Hey, you know what is really cool? If you take the launch button for a model rocket and connect it to the link cable, when you press the button the calculator turns off. If you push it again it turns on and clears the ram. It is even funnier on a Casio...

What happens on the Casio (evil)

Here's what I do to keep clueless people amazed for a few minutes (83 and possibly others):

1) Enter in a string:
"Blah blah blah!
2) Type in:
Ans+Ans
3) Press 'Enter' unter you get a no mem. prob or something
4) Do a Recall on Ans(wer):
Recall Ans

Now watch all the pretty pixels fly.
Funnier yet, if you're pal there decides to Clear the screen, he'll be in there for another long wait! Bestest yet, it drains battery!!!

I tells ya, every time someone wastes their time press cos( and tan( and sin( and random buttons over and over trying to fill the screen and then clear it AND then I just do a quick 'tap tap' on their calc and
*BOOM*
(it's sad, really.)

it didn't work wait let me try again i like writing with no punction isnt it cool i like it a lot okay should i shut up now maybe i should since nobody likes me maybe they would if i had a PARADE!

A few days ago I tried the program (that I found in the comments to this survey) that's supposed to shift your screen up half-way on my dad's TI-86. I panicked when it crashed. Took out the backup battery and it worked fine, of course.

to terrify people that absolutly don't know anything about the ti-83 (plus) you can just turn on a stat plot ,if they push the graph button an error will occur (at least if L1 and L2 don't exist). Because they've never heard something like stat plots exists it will keep them busy for hours to solve the problem .
An assembly program without ret (c9) on the end is also funny ...

Go into the Equation solver and type a single space for the equation and press ENTER.
Then, clear the 3rd CUSTOM entry (and optionally delete the EQN var). From this point on, any attempts to modify xStat will instantly crash the calculator (sometimes requiring battery removal to reset it).

This can done with 11 keypresses (not deleting the EQN var):
[2nd] [GRAPH] [ALPHA] [(-)] [ENTER] [2nd] [CUSTM] [F4] [F3] [2nd] [EXIT]

Apparently, entering a space for the equation crosslinks the Custom menu with xStat, and clearing the 3rd entry makes xStat point to an empty location (in ROM?); attempting to modify xStat after this results in the calculator crashing.

Eh...I always help my friends out. It's those dirty preps that i like to screw up, mainly cause my friends would know how to fix the calc, while the preps barely know how to use it to graph. Btw, thanks fer all the great ideas!

from page one (i know nothing about programming calcs)

:AsmPrgm
:3E00
:F6C0
:D310
:C9

Run that- it sets the contrast to 0!

how does that work? do you just type that in and run it. i keep getting errors when i try to run it.