How to Program Games on a TI 83 Calculator
Many of us fondly remember our precalculus and calculus classes, not for the things we learned, but for the games we played on our TI-83 graphing calculator while we avoided learning anything. Programming your own games onto a calculator is time-consuming, but learning TI-BASIC--the programming language used by TI-83s--is straightforward.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Press the "Prgm" button, and press the right arrow key twice to navigate to "NEW." Press "Enter."
-
2
Type the name of your program at the prompt; it's best to start out with "TEST" or some similar name. There is an eight-character limit. Press "Enter" when finished. You'll now be on the main coding screen.
-
-
3
Press "Prgm" again to call a list of functions available for programming. There are three separate categories at the top: CTL (control functions) I/O (input/output functions, i.e. dealing with variables) and EXEC (which runs another program inside your program). Familiarize yourself with all the options in each category.
-
4
Start every program by selecting "ClrHome," which is the eighth choice under I/O. This will clear the calculator screen before the program begins.
-
5
Display text or numbers by selecting "Disp," which is the third choice under I/O. Follow "Disp" with any text (which has to be in quotes) or any numbers (which don't require quotes).
-
6
Prompt the player for information using the "Input" command, the first choice under I/O. To ask for someone's name, for example, your program would read:
Input "NAME?",str1. The player would enter his name, which would be stored in a text variable called "str1." Variables containing text are called "strings," and on a TI-83 they can only be stored in 10 different prenamed string variables. To access them, press the "Vars" button, choose #7, "Strings," and select the string you want. To print the user's name back to them, you would simply add a line that looks like this:
Disp "YOUR NAME IS", str1. -
7
Create a "choose your own adventure"-style game using the "Menu" command, which is option C under CTL. The basic syntax is:
Menu("MENU TITLE",CHOICE1,1,"CHOICE2",2,"CHOICE3",3)
So for example, you could create a menu like this:
Menu("WHAT NOW?","GO WITH THEM,"1,"STAY HERE",2,"QUIT GAME",3). -
8
Use the "Menu" command in conjunction with the "Lbl" command to make it really powerful. Whenever the user selects a choice in the menu, he is automatically sent to the section of your program labeled by the choice he made. So in the above example, you could create an Lbl (option #9 under CTL) called "3," which ends the game. The code would look like this:
Lbl 3
Disp "GOODBYE"
Stop
Meanwhile, labels 1 and 2 would lead to sections of code filled with other menus, which would lead to other menus, and so on. -
9
End the game with the "Stop" command seen above, which is option F under CTL.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Want to go back and add a line of code above another line? Use the "Ins" (Insert) button by pressing "2nd" > "Del". The cursor on the screen will change from a flashing box to a flashing underline; press Enter to shift the entire program one line down.
Pressing the "Clear" button while viewing your code will delete the entire line that your cursor is currently on. If you only want to erase part of the line, use the "Del" button, or if you want to stop editing the program, press the "Quit" button (by pressing "2nd" > "Mode").
Resources
More Like This
Comments
-
never mind I figured it out.
-
For some reason I keep having the first question pop up before it displays the persons name.
