On my TI-83 plus, a fellow students and my calculator were matching rand(int) and it was amazing. Random wasn’t really random. I thought it’d be based on some sort of hidden internal clock.
True randomness is really really hard to do in software; bigger CPUs often have hardware random number generators that exploit some sort of quantum or otherwise non-determanistic phenomena, but in software the best you can do is pseudo-random. These are algorithms that generate a sequence of randomly distributed numbers, but in a deterministic way - from a given starting state, it will always generate the same sequence of numbers. Good algorithms are designed to make it hard to infer the starting state just by observing the sequence (if you can do that, you can run the algorithm in parallel and predict the next number), but that’s an active area of research.
At a guess, the calculator was programmed to initialise the random number generator from something that it is hard for the user to control (milliseconds since power on would be a good one) the first time you used it, but maybe TI got lazy and just initialised it to a constant value
Some kid in middle school put mario on my TI-83. The buttons were not ergonomic at all, but it was cool. I also wrote my first ever script on the thing; it solved the quadratic equation.
I did that back in the ‘90s on a TI-85 while everyone else in my class was sideloading Tetris onto their fancy TI-86es and laughing at my poor ass; iirc there was already a function built in for solving polynomials though so not only was I a poor loser, but I also wasted my time
I also had their “stat” one, it was like a ti-34 or something. It was way easier to use for probability stuff, and parenthesis and plugging in variables to simple polynomials.
There is a website of a person who catalogs Texas Instruments calculators. You can wonder over to the graphing calculator section to see how many different graphing calculators they made along with a bit of information on each one.
That’s web 1.0. Many of us had sites like this on Geocities and Tripod back in the day.
I absolutely love them too because they’re so content dense where as today this would be a 15 item list where you had to click a new page to see each one while reading several paragraphs of what sounds like the most generic, 6th-grade book report on each one “The TI-84 is a calculator. Many people use calculators to do math…”
I love that you can tell they’re a product of passion. Someone was just really into something and wanted to share the info with the world. There’s something beautiful about that.
Because that would have eaten into their price gouging. In the age of the iPhone, Texas Instruments was able to charge upwards of $100 for a Zilog Z80 powered nothing machine because they’re quasi mandatory for high school and college students.
I figured out you could emulated the TI-84 plus on a smartphone for free, around 2012. I just used that for my college math class, but it probably would’ve been harder to get away with in a high school class.
American kids and their damn fancy calculators. I got through a technician degree in Electronics and a Grad degree in Robotics with a Casio FX82. It can display two lines with simple letters and numbers, no graphs. It also stores up to 6 numbers in memory.
This is a stupid take. Try that on Windows 7's 3-number calculator (basically replicated in Windows 10's standard mode calculator) and see what happens: 8+9 will get calculated to 17 the moment you hit the + after 9, and 17 gets stored in the first memory.
It’s… not a take… it’s a dumb joke… was trying to make the equation dumb enough that it was obvious, but apparently it was not clear enough. Holy what are these responses
fun fact: there are graphing calculator emulators, even modern tinspire cx and cx2 models can be emulated (firebird emu) (as well as ti 83/84 etc, although obviously a different emulator is used for those models)
I get this from time to time when falling asleep. It’s really annoying when it happens. Like I’ll be dozing off and then there will be this loud-ass noise.
I’ve experienced this, or at least something that very closely fits its description, a couple times in the past, and it varies on a case-by-case basis. One time it was almost like the sound of glass breaking, I think one time might’ve been closer to a door slamming. Weird shit.
And, same deal as the other fella, hard to remember the specifics 'cause you’re sorta half-asleep when it happens.
I hear a loud bang as if from another room. Like a trash can falling over, or a someone dropping a bag with about 10lbs on a hardwood floor, or a pushing a wooden chair into a dining table too hard. It’s enough to think “what just fell?!”.
It does not sound like a door closing, or stomping, or something fragile moving or falling.
I startle awake, realize I’m the only one awake, and that there aren’t anymore sounds so it must have been my brain and I pass out fully.
It’s pretty strange and I think it’s funny how I never really thought about it until now.
For me it is a popping sound, a bit like the sound of popping your ears during an altitude change, but way, way louder. It would be impossible to mistake for a noise caused by something IRL, it sounds like that blood rushing into your ears sound for me.
I have this happen sometimes. Usually its loud but mundane stuff like doors closing, a familiar voice saying something vaugly important, something slamming or dropping. It can variy wildly but usually its the most boring crap.
Usually I go back to sleep with no issues but sometimes it startles you and gets the adrenaline going. I usually rule it out as half dreaming but sometimes you got to check to name sure no one broke in.
The absolute worse is the cat throwing up, I have to go check that one since sometimes its real.
Yes! Mine definitely preys on my anxiety of having someone break in when my husband is gone for an overnight shift. I have to check the doors and windows before I can get back to sleep.
I have checked the house a few times wearing noting but a pistol a few times because of it. I think it was really just nerves from moving in alone at that point.
I’ve definitely been there as well; it can get spooky. It’s funny you mention that, my first (and thankfully only) really bad experience with hallucinating during sleep paralysis happened the first time I moved into an apartment on my own. I had to run out of there and drive around to calm myself down at like 3 in the morning. Wishing you peaceful nights!
Like most people, it changes. For me it is like someone took the volume knob on the world and maxed it out for half a second. Just a blip of every sound in the room suddenly being set to 11. Sometimes it is like someone yelling in my ear, but just a grunt or a scream like they fell over.
Hmmm, never really thought about this, but I have this happen every now and then. From what I remember it sounds like a sudden snap or click, but I don’t have concrete memory of the sound. Also with a bright flash of light. Just a sudden sensory spike. I don’t have good memories of it, because it usually happens just when I really start falling asleep and at that point memory usually isn’t working well. It’s also often accompanied with my muscles suddenly activating, basically jolting me awake. Heart rate spikes as well, but I cannot really remember any instance where it was more than a small nuisance. I always assumed that it was just a bit of a race condition in the transition to the deeper sleep state
Maybe time to write an issue to the development team for the brain OS :p
Yes, I get the sound version but it’s more likely for me to just be walking in a dream, fall flat on my face, and wake up. But it’s more jarring than it should be.
Apparently it’s more common in people with sleep paralysis, which I have.
For why this is happening to me, I’ve narrowed this down to the following: snoring (I start snoring as soon as my eyes close), dreams (I have “imaginative” dreams, a lot of nightmares) and the last reason being lack of sleep to which I think I’ve actually heard the explosion but it was a dream.
I’ve been having them on and off for as long as I can remember. I seem to notice I suffer them more often when sleep deprived and also when playing long hours of videogames (or both).
I absolutely hate my upstairs neighbors. Even worse when they have a party up until 4 am.
The other day though my smoke alarm threw me out of the bed by violently blaring three times. Never had a false alarm before but always thought it would be if I maybe burn something in the kitchen by accident, not when there's absolutely nothing going on while I sleep.
en.wikipedia.org
Oldest