Table Of ContentProgramming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus
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Programming
the TI-83 Plus/
TI-84 Plus
CHRISTOPHER R. MITCHELL
MANNING
SHELTER ISLAND
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ISBN: 9781617290770
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – MAL – 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
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brief contents
PART 1 GETTING STARTED WITH PROGRAMMING........................1
1 ■ Diving into calculator programming 3
2 ■ Communication: basic input and output 25
3 ■ Conditionals and Boolean logic 55
4 ■ Control structures 76
5 ■ Theory interlude: problem solving and debugging 107
PART 2 BECOMING A TI-BASIC MASTER ................................133
6 ■ Advanced input and events 135
7 ■ Pixels and the graphscreen 167
8 ■ Graphs, shapes, and points 184
9 ■ Manipulating numbers and data types 205
PART 3 ADVANCED CONCEPTS; WHAT’S NEXT..........................225
10 ■ Optimizing TI-BASIC programs 227
11 ■ Using hybrid TI-BASIC libraries 243
12 ■ Introducing z80 assembly 260
13 ■ Now what? Expanding your programming horizons 282
v
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contents
foreword xiii
preface xvi
acknowledgments xix
about this book xxi
PART 1 GETTING STARTED WITH PROGRAMMING............1
1 Diving into calculator programming 3
1.1 Your calculator: the pocket computer you already own 5
1.2 Hello World: your first program 8
Before you begin: notes on the TI-BASIC language 8
Displaying “Hello, World” 9 ■ Running the
Hello World program 12
1.3 Math programming: a quadratic solver 13
Building the quadratic solver 14 ■ Testing the solver 17
1.4 Game programming: a guessing game 18
Guessing game source and function 18
Lessons of the guessing game 23
1.5 Summary 23
vii
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viii CONTENTS
2 Communication: basic input and output 25
2.1 Getting to know the program editor and homescreen 26
The program editor: typing source code 27
The homescreen: your canvas for input and output 32
2.2 Output: displaying text 34
Displaying text and numbers on the homescreen 34
Positioning text with the Output command 38
2.3 Input from users: the Prompt and Input commands 42
Prompting for numbers 42 ■ Fancier Input for numbers
and strings 44 ■ Exercise: making conversation 48
2.4 Troubleshooting tips 50
Easy-to-spot errors: TI-OS error messages 51 ■ The subtle errors:
why isn’t my program working the way I want? 53
2.5 Summary 54
3 Conditionals and Boolean logic 55
3.1 Introduction to comparisons 56
3.2 Conditional statements 59
The one-statement conditional: If 59 ■ Conditional blocks:
Then/End 62 ■ Conditionals with alternatives: Else 66
3.3 Boolean logic 68
Truth of logical operators 69 ■ Using logical
grouping parentheses 71 ■ Applying Boolean logic:
bounds checking 72
3.4 Summary 75
4 Control structures 76
4.1 Labels and Goto 77
Understanding Lbl and Goto 77 ■ Exercise: convert
the guessing game to use Lbl/Goto 80
4.2 Menus 82
Using the Menu command 82 ■ Example: add a menu
to the guessing game 84
4.3 For, While, and Repeat 86
Repetition with For loops 86 ■ Using While to loop 91
The Repeat loop 95
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CONTENTS ix
4.4 Subprograms and termination 98
Putting repeated code in subprograms 99
Termination: Return and Stop 104
4.5 Summary 106
5 Theory interlude: problem solving and debugging 107
5.1 Introduction: idea to program 108
High-level design: features and interface 109 ■ Structuring your
code: diagrams to commands 112 ■ Testing and debugging 114
5.2 Planning a program’s structure 115
Idea and details: first steps 116
Diagrams and pseudocode 116
5.3 Headache-free coding and testing 120
Flowchart to code chunks 120 ■ Performing unit and
full testing 121 ■ The final Pythagorean Triplet solver 123
5.4 Understanding TI-BASIC errors 127
5.5 Tracing malfunctioning code 129
5.6 Summary 131
PART 2 BECOMING A TI-BASIC MASTER.....................133
6 Advanced input and events 135
6.1 Event loop concepts 136
6.2 getKey 140
Using getKey for nonblocking input 140
Learning getKey keycodes: the chart and the memorization 144
Exercise: eight-directional movement 145
6.3 The Mouse and Cheese game 151
Writing and running the game 152 ■ Understanding
the game 153 ■ Tweaking the game 159
Exercise: going further by moving the cheese 160
6.4 getKey odds and ends 164
Quirks and limitations of getKey 164
What about modifier keys? 165
6.5 Summary 166
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