By Kent Yang | Staff Writer
Image from Amazon
Disclaimer: The Mount Observer does not encourage cheating or academic dishonesty in any way, this article is intended for educational purposes only.
If you’ve ever taken Algebra, Calculus, Chemistry, Statistics, or Physics in high school or college, chances are you’ve used a Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus at some point. Released in June 2004, the TI-84 Plus quickly became America’s favorite calculator. Compared to its predecessor, the TI-83 Plus, the TI-84 Plus boasted three times the memory and a processor that was over twice as fast. It featured 480 kilobytes of flash memory, 24 kilobytes of RAM, a link port for data transfers, 13 preloaded software applications, seven different graphing styles, and advanced statistics functions, all of which were crucial to student success. Today, the TI-84 Plus remains widely used and is considered the “best budget calculator” at $97 by many reviewers.
On September 14, 2024, a tech YouTuber named ChromaLock published a video showcasing the “Ultimate Cheating Device,” featuring a modified TI-84 Plus. On the surface, the modified TI-84 Plus looked identical to a standard, unmodified version. However, upon opening the device, you’d notice several modifications. These include integrated circuit boards, such as the Speed Studio ESP32-C3, which allows the device to connect to Wi-Fi, along with numerous other electronic components.
Besides the hardware, ChromaLock developed custom firmware for the calculator, called the “TI-32.” Within the text files of this custom firmware are lines of code that should be familiar to anyone who has taken Computer Science I or other programming courses at MWCC.
So how does the device work? Once the modified calculator is connected to the internet, it will be also connected to artificial intelligence powered by ChatGPT. When users input math problems, it sends that math problem to ChatGPT, which returns answers displayed on the screen. Some additional features the custom firmware gives you are the ability to download notes, cheat sheets, and games. Be aware that even if the user goes into test mode or reset the calculator to factory settings, there is an option that will allow modifications to still be present.
Overall, from a technical standpoint, this is an amazing feat. To take a 20-year-old design and turn it into something completely new proves the sky is the limit of one’s imagination.
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