How to Make Calculator Games for TI-84

The powerful TI-84 is a platform to run simple games.

The TI-84 calculator is a powerful graphing calculator capable of solving even the most complex of equations for a variety of purposes. Physicists, statisticians, doctors and even high school students can benefit from the enhanced functionality and user interface of the TI-84 series calculators. With such a large pool of users, the TI-84's ability to run external applications and its own application creator have made this machine accessible to even novice programmers. Using the internal application creator of the TI-84, you can even make games to play during your spare time.

Instructions

1. Navigate to the Programs menu by pressing the "PRGM" key on the calculator, located below and to the left of the arrow keys.

2. Press the right arrow key twice to find the "New Program" menu and press "Enter."

3. Type a name for the program in the Program Editor. Alpha mode will be engaged when you see the "name=" field. This means that you can type the letters that appear above the calculators keys. To leave this mode and type numbers, press the "Alpha" key. Pressing the "Alpha" key again will return to Alpha mode. Press "Enter" when you've completed the name.

4. Type a colon to begin, if one hasn't automatically shown up. Begin typing the commands for your game. Every action that you want the calculator to take needs a command, and every command must be preceded by a colon. After the first command, press "Enter" to begin a new line, where a colon will automatically populate.

5. Press "2nd" then "Mode" to save the program and return to the home screen. To access the menu again, press "PRGM" to enter the Program menu.

6. Press the "Down" arrow to find your program in the program menu and press "Enter" to execute the program you've just created.

Tips & Warnings

• To edit a saved program, press "PRGM" then the right arrow once to access the edit program menu. From here, select your program and press enter to begin editing the program.

• Alternatively, more complex games can be downloaded or created on your computer, and then transferred over to the calculator using a link cable.

• If an error message appears, you will be given the option "Go to," which will take you to the line in the code where the error has occurred.

References

• Kutztown University Interactive Mathematics: TI-84 Keypad Layout
• Wiley: Bonus Chapter 5 - Creating Calculator Programs