Texas Instruments TI-83 Premium CE

Texas Instruments announced on January 27, 2015 a colorful addition to the TI-84 Plus family of graphing calculators - the new TI-84 Plus CE and successor of the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition introduced just 2 years earlier.

It features full-color capabilities, a high-resolution, back-lit screen, rechargeable batteries and an updated operating system in a housing 30 percent thinner and 30% lighter than the outgoing mode and yet sporting six times the memory and operating at three times the speed.

This TI-83 Premium CE was developed for France and sports a "Press-to-Test" mode to delete parts of the Memory and disable Archives, giving the teacher with a small LED a visual feedback.

With Python making its way into the calculator market, Texas Instruments made early in 2019 an external module for the TI-83 Premium CE available, that allows it to run programs written in Python. The TI-83 CE Premium Edition Python introduced in June 2019 integrated the Python Interpreter into the Graphing calculator in a rather unconventional way.

Comparing this TI-83 Premium CE manufactured in November 2015 by Kinpo Electronics, Inc. in the Philippines with a TI-84 Plus CE manufactured in the same era reveals only minor differences. The design sports still 3 chips:

• ET 2014-01 instead a ET 2014-00: eZ80 microprocessor, 256k Bytes Static RAM, USB-Port 
    and supporting logic
• Winbond Electronics Corporation W29GL032C: 4M Bytes Flash ROM
• Ilitek ILI9335: Single-chip 320*240 pixel display driver

The picture on the right gives an enhanced view of the ASIC that clocks the eZ80 microprocessor with 48 MHz and incorporates the RAM, USB-Port and logic. Learn more about the Hardware Architecture of TI’s Graphing Calculators.

This TI-83 Premium CE manufactured in November 2015 makes use of one Winbond W29GL032C Flash ROM with 4M Bytes capacity.

While the early members of the TI-84 Plus calculator family use AAA-sized alkaline batteries, accommodate the Color versions an internal Li-ion battery with a capacity of 1,200 mAh and a voltage of 3.7 Volt for a typical operating time of 50 hours. A USB type wall charger is included with each unit but for classrooms is the TI-84 Plus CE Charging Station available. It holds up to 10 calculators and charges them with two small contacts located in the front of the calculator.

The TI-83 Premium CE dropped the serial port known from earlier members of the TI-84 Plus family and doesn't support the ViewScreen panel and the TI-Presenter with the Presentation Link Adapter anymore. The USB interface of the TI-83 Premium CE calculator connects directly with the Calculator-Based Ranger CBR 2 introduced in 2004, the Vernier EasyLink and EasyTemp systems.

The TI-SmartView™ CE Emulator Software for the TI-83 Premium CE allows educators to project a representation of the calculator’s display to the entire class.

The TI Connect™ CE computer software allows for connectivity between a computer and the TI-83 Premium CE to transfer data, update the Operating System (OS), download Calculator Software Applications (Apps), and to edit and load programs to the calculator

The new operating system 5.x of the TI-83 Premium CE is based on the OS 4.0 known from the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition but they are not compatible due to the different microprocessors used.

Don't miss the TI-84 Plus CE-T sold in some European countries.

ROM-Versions:

5.0.0 (March 16, 2015)

You can check the ROM version of your TI-83 Premium CE using the following key sequence and reading the number on your screen:

[2nd] [MEM] [1]

Information provided by Xavier Andréani.

Exam acceptance:

The TI-84 Plus CE is permitted (as of June 20, 2017) for use on SAT, ACT, PSAT and AP exams.

If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.

© Joerg Woerner, August 2, 2017. No reprints without written permission.