DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM
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DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM |
Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus.fr (Design Validations Tests)
| Date of introduction: | Never | Display technology: | LCD dot matrix |
| New price: | Display size: | 8 * 16 characters | |
| Size: | 7.5" x 3.3" x
0.85" 190 x 84 x 22 mm3 |
||
| Weight: | 7.4 ounces, 208 grams | Serial No: | DVT-117 |
| Batteries: | 4*AAA + SR44 (35mA) | Date of manufacture: | mth 12 year 2012 |
| AC-Adapter: | Origin of manufacture: | China (K) | |
| Precision: | 14 | Integrated circuits: | ASIC: TI-REF 84PLCR/TA1 Flash: MX29L800A Display: Novatek NT7564H |
| Memories: | |||
| Program steps: | 24k Bytes, 480k Bytes Flash ROM | Courtesy of: | Xavier Andréani |
This
TI-83 Plus.fr with the serial number DVT-117 was used for Design Validation
Tests (DVT - learn more about the
Five Engineering Stages) of the later
TI-83 Plus.fr introduced in June 2013.
Compared with the original TI-83
Plus.fr introduced already in 2008 sports this design the housing of the
TI-84 Plus Silver Edition with its
snap-on faceplates. We know a similar story
with the TI-73 Explorer introduced in 2006
and its successor TI-73 Explorer from
2009.
Dismantling
this TI-83 Plus.fr Prototype manufactured in December 2012 by
Kinpo Electronics, Inc. reveals a
design using the components and Operating System of the recent TI-84
Plus:
| • TI-REF84PLCR/TA1: Z80 microprocessor, RAM, USB-Port and supporting logic • Macronix MX29L800A: 1M Bytes Flash ROM • Novatek NT7564H: Single-chip 64*120 pixel display driver |
The
picture on the right gives an enhanced view of the ASIC that clocks the internal Z80
microprocessor with 15 MHz and incorporates the RAM, USB-Port and logic. Learn more about the Hardware Architecture of TI’s Graphing Calculators. Please
notice the smaller package of the new TI-REF 84PLCR/TA1 ASIC compared with the
previous TI-REF 83PLUSB/TA2 or TI-REF 84PLUSB/TA3 found in the TI-84 Plus family
manufactured between 2004 and 2007.
Recently members of the Graphing Calculator Programming community under the lead
of Xavier Andréani made a very interesting discovery:
| • All TI-84 Plus / S.E. with the TA2 or TA3 ASIC have access
to 128k Bytes RAM. • All TI-84 Plus / S.E. with the TA1 ASIC have access to only 48k Bytes RAM using the same assembly commands. |
This
TI-83 Plus.fr Prototype manufactured in December 2012 makes use of
one Macronix Flash-ROM with 1M Bytes capacity while the final product sports 2M
Bytes.
The
driver circuit of the LC-Display was traditionally manufactured by Toshiba for
Texas Instruments' graphing calculators. This
TI-83 Plus.fr manufactured in 2012
shows with the Novatek NT7564H
a one-by-one replacement. It is just a bare chip
mounted on a flexible piece of circuit board attached between the display and
the main PCB.
A serial port of the calculators allows the connection to the
Calculator-Based Laboratory system CBL, its successor CBL
2, the Calculator-Based Ranger CBR and its successor CBR
2.
ROM-Versions:
2.55MP (January 11, 2011, actual in
May 2013)
You can check the ROM version of your TI-83 Plus.fr using the following key sequence and reading the number on your screen:
