For the more immoral of you out there, or for those of us who do not like Tetris being deleted from there calculators, I present... How to Cheat in High School Math Classes. This is not meant to condone cheating in the sense of looking at someone else's paper, rather to help people who want to keep programs they've written themselves from being destroyed.

Anyone who has taken a High School math course knows that you have to have a graphing calculator and that you have to clear the memory before each test. This is extremely annoying if you have programs you wrote yourself on your calculator, or if you have games that you want to keep. Games can help you waste time during class, so you want as many of those as you can keep.

So if you are using a TI-86 all you have to do is write a little basic program like this:

:ClLCD

:Outpt(4,6,"Mem cleared")

:Outpt(5,6,"Defaults set")

:Pause

Remember to always set the contrast of the calculator to it's default so that it will look like you actually did reset the memory.

This node is a result of me being angry at a teacher for making me clear my memory when I need certain programs for another class. Use it wisely.

For those of with Sharp EL-9300 graphics calculators, I wrote a similar program, available at http://daa.com.au/~trs80/prog/alldata.html (I'd copy it here, but this node is too short to contain it). It's an almost perfect rendition, except that the last column is missing (it's not addressable from user code), and you don't actually press any key to continue, since there's no function to do that either.

For those of you with too much time, I also have a version of Blackjack and Drugwar to waste your time with. I certainly did during the long, boring hours of high school.

Note that you can also keep notes in your calculator and cheat in things other than maths: common chemical reactions for Chemistry, material properties for Physics etc.

For me, this program was ultimately useless, since the calculators weren't reset in the final examination of any of the subjects that allowed them - in fact, you were allowed to bring in 2 sheets of notes to compensate for the fact that you could store notes in them, and some students might not be able to afford them. On the other hand, you could bring in up to 2 graphics calculators and 6 scientific calculators if you really thought it necessary.

For a TI-83 Plus, there is a somewhat simpler way. You can go into Memory (2nd + the plus button), go to Mem Mgmt/Del (2), go to all (1), and there will be a list of all programs, lists, matrices, etc. Scroll up and down with the arrow keys to what you want to save, press enter, and an asterisk will appear. Congratulations! You have now archived your goods. When the RAM is "cleared," these programs will remain. Very useful, but only when the teacher is using the "RAM cleared" screen to verify the clearing.

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