In order to help you the best we can, here are a few pieces of advice on what to do or not do when (and before) asking questions
Firstly, we strongly advise against installing Flash Apps on your calculator (especially localization extensions, which are mostly useless, consume memory, often crash and make for a lot of incompabilities in TI-Basic programs).
Note: almost all TI-92+ programs should work on the V200, which is very similar to a TI-92+ HW2
(in case you have problems, see below for advice)
That said, on with the advice :
1- Read the documentation carefully. You should have the full manual in pdf format if the paper one is not complete (most frequent with recently bought calculators) : it is on the CD that shipped with your TI. As a last resort, the manual and some tutorials are available on the TI website, there.
2- Read the FAQ. It answers many questions, some of which keep being asked for here
3- Check the old topics for an answer to your question, or a similar one. The yAronet search engine (the magnifying glass icon at the top-right corner) is here to help you
. (Also, the webmaster is planning to enhance it ASAP, check it out every now and then).
4- Read the readme files that come with the programs you use, they often happen to provide useful information
.
Second part: a few very commonly asked questions.
*How do I know what hardware version I have ?
You can know this from the same place you get the AMS version. From the home screen, press F1 and select the "About" item. If you have a HW2 or later, it will be written in the dialog box. If nothing is written, then you have a HW1.
*What is AMS, and where can I download the latest version?
The Advanced Mathematical Software (AMS) is the operating system that is shipped with your calculator. You can get the latest version from the Texas Instrument website (http://education.ti.com/). If you are looking for older versions, you can send a mail to ti-cares@ti.com. In case you were wondering, distributing the AMS is illegal, so you may not put it on your website.
Note: do NOT try to install an AMS version previous to 1.05 on a HW2 calc, or previous to 2.07 on a v200. It just won't work, and may be difficult to undo after.
*What kernel/shell should I use?
A kernel is needed to run a lot of games.
The best kernel available is PreOS, especially if your calculator is running AMS version 2.03 or later. You can find PreOS on the Time To Team (T3) website.
This kernel provides the same functionalities as DoorsOS or UniversalOS, both of which are really old and not maintained anymore, plus some new ones, which are sometimes useful, or might become so in the future. If you install PreOS, you do not need DoorsOS nor UniversalOS !
For HW2/V200 owners (this will be the case if you bought your calculator recently): when installing PreOS, take care to install the version that includes Kevin Kofler's h220xTSR 1.11, otherwise you may have problems when running some programs.
A shell is a program that allows you to navigate through the folders and files of your TI. A commonly used one is TICTEX, but there are lots of other ones on the web.
Finally, if you have a HW1 (see previous question for how to find this out), you should install MaxMem (MaxMem) so that you can use all the archive memory that is available on your calc.
*How can I read texts on my TI?
You can either use the reader integrated to TICTEX, or install TGV or uview. The latter is available on TiCalc (http://www.ticalc.org/). Alternatively, you can use the new HIB-Text, which is already online, although not completely finished. It is intended to replace TxtRider, which is known to be quite unstable with recent calculators and AMS versions.
*I have a V200, and I have trouble making some TI92+ programs work
- This can occasionally occur. You can try to use a special program patcher that should solve your problem v200ExePatcher.
- If you download old TI92+ programs, you will find that a lot of PPG compressed programs will not work with the included launcher. A universal launcher is available in the TICT-Tools suite (TICT-Tool-Suite).
A few additional simple rules:
- Do not flood other users with private messages, it has no effect but to annoy them.
- Be polite. If nobody answers your question, it probably means you did not read the documents this page refers to (and that's a bad thing)
- Only post a new topic once, and in the right place. Posting the same question twice annoys the users and is considered rude. Thus, it reduces your chances to get an answer.
- Do not ask for advice on which games are best. Try them yourself
- If you do not read this document or do not follow its advice, do not complain if the others ask you to RTFM.
- Also, do not put loads of smileys in your first post. It's really annoying.
Thanks for reading all up to this point. Welcome to this board!
