Well, I have a laptop so I can't leave anything plugged in for long if I am going to use things...about a week tops.

I don't think I have used my calc lately--I have a 83+SE and I don't remember where it is and my 84+SE has dead batteries and is sitting on my desk.

At the begining of the school year, I will have to update them all the way and put in new batteries and get nicer cases...Then I will back them up...Lots of linking :)

I've had my old serial link connected to my desktop since I got it before I started 9th grade. So, that would be 4 years and counting... Although I haven't used it in a few months, since I got my laptop and started using the USB that came with my 84+SE (no serial there anyway).

I hate not having serial ports. When I got my present computer, it did not have any, so I had to get a USB link, but TI's drivers do not support the TI-86, so I had to use TiLP, which would have been okay, except that the computer cannot go into hibernate mode with the TiLP-compatible driver enabled, so I had to disable it every time I turned my computer off. Now I only use my TI-92+ very much, so it is no longer a problem, but it would have been much easier to just get a USB to serial adaptor. :)

The TI-Connect program supports the 86!

<sudden realization>

You're using Windows. Hehe.

<sudden realization>
He's using Wine from inside a emulated linux enviroment inside OS X which is being emulated on an OS 6 mac.

I got my 84+ SE in August (2004) and only plugged in the directusb cable when I needed to transfer programs. Then, I had a silverlink plugged in for quite a while during school(not for long periods of time though) because some program on my calc had corrupted the ROM to the extent that the directusb refused to work (I'm still puzzled about that one...) Then, I recently got a new computer and the directusb cable has been plugged into it ever since. (~just under a month and counting)

It was probably the computer's fault.
Once, my link refused to work for about two weeks, until I yanked it out and plugged it in. :)

I have probably only once in my whole calc usage have I had it connected because right now in the back of My computer i see 2 black USB (84+89 Series) connected to the computer, I am assuming it has been about a month ago since i disconnected my cable cause i hate hitting my head on the wood when I connect it

I had my Black serial link hooked up to my computer for about 2 years, then I finally got link software other than TI-GraphLink, so I could use my SilverLink. That's been hooked up for about a year.

Is it posible to wire a cell phone into a 83+ so that it can be used as a calc and a phone?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Sorry, couldn't help it...

Um, no. If you really wanted to, you could tape them together and have them run from the same battery (of course with voltage conversions in between), but that's sort of pointless and anything more complex (like really combining them so you could dial on the calc, etc.) would require serious knowledge of the internals of the calc and that particular phone - it's definitely possible, but not worth it either. Just stick your cellphone in one pocket, and the calc in another.

I know the calc down to the last wire I can do almost anything with it excepte wire in a cell phone.

Yeah, but the cell phone is the hard part. If you have a good background in electronics, it's not hard to figure out the calc (just a simple regulator, the keypad matrix/link port/etc. hooked into the I/O ports of the processor, and the ROM/RAM chips on the address and data lines), but knowing the deepest internal workings of a cell phone is much more complex.

I also know evwery thing about cell phones

Unless you know every trace on that PCB, and every line of code in the internal firmware (almost impossible, since the manufacturers obviously don't have documentation on the internals), it would be very hard to connect, unless you wire a shift register to the link port, and use the outputs to work the keypad or something.

And even if you did have the calc controlling the keypad that way, it would work, but it would be completely pointless, since you would then have a calc taped to a phone with wires running between them. As I said in the first post, it would be much easier just to put the calc in one pocket, and the phone in another. ;-)

Speaking of telecommunication via calculator has anyone ever built Micheal Jans RT link?I am planning on doing it but i havent ordered the parts yet. They are really hard to find. I only foungd one place that has the transistors wihtout a mininmum order of like 200$.
"matelectronics"
If anyone here has done it yet tell me how it worked out,Im interested to know

Get a pocket PC and an emulator (I think there was one...)

The cell phone and the calculator are completely different LOL so there would be no point connecting them!

I move for a moratorium on voting for "mathmatical beauty" (curently #5), as its author has total disregard for spelling and capitalization in English.

Sorry, wrong forum. Oops.

You meant to post this on ti-news.net?

No, the ticalc.org news article.

Oh, duh. ticalc.org has that news article too. I had just read about the contest on ti-news when I started reading this thread.