The Latest TI Calculator Firmware Removes The Ability To Run Homebrew Programs

TI series graphing calculators have a strong hobbyist community because of their program support, but with a recent change to the firmware, they just lost a lot of their appeal. Texas Instruments is pulling support for homebrew applications written in assembly and C for their extremely popular TI-84 Plus CE. Once you install the latest firmware for the device, it will lose access to those apps, and you won’t be able to downgrade to restore that functionality as the ability to down-grade is also being removed.

Texas Instruments has explained that this was to “prioritize learning and minimize any security risks.” So basically, its to help prevent cheating. EdTech President Peter Balyta hopes that the community would shift its focus to advancing Python development and suggest ideas that would satisfy the needs of developers, schools, and students.

The move is going to make teachers happy, as they will have to worry less about their students using calculator apps to cheat on tests, enthusiasts are pretty upset about it. This move drastically reduces the amount of control that programmers will have over their apps for the platform. As things are, this might not have the effect the company intends it to have. Some people managed to have already found methods to bypass it.