Graphing Calculator

Description of Ti-83 Graphing Calculator

Calculators have become tools in our everyday lives, especially for students in math classes. I have been using calculators since I was 6 years old and I always trust the answers provided by them because they were usually the right ones. In high school, graphing calculators turn into necessities for every student. Almost in every math class, teachers use graphing calculators. Meanwhile, the model used most commonly is the Ti-83, which is produced by Texas Instruments. This calculator has graphing function, scientific calculations, and programming (Woerner, 2002).

History:

Ti-83 graphing calculator was released in 1996. It was an upgraded version of the pervious calculators, Ti-82. It contained more graphing functions such as trigonometric, statistic and algebraic graphing. (Woerner, 2002) It also allows online applications to be installed, but these applications must be written by a calculator. The TI-83 was the first calculator in the TI series to have built in assembly language support. The support on the TI-83 could be accessed through a hidden feature of the calculator. Users would write their assembly (Brown, 2007) program on their computer, assemble it, and send it to their calculator as a program (Campbell, 2001). Thus, the Ti-83 calculators are very revolutionary.

Diagram: Ti-83, Front and Back.

Diagram: Ti-83, the Shell and the Side

Feature and Basic Functions:

It is a blackish rectangular cube with a polished rectangular screen and numerous of plastic keys in the bottom. The screen is on the upper side, and has a size of about 4’’ x 2.5’’. On the top of the screen, it contains a line of printed word that label the manufacturer and model name. There are 5 plastic bottoms lied in a line below the screen; these 5 bottoms are the most important to the use of graphing. They are “Y=”, “WINDOWS”, “ZOOM”, “TRACE”, and “GRAPH”. These five keys and the screen are located in a refined box that is slightly caved...