TLDR
-
Boris Cherny’s 2004 beginner guide to TI-83 Plus BASIC covers I/O, loops, GETKEY, drawing functions, and nested loops with worked challenges.
Key Takeaways
-
Screen is 8x16 chars for text (OUTPUT/DISP) and 62x94 pixels for drawing (TEXT/LINE/CIRCLE/Pt-On); coordinate origins differ between the two modes.
-
LBL/GOTO works but is measurably slower than FOR or WHILE; the tutorial benchmarks all three with an expanding-circle draw to demonstrate the gap.
-
GETKEY assigns a numeric code to every key; the standard pattern wraps it in
While 1 / While K=0 to block until a keypress, enabling real-time input.
-
Custom named lists (e.g.,
LTTRL) are preferred over L1-L6 to avoid collisions with graph/scatter programs; matrices handle larger structured data.
-
randInt(1,10) is cleaner than iPart(1+(rand*10)); both patterns are shown explicitly to illustrate the difference between RAND and RANDINT.
Hacker News Comment Review
-
No substantive HN discussion yet.
Original | Discuss on HN
