As previously spotted by Cemetech members, a few months ago TI leaked information about a new graphing calculator, the TI-84 Evo. Today, that calculator has officially been released. In a form factor strongly resembling the TI-84 Plus CE, it appears to represent a significant step forward for this much-loved line of graphing calculators.

The headline features that the Amazon listing touts include:

• 50% larger graphing area - The graph has been expanded to be full-screen, instead of a smaller window within the 320x240-pixel LCD.
  
• Computer version included - Unlike previous calculators, an emulator is included. There's also a web-based file transfer application, similar to WebTILP and the TI-Nspire transfer webapp.
  
• USB-C included - as we had previously discovered, the now-obsolete mini-USB socket has been replaced with a universal USB-C socket for data transfer and charging.
  
• Upgradeable - Like every Flash-based graphing calculator since the TI-83 Plus, it supports upgrading the OS with new features (and patches for programming jailbreaks)
  
• Rechargeable - Without the calculator in-hand, we haven't yet confirmed if it uses the same rechargeable battery as the TI-84 Plus CE.
  
• 3x Processing Power - Matching one of the speculated options, the calculator appears to use an ARM Cortex CPU, finally retiring the z80 and ez80 family of CPUs that were used in three decades of TI-83 and TI-84 Plus graphing calculators. It's running at 156MHz, compared to the 48MHz of the older calculators. It appears likely that in an unexpected break from over 30 years of TI's operating system codebase, the OS has been re-implemented with new features natively on the ARM CPU rather than using an ez80 emulator to run an updated form of the TI-84 Plus CE operating system.

New screenshots found on Amazon, on TI's own website, and in a lightweight user guide on TI's website show that the interface has been substantially changed: menus use the "small font" instead of the classic larger font and have more explanatory text, the graphing menu has been redesigned, more help text appears in the status area at the top, and of course, the homescreen is now an icon-based menu of "applications". As soon as we get our hands on one of these calculators, we'll bring you a more complete comparison of the tools and capabilities of the TI-84 Evo versus the TI-84 Plus CE.



TI boasts that (unlike smartphones, Chromebooks, or tablets), the Evo offers "No online drift. No off-task detours," one of the main advantages that purpose-built graphing calculators still have versus smartphone or tablet-based calculators. We've confirmed that the Evo does have both Python and TI-BASIC programmability, like the TI-84 Plus CE Python Edition before it, and there are signs that some third-party apps may be supported. However, we are confident that no user C programmability or assembly programmability is included, the lack of colorful games from which may be part of this goal of being distraction-free. The TI-84 Plus CE's history was marked by third-party jailbreaks after C and assembly (ASM) programmability was removed from the TI-84 Plus CE in 2020. It remains to be seen whether any similar jailbreaks will be attempted or released for the TI-84 Plus CE to provide deeper programmability.



We'll share a hands-on look at the TI-84 Evo, and compare it to the TI-84 Plus CE and other calculators, as soon as we actually get our hands on a model. In the meantime, you can learn more from the following links, and be sure to add your discoveries and opinions in the attached topic.

More Information

• Buy the TI-84 Evo (Amazon, affiliate link)
  
• Buy the TI-84 Evo (Walmart)
  
• TI-84 Evo Introduction (TI Education)
  
• TI-84 Evo Guide (TI Education)

Just poking at the things currently published on their web site, it looks like perhaps "TI-Connect Evo" is in fact yet another update to the venerable TI-Connect and not a complete reimplementation. Notably it prints App version: 7.0.0.679 to the browser console when loaded, and I note that the current latest version of TI-Connect CE is 6.0.3.

It also refuses to run on Linux, even in an environment that should otherwise work fine assuming it only requires WebUSB (that is, it just throws up an 'Unsupported device' message when loaded in Chrome on Linux).
Code:
At least it's just sniffing the user-agent so that's not hard to work around. It'll also refuse to work on a machine that looks like a Mac that also has a touchscreen (navigator.MaxTouchPoints being nonzero), which seems uniquely horrible. (Maybe the intent is that Chrome on iOS is actually Safari in a trench coat and thus wouldn't work, but then why not just probe for WebUSB support?)

The page source has a few preloaded javascript files that don't end up used when it complains you're on an unsupported platform, but amusingly they seem to be two versions of the same thing, just one minified: ticonnect.js?v=VERSIONSTR and ticonnect.min.js?v=VERSIONSTR (yes, it literally puts 'VERSIONSTR' in the URL; presumably their cache-buster is not set up correctly). I examined the unminified one a little and it seems to be something compiled with emscripten based on a number of the strings and even comments in the unminified version.

It looks like they had some kind of existing abstraction for doing USB, and implemented a fairly small API in Javascript to enable their emscripten'd code to use it:

Code:

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..indeed just setting my user agent to Windows Chrome via the browser dev tools makes the app load, and I notice immediately that the permission dialog thrown up by the browser when you click the "Connect to calculator" button is for a serial device, not general USB. So the calculator seemingly acts as a USB CDC device, and the webapp only looks for a serial port attached to a USB device with VID 0x0451 and PID 0xe018.

Since it seems to be using serial, this may make it easier to have external peripherals through the USB port, potentially even in basic or py without asm drivers for the USB port

Let's gooo!

anyone seen it selling in europe anywhere?

Calcuso has it, EduWinkel too.

@Tari: yep it's actually using WebSerial (which interestingly is available as Preview in Firefox beta since a few days ago)

it still could be risc it still could be RISC-V

Like adriweb said, 2 places
https://www.calcuso.com/nl/ti-84-evo-t.html
https://www.eduwinkel.nl/nl/texas-instruments-ti-84-evo-t-grafische-rekenmachine.html

I did order yesterday from Eduwinkel, they have storage in Czechia and accepted my order (and money) from Finland so hoping it comes to me maybe in next week. Needed some translator tools as my Dutch is non excisting.
Probably amazon.de/.fr will have it soon as well as they sell lots of calcuso stuff.

Hmm... why should TI corner themselves into RISC-V instead of the more common ARM ISA, though ? TI is a large maker of ARM-based solutions, besides.

Code:


So TI continues to double down on it's faulty assertion that low-level embedded system programming on a niche device is a "distraction" and not a unique opportunity for some out of the box learning. You can tell that that "distraction" line is a subtle dig at us and reflects the same hostility they've acted with over the years. And also the false premise that C and assembly are only for "games", when they know that: games can be done in TI Basic and Python too, and games are only a small group of what gets done with C/asm. It's far past time for something else; something that embraces low level programming instead of sacrificing it to the coffers of security through broad restrictions obscuring unresolved flaws.

In all honesty, as long as TI continues this I don't see myself getting excited about a new calculator again.

Its confirmed Arm, adriweb cracked theirs open and showed pics, then someone (Idk who) found that the CPU is Arm.

Also more information that I've gathered on #cemetech that I haven't seen posted.

1) Better font.

2) The basic interpreter was re written from scratch.


2.1) Basic was intentionally slowed to CE M rev speed.
2.2) Ommiting ) does not speed up basic.
2.3) No more 1 arg sub(). (And other basic quarks removed)
2.4) No more clock in basic.

3) Files are no longer the .8xp format , the format has switched to something new


3.1) You cannot link from the Evo to older calcs.
3.2) Ti connect Evo only works with the Evo.
3.3) Adriweb is working on a basic converter to convert 8xps to Evo format.

4) The LCD is similar to the one in the CE.
5) The Battery is the CE one without the problems. (No I cannot elaborate , someone else can)

Anyone who knows more than me feel free to correct mistakes I made.

Edit spelling