Hello, everyone.

I'm in college and took an exam today. The proctor took my calculator and did something to it. He thought out loud as he punched the buttons. I want to say it was, "2nd, 7, 1, 2, enter," or something like that. I wish I had paid more attention. It cleared the calculator or something before the test - whatever, that's fine. I was allowed typed notes for the exam and I simply wanted the calculator for crunching numbers. My problem is that now I have another final exam that I am allowed to use calculator and have notes on, but I can NOT add notes to my calculator. He permanently did something to the calculator that I cannot fix by a reset or clearing the RAM. I am at a loss. If I can't program my calculator correctly, I may as well drop out of college. Also, if this guy bricked my $160 calculator, I owe him an after-hours visit to collect.

I'm using ConvText.exe to convert notes to calculator language. Then I'm using TI Connect CE to transfer the notes. All of that seems to be normal and working. As I've done many times before. However, when going to "prgrm" on the calculator, all it has listed is "EXEC, EDIT, and NEW." There is no "NOTES" like there used to be. I don't know WTF he did, but I am absolutely livid that he did this to my personal device. If I would have known he would do this, I would have just used a school calculator or Excel. F***!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much in advance for the solution to this atrocity.

All he did was delete whatever programs were installed on the calculator -- it's not that big of a deal. Just send this program to your calculator: https://www.cemetech.net/downloads/files/1358/x1358

Dang, guys. Posted just a hair too soon.

I figured out that whatever he did, deleted my NOTES and TFILES applications from the calculator.

I have now restored those to my calculator and am able to properly send notes to my calculator.

One thing I did differently, though. I saved those two files, NOTES and TFILES, to "Archive" and not "RAM." Having done this, will this allow the files to remain on the calculator no matter what the POS proctor does to it?

Thanks!!!

No. Archive is cleared on a memory reset as well.

Well, at least now I know what it takes to be able to program notes again.

Does the sequence sound familiar that he used? The 7-1-2 and enter? This guy is probably no older than 19 years old and is probably a genius hacker.

Thanks, Mateo.

As Mateo reminded me, 2nd and Plus opens the memory menu, and then 7 1 2 opens the memory reset menu. There's also a test mode that doesn't erase programs, only temporarily disables them. Naturally, I've never heard of a teacher that bothers. For believe ir or not, although you paid for the calculator, the teachers think it's their's to do what they please with. TI is more than happy to help them; TI markets the devices to teachers, and views the opinion of students as being of secondary importance compared to what teachers want. You're just the poor schmuck who has to pay.

DrDnar,

Ahhh, I see. I followed the sequence. Makes more sense now that I see what he did. I did a little test....that sequence erases the RAM. Having stored these programs and notes under archive, they do remain intact despite doing a RAM delete. Good to know. I'm sure it's not failsafe and may have to reinstall programs again someday because of an overzealous proctor, but good to know nonetheless.

I suppose I should be used to being a schmuck that has to pay. It seems everyone and their brother has their hand out and I'm putting money in it. lol

Thanks, friends!

Super awesome forum with very knowledgeable and helpful members! I look forward to exploring the website and the forums.

Take care!

Generally speaking, you should always put data you care about in Archive; RAM can be cleared for a variety of reasons (including mundane things like completely dead batteries). The MEMORY->712 sequence is specifically a RAM clear, which will delete everything in RAM but not touch anything in Archive (as you seem to have discovered).

While there is an option to erase all Archive memory as well (from memory that would be MEM->722), my experience is that teachers/proctors will never use this which is rather silly. They will only clear RAM, which is completely useless if you know enough to store things in Archive. So it's not incorrect to say Archive can be cleared on a reset, but it is somewhat misleading because this is (at least in my experience) not actually the case.