There are several solutions of this. The most legal is caffeine.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    8. Re:pfft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I did, but legibility suffered a bit.

      Everything comes out as

      w_____--_____-_______-_____-_______

  8. Dammit! by Faust7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I tried to overclock my slide rule, but it just went up in smoke.

    1. Re:Dammit! by goneutt · · Score: 2, Insightful
      --
      Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
    2. Re:Dammit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Bah. Slide Rules are too high-tech.

      I've been using an overclocked abacus for years!

    3. Re:Dammit! by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      I was trying to do the same thing, but I didn't know that after you put the slide rule over your clock you have to put it on fire... I was trying to use a pack of ice to cool the whole thing down :/

    4. Re:Dammit! by FiReaNGeL · · Score: 4, Funny

      According to the paper :

      [Problem] 30 x 40 = ?
      [Solution]
      (1) Bring 30 on the bezel ruler and 10 on the dial ruler in line.
      (2) Read the number on the bezel ruler scale corresponding to 40 on the dial ruler
      scale. The number is 12 (= 1.2 x 101 ).
      (3) Calculate the number of digits following the formula in " Hint for calculation of the
      number of digits".
      In this case:
      30 = 3 x 101, 40 = 4 x 101, and 12 = 1.2 x 101
      Z = 1+1+1(1.2 3, 4)
      Z = 3
      c = 1.2
      C = 1.2 x 103 = 1200
      [Answer] 1200

      Sure speeds things up I guess :)

    5. Re:Dammit! by supachupa · · Score: 1

      In other related news an two abacuses have been set up in a dual cluster by using one in each hand.

  9. Not new at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is soooo old. I overclocked my TI calc several years ago, putting a snazzy OC switch on the side. All of my friends were terribly impressed.

    On the other hand, it didn't really help in my classes, except to get the wrong answer faster...

    1. Re:Not new at all by Puma_Concolor · · Score: 1

      My calculator is water cooled....

    2. Re:Not new at all by Drantin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, not only is the copyright on the website 1996-2000, but I've visited that site before... 4-5 years ago... for a website with more information, go here...

      --
      Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
  10. Cheating by fembots · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will students be caught cheating with these overclocked calculators?

    1. Re:Cheating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I imagine so, if they're using them where calculators aren't allowed. Otherwise, what difference would it make?

    2. Re:Cheating by mattdev121 · · Score: 1, Funny

      Won't be too hard to see, they'll be screaming in pain as a glob of molten plastic melts to their hand from the heat.

      --
      mattdev@server$ touch /dev/genitals
      cannot touch `/dev/genitals': Permission denied
    3. Re:Cheating by britneys+9th+husband · · Score: 1

      When I was in high school we had a teacher that liked to keep the windows in the classroom open, no matter how cold it was outside. Unfortunately, he taught English. If he had been a math teacher, we might have actually encouraged him, at least during the wintertime.

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  11. It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by Slash+Watch · · Score: 5, Informative

    Utilities have been coded to overclock HP48/HP49 calculators to a wide range of clock speeds - you can pick and choose what you like, up to 200MHz. This is pretty impressive too - that's more than a doubling of clock speed, IIRC.

    1. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by rritterson · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, IIRC, the new calculators are using ARM processors running in some sort of emulation layer that tuned the CPU all the way down to 12MHZ so it would match the old calculators. The tool simply removes that restriction, if I understand right.

      --
      -Ryan
      AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
    2. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by Nyall · · Score: 4, Informative

      To save power the clock speed of the arm is lowered when it is idle, when calculations are running the 49g+ will raise the cpu speed to 75Mhz.

      --
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
    3. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by allanc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Only works on the HP49g+, not the HP49g or the HP48 series.

      Works really well, though. I enjoy the fact that I can overclock my calculator--which is already faster than the first Unix workstation I ever owned--so I can do my simple addition, multiplication, and subtraction problems at blazing fast speed!

    4. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by shobadobs · · Score: 1

      It probably works for the HP48GII as well, considering that the 48GII is like the 49G+ and is not really part of the 48 series. But correct me if I'm wrong.

    5. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by Bowling+Moses · · Score: 1

      As someone else mentioned, not all HP48s can do this. My HP48SX is powered by a 2 MHz processor, so overclocking it to 200 MHz would probably generate enough heat to initiate fusion or something. 2 MHz isn't really all that bad though, for all you kiddies out there. The only thing I've ever done with it that made it start to puke was some funkier graphing with parametric equations or something. By comparison, I also got it at the time I replaced my Apple IIe with a 386sx-16. That computer's been long gone, but I'll have the calculator forever. RPN, baby! My calculator does math like Yoda talks!

    6. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thanks

      -the author

    7. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really. There is an emulation layer, yes, but it chews up alot of CPU time. 12MHz isn't nearly fast enough to emulate a 4Mhz CPU - even a crappy one like the Saturn.

      When the calculator is running normally it executes code at 75MHz. However since it is running off AAA batteries it is downclocked to 'Slow Mode', 12MHz, while idle.

      All my program does is alter the setting for the PLL (clock multiplier) so you can choose a different speed then 75MHz. You may choose 36MHz for longer battery life or 120MHz for speed.

      -the author

    8. Re:It's not just TI calcs that can be OC'd. by allanc · · Score: 1

      Good point. They both use an ARM and have basically the same software. But I don't know for sure either (I have a 48g, a 48g+, a 49g, and a 49g+, but no 48gII)

      --AC

  12. old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this has been around for a very long time.

  13. another hack a day ripp off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    tsk tsk tsk how lame from the editors

    1. Re:another hack a day ripp off by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 2, Funny

      Perhaps we need to overclock the editors??

      --
      Engineering is the art of compromise.
    2. Re:another hack a day ripp off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      shit faster is still shit.

    3. Re:another hack a day ripp off by zCyl · · Score: 1

      Perhaps we need to overclock the editors??

      So they can post each story twice a day? ;)

    4. Re:another hack a day ripp off by John+Pliskin · · Score: 1

      No, so they can post it every six hours, and keep up with a good even, four a day, number!

      $

  14. hot off the press.. by fliptout · · Score: 2, Funny

    Did this back in '96 on my Ti85.

    --
    A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
    1. Re:hot off the press.. by Solder+Fumes · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, I know, this is pretty dang old news.

      I even modded mine to have an LED and a port for standard 0.1" headers with access to power and the serial connection.

    2. Re:hot off the press.. by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

      Ha! Did this back with my HP-25 in 1974...

    3. Re:hot off the press.. by TrancePhreak · · Score: 1

      I never performed the operation, but I remember hearing about in in 97 or so. This is indeed overly old news.

      --

      -]Phreak Out[-
    4. Re:hot off the press.. by Fjornir · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Heh. Not only is this 'news' more than 5 years old, this also ran on Fark today about 6 hours earlier.

      --
      I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
    5. Re:hot off the press.. by BarryJacobsen · · Score: 1

      Ha! Did this back with my HP-25 in 1974...

      Pfft. I was oc'ing abaci before you were born, son.

    6. Re:hot off the press.. by Oliver+Defacszio · · Score: 4, Funny

      I overclocked Earth the day before the dinosaurs died.

      --

      -
      Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
  15. The Point? by christopherfinke · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What exactly is the point of this? Do calculators take too long to report 2 + 2? I can't think of a situation where I sat waiting for my TI-83 to finish calculating and though "Man, I should really overclock this baby."

    1. Re:The Point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      which is noticeable when graphing complex functions

      thats the point.

    2. Re:The Point? by Golgafrinchan · · Score: 1
      I have a TI-86, which has the capability of graphing differential equations of up to 9th-order.

      It really cranks away when graphing DiffEq's. It often takes more than a minute to finish graphing! Needless to say, bumping up the clock speed of the calculator 2-3X helps significantly here... especially when I'm taking an exam and every minute counts!

      --
      My userid is prime!
    3. Re:The Point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well considering the first example that popped into your head of a calculation that would challenge your calculator was "2+2" I guess it shouldn't be surprising you see no need for this.

    4. Re:The Point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      is there a point of even owning a TI-83 you lazy bastards? That's why the chinese are kicking your butts.

    5. Re:The Point? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Graphing complex functions is slow. Calculating integrals is slow. 3D graphs are abysmally slow. Speeding these functions up could be quite useful. Of course, you could just use Virtual TI on your PC if you wanted it to be really fast, or there's always Mathematica. I'm sure overclocking your calculator cuts the battery life in half or worse, which is why they are clocked so low by TI to begin with. Now if he could figure out a way for it to automatically overclock itself only while doing calculations (not waiting for input), then he might be onto something...

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    6. Re:The Point? by enosys · · Score: 2, Interesting
      These calculators can do more complex operations like graphing and iterative numerical solving. These would benefit from overclocking.

      They can also run interpreted and assembler programs. These would also run faster, but that's not necessarily a good thing because many are games that may become too fast and unplayable.

    7. Re:The Point? by SuperCal · · Score: 1

      there are a few things like solving intercepts, and more likely basic games and programs. I remember a few times during math tests, when I finished early with the equation problems I knew how to solve, I would go back to the ones I didn't and try to solve them by writing a basic program that would try all possible solutions from 0 on up untill it started to zero in on the answer. Sometime it would come up with an answer, sometimes I ran out of time waiting for the calc to find a answer. An over clocked calc would have been a bit of an advantage.

      So I was a dork... a dork who was bad at math, but good at solving problems.

      --
      Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
    8. Re:The Point? by thenewcloo · · Score: 1

      Actually, in a lot of my math classes these days, I wish my TI-89 was a little faster when doing Sum stuff or when doing three-dimensional graphs.

    9. Re:The Point? by DavidLeblond · · Score: 1

      Thats probably what the switch is there for. Pretty sure...

    10. Re:The Point? by Big+Mark · · Score: 1

      Why would you need a graphing calc in a diffyq exam? The questions are always theory-based and you can hardly copy-and-paste a picture of Legendre polynomials when you're asked to solve them from first principles.

    11. Re:The Point? by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      I'm sure overclocking your calculator cuts the battery life in half or worse

      It cuts the battery life in less than half and calculation time in half or better. Sure "idle" run drains battery way worse, but if you perform some time-consuming calculations you're better off than normally. (that is, on one set of batteries "till they die" you may get 1300 results in 13 hours instead of 1200 results in 24 hours.)

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    12. Re:The Point? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 1

      Only if you type equations into the calculator at high speed, one after the other, constantly. If you use your calculator normally, >90% of the time it's sitting idle or taking typed input. If you're doing really long calculations *and* you're anal about turning it off every time you finish a calculation, you might cut that to 50%. During that time an overclocked calculator will be doing no work but using twice the battery power anyway. Which is why I say it would be useful to overclock only when doing calculations, in the manner of Intel's Pentium M laptops with the adjustable clock speeds.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    13. Re:The Point? by tepples · · Score: 1

      They can also run interpreted and assembler programs. These would also run faster, but that's not necessarily a good thing because many are games that may become too fast and unplayable.

      That's TI's fault for not including a real-time clock as a reliable timebase for animation. Use of timers inside a PC is why a game can run at the same speed on a 20 MHz 386 or a 2000 MHz Athlon. A faster clock speed coupled with a reliable timebase would allow for real-time software 3D engines.

    14. Re:The Point? by Nyall · · Score: 1

      During normal idling/input there shouldn't be a significant drain.

      I don't know how the z80 calcs manage thier power but this is how the ti89 does it.

      There is a low power port, writing to it disables the cpu till one of several specified interupts occur. If you are actively typing then the cpu will write 0b11111 to the port, if the calc has been sitting idle for a few seconds it will write 0b11110. The difference in the last bit means that the fast timer (256hz/350hz depending on hw version) interupt will not be able to wake the cpu. (If you are typing you want a fast response so the cpu should not be disabled for too long, but if the calc is sitting idle then it will try to save more power.) In both cases the 20hz timer can enable the cpu to take care of things like cursor blinking. (bit #4 is the 20 hz timer, #3 is the link IO, #2 is the 1hz real time clock on a hw2/USB on HW3, #1 is a keypress indicator #0 is the the 256hz/350hz timer)

      --
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
    15. Re:The Point? by Nyall · · Score: 1

      There are a fair number of c/asm games written by novices for ti calcs that use empty loops to waste time. But the properly made games use the timer interupts available.

      --
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
    16. Re:The Point? by Amata · · Score: 1

      Let me just pull out my PC while I'm sitting in Calculus class...

      My high school issued out graphing calculators to the students in classes that needed them. Didn't even have enough for everyone, so some people had to share. Sucks when students live in different cities from each other.

  16. Seen this before by Stevyn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've seen this for the TI-83 a while ago. I have the TI-89 now and it's great for the classes I take. I've overclocked cpus (AMD K6-2), but you've got to have some balls or some money to try and overclock a $150 calculator.

    It just seems to me that the risk outweighs the benefits.

    1. Re:Seen this before by BurntNickel · · Score: 0

      As opposed to a $500 or more computer?

      --
      And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
    2. Re:Seen this before by Stevyn · · Score: 1

      Well there is always some risk involved. Years ago, and last summer with an old "junker" I've overclocked two K6-2s. One was 350 to 400 and the other was 533 to 550. For the first one, I just had to switch a jumper. It became unstable, so I increased the voltage by 0.1v. For the second one, it was a matter of changing the bus speed and multiplier, but since the actual frequency change wasn't too drastic, I've never had problems.

      It's not about overclocking, per se, but what you have to do to do it. Desoldering a tiny capacitor and replacing it with an equally tiny one can be risky. One shake of the hand and you could destroy the calculator. That was the point I was trying to make.

      And the gain from overclock your calculator (for most people) is minimal, but a 10% performance increase on your computer that you use every day may be better appreciated.

    3. Re:Seen this before by lessthanjakejohn · · Score: 1

      Usually ocing a computer does not involve soldering components to the mobo/chip.

    4. Re:Seen this before by BurntNickel · · Score: 1

      That's a good point. Now that I think about it, it hardly seems worth the effort in a calculator.

      --
      And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
    5. Re:Seen this before by Stevyn · · Score: 1

      You thought I brought that up to get a high five from the people on slashdot?

    6. Re:Seen this before by ionpro · · Score: 1

      K6-2 are awesome processors though. This summer, my mom complained to me that her computer had been locking up on her recently. She had just moved it to a torture-chamber place for a computer -- right in direct sunlight flush against a wall or desk on three sides. When I opened it up, I found (much to my surprise) that I had forgotten to put the HSF back on the CPU -- over 2 and a half years ago when I gave it to my sister. The processor had been trucking along with no heatsink ever since.

    7. Re:Seen this before by Stevyn · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they are pretty solid. The only times I've ever had instability was installing gentoo from a stage 1. This required lots of compiling and it was flaking out when I had it at 550. I brought it down to 450 (actually under it's rating) and it worked like a champ. The difference in speed wasn't a big deal since an operation like that takes over a week anyway.

    8. Re:Seen this before by snuf23 · · Score: 1

      You forgot_to_put_the_hsf_back_on!!?!?!?
      Shame on you!
      Try that with a P4 and you're goose will be quite cooked, monsieur!

      --
      Sometimes my arms bend back.
    9. Re:Seen this before by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      Or, the thermal diode will trip and shut you down safely.

  17. Slashdot... by Shanemoe · · Score: 1

    ammm.... is this really a news item or just some sad person with way to much time.

    1. Re:Slashdot... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Funny

      "ammm.... is this really a news item or just some sad person with way to much time." ... said the guy posting on Slashdot.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    2. Re:Slashdot... by OldSchoolNapster · · Score: 1

      This type of story is why I still visit slashdot. Are you sure you are a nerd? This matters.

    3. Re:Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is news for nerds. If you think this guy is a 'sad person', you don't belong here. I suggest browsing the forums at MTV.com or E!Online, as you may find more appealing and understandable content there.

  18. But how does it benchmark? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My understanding is that an overclocked TI-89 can run Doom 3 at 0.05 fps, compared to 0.02 fps at stock speeds.

  19. Hmph. by Faust7 · · Score: 1

    Curently, the TI-81, TI-82, TI-83, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89, TI-92,a nd TI-92 Plus can be accelerated.

    Pfeh. If I can't overclock my TI-2500 Datamath I'm not interested.

    1. Re:Hmph. by FuturePastNow · · Score: 1

      I have a TI-80, so I'm SOL too. Can't imagine pushing my poor old calculator very far though. It's fast enough for my needs.

      --
      Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
  20. In the words of... by MightyPez · · Score: 4, Funny

    the Futurama cryogenic lab tech.... "Welcooome....To the WOOOOORLD of 5 YEARS AGO!"

  21. Pot? by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    Can I use a tunable capacitor instead of a switch with a cap in paralell?

    eh, finally a chance to write a working Tetris for my TI82. Yes, wrote Tetris to it, but no amount of optimization could make it run at a speed that would make it any kind of challenge.
    (the pacman on the other hand... I never finished it, hated myself for some levels design)

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Pot? by BobPaul · · Score: 2, Informative

      you should have written it in assembly instead of TI-Basic.

      Oh, and a POT is a varriable resistor. I think you might mean a trimmmer.

    2. Re:Pot? by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      Sorry, would gladly write it in ASM if the API provided that function.
      Didn't want to tap into the RAM directly to upload software :)

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    3. Re:Pot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No thanks, I gave it up.

    4. Re:Pot? by BobPaul · · Score: 1

      oh, sorry.. I read 83... I don't know anything about the TI-82 :)

  22. it probably also helps... by rsw · · Score: 1

    ...when plotting real-valued functions.

    Ha ha. I kill me.

  23. battery drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has been known for years. Keep in mind that overclocking by 2x drains the batteries by 2x as well.

    1. Re:battery drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      exactly. which is why the TI engineers chose the clock speed that they did. it's a reasonable speed, and conserves battery power. overclocking the calculator isn't maximizing the performance of the design; it's just adjusting attributes for a different compromise (speed vs. battery life). for most people, the calculators are all fast enough at their lower clocks.

    2. Re:battery drain by ivan37 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Indeed - years ago I overclocked my TI-86. After about 6 months I got really sick of buying new batteries and having the calc die when I needed it, so bought an 89 and sold the overclocked 86 to a friend for a pretty good price (although I think he regretted it later).

      If you are going to overclock your calculator, make sure you've got some rechargable batteries and always have extras on hand.

    3. Re:battery drain by MickLinux · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that be 2x - 4x? The overclocking will cause overheating, which will increase resistance even more.

      --
      Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    4. Re:battery drain by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 3, Informative

      Keep in mind that overclocking by 2x drains the batteries by 2x as well.

      It's not linear and there are a lot of factors. The switching current goes up by a factor of four for every frequency doubling. There's leakage current that stays constant regardless of clock, I think. And that's not saying anything about the rest of the circuits that might not be on the same clock, the CPU might not be a huge power drain in some circuits.

    5. Re:battery drain by CharlieHedlin · · Score: 1

      My overclocked TI-85 (I think about 8 years ago..) was wonderfull. I frequently did complex calculations that it vastly sped up, and the battery drain didn't seem too bad.

      Too bad I damaged the calculator on my 2nd attempt with a slip of the soldering iron. $100 isn't the end of the world now, but it sucked then.

  24. What about a wrist watch? by Mario21 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I overclocked my casio wrist watch. Now I have all the time I need.

    1. Re:What about a wrist watch? by supermonkeyball · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't you want to underclock it so it runs slower so you have MORE time?

      --
      My sig can beat up your sig
    2. Re:What about a wrist watch? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 3, Funny

      I overclocked my ethernet card.

      problem is: where can you find hubs that support 12/120?

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    3. Re:What about a wrist watch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I overclocked my casio wrist watch. Now I have all the time I need.

      I guess you need less time than most of us. I, on the other hand, underclocked my clock. I swear, I get twice as much done, and I can watch two sunsets each day!

    4. Re:What about a wrist watch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't.

      You simply overclock the whole internet.

      Think, people, think!

    5. Re:What about a wrist watch? by rob_squared · · Score: 1

      While you're in the future, how will my date turn out?

      --
      I don't get it.
    6. Re:What about a wrist watch? by zwei2stein · · Score: 1

      and what about de-clocking it? to give you infinite time

      --
      -- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
    7. Re:What about a wrist watch? by LNN · · Score: 1

      Um. If you have a passive hub, you need no overclocking. The passive hub is just merely a bunch of wirings. No clock pulse there.

    8. Re:What about a wrist watch? by WWWWolf · · Score: 1
      problem is: where can you find hubs that support 12/120?

      Just go for Ethernet-over-Power hub. You get 120 easily. And in Europe, you can go up to 230!

    9. Re:What about a wrist watch? by Alsee · · Score: 1
      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  25. Overclocking? by odano · · Score: 1

    You should try putting a new processer in there. I put a Althon64 in my ti-89 and now its graphing ability goes at least 10 times faster than before.

    The only problem is the heatsink and fan weighs about 5x as much as the calculator itself, and it is too loud to use in class.

    But its really fast!!!

    1. Re:Overclocking? by BobPaul · · Score: 1

      The only problem is the heatsink and fan weighs about 5x as much as the calculator itself, and it is too loud to use in class.

      You need a Zalman CNPS-7700

      Might still be heavy, but at least you'll be able to hear your instructor.

  26. This isn't new... by Cubeman · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't know what's wrong with the slashdot submission process, but this isn't a new site.

    That site has been around for nine years, and in fact it doesn't list any of the popular TI graphing calculators today. The TI-83 Plus, 84 Plus, 92 Plus, and Voyage 200 are all missing. (Incidentally, this French guide will show you how to overclock your 83 Plus).

    Sure it's a great site for overclocking older calculators, but please don't say "something new" when this has been widely known for years.

    1. Re:This isn't new... by cjrichard · · Score: 1

      It seems wierd that they don't have the ti-83+, seeing how that was one of the most popular ones. I'm a bit hesitant to use the French page - trying to overclocking my calc with a French guide is a recipe for disaster. Is there any English guides?

    2. Re:This isn't new... by Cubeman · · Score: 1

      Overclocking the 83+ is very similar to the 83 and other calculators. The French site should be sufficient as the procedure is the same - only the actual capacitor to replace is different, and perhaps the values. According to that site you want to replace C11 with a capacitor less than 27 pF (as you go smaller, the frequency increases along with your risk of instability).

      Really the only hard part about overclocking is trying to solder on the board. The capacitors are REALLY REALLY small. My soldering iron had a tip that was as wide as the capacitor's entire length.

    3. Re:This isn't new... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only reason it made anyone's attention today is that it was posted on FARK this afternoon. The Slashdot submission came after that. The third poster on FARK noticed that the web site hasn't even been updated since 2000; "Klar" (who submitted it here) apparently didn't even read that far.

    4. Re:This isn't new... by ari_j · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I blame michael. Right now on the front page, there are 10 michael stories and 5 non-micheael stories. Most of the stories that have been pushed off the front page were michael stories, too, including one that was posted on Snopes as an urban legend long before it was submitted here. If he has that much time on his hands, he may not have enough time to actually fact-check anything, but it'd be really nice if he could put in the effort to time-check articles so make sure they're less than 4 years old before they are deemed front-page-worthy "news."

    5. Re:This isn't new... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      You know, if you read Fark and Wired every day... Slashdot kind of becomes redundant.

    6. Re:This isn't new... by jeremy_dot · · Score: 2, Informative

      And the English version of that french guide is at
      This site

    7. Re:This isn't new... by njyoder · · Score: 0

      Aside from the 83 plus, the regular versions are a lot more common. Your critcism is unfounded.

  27. There is a use for faster calculator. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Though I don't feel the risk is worth it, there have been many occasions when graphing complex functions or graphing derivative/integral functions on the Ti-83 where I thouhgt it would be nice for it to graph quicker.

  28. TI-85 by nullset · · Score: 1

    I overclocked my TI-85 long ago, so that Daedalus (i think that was the name of it), a 3D grayscale game, would run better....

    it was nice. I even had the switch to turn it off so that my batteries would last longer during class :)

    --buddy

  29. Awesome breakthrough.... by Solder+Fumes · · Score: 1

    I just discovered a bug/feature on the TI-85! If you do a full backup from another calculator or computer, you can have the PROGRAM commands set to arbitrary memory locations! This means that we can now run fast custom assembly language routines on calculators.

    1. Re:Awesome breakthrough.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha, very funny Dan Eble/Mangus Handler. :)

    2. Re:Awesome breakthrough.... by jettoblack · · Score: 1

      Hehe I remember that...
      Me and another guy on the TI-85 assembly ML figured out how to display grayscale on the 1-bit screen by rapidly flipping video pages while adjusting the contrast. I fondly remember looking at 4-bit grayscale nudie pics in 10th grade math class. :)

  30. In fact... by gotr00t · · Score: 2, Informative

    This site was actually featured on ticalc.org extnsively a few years back. It's acutally nothing new.

  31. RC oscillator by morcheeba · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow, the TI-89 uses an RC oscillator for its clock! That kind of clock is one of the cheapest and least accurate, so I wouldn't want to run a real-time-clock off of it. I wonder if they have some sort of calibration mechanism on the production line, or if the processors are so underclocked already that they will surely work with a large variation of clock speeds. Even after leaving the production line, RC clocks drift and are more sensitive to temperature, so TI must always leave plenty of speed margin.

    1. Re:RC oscillator by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      don't worry. The batteries would die before you'd get 2 seconds of error.

      These are calculators. You switch it on, calculate what you want, switch it off. My keeping them on for 2-3 hours a time was a serious abuse.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    2. Re:RC oscillator by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's precisely the case. The 89s use Motorola 68000s as their CPUs. You know, the same thing that the orignal Mac used. There has been just a few years of refinement that has gone in to it. Basically, they don't really care about precise clock speeds. It just needs to be in the ballpark of 10MHz, and only that since they decided it was an acceptable tradeoff of speed and power consumption.

      I imagine that the chip is easily capable at running well over double it's nominal frequency, and infact probably other things would become a problem before it would. You have to remember, these are realyl simple devices. They don't need the precise timings that desktop computers have. For one thing they simply don't have a bunch of buses running at different, but related, speeds.

      It's not a precision timing device or anything like that, it's a calculator. It's just made to give you easy, portable access to lots of common math functions. It doesn't need to have a precise clock. If my 89 executes a calculation in 5 minutes and yours in 4.9 minutes, we aren't really going to give a damn.

    3. Re:RC oscillator by brucehoult · · Score: 1

      Wow, the TI-89 uses an RC oscillator for its clock!

      So they haven't changed, then.

      I remember overclocking TI-58/58C/59 programmable calculators in 1980. They too had just a simple RC oscillator.

      I seem to recall that they worked fine at up to about five times the standard speed, with the one exception that the magnetic card reader in the TI-59 didn't work when overclocked.

    4. Re:RC oscillator by DramaGeek · · Score: 1

      Actually if you have an 89 with hardware version 2 (pretty much any 89 made after the first six months or so of production), OS version 2.08 and above support a real-time clock. It's built right in to the OS, and I've found it keeps fairly accurate time. It drifts off maybe a minute or so every month.

    5. Re:RC oscillator by Transcendent · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't want to run a real-time-clock off of it. I wonder if they have some sort of calibration mechanism on the production line

      All you really need is good design. If your components are verified within tolerances, then you don't need to calibrate anything.

      For the variance of speed, as long as everything is running on the same clock or some multiple of the same clock, then there's no problem. The calculator doesn't really need real time clocks anyway.

      You only get into problem when you need precise timing, perhaps with aggressive timings for speed optimization (pushing the edge of rise/fall times, but like you said, they're probably underclocked and since you can, obviously, overclock them a great deal with little problems), A/D converters for charge pumps or other charging delays, or some communicaions, but there's not much of that going on in the calculator. Even with the com port on the calculator, you don't need real precise timing and it probably has it's own clock anyway.

    6. Re:RC oscillator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, actually a more accurate timer was added to the second hardware version of the TI-89, in 2000. These new TI-89s use it to provide time and date. The main clock did not change however, though they raised its frequency to 12MHz.

      Actually, it did not make much difference for games, since the LCD controller got changed as well, and the new one is not able to switch its mapping between to memory areas. Thus, the programe has to manually copy all the screen contents when flipping the buffers.

      And, well if you would like to discuss this topic, there is a place I post regularly this board (french). An english version is here but it is much more recent.

  32. This is like Vh1's I Love the 90's by bigmoosie · · Score: 1

    Maybe we can do a slashdot version of Vh1's I love the 70's, 80's, and 90's.

    I did this in highschool. The school I went to had lots of rich students and about 2/3 of them had graphing calculators. I used to charge them 50$ to overclock it.

    I found that the battery life is signficantly reduced, and if you go too far overclocking them, the cpu will overheat playing tetris on warp speed after 20 mins and will cause the plastic case to melt and the cpu to die.

    ~ryan

  33. Graphing complex functions? by return_of_ffalcon · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow! TI calculators can graph complex functions? Cool. I wonder how they portray four real dimensions.

    1. Re:Graphing complex functions? by oobob · · Score: 3, Funny

      You graph complex numbers in the complex plane, silly =) One axis is the real axis and the other is the imaginary axis. Here's a brief intro from the math forum (a written intro, without graphics), and here's some more examples from a graphic intensive site that shows how you can perform operations on complex numbers like vectors. You can also do neat stuff like find the complex roots of numbers by manuiplating the graph, which is also mentioned in the 2nd site.

    2. Re:Graphing complex functions? by fishbowl · · Score: 1

      >Cool. I wonder how they portray four real
      >dimensions.

      You project 4-space to 3-space, and technology can help with that. Then you project 3-space to a plane, and technology takes over.

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    3. Re:Graphing complex functions? by flynniec6 · · Score: 1

      You have to turn the calculator a little to see the other dimensions.

  34. Yes, graphing complex functions quicker by jj110888 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i'm sure the fact that theres more games then math programs in ticalc.org's asm sections will tell you what the extra cycles would be used for......

  35. did in 80's with HP-41CV/X - anyone remember club? by somewhere+in+AU · · Score: 2, Informative

    Overclocking was done with switch which added capacitance when in parallel to get 2X.

    Switch was flipped with magnetic rubbed down side of case and reed switch flipped accordingly.

    Worked well on several modaseels (C/CV/CX) I had for internal calcs but not for card reader though which was rate dependent though!

    Speaking of which also did internal 10 bit machine code using EPROMS - anyone remember the really neat "microcode" listings "published" within the PPC club based in US?

    We had some members in Sydney and Melbourne etc who did the hardware mods as well as providing some neat software and by combining overclocking with machine code exec I managed translation of FORTRAN programme running on VAX with parallel processor and made into just 8K (2 x 4K ROMS) of machine code steps and could do some (very) heavy duty calculations when doing field geophysics in the early 80's - all battery powered and pocketable!

    Alex.

  36. How do you press the keys? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With all that liquid nitrogen? Even with some good gloves, it must be a bitch typing in stuff.

  37. Doom 3? by comwiz56 · · Score: 1

    Are you sure that wasn't doom II?

    1. Re:Doom 3? by tepples · · Score: 3, Funny

      You can run Doom 3 on any graphing calculator: just load up a black screen.

  38. Switchable Clock Speeds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The articles discuss putting in a switch so you can choose normal or turbo speeds. Anyone know if you can switch on the fly or does the calculator have to be off?

  39. Actually quite useful. by SharpFang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Laugh all you want, these calculators are capable of stuff that's really time consuming.
    Put

    Y1=(somefunction)
    Y2=FnInt(Y1(X),X,0,X)

    Y2 displays integral of Y1. This isn't docummented anywhere and not without a reason. Getting the plot of even a simple function like Y1=sin(X) takes some 5 minutes as the integral is calculated separately for each pixel. Put more sophisticated function for Y1, or put Y3=FnInt(Y2... to get second integral and wait 2 hours or so for results easily.

    In this case overclocking serves saving the batteries. True at double speed the batteries are used up nearly twice as much, but running for a hour at a single speed will drain them more than running for half a hour at double speed.

    And yeah, these "insane" times are quite reasonable. I've been writing some cool stuff for my TI82. Generating a fractal took maybe a hour or so. "brute forcing" some logical problem lasted only 15 minutes just thanks to some luck (the solution was within first 5% tested). I found the graphs of integrals useful - I entered the function on the start of a test and could test whether my calculations were correct when it was drawn about the middle (and I had to use the calculator for other calculations). It was actually pretty fast at "your generic" numerical methods, and as we were free to choose the platform/language for writing our "numerical methods" programs, I didn't have to show up in the lab even once whole semester, wrote everything on the calculator.
    One thing that sucks is lack of recursion support, Even the Prog[NAME]/Return function works only 1 level deep. But even this can be solved by using lists instead of local variables, matrices instead of lists.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Actually quite useful. by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 4, Informative

      This isn't docummented anywhere and not without a reason.

      No, it isn't documented anywhere, except the calculator manual, pretty much every calculus textbook oriented towards the TI-8x, and even the MATH menu on the calculator....

      Y3=FnInt(Y2...

      You sound like you've never tried this (at least not on a recent calculator). On the 83 series, it gives ERR:ILLEGAL NEST, mainly because it'd take so long.

      I've been writing some cool stuff for my TI82.

      Ah. No wonder. The 83 runs slightly faster, the 83+ runs faster, the 83+ Silver runs considerably faster, and the 84+es run considerably faster than those. If you're writing fractals and brute force stuff, you'd do well to invest in the latest 84+ -- or even an 89-series. Do yourself a favor and sell the 82 on Ebay or give it to a teacher.

      You say yours takes 5 minutes for fnInt(sin(X)). Mine, an 83+ Silver, takes about 20 seconds. Annoying, yes, but hindering, no. And it's safer than overclocking.

      Incidentally, if you're running into the limits of TI-BASIC programming, you might be interested in learning assembler for the calculator. Just Google for "TI-82 ASM tutorial" or somesuch; there's plenty of tutorials of varying quality.

    2. Re:Actually quite useful. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're doing something time consuming on a graphing calculator, just get a computer and use Maple. Or if it's a program, write it in C or Lisp. Maple is so much faster for these things than any TI graphing calculator (unless you use the new Java interface).

    3. Re:Actually quite useful. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...not on a train, spending 5h a day on my way to/from the univ.
      Yeah, a laptop would solve that. But it costs quite a bit more than TI82 and I can't quite afford it. (no, I'm not american)

    4. Re:Actually quite useful. by stanfordnerd · · Score: 1

      Hey, I have an idea. You could get the ti-89, which can do symbolic integrals. It also happens to be much faster. I have enjoyed using it on many a test where the teachers didn't know its full abilities.

    5. Re:Actually quite useful. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried it. I don't remember the EXACT syntax (from memory) but it worked on TI-82 just fine. FnInt is documented in the manual, but using it in Y-functions not.

      Sorry, I'm not american. I've been working whole vacations to save to get this calculator. The upload cable costs about 80% the price of the calculator, so no uploading code from the PC. And purchasing any better - not anytime soon. :(

    6. Re:Actually quite useful. by wild_pointer · · Score: 1

      ... if you're running into the limits of TI-BASIC programming, you might be interested in learning assembler for the calculator...

      Or a laptop with Maple, Matlab or something equalent.

      I'm not trying to be a troll, just when something takes 5 minutes on your calculator you are using the wrong tool I would say.

  40. TI long in tooth? by cgenman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What happened to graphing calculator development? While I was in High School there was this burst of activity with the TI line, with frequent new models and upgrades. And then they stalled. And stymed. I got a TI-92 Plus my senior year in High School, and that has stayed TI's top-of-the-line ever since. It's like they've done zero development for the past ten years. You can get full color-screen Game Boy Advances with hardware far in advance of what you would find in a TI for about 100 dollars less, yet you have to use hardware trickery to fake greyscale on these dinosaurs. Their Ancient. Years after I've graduated college, they're still the best you can get. Now they're called the Voyage 200, but they're still the same 68000 - based calc with very similar limitations.

    Where is somebody to steal TI's crown? Somebody has to recognize the power of full-color 3D graphics in mathematics. Doesn't anyone want the market TI has abandoned?

    1. Re:TI long in tooth? by KaLogain · · Score: 1

      Top of the line would be a TI-89 Titanium now. higher number doens't always = better.

      --
      Life's a bitch, then she kills you.
    2. Re:TI long in tooth? by damiam · · Score: 1

      The TI-89 Titanium isn't an improvement over the 89. It's uglier, bulkier, and actually slightly slower (in my brief testing).

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    3. Re:TI long in tooth? by toddestan · · Score: 1

      TI seems to be catering now to the same crowd that puts neon lights in their computer cases. TI has stopped creating new calculators with new features, and instead continues to rehash their old models. They have gone through several iterations of their lower end model (which started as the TI-81). Now they are up to the TI-84 Plus Silver edition, or something silly like that -which has a fast processor, a ton of memory, a flashy case, USB ports, but retains the same size screen as the TI-81 (96x64 pixels), and lacks many features that are found on the long since discontinued TI-85 (such as polynomial solver, linear system solver, complex numbers, built in constant library, string support, etc.)

      It seems that TI has moved from making calculators to making Gameboys.

    4. Re:TI long in tooth? by rbullo · · Score: 1
      Somebody has to recognize the power of full-color 3D graphics in mathematics. Doesn't anyone want the market TI has abandoned?
      Casio does.
      --
      OH NOES!!! IT APPEARS YUO DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR DIS HERE PIZZA! WAHT EVER ARE YOU GOING TO DO!?!?
    5. Re:TI long in tooth? by jotux · · Score: 2, Interesting

      the voyage 200 is like half the size/weight, and has 2.7mb of flash memory. It's 12mhz, instead of 10 like the 92+...which isn't much of a difference but still. They've also just realeased the titanium editions, and you've kinda neglected all the HP calculators....which in reality are much more powerful than the TI's anyways.

      When it comes down to it, who really wants a full color 3d calculator? It would basically have the performance of a PDA, and the same battery life. I can go about 10 months on new batteries with my v200, using it every other day. ...even the best PDA running simple apps could never compare to that.

    6. Re:TI long in tooth? by the_2nd_coming · · Score: 1

      because the 84 is meant for Linear algebra and Statistics... the 85 86 and 89 are meant for engineering tasks.

      as an example... use your 85/86 to calculate the standard deviation on percent of hispanic population per state in the US.

      I will be waiting for ever.

      --



      I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
    7. Re:TI long in tooth? by seann · · Score: 1

      just bought a 200
      waiting for it in the mail...

      any sites you can recommend?
      tips?
      programs?

      --
      I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
    8. Re:TI long in tooth? by afidel · · Score: 1

      Huh, the 89 has all of the stat functions of the 84 plus all of its calculus functions, there simply isn't a reason other than simplified menu's and a couple bucks to get an 84 over an 89, and if there is any chance you will be doing calc then the 89 is the no brainer choice.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    9. Re:TI long in tooth? by toddestan · · Score: 1

      The TI-86 can be upgraded with the stats package from the TI-83, at the cost of about 25k of ram IIRC. However, I will admit the TI-85's stat package blows.

    10. Re:TI long in tooth? by cgenman · · Score: 1

      ticalc.org

      They used to be the best, back in the early days of the 'net. I haven't followed that scene seriously in a while, so I really can't say anymore. Still, they've got some good stuff there, including (yes) a section on overclocking.

    11. Re:TI long in tooth? by cgenman · · Score: 1

      You're still talking about a 68000, a chip introduced in 1979 and whose lineup maxes out at 16 mhz with no likelyhood of ever going higher. A low-powered arm would be a far more modern and powerful choice. In addition, a GB of ram these days costs 100 dollars. 256 MB of Compact Flash costs 20 bucks.

      The HP calculators are generally more powerful, though they have stagnated too, but they're bloody impossible to use. HP's odd notation is not something to be taken lightly.

      TI has long included 3D as a function in its calculators, so obviously there is some demand there. When working with 3 Dimensional graphing in college, I had to pull out my laptop and use Apple's built-in graphing calculator because my 200 dollar TI-92+ would choke on it. TI also includes the useful ability to graph multiple functions on top of eachother, but provides no clear way to tell them apart. Again, color would be useful here.

      My old Clie which I use constantly can go for months between charges, has 16 MB of ram, a 16 MHz 68000, a greyscale display, and I bought it for 50 dollars. And it's positively antiquated compared to the Full-color clie I bought my girlfriend with a 400 MHz Arm and 32 MB ram with a Compact Flash card slot for LESS than the cost of the v200.

      My point is not that the calculators are useless, my point is that they are taking a years-old design that rightfully should cost about 20 bucks and making a fortune on markup. They're doing the bare minimum required to stay in the game, when they could be doing far, far better for their customers.

      The calculator racket is due for a shakeup, and soon. Nobody can rest on their haunches to the degree that TI has and expect to stay on top... If for no other reason than technology has passed them by.

    12. Re:TI long in tooth? by fishbowl · · Score: 1

      You don't think a TI-89 can do statistics? Or are you referring to some built-in program that happens to do a chi-square based on US population metrics or something?

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    13. Re:TI long in tooth? by Shawndeisi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unfortunately, TI seems to have the market cornered with their non-feature-rich calculators. The more features you add, the less people will want them. This is inverse to what you would think, but it due to one large reason: "Education" Teachers wouldn't permit calcs that could be used as a game boy. Standardized testing wouldn't allow calcs with large memory and a notes program. It's all BS, but that's another comment.

    14. Re:TI long in tooth? by Teclis · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you want 3D and color on a hand held graphing calculator, I think you are missing the point. The fact that we have these graphing calculators now is a real folly of our education system. People feel that they don't have to learn mathematics because their calculator does it for them. This is going to get you into serious trouble down the road. I've been through it. My first year university I bought me a shiney new TI-89 thinking that calculus will be a breeze for me.

      It sure was! Just plug in my integral for x^2 and wow, symbolic calculations. Let's fast forward 6 years. The problems I encounter in physics are not the most complicated, but complicated enough. I've quickly learned that you can't trust the result of these calculators. In fact, 90% of the time, the calculator can't even do the computation. Simple problems on paper are impossible on my Ti-89.

      My advice: buy a $5 add/sub/mult/div calculator and save yourself alot of headache. Learn the math inside and out and visualize the graph yourself on a piece of paper. Not only will you understand what's going on in the mathematics, but you will also save yourself a few bucks which is better spent on beer.

      My Ti-89 now is used solely as a paperweight. Seriously, worst purchase I ever made.

      --
      Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
    15. Re:TI long in tooth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see you do any interesting linear algebra or statistics without calculus and complex numbers.

    16. Re:TI long in tooth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, I think most people that study science or engineering seriously, as opposed to doing so for a four-year degree have little trouble learning calculus and linear algebra while using their calculators in order to not waste time with mindless grunt work. In the professional world they will be using much more sophisticated packages for actual work. It's quite true that a good number of people never really learn mathematics, but quite frankly I don't expect this to change if they cease using calculators to solve their problems. It seems much more likely that they will find themselves engaged in an English program, or Women in Literature or something equally in high-demand, when they could have otherwise made fine chemists that simply don't care about rigorous mathematics.

    17. Re:TI long in tooth? by the_2nd_coming · · Score: 1

      anything that is that interesting you would be using a computer for anyhow... the TI is meant for quick figures on small data sets..

      --



      I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
    18. Re:TI long in tooth? by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      GameBoys are subsidized by game licensing revenue. Calculators are not.

      Calculators are a pure profit play for TI anyway. I asked them why we don't use one of our DSPs or an ARM instead of licensing someone else's 68K, and the answer was that it'd add like a $1 to the cost of the electronics, which is too much.

      --Joe
  41. Dammit!-TurboGF. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I tried to overclock my slide rule, but it just went up in smoke."

    Pfft! That's nothing. I overclocked my girlfriend, and... I went up in smoke!

    1. Re:Dammit!-TurboGF. by tuxter · · Score: 2, Funny

      Girlfriend??? Please explain.

  42. Re:did in 80's with HP 41C by hudsucker · · Score: 2, Interesting
    My HP 41C was overclocked in around 1984 or so, in the US. There was a company that sold the upgrade kit. It doesn't have a magnetic switch; it is controlled through a little tiny push button that is installed where the power plug opening is for the rechargeable battery pack option.

    I think it is more than 2x, though. I thought it was 4x, but I could be wrong.

    The overclock mode works great, except when you try to print through the IR port.

  43. so what is this by DrLZRDMN · · Score: 1

    post everything on hack a day week? hackaday.com

  44. Man by iosmart · · Score: 1

    Tip: it's not something simple like punching a few buttons or using a pencil to cross over certain lines. Check through the whole procedure and see if you have the required supplies...don't go taking out your batteries and trying to open the calculator like I did :(

  45. WOW! It really works! by dimplemonkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Look what I got for the value of Pi after I overclocked my Ti! What a cool hack! 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 105820974944 59230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651 3282306647 09384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193 8521105559 64462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823 3786783165 27120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726 0249141273 72458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436 7892590360 01133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036 5759591953 09218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735 1885752724 89122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494 6395224737 19070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846 7669405132 00056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872 1468440901 22495343014654958537105079227968925892354201995611 2129021960 86403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999837 2978049951 05973173281609631859502445945534690830264252230825 3344685035 26193118817101000313783875288658753320838142061717 7669147303 59825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778 1857780532 17122680661300192787661119590921642019893809525720 1065485863 27886593615338182796823030195203530185296899577362 2599413891 24972177528347913151557485724245415069595082953311 6861727855 88907509838175463746493931925506040092770167113900 9848824012 85836160356370766010471018194295559619894676783744 9448255379 77472684710404753464620804668425906949129331367702 8989152104 75216205696602405803815019351125338243003558764024 7496473263 91419927260426992279678235478163600934172164121992 4586315030 28618297455570674983850549458858692699569092721079 7509302955 32116534498720275596023648066549911988183479775356 6369807426 54252786255181841757467289097777279380008164706001 6145249192 17321721477235014144197356854816136115735255213347 5741849468 43852332390739414333454776241686251898356948556209 9219222184 27255025425688767179049460165346680498862723279178 6085784383 82796797668145410095388378636095068006422512520511 7392984896 08412848862694560424196528502221066118630674427862 2039194945 04712371378696095636437191728746776465757396241389 0865832645 99581339047802759009946576407895126946839835259570 9825822620 52248940772671947826848260147699090264013639443745 5305068203 49625245174939965143142980919065925093722169646151 5709858387 41059788595977297549893016175392846813826868386894 2774155991 85592524595395943104997252468084598727364469584865 3836736222 62609912460805124388439045124413654976278079771569 1435997700 12961608944169486855584840635342207222582848864815 8456028506 01684273945226746767889525213852254995466672782398 6456596116 35488623057745649803559363456817432411251507606947 9451096596 09402522887971089314566913686722874894056010150330 8617928680 92087476091782493858900971490967598526136554978189 3129784821 68299894872265880485756401427047755513237964145152 3746234364 54285844479526586782105114135473573952311342716610 2135969536 23144295248493718711014576540359027993440374200731 0578539062 19838744780847848968332144571386875194350643021845 3191048481 00537061468067491927819119793995206141966342875444 0643745123 7181921799983910159195618146751426912397489

    1. Re:WOW! It really works! by Lithium_Golem · · Score: 1

      Uh... you missed a number in there it's 1007856 not 100786... sheesh.

    2. Re:WOW! It really works! by dimplemonkey · · Score: 1

      Hmm...you're right. Curse this hack! I knew I shouldn't have messed with this!

  46. Already done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Already done - your job's been outsourced to India, where they do your paper-and-pencil work faster for a quarter of the price.

    Oh, we're cutting costs, so make sure to return your pink slip with your badge so we can use them both again.

  47. Wow -- old news, New again (TM) by Hex4def6 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This web page has not been updated since 2000... I remeber back in the day this was new and cool. 5 years though in internet time is like rediscovering the slide rule -- good job guys! I hear IBM are releasing the teletype II any day :)

    its funny the progression that this story has taken -- it went from hackaday --> fark --> slashdot, and doubtless appeared on hackaday due to someone trying this trick out.

    1. Re:Wow -- old news, New again (TM) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I hear IBM are releasing the teletype II any day :)
      whar can i d/l a copy of this??! im on #unixwarez on efnet, or plz email netgod253@hotmail.com
  48. Yet ANOTHER hackaday plagarism by FredThompson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the SECOND repeat of a hackaday post in less than 24 hours.

    That makes 3 or 4 in as many days.

    How about something original, not plagiarized from another site WHICH WAS PROMOTED ON SLASHDOT A LITTLE WHILE AGO!!!!

    1. Re:Yet ANOTHER hackaday plagarism by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Slashdot is just reprinting Fark.com submissions. This calculator story shows up there this afternoon, and a few hours later it's here...

      Nevermind that the Fark comments ALSO point out how this site 1) is a repeat on both sites, and 2) hasn't even been updated since 2000. Good job, submitter... good job, "editor."

  49. Those calculators are awesome by bigberk · · Score: 1

    At least the TI calculator I have runs on a Z80 processor, which you can easily code for using a cross compiler. Fun stuff!

    A friend of mine wrote a Windows clone for his TI-83. You would shit your pants. You could click the Start button, it would pop up a few applications and you could run clones of notepad and some other scary stuff. Had nested menus and a desktop. Had a built in remote chat app. Although it was nifty, it used up about 90% of your memory and all the CPU power. The irony did not escape us. But common sense did, and he lost the entire progran without making a backup.

    Seriously, I am going to try and overclock my TI-83 because I use this regularly for physics and engineering problems and the equation solver is a godsend.

    1. Re:Those calculators are awesome by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      Sounds like they just ran the Windows RG flash thingy on it (is that even possible?)

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  50. Re:did in 80's with HP 41C by somewhere+in+AU · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actual overclocking rate varied in actual speedup vs reliability. (nothing new under the sun!)

    2x was rock solid across several models and I recall other members getting 2.something before straying into areas of unreliability above that.

    Of course we "only" had air cooled models so perhaps some mad scandinavian with -40c temps managed 4x but with the thick gloves necessary perhaps was never able to actually press the little black buttons to use at that speed! ;-)

    Alex.

  51. 2+2=5 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    For significantly overclocked calculators.

    1. Re:2+2=5 by Scud · · Score: 1

      And for very large values of two.

      --
      I dream in binary.
  52. overclocking TI's by khellendros1984 · · Score: 1

    I remember reading about this last year, actually. I think all that changed is that they have a better, more collected website now.

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    1. Re:overclocking TI's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. This website was around more than 5 years ago when I overclocked a TI-85.

  53. I overclocked mine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its called Matlab.

  54. TI has always been behind the times by rossz · · Score: 1

    We were overclocking our HP-41CVs a decade ago. I have this little work-horse sitting in front of me this very moment. It has a magnetic switch for enabling/disabling the speed improvement (pass a magnet across the back). The overclocking rates at about 1.8 times the original speed, but you sacrifice battery life for that performance boost. I don't bother kicking up the speed these days as I never do complicated calculations with it any more.

    --
    -- Will program for bandwidth
  55. Does this work on? by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    Does this work on the TI-86? because if it does, it means better Super Mario and better Tetris for all.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  56. derrr! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >"Do calculators take too long to report 2 + 2?"

    That's what you'd use a graphing calc for?

    To compute "2 + 2" ?!?!?!

    I pity you.

  57. Next item by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Borland Turbo Abacus

  58. Waiting for Star Wars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think some guy cracked this while waiting in line to see Star Wars

  59. Re:did in 80's with HP-41CV/X - anyone remember cl by rossz · · Score: 1

    PPC! I used to hang at the PPC headquarters in Orange County on the weekends. Obviously I did not have a life.

    Yeah, I did the microcode stuff. I had the "dan rom" (I think that's what it was called) for easy entry of op codes. My big project was a microcode debugger that allowed you to single step through your code by emulating the instructions, but I never did release the program.

    The one important thing programming the HP-41CV taught me was optmizing for space. We were always trying to remove just a few more bytes from the program due to the limited address space.

    --
    -- Will program for bandwidth
  60. Amateur by roman_mir · · Score: 1

    You forgot to put the entire installation into a sink, preferably in the kitchen.

  61. Re:did in 80's with HP-41CV/X - anyone remember cl by Nybble's+Byte · · Score: 0

    The club spirit and activity live on, even though most but not all of the publications have ceased. The HP Handheld Conference for 2005 has just been announced by Richard Nelson, to be held here in the Chicago area in mid September. See Joseph Horn's website, holyjoe.net, for details as they develop.

    Better than the reed switch was the Hyper41 speed switch, which I believe used a microswitch and didn't introduce spikes and noise into the circuitry. With the 41's standard speed of 360 kHz, every extra ounce of performance you could get was worth it.

    Yep, I remember and still have a copy of Assembler3 somewhere - John McG did a great job. It's been quite a few years since hearing from folks such as Graeme Fraser and Nick Reid.

    Remember the HP 42S, a neat RPN machine but lacking I/O? That could be sped up by poking a nybble at address 40300. There is less incentive to save bytes and execution time these days, as the Toaster Users Club foretold by Wes Staples many years ago in a letter to RJN has virtually come to pass.

  62. True story by tepples · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Once I wrote a passable Tetris clone in TI BASIC to waste my spare time in class. Then I ported it to QBasic, and it started running at acceptable speeds even on an old-ass 8088. Then I turned it into C and made it run inside a graphical environment; this formed part of freepuzzlearena. Years later, I added a hallucinogen-simulating graphic distortion layer, first for the PC and then for the Game Boy Advance, resulting in TOD.

    1. Re:True story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet you still haven't been laid. I can't imagine why.

  63. abacus port? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    has this been ported to the abacus v1.1?

  64. Been there. Done that. Years ago. by cos(x) · · Score: 1

    When I got my TI-89 in 2000, the shop I bought it from offered an overclocked version for a small surcharge. At first, I went with this offer. What I got was a brand new calculator in original packaging that had been opened to install a tiny switch which would enable or disable a capacitor inside the calculator. It did work flawlessly, but I returned it because while opening the calculator, they had slightly scratched the case and who would want to pay big bucks for a brand new calculator with a scratch?

    Also, a few years before that, I overclocked my TI-86 in the same way. I removed a SMD capacitor and that made the calculator run at roughly twice the speed. This also meant it drained the batteries at twice the speed. My original intention had been to add a switch, but unfortunately that tiny SMD part just disappeared some day and now I am left with a TI-86 that is useless for the one thing I love to use it for - playing tetris ;).

  65. OCing HP calculators? by TheHawke · · Score: 1

    OK how to go about OCing a calculator that uses reverse Polish notation? Put an Intel 8086 on the barby?

    --
    First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
    1. Re:OCing HP calculators? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Run CAT from here, and run at 200MHz.

  66. Flash cards cost money by tepples · · Score: 1

    You can get full color-screen Game Boy Advances with hardware far in advance of what you would find in a TI for about 100 dollars less

    But then you have to buy a flash card in order to be able to load custom programs onto the GBA, and a flash card costs oh, about 100 USD. In addition, how big is the GBA's keyboard?

    1. Re:Flash cards cost money by NonSequor · · Score: 1

      He's saying that TI could put together a calculator with the computing and display technology of a gameboy and the keyboard of a traditional graphing calculator. He's not saying that a gameboy provides all of the functionality of a graphing calculator.

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
  67. Battery Life by DreadPiratePizz · · Score: 1

    Does this significantly shorten battery life?

  68. Re:did in 80's with HP 41C by hudsucker · · Score: 1
    OK, found it.

    It was called HYPER-41, from Synergistic Design. I got mine in 1987, although it first became available in 1985.

    The exact percent of speed increase depended on the generation of 41C. For example, a second generation 41C has a typical increase of 80 to 90%, while the eighth generation CV/CX (sold after September 1985) had a whopping 180% to 210% increase.

    The upgrade was designed as a do-it-yourself kit, but I remember that I couldn't complete it for some reason and sent it to the company to do it.

    Having a clock speed upgrade on a calculator has got to be one of the true signs of geekdom.

  69. I guess what I would ask by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

    Is why you wouldn't run equations like that on something with a bit more power. The PC does not lack for software that can do mathematical calcuations. You can do that stuff pretty fast is you throw a P4 at it.

    I certianly don't discount the cool factor of OCing a calculator, however if I'm doing calculations on it that are taking over an hour, it's time to throw more hardware at the problem.

    1. Re:I guess what I would ask by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      Forgetting the obvious( in the field/exam room you may not have access to a full blown computer) I would say the biggest problem with using a PC instead of a calculator is distractions.
      Whenever I was doing assignments, the one thing I didn't want to be near was my computer. At least with just my paper, books and calculator, I know the current task at hand.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  70. Re:Read first, then post. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you had read the thread... here. You'd know.

  71. 83+/83+SE? by O-SUSHi · · Score: 1

    I don't suppose the same technique could be used to overclock the alread overclocked Ti83+ or 83+SE?

    --
    Remember children, all generalizations are wrong.
  72. Three times as energy consuming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How would that hack change the energy consunsumptions of the calculators? Does that mean changing batteries three times as often?

  73. I already rule the Calc BC class with an 89Ti... by adlaiff6 · · Score: 1

    ...so I can't wait to see their reaction to this.

  74. http://hackaday.com by killerface · · Score: 2, Insightful

    it seems that many articles are being taken from http://hackaday.com This and the altiods mp3 player were both featured there.

    1. Re:http://hackaday.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed...

      First the world seems to come to an end with the tsumani messing up the earth and weather patterns.
      Now the weather seems alright again, /. seem to be bleeding to death.. :(

  75. Paper and pencil might be faster by MickLinux · · Score: 2, Informative

    Seriously, if it takes 5 minutes to do an integral, then those calculators are ripe for reprogramming.

    Seriously.

    You could quite possibly do a numeric integral, faster, with paper and pencil.

    http://csm.jmu.edu/physics/rudmin/ParkerSochacki.h tm

    At this link, the author shows how to solve (exactly, numerically) a previously unsolvable system of differential equations using a relatively new (~12 yrs old) method.

    Program your calculator to do that, and you'll be lightyears ahead of the competition.

    --
    Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    1. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ha, nice. I've always felt that even though I'm no math wiz, the fact that I went to an 'old style' hard ass university in EE, NO calculators, puts me at an advantage against the 'liberal arts school with an EE program' type people. They ALWAYS grab a calculator for the most trivial calculations, and don't seem to have a 'feel' for math. They don't even have trig memorized.

    2. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, if it takes 5 minutes to do an integral, then those calculators are ripe for reprogramming.

      Keep in mind these things run on a <10 MHz 8-bit processor. They have no capabilities for symbolic manipulation (except TI-89 and better, which use better processors) so everything has to be done by brute force, with software floating point math.

    3. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's cos(34423.324pi)?

    4. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, did you read? I draw the graph to check my solution.
      If you feel at advantage that you feel so certain that you didn't make any mistakes, that's great. I want to check if my calculations are right. Get the function, check value and derivative in 0, check derivative where the calculator shows extremum, with 2-3 easy steps you know if the analytical function is correct or not, based on what the calculator shows. I can't print the graph and attach it to the test, even if it was of any value for the teacher anyway.

      Thanks to people with your attitude probes crash into Mars.

    5. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wasn't it people with calculators that crashed probes into Mars? My point is that people who run to their calculators for every 2+2 don't have a feel for what they're doing and can't estimate within an order of magnitude if their answer is correct. Those Mars folks were so attached to their technology they didn't trust their brains anymore. So you can graph all you want, that wasn't my point. Did I read, indeed.

    6. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      About -0.5, since 34423.324pi is about 240 degrees once you rip out all the integer multiples of 2pi. That is, cos(34423.324pi) = cos(1.324pi), and that's about 240 degrees.

      Of course, I think you'll find many calculators give a different result for cos(34423.324pi) than they do for cos(1.324pi), depending on how they implement cosine. Even if they take the argument MOD 2pi, that can introduce rounding error that changes the result.

      And yeah, I did that in my head. Everyone who needs to deal w/ trig functions should know cos(pi/2)=0, cos(pi/3)=0.5 and cos(pi/4)=1/sqrt(2) =0.707 (approx) off the top of their heads. (And, of course, you should know the corresponding sines.)

      Oh, and for those of you too lazy to type in the numerical value of pi, there's always 4*atan(1).

      --Joe
    7. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by MickLinux · · Score: 1

      We might do even better than that with pencil and paper. Let's see. 1.324pi is about -2/3 of the full circle (240, as you say). That, of course, would be 1.333333. 1.324 is .0093333 less than 1.3333.

      cos(1.324pi) = cos (1.33333pi - .009333pi)
      cos(alpha minus beta) = cos(alpha)cos(beta)+sin(alpha)sin(beta).

      cos(240) = -.5, sin(240)=-sqrt(3)/2
      cos(.009333pi)=~1, sin(0.009333pi)=~0.009333pi=~.03

      cos(1.324pi)=-.5*1 -.866 * .03
      cos(1.324pi)=-.5 - .02598 = -.52598

      I could do a bit more.

      cos^2+sin^2=1. cos=sqrt(1-sin^2).
      cos(.009333pi)=sqrt(1-.01pi*.0 1pi)=sqrt(1-.0009)=s qrt(.999)
      (1-x)*(1-x)=.999
      1-2x+x^2=1-.0009
      2x- x^2=.0009
      2x~=.0009
      x~=.00045
      1-x=.99854
      cos(. 00933pi)=.99854
      cos(.5)*cos(.00933pi)=.49927
      cos (1.324pi)=0.49927-.02598
      cos(1.324pi)=-.52525

      Checking with a calculator, I get -.52517. Oh, well. There's a limit to what you can do with wastable time.

      --
      Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    8. Re:Paper and pencil might be faster by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      Fair enough, I suppose, but it completely misses my point. My point was that with intelligent eyeballing, one could estimate many computations without doing any real work whatsoever. If you know a value's between cos(PI/4) and cos(PI/3), you know it's between 0.707 and 0.5. That's a pretty tight bound without doing any computation whatsoever. That's my point.

      I knew that this particular cosine would have a greater magnitude than -0.5 (since it was closer to -1pi than -1.5pi), but I didn't feel the need to go further than that to demonstrate practical first-order estimation techniques.

      It's more practical to know that 1/sqrt(2) is about 0.707 than it is to recite more than 5 digits of PI. It's more useful in many cases to eyeball and say "I'ts somewhere between 0.5 and 0.6, closer to 0.5" than it is to work out that it's 0.52517.

      --Joe
  76. I did this once. by wfisher · · Score: 1

    I overclocked my TI-82 (one of those old rectangular grey models) and then really impressed my friends when it graphed functions faster than their new TI-89 titaniums.

    1. Re:I did this once. by optimusNauta · · Score: 1

      It was hella cool. Mod him up.

  77. same old /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This had been posted on http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=1308354&l ocation=http://richfiles.solarbotics.net/Turbo.htm l/ several hours earlier. As is the norm for michael's post, a day late and a dollar short.

  78. Finally by indiefusion · · Score: 1

    No more lag in intense sessions of Block Dude.

  79. EasyCalc by ViXX0r · · Score: 1

    I gave serious consideration to doing this exact mod to my TI-85 in highschool some 10 years ago, but could never bring myself to risk breaking my precious calculator.

    It's still interesting purely for its hack value, but the opensource EasyCalc for PalmOS does most of the things that I used my TI calc for and it's much faster even on lower end PDAs. Plus the other applications and games are far richer than their TI-Basic or z-asm equivalents (if there were equivalents).

    I recently sold my TI-85 and accessories for $50.

    --
    University - a box of academia nuts.
  80. But can it run linux? by Joshua53077 · · Score: 4, Funny

    or play .ogg files?

    1. Re:But can it run linux? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
      The serial line on the TI86 has a headphone jack type interface. I recall when I used to use one of these that there was some software that would translate sound files into small assembly programs that would send the data down the serial port. You only got 1-bit sound, and the sample rate was quite low, but it did work. Not quite playing oggs though.

      Overclocking calculators is not a new thing. I recall reading about possible modifications to this model of calculator around 8 years ago, including adding more memory, overclocking and installing a backlight on the screen.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:But can it run linux? by Suidae · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I pioneered the EL backlighting (theres a link on those pages to my old host, which is long dead) many, many years ago. Unfortumnately Rich's web design don't appear to have improved any more than my own :)

  81. Sweet Zombie Jesus! by laodamas · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Some information in this article is at least 12 years old. I remember overclocking my own TI-85, and then several friend's TI-85s in middle school. We then had fun writing benchmarking software that measured speed and how much error was introduced into mathmatical operations in both Basic and ASM (yay zshell!). No wonder I never had a date before HS graduation. I also installed the switch doodad under the battery cover so that I could switch to the original clock frequency when too much error was introduced around the 10e-6 and lower digits. Thank god I did not destroy any TI-85 PC boards with my $5 RadioShack Iron and my non-ESD protected work area. Anyway, the TI-85 uses a RC resonator to clock the CPU. When a smaller cap (1pf in this case) is substituted for the original, the RC constant becomes roughly 150% faster (cap takes less time to charge) which increases the overall speed of the voltage rise. This allowed me to build a 15MHz TI-85 that mostly worked. Incidentally the use of an RC resonator is why the calculator gets slower when the battery starts to sag-- apparently TI was too cheap to spring for a $0.20 quartz crystal.

    Anyway, the TI-85 uses a RC resonator to clock the CPU. When a smaller cap (1pf in this case) is substituted for the original, the RC constant becomes roughly 150% faster (cap takes less time to charge) which increases the overall speed of the circuit. This allowed me to have a 15MHz TI-85 that mostly worked. Incidentally the use of an RC resonator is why the calculator gets slower when the battery starts to sag. Apparently TI was too cheap to use a $0.20 quartz crystal.

    1. Re:Sweet Zombie Jesus! by infinite_improbabili · · Score: 1

      We then had fun writing benchmarking software that measured speed and how much error was introduced into mathmatical operations in both Basic and ASM

      How can mathematical errors be introduced by changing the speed at which the processor does the math routines?

  82. How do you check current clock speed? by infinite_improbabili · · Score: 1

    I just did the mod and it works fine on my TI-89 Hardware 2.0. How do I check the clock speed to verify?
    br> I replaced the C4 capacitor on HW2 with 22pf. When graphing functions I can tell it is much faster.

  83. No kidding. by raygundan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This was going on when I was in high school, 10 years ago. (not that I'm incredibly old, but being ten years behind the curve is spectacular even for slashdot) You could overclock a TI-85 pretty easily, although it wasn't really necessary. The real joy was in installing a hacked ROM through an overflow on the link cable and running games written in Z80 assembly. It was the ultimate time-waster: a gameboy that your teachers allowed in class. TI even caught on later that their overflow bug had become a feature, and built in access to run assembly code on the TI-86.

    There were some truly great games written, too. A few (Sqrxz comes to mind) even eventually made the leap to the gameboy.

    1. Re:No kidding. by afidel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually there were times when an overclocked Ti-89 would have been quite usefull to me, mostly when doing 3D plots. Plotting a series of partial differentials and rotating them in 3D was quite slow on the 89, on the order of a few seconds per frame. I eventually ran the Ti-89 firmware in an emulator on my laptop which gave ~5x normal performance and the graphing was quite nice at those speeds. Of course then I lost the great input interface, no laptop will ever compare with a dedicated graphing calculator for ease of input for mathematical equations.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    2. Re:No kidding. by dzym · · Score: 1

      sqrxz was actually some german asm demo PC game that somebody decided to reimplement on the TI86 asm.

      I remember this because I downloaded the original sqrxz at some point.

    3. Re:No kidding. by punkrockguy318 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, i'm a highschool student now.. There's an application out now (MirageOS) that can run ASM games and advanced BASIC games. That's the only way I got through Health class, heh. The big games they play now include a mario3 clone, megaman clone, pheonix 3 (space invader like game), pacman, zelda clone, and lots more. It's getting serious. Unfortunately, some of the teachers are catching on. But I'm sneaky :-P

    4. Re:No kidding. by kasperd · · Score: 2, Informative

      This was going on when I was in high school, 10 years ago.
      I also heard about this stuff when I was in high school 10 years ago. Some of my friends had TI-85 calculators, but I don't think any of them actually ever overclocked it.

      The real joy was in installing a hacked ROM through an overflow on the link cable and running games written in Z80 assembly.
      I tried some of those. But it wasn't really about hacking the ROM. The ROM was never changed, and if you removed the batteries it would still be restored to its original state. Also the way the assembler programs were transfered to the calculator was not through an overflow, but rather through a backup feature the calculator had. These calculators had a link cable, and one of the usages for this link cable was to create a full backup of the RAM. This full backup could either be stored on a PC using a special link cable or transfered to another calculator using the standard link cable. Transfering such a backup to a calculator would overwrite anything already in the RAM.

      Now the trick was to create a backup on your PC and manipulate it there before transfering it back to the calculator. Inserting ASM code was the easy part, AFAIR it would all be put inside string variables which the standard software allowed you to manipulate. Actually executing this ASM code was the neat trick. This calulator had too many functions to make all directly available, for that reason it had a custom menu where you could put five of those for quick access. Now this was implemented using a pointer to the actual code in ROM for the selected function. In the manipulated backup one of this pointers would be altered to point into RAM rather than into ROM.

      Once the backup image was ready it could be transfered to a calculator. The only way to insall this software on the calculator was through a full restore. But that could even be transfered from one calculator to another. Once you had the basic menusystem to access the ASM programs, you could transfer individual programs between calculators using standard features in the ROM. One drawback of using those ASM programs was, that while they were running the calculator wouldn't automatically turn off after some minutes of idle time, so you could easilly run down the batteries and would then need to start from scratch.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    5. Re:No kidding. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      I had a TI-86, which was a slightly upgraded TI-85, with a built in assembler, 128K of RAM and a few UI tweaks. I was most irritated to discover that it was slower than the TI-85 (especially when running TI basic programs). The reason for this was that the TI-85 used flat addressing, while the increased memory in the TI-86 meant that it could no longer be addressed as a flat 16-bit address space and so needed to do some kind of switching (not sure exactly what mechanism they used), making de-referencing any memory location more expensive.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:No kidding. by secretsquirel · · Score: 0

      the hours and hours of classtime i spent on ti-83 pacman isnt even funny, i think it might definitly be my favourite gaming system

    7. Re:No kidding. by secretsquirel · · Score: 0

      The '85 was sweet. I remember how cool I was back in 7th grade when I came to school with a nekid pic of pam anderdon on my calc, great days.

    8. Re:No kidding. by raygundan · · Score: 1

      I oversimplified a bit. You are quite correct-- the real ROM was never changed. Just a hack to the menu pointer that allowed other code stored in the RAM to be executed, which would let you start up a shell and give you access to run ASM programs.

      For some reason, though, I really thought they were using an overflow with the backup process to change those pointers. Meh-- it has been a decade.

  84. Rotary calculators... by dpbsmith · · Score: 1

    ...when someone posts an article describing how to double the speed of one of those--maybe by running them on 240VAC and using a Peltier cooler to keep the motor from burning out?--then I'll be impressed.

    I'm afraid I don't personally know which is the wire on an IBM 650 accounting machine that can be cut to increase its performance by 50%, but I knew people who said they knew...

  85. Original Article w/ info about power consumption by infinite_improbabili · · Score: 1

    Here is one of the original overclocking articles with information about power consumption after overclocking.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20011031021144/http://p eople.ee.ethz.ch/~blutz/TI89Spec/TIAccelerate.html /a>

  86. This could be good by digitalgimpus · · Score: 1

    Considering I spent most of High School playing games on my TI-83+...

    a bit more CPU performance would have been great for PimpQuest and Frogger.

  87. The ultimate overclocking job by digitalgimpus · · Score: 1

    Use an emulator (several can be found here):

    Why?

    That way you can have a TI-83 on a few GHz CPU(s).

  88. Good job Michael by vosgienne · · Score: 0

    Here's what I used my freshly OC'ed calc for:

    Fark

    + 8 hours
    ___________

    Slashdot

  89. not just hackaday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was on fark early this afternoon as well.

  90. Slide Rules by cbr2702 · · Score: 1

    But that's the way all slide rules work. And because you get used to the scientific notation and decimal places that bit becomes a snap. Try for something like 3.21 x 3.92.

    --


    This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
  91. So.... by mattthateeguy · · Score: 1

    When I am graphing an infinite series that doesn't converge, it will take 20 minutes instead of 45 on my Ti-89? Still faster to figure it out by hand (calculaters are evil in college, only help you stop figuring things out for yourself)

  92. Kitchen appliances by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    I overclocked my toaster and burnt my toast in one minute instead of 3! This is an amazing technique. I gotta try it on my high colonic machine!

  93. Overclocking and Games by sjoplin · · Score: 1

    I overclocked my TI-86 a few years back. It now graphs at amazing speed, fast enough to graph y2=fnInt(y1,x,0,x) within the limits of my patience.

    That speed boost is a bane to those games which rely on looping for timing. Games such as Mario 86 and several Breakout games are now unplayable. It's a small price to pay, though, to be able to rely on brute forcing harder mathematical problems ("How many integers between 1 and 10 000 are multiples of 3 and 4 but not 5.").

  94. What about 84??? by astebbin · · Score: 1

    I myself own one of the more recently manufactured TI-84s, and I notice that it is the only TI graphing calculator not listed on this fellow's site of otherwise great technical suggestions....

    I would also be quick to remind everyone that http://www.ticalc.org/ has an extensive library of TI apps as well as links to other calc sites with more detailed overclocking hints and instructions.

  95. Not Bad at all by kilodelta · · Score: 0

    It's a relatively easy mod on my TI-83 Plus. And it's a Z80 of all things. I cut my assembler teeth on a Z80. I'll have to hit the local eletronics place and get the cap and the switch tomorrow.

  96. Ethernet Card Overclocking by cbr2702 · · Score: 1

    Just overclock the hub!

    --


    This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
  97. Re:did in 80's with HP-41CV/X - anyone remember cl by somewhere+in+AU · · Score: 1

    wow - Nick Reid.. I googled for him a year or so ago in case he was anywhere - I recall doing stuff at his place in the Eastern Suburbs. Didn't meet John McG but of course I used ASM3 and subscribed to Melbourne notes religiously. I got a couple of articles published in Richard Nelson's journal - writing to display using PRPH SLCT if I recall. My ID was 10282 if you care to look up.. Good to see Richard alive and well. And yes, sigh, programming efficiency is a very expensive commodity I use all the lessons of hardcore 80's machine coding and like to think our cross platform desktop apps are a lean and flexible design internally yet still takes advantage of readability and lego-clock assembly into new variations reliably and quickly. (quickly did some neat car GPS based competitive dist/timing version for a recent car rally I drove in based on our "express" car tracking app for example). Alex.

  98. Qonos linux calc/pda by J_Omega · · Score: 1

    Any news on the development of the Qonos?
    http://www.hydrix.com/pages/body/products/qonos_ti les.jsp

  99. But.... by AVryhof · · Score: 2, Funny

    But I really wanyed to overclock my TI/99....just wondering how fast the Wumpus could run.

  100. Beastiality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This guy must be the most mathematical beastialist I have ever seen. Check out his website.

    1. Re:Beastiality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the most mathematical zoophile for you, kid.
      And it's spelled Bestiality. With one a.

  101. TI sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HP calcs are easily better. Afterall, you don't see people with TI calculators much in the professional world, only HP. There's quite a few reasons for that.

    1. Re:TI sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hahahah, enjoy your TI toy you poor fool

    2. Re:TI sucks by MightyYar · · Score: 1
      I think the parent is right. I was in high school during the early 90s, prime TI calculator time. I was the only one with an HP, since my dad gave me his cast-off rather than spending over $100 on the TI that my classmates all got. In college there was a mix, but the TIs were by far more popular. Truth be told, I used a $20 Casio for the most part. I bought a new HP in my senior year for the EIT test, and I still have that. A quick survey around the desks at work (mostly mechanical engineers) seems to show some assorted HPs and cheap desk calculators - no TIs. I mostly use an HP 12 that I found in a desk, and dig out my 48GX whenever I have an equation I don't feel like firing up Maple to solve.

      RPN is invaluable. It is the true strength of the HP. Nothing can blow through an equation like an RPN calculator, even with a small stack!

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  102. Site I've always used for TI calculator stuff by assassinator42 · · Score: 1

    ticalc.org Great site, which has linked to the site mentioned in this article for quite some time. Thing is, that site only talks about overclocking versions 1 and 2 or the TI-89 hardware, not 3 (titanium)

  103. hello by kronchev · · Score: 1

    hello and welcome to 5 years ago

  104. Check it out by ananegg · · Score: 1

    Dude I just Overclocked my... CLOCK!!!! I put a lawnmower engine on the dail on back and when i turned that baby on you should have seen the hands fly!!! I'm so 1337!!!!

    --
    Insert Pithy Quote here.
  105. Gee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those TI calculator has a Z80 in them - someone should put CPM in a flash and get those calculator booting CPM 3.0 - now that's something to see

  106. Ti89-titanium? by bLindmOnkey · · Score: 1

    Hmm graph scatter plots an quadratic regressions at twice the speed? I'll take it!

    Does anyone know if this'll work on a Ti-89 Titanium?-I just got one this year for class. Good stuff.

  107. Patents, subsidies, and batteries by tepples · · Score: 1

    He's saying that TI could put together a calculator with the computing and display technology of a gameboy and the keyboard of a traditional graphing calculator.

    Not necessarily:

    • Nintendo holds numerous patents on GBA graphics, many of which it is unwilling to license to any other party at any price before their expiration in about 2021.
    • It wouldn't be $100 cheaper. Console makers sell their systems roughly at cost of goods sold and make up the R&D and marketing costs through a royalty for each game sold. The $40 price of an original Game Boy Advance system reflects subsidies from game sales.
    • Besides, a graphing calculator lasts much longer on a set of batteries than a Game Boy does.
    1. Re:Patents, subsidies, and batteries by cgenman · · Score: 1

      Grandparent was right. I meant that that TI's machines could be far more modern than they are. Or they should be far cheaper than they are. In terms of raw specs, they're getting trounced by the Nomad, a portable system released nearly ten years ago. The TI software rocks, but the hardware has fallen years behind. The lack of at least greyscale is inexcusable in a machine costing 150 dollars.

      The machines have their strengths, don't get me wrong (though the TI-92+ has always sucked down batteries like sweets). But the total apparent lack of progress for so many years is disheartening. Remember, they were able to get some moderately impressive tech in those machines with a fairly decent amount of RAM and still have good battery life back in the day when they were still trying. They've just given up since then.

      Demand better.

      P.S. Nintendo does not lose money on GBA's sold. Nintendo actually doesn't lose money on any consoles sold. They've structured their licensing and manufacturing agreements intelligently to that effect. Nintendo probably makes about 5 bucks a game sold, and if an average user buys just 10 games in a console's lifespan, if they've subsidised the cost of the console to a noticable degree they've just eaten up all they would make on it.

    2. Re:Patents, subsidies, and batteries by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      You said:

      P.S. Nintendo does not lose money on GBA's sold. Nintendo actually doesn't lose money on any consoles sold. They've structured their licensing and manufacturing agreements intelligently to that effect. Nintendo probably makes about 5 bucks a game sold, and if an average user buys just 10 games in a console's lifespan, if they've subsidised the cost of the console to a noticable degree they've just eaten up all they would make on it.

      A typical retail price to electronics cost ratio for consumer electronics is around 10 to 1. That is, if it has $10 electronics cost, it sells for $100. That pretty much holds for answering machines, cordless phones, and I'm pretty sure it does for TI calculators.

      GBAs, however, have a parts cost much closer to its selling price. That closer ratio reflects the subsidy that game licensing provides. So, while Nintendo is smart enough not to ship dollars with every unit, it's wrong to say the GameBoy Advance's pricing doesn't reflect game licensing subsidy. If the GBA didn't have games to subsidize its price, it'd cost more like $400 - $500.

      TI doesn't make fancier calculators because they don't need to. Only students use the calculators anyway. (Or, at least, it's the only market that seems to matter.) With all the textbook tie-ins, making calculators is roughly akin to printing money, but that's more a function of all the educational entrenchment. I haven't really used my calculator seriously since I graduated from college 8 years ago. Of course, then again, I wasn't a devoted button-pusher even while I was still working on my EE degree. I prefer to do math in my head. (Ok, I did program in all the compound interest and depreciation formulas for my Engineering Economics class, since boundary cases are a bitch.)

      I'd imagine now that teacher lesson plans have stabilized pretty well around a handful of TI calculator models, we'll see more window dressing changes and fewer functional changes to the TI calcs as time goes on.

      --Joe
  108. I overclocked my... by VeryProfessional · · Score: 1
    clock.

    Pro: My friends think I'm really cool.

    Con: I don't know what time it is.

  109. Hell yeah! by WMD_88 · · Score: 1

    I swear by my 9850GB+. I'm forced to use a TI-83+ for school, and I hate it. The Casio is far easier to use.

  110. Is it just me... by Gleenie · · Score: 1

    ... or did anyone else mistake the guy's name for "Richard Plotter"? I mean, the Dean of Civil Engineering at my university was named Russell Bridge; but a guy that overclocks his calculater named Richard Plotter would have beaten that hands down...

    --
    -- Your mother uses Emacs.
  111. Dang. by certel · · Score: 1

    I could have used this about 4 years ago. :/

  112. Great for a start by rockwood · · Score: 1

    One thing I must admit, is that I beleive his site goes into a lot more than what most sites do.
    As a person wanting to learn more towrad the inner workings of electronic (Boards, circuits etc...) I see that most sites simply spit out. "Remove the T4-dydro disk, and replace that vaule with a n^4/5! to determine the new disks speed. OK.. next step..." And with that I'm already lost. While this site describes it down to how many screws your gonna remove... like baby step for those of us new to it. And I'd much sooner take my trail-and-error period of learning this and use it on a TI calculator and not a $2000 computer.
    I say bravo!

    --
    Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
  113. umm... by maxdamage · · Score: 1

    Is this realy news? This has been linked to ticalc.org for years now, anyone who would actualy do this has been there and seen this...

    http://www.ticalc.org/hardware/overclocking/

  114. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.. by vjouppi · · Score: 1

    Back when ticalc.org was really thriving, this was pretty commonplace to do..

    I turboed my TI-85 back in 1998.

    --
    -Jope
  115. you might be a nerd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1.)You might be a nerd if your calculator costs more than your entire outfit (shoes, pants, underware....cause you buy that shit at kmart) 2.)you may be a super nerd if you overclock it. 3.)you are uber nerd if you write functions on your fucking ti that need the speed improvement.

  116. Great for calculations... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... terrible for games.

    I actually overclocked my TI-85 in my senior year of highschool... that would have been '96. I put in a 3 position switch with different capacitors so I could run it at 1x, around 2x, and full-out (from a benchmarking app I wrote it appeared to be around 3.1x) speeds. I did this because things like tetris and Snake were unplayable at anything above 2x and some things behaved strangely at the unclocked setting.

    Sure does bring back memories. You could do so much cool stuff with zshell. :)

  117. bonga banga by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ook ook ook

  118. Oh or goodness sake. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    That is the nature of the Internet and of this site in particular, if you don't like it, turn your computer off.

    Refering to stuff in other site is not plagiarism. Don't be stupid.

    The mass media, movie industry and the music cartels have brain washed you to a level that talkin about something interesting is frowned upon by you as plagiarism.

    If that is the case we can't talk about anything, since by doing so we are plagiarizing ideas (according to your weird view of the world).

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Oh or goodness sake. by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but it IS a valid complaint when the article in question hasn't even been updated since the year 2000 and has already appeared on Slashdot before. We're here for NEW content, not rehashed content from half a decade ago.

  119. That's Nothing by motionb · · Score: 0

    I want someone to overclock my tv remote, If i could get a 30% increase in channel surfing speed, I would be the MAN!!!!

  120. What I really want to know is ... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

    ... how to overclock my brain!

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  121. Casio. by vafancolo · · Score: 1

    Seems like there aren't as many nerds using casio.

  122. I did it to CASIO PB-700 and PB-770 by carlos92 · · Score: 1
    PB-700 and PB-770 were pocket calculators with a BASIC interpreter. I used them to solve linear equation systems with complex variables, and to evaluate expressions with complex numbers, and it was really useful to have them run at triple speed - and probably ten-fold battery consumption, but I had the correct results every time, while my classmates didn't, so changing three AA cells every week instead of every quarter was a minor inconvenience.

    I did it by basically shorting a resistor used in an RC oscillator. Luckily, it didn't prevent the oscillator from working but made it run at max speed.

  123. OCd my HP-41 back in 1982 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Duh. Nostalgia. Required just a ceramic cap. That meant the whole machine was overclocked, including the infamous BEEP. :-)) Man that was about 23 years ago. Most slashdotters weren't even born then ;-)

  124. Feeling Better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thanks for reminding me why I enjoy Slashdot so much - regardless of how big a geek I am I can always find bigger here.

  125. -1 Overrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can we have a "-1 overrated" option mod for the article? Or how about a "-1 fossilized" story mod?

  126. Used to do that on my old TI-57... by ggravier · · Score: 1

    At the time when the TI-57 had red LEDs (afterwards, they came up with LCDs)... I had asked TI for the schematics (I still have the 1 page document if anyone wants a scanned copy)... and I had modified the R-C bridge that was used as a time base for the clock and put a variable resistor... machine would go 16 times faster without making mistakes... beyond that, it was rather fun to watch. The calculator still works... but looks a bit tweaked (too many plugs into it, including a speaker, a reset button, an external keyboard and a connecter to trigger an external relay).

    Gilles.