hello, this is a instructable explaining the basics of programming on your TI-83 84 calculator. Also, i could make other instructables on more specific things, depending on the feedback. Sorry about the pictures, i'm bad with a camera.

Step 1: Create Your Program

ok, first, you need to create your program. first hit the program button, then keep going to the right until you get to the new section as seen on the picture. name your program whatever you want, i named mine test. you should end up at this screen (picture 2).

Step 2: Begin the Program

now you will start your program with a basic function. First, hit the program button then go one section to the right, near the bottom, beside the number 8, is an item called clrhome, select it. this will make the person using the program's home screen turn blank, so make sure you have nothing important there before starting the program. Anyway, hit enter to start a new line and hit program, then the second section, the the third one will be disp, this will allow you to display any text or numbers, after you insert a disp tag, type "HELLO" with the quotation marks, this means that after starting the program, it will display hello. So now your program will start, clear the screen, and say HELLO, but if you start, it will make the text then automatically end the program. to prevent this, we will put in a pause tag. the pause tag is found if you hit the program button, then scroll down to number 8 and there it is, as seen in the picture. Once you insert this tag, if you start your program, it will wait until you hit enter for it to be done.

Step 3: Test #1

Ok, so now it is time to test your program, first start on the home screen, go to programs and hit your program so it comes up like in the first picture, once you have that, hit enter, your screen should look like the second picture. And that is your current program!

Step 4: Adding a Menu to Your Program

Ok, so now your program displays HELLO, we are next going to insert a menu, go to the screen with your program, and go to the second section, edit, select your program from there and it will bring you to the programming screen. once there, hit program and go down until you see menu, shown in the first picture, select it and then enter this(nothing in the parentheses), "OPTIONS",(this is the title of your menu)"again",(this is your first option)A,(this is the label your first option will send you to)"Quit",(your second option)B(your 2nd label) if this is too confusing, just look at the second picture. Now your program will have a menu with two options, but they wont go anywhere, if you select them, your calculator will just give you a label error, meaning there isn't an A or B label for your options to lead you to. We will now fix that. if you look at the third picture, you will see that at the top is a label A tag (lbl A) this means that if you choose AGAIN, then you will automatically restart the program. the way to insert a lbl tag is, first go to the top of your program and hit insert (2nd then del) and hit enter, this will make another line for a lbl tag. after you have done that, hit program and beside #9 there is a tag called lbl, select it and immediately after it put the letter A. That should give you a spot for the again spot to send you. Now for the lbl B. put a lbl tag and a B at the bottom of your program. afterwards, create a disp tag that says(in quotation marks) GOODBYE and after that, a pause tag. Now we need a stop tag, this will make your program automatically end, first hit program, then scroll down to stop and select it. now if you hit exit in your menu, you will see GOODBYE and then it will end itself (after you hit enter). So now we have covered all that I will cover in this instructable, time to test it.

Step 5: Program Test #2

So now your program is essentially finished, all that is left is to test it, use the same process as in program test #1 to start your program, it should look like picture 1 hit enter to get to your menu (picture 2), and first select AGAIN to restart your program (picture 3 should come up) after hitting enter again, you get to the menu again, select quit this time (picture 4) you should end up with picture 5, and then after hitting enter, you will get a "Done" message, if all this works correctly, you have successfully created a program for your calculator. If you have any requests or comments, or praise....especially praise feel free to post them or contact me at thejackinator@live.com (also here is a picture of my cat)