• Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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    3 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.

    • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I could never remember the formula to calculate compound interest.

      But I had no trouble writing a for loop.

      • BluesF@lemmy.world
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        3 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.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          3 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.

          • VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works
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            3 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

    • Khanzarate@lemmy.world
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      3 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.

      • UNY0N@lemmy.world
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        3 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.

      • thejml@lemm.ee
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        3 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.

        • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 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

          • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
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            3 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.

            • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              3 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.

        • piecat@lemmy.world
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          3 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.

    • ShunkW@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

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

    • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world
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      3 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