Python for the TI-84 - Powerful Python programs and games for the TI-84 Plus CE Python graphing calculator contains program examples from multiple subject areas to help students and professionals alike learn how to use Python programs on their TI-84 calculator. Several fine people at Texas Instruments helped make this book project possible. In general, it is good that Texas Instruments has come to understand the power and leverage of Python in their calculators built for today's students and tomorrow's technical innovators.
Any TI-84 calculator is a very powerful learning tool, but with the addition of Python in your TI-84 Plus CE Python calculator, its mind-expanding capabilities are truly awesome!
The goal of this book is to put the power of Python at your fingertips with real, working programs. There are a lot of short, but VERY useful programs that you can use "right out of the box", and in putting them to use, you'll learn a lot about Python by actually using Python.
Python, the world's most popular programming language, is an ideal language for handheld calculators. The syntax is concise, easy to read, and easy to understand, even for beginners. The language is non-proprietary, so it runs everywhere, even on desktop and laptop computers with only minor modifications from what you'll find in this book, and even then only in a very few cases.
Python handles number crunching well, and with its lists, strings, and other data structures, it powerfully handles a very wide variety of programming tasks. Perhaps the biggest advantage of learning Python via your programmable calculator is that this knowledge will be applicable and useful no matter what computers or systems you might work with in the future. Learn it once and you'll have a new life skill of great value.
An excellent way to leverage Python in your calculator is to define functions in a "program" file. When you run the program, nothing visibly happens. The function definitions are effectively added to your calculator's toolbox, for your use while working in the shell. Here's is an example of the contents of a short program that defines a function named add().
def add(x,y):
return x+y
After you run this in the shell you can type something like "add(3,4)" to get 7, or to add any two numbers or variables together. More complicated functions can add some powerful new capabilities to your computation toolbox!
Many of the programs in Python for the TI-84 were created as sets of function definitions to keep the programs very short and easier to enter.
Take a look at the vectors program near the end of chapter 6 for a good example of how to add helpful instructions, while just defining functions for later use in the shell.
The standard way to create standalone programs in most programming languages is to prompt the user for data, and then to process it in a meaningful way to create output for the user. Python for the TI-84 has several programs where you are asked to type data in response to a prompt at run time, and then the calculations begin.
Take a look at the primes program, also in chapter 6, for an example where the program asks you to enter the starting point to look for primes, and the number of those primes to find.
There are a few other useful I/O tricks presented in several of the programs in this book. Discover for yourself how much fun it can be to program your own MAZE or to calculate the MOON phase on any given date in history.
Put the power of Python in your TI-84 plus CE calculator. You'll be amazed at the power you unleash!
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