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TI-57 Programmable Calculator

ClausB

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2012
Messages
180
Forty years ago, before internet forums, there were user group newsletters. The TI programmable calculator hackers would write about their discoveries concerning internal workings of those little machines, particularly the SR-52, SR-56, TI-58, and TI-59.

The TI-57 and lesser models were more mass-market and had more closed architectures, most being single-chip designs. They got little attention in those newsletters.

But in the spirit of those hackers of yore, I probed the mysteries of those compact machines and wrote a few articles about them. RSKEY has graciously hosted them here:
https://www.rskey.org/CMS/the-library
 
Thanks. It was fun to explore them after finding them on eBay. In the day I had a 56 and a 59.
 
The TI-57 was the first programmable anything I ever worked with. A science teacher in 8th grade saw how bored I was in Study Hall and handed his TI-57 and manual to me to play around with. He called the calculator "Lil' Herc" for Little Hercules. Its name was posted on the angled border below the LED display in white letters pressed into a black Dymo Labelmaker strip. Being able to use this each and every Study Hall I attended where he was in charge, I learned a lot about programming concepts. I even memorized a self-written Blackjack-esque clone game which I could input at a moments notice. Especially when I got a TI-57 of my own at Christmas the same year. :)
 
I'm still wondering if I'll ever get an SR-22. It'd make a great companion to my HP 16C.

SR-22.jpg
 
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