The TI-83 Plus began manufacturing by Texas Instruments from 1999 as an upgraded version of the TI-83 release in 1996. The TI-83 Plus is currently the only surviving member of the TI-83 family with the original TI-83 and TI-83 Plus Silver Edition both being discontinued in 2004. The TI-83 Plus sports 27 kilobytes of user program memory and 160 kilobytes of archival memory for storing programs when the calculator loses power and backup power. It is powered by a 6 megahertz Zilog Z80 processor and has a 96 by 64 pixel LCD screen.
The TI-83 Plus is one of a couple Texas Instruments models that features native support for assembly that doesn't require exploits to access like a corrupted backup file or jailbreaks. This has made the TI-83 Plus and its contemporary assembly supporting programs popular amongst hobbyist programmers who enjoyed running their code on calculators. In 2009, the TI-83 Plus was at the center of controversy and legal action when calculator hobbyists reversed and published the keys used to sign the firmware. This resulted in TI sending DMCAs to those who published the keys and caused the EFF to get involved. Since then, a Unix-like operating system for the calculators has entered development called KnightOS.
I own a single example of this calculator which is in working condition with the slide case.
This calculator was manufactured March 2007 and is a Pink + Abstract model. It is in working order with some minor stuck pixels on the screen. It runs OS 1.19 and I obtained it on November 11th, 2023. The buttons on this calculator are very mushy and not very nice to press. The slidecase is also very tightly gripping on the calculator. I do like how uniquely colourful the calculator is, especially compared to the rest of my collection.
Gallery of pictures for this calculator