• @[email protected]
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    1822 months ago

    If a kid is smart enough to figure this out and make it work for them, they’re gonna be fine…

    • Maestro
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      892 months ago

      Yes, but the kids buying the modded devices may not be

    • @[email protected]
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      802 months ago

      Back when we were doing quadratic equations; I wrote a program on my TI-84 that would ask which parts of the equation you already had, and would fill in the rest for you.

      My teacher liked it so much he bought a transfer cable for those calculators so he could get a copy for himself. Then used to to grade tests.

      • @Khanzarate
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        442 months ago

        I did the same thing. It was allowed in general, with the correct thought, “if you can code it yourself, you know the content”

        I had another “program” that would fail to run but that’s because I wrote notes into it. Doubt that was allowed.

          • @piecat
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            2 months ago

            Oh I would have been so pissed. I was programming on my calculator 24/7 instead of my classes.

            I wrote a sudoku “editor”

            I put that in quotes because I had a grid that could be navigated, arrows moved, storing the numbers, had number entry down. And when it was time to implement the solver, I learned the hard way what p vs np is.

          • @[email protected]
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            62 months ago

            They did that here too, but students would use a cheat program that made it look like teachers were resetting it, but really the memory was safe

            • @[email protected]
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              12 months ago

              I don’t remember if they fully closed the loopholes, but there are inputs that programs cannot catch unless you actually replace the OS.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 months ago

                My memory is pretty hazy but the cheat application emulated the process that teachers used to do a system reset.

                Iirc, it let you press menu, select reset, confirm, and showed the (fake) confirmation screen.

                Also IIRC, you had to install it from Mirage OS, which I don’t think was an OS (?) but rather an app that everyone had to play games from.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 months ago

          I did that but made it return success before it got to the notes. You had to scroll to get to the notes, but it looked innocuous before that.

        • @UNY0N
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          12 months ago

          Oh god I remember doing that too. Those “programs” were the best. I even mad sure to make the code long, so that even if someone thought to take a look at the code they would have to scroll for a while to find the notes.

      • @linearchaos
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        172 months ago

        I could never remember the formula to calculate compound interest.

        But I had no trouble writing a for loop.

          • @linearchaos
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            12 months ago

            I would just rebuild something in my head like this every time.

            While i < n; k=k+(k*r); i++;

            You’d think I could remember k(1+r)^n but when you posted, it looked as alien as it felt decades ago.

            • @[email protected]
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              52 months ago

              The use of for makes sense.

              k=0; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k+f(i); is the same as k=\sum_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)

              and

              k=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k*f(i); is the same as k=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)

              In our case, f(i)=1+r and k=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k*(1+r); is the same as k=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} (1+r) = (1+r)^n

              All of that just to say that exponentiation is an iteration of multiplication, the same way that multiplication is an iteration of addition

        • @BluesF
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          22 months ago

          What always annoyed me was having to draw charts by hand. Just let me put the data in a computer for god’s sake, the rest of the working is there… I did actually write a python function for one of my assignments which was fine, but they told me not to do it for the exam.

      • @TheEighthDoctor
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        42 months ago

        I made one to decompose polynomials it was very good because it showed all the steps it was literally just copy what’s on the calc to the page

      • @ShunkW
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        -32 months ago

        So you didn’t get the transfer cable with your calculator? Smells fishy

        • @TriflingToad
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          82 months ago

          you can code directly on the device, it’s just a PAIN to do compared to moving the files over

          • @[email protected]
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            12 months ago

            Can confirm, as someone who spent multiple study halls trying to program a top down shooter on his calculator

    • @roofuskit
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      82 months ago

      As someone who was a kid who would do things like this to avoid putting in the work, no this kid will probably not be fine.