TI 83 BASIC Tutorial

Chapter 2 | Table of contents

Your First Steps in Programming

Well, you've made it to chapter 2... It wasn't that hard, was it? anyway if you know how to enter programs into the TI-83, you can go to chapter 3, or you can just read this section as review.

Getting the programming screen

At the prompt (the cursor, telling you to type in your next equation), press[PRGM]. This show take you to the programming screen...

Now your first program

We are now going to make your first program. It won't do much, but it is just to get you use to using the editor built into TI-83. First use the right arrow button to scroll to NEW. Now press [ENTER]. Now type in CH1P1. Note: You do not need to press [2ND] [ALPHA] if you already in alpha mode , that is you have a little A in the cursor box) ([2ND] [ALPHA] [prgm] [^] [ALPHA] [1] [ALPHA] [8] [1] ). Then press [ENTER]

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Now to enter our equation. At the : type 1 + 1. Then press [2ND] [MODE] (quit) to quit. This saves the program.

Running your first program

See spot, see Spot run... Spot had an error!

At the user screen (from now on, the user screen is the screen where you can enter equations) press [PRGM] and then scroll to CH1P1, and press [ENTER]. You will be exited to the user screen. Now press [ENTER] again. The program will run and output to screen the number two.
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Editing

Now we will go back and edit our program to calculate 1+1+2+2. To do this, at the user screen press [PRGM]. Now scroll to EDIT. Scroll to CH1P1 and press [ENTER]. < TD>

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Copying Programs

Now let's say that we have a program that has a piece of code that we want. Now we want to reuse this code in another program. You can copy code from one program to another. First make a program called CH2P1. Then go and press [2ND] [STR>] (RCL). Then press[PRGM] and scroll to EXEC. Then go and scroll to CH2P1 and press [ENTER].You now how to copy programs. (Now edit it with [DEL] and (INS) keys)

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But what if I get an error?

Sometimes while programming you get an error. Most of the time they are syntax errors. That is a typo. If you get and error screen, you can edit the program or quit.

Your assignment

No, this is not homework. If you want more practice, you can type the following programs in.
1. Type the following in:

PRGM:CH2N1
:1+(4+4)-2+((3*4)/2)

You should get 5 for an answer.

2. Which of the following programs will produce an error?
(A)
PRGM:CH2N2
:3+3-2-

(B)
PRGM:CH2N3
:9-9

Program (A) will produce an error

Time to move on...

So what did you think? Please E-mail me your suggestions (good or bad) to jwtatay@wi.rr.com.

With this first lesson mastered, you may move on to Chapter 3.
Or you may go back to the table of contents.