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Calculator games (Patreon)

Published:
2023-03-10 13:02:18
Imported:
2026-06

Content

I'm following up the relatable emotion of Calvin and Hobbes with...calculator games. Anybody have powerful memories of their TI-83/84/whatever playing secret games?

Comments

T. K.

Not to send us both to the burn unit, but isn't this just a "did you grow up before the proliferation of smart phones?" test question? EDIT: Also, yes Tankwars was a good time.

philedwardsinc

I did speak to some high schoolers who still had a passing familiarity with these (but yes, you are right).

Jay Hash

I remember back around the 1996-2000 era in high school that these were all the rage— Snake, Tetris...I think there was even a claim of DOOM being ported (it was the original Skyrim after all— got ported to EVERYTHING). I do remember the issues surrounding them though: 1) you had to find someone that could copy the game to your Calculator, so that meant you needed a student connection with a game you wanted, had to have a calculator link transfer cable, oh, and had to have a proper graphing calculator. 2) your calculator had to be compatible. I wanted a graphing calculator for this reason as a sophomore (Also because past Algebra, I sucked at Math), and finally convinced my mother to get one at the start of the Junior year when we went to buy school supplies, however most people had the TI-83 or TI-84+ as the price points on them made them ubiquitous. Imagine my surprise when my mom splurged on a TI-85 for me, thinking it was the better unit, but when I got to school to transfer games... none of the TI-83/84+ games were compatible with my TI-85 (the TI-85 could do higher math functions though, so it honestly was a lifesaver at helping me actually pass math, and by "pass" I mean a *barely* passing grade). Plus, the link cable I got with my TI-85 was either broken or incompatible with the lower models, as well. 3) If no one was willing to share or could copy their game to your far too advanced calculator, you had to go online to find out how to program them into your calculator. And how did you learn this power? From the internet, of course. At the time, the internet was a nascent, niche oddity that cost WAY too much, and was seemingly run by AOL. You could go to the library to use it on occasion, but the kids with games usually had it in their homes (in my area), so they had the time to program the games manually. I remember trying to pull one up to program it into my TI-85, but when I got the instructions online, they were PAGES long. Why? Because it was essentially a Calc version of BASIC, and even easy games in that language take a while to input, especially on a tiny-ass keyboard that had most letter typing locked behind a 2nd function button, written in a different color script above the button it was assigned, and (at least on my version) was not in QWERTY layout. For any kid with a limited attention span and a lack of budding interest in the computer sciences made it a non starter, but you had to know what you were doing and commit if you wanted a game and couldn’t get one ported to your Calc. All this combined with using a "school tool" to mess around and do something fun and was considered taboo, but math teachers never seemed interested or phased by the existence of games on the phones. Eventually the proliferation spread throughout the students in class who had the calculators, and it got boring, so we moved onto the next cool thing fad. But yeah, calculator games were popular, even moreso if you had to view the whole thing from afar due to lack of the calculator or lack of compatability.

Jay Hash
>>103752686

Also! I just remembered this, there was even a "console war" amongst the calculator owners: Texas Instruments crew vs. the CASIO crew. Choosing your calculator was based upon who had what at school and what games, but CASIO had convoluted naming conventions, so most kids stuck with the easy one they could remember (TI-83).

Robin M

I'm from the way back times so I have no idea what you whippersnappers are talking about. Calculators for school? Hah! We had to use our brains. Calculators that played games? Never heard of it. (I did have a scientific calculator for high school but no way was it sophisticated enough to play games, which is probably for the best, lol)

philedwardsinc
>>103754985

you missed a world of....well actually they weren't that great, but procrastination always has some appeal.

Dylan Corp

I was a rule follower but finding a classmate that had the transfer cable and games I wanted was the closest I felt to engaging in a drug deal.