Getting started
Texas Instruments TI-85 and TI-86 calculators
Overview: Your graphing calculator or computer is a powerful and flexible tool, which you would
probably be able to use fairly well without reading any instructions. It is important, however, to learn
how to take advantage of some of its not-so-obvious features and how to avoid making e rrors using it.
Study these instructions and be sure you can work the tune-up exercises at the end.
Topics:
• Basic operations
• Priority of operations in calculations
• The dangers of using improper parentheses
• Exact and approximate decimal values of functions
Basic operations
Press the ON key to start the calculator. Press 2nd followed by the up cursor key N to increase
display contrast and by H to decrease it. Change the four AAA batteries as soon as the screen dims
when graphs are generated. Press 2nd MODE . The screen should show
Normal Sci Eng Func Pol Param DifEq
Float 012345678901 Dec Bin Oct Hex
Radian Degree RectV CylV SphereV
RectC PolarC dxDer1 dxNDer
The words printed in bold type here should be h ighlighted on the screen . If another item is highlighted or
you want to change a selection, use the cursor keys to move the flashing box to the correct item and press
ENTER . <Normal> d enotes normal notation for decimals; <Sci> is for scientific notation; and <Eng>
for engineering notation. With <Float> selected decimals are printed with twelve digits. Choosing an
integer instead of <Float> causes that many digits be shown after decimal points. (Use the second 0
for ten digits and the second 1 for eleven digits.) <Radian> is for radians and <Degree> for degrees.
<Func> is selected to generate graphs y = f(x) of functions. <Pol> is for polar coordinates, <Par> is
used with parametric eq u ations, and <DifEq> is for differential equations. The other selections will be
explained as needed.
Press EXIT or 2nd QUIT to return to the home screen and then GRAPH for the first row of the
graph menu. Press MORE to see the second row of the menu and then press F3 for <FORMT>. The
screen should read
RectGC PolarGC GridOff GridOn
CoordOn CoordOff AxesOn AxesOff
DrawLine DrawDot LabelOff LabelOn
SeqG SimulG
with the words in bold highlighted. With <RecGC> and <CoordOn> selected, rectangular coordinates
are used and the coordinates of the cursor are displayed with graphs. Points on graphs are conne cted
if <DrawLine> is chosen and not with <DrawDot>. Use <SeqG> (sequential graphs) to have two
or more graphs drawn one after the other, and <SimulG> (simultaneous graphs) to have them drawn
at the same time. If <GridOn> were selected, dots would be placed on th e screen at the points whose
coordinates correspond to the tickmarks on t h e axes. The axes would not be shown with <AxesOff>
and labels would be displayed with <LabelOn>.
The key 2nd activates the yellow commands above the keys. EXIT is used to return to a previous
screen and to remove menus. 2nd QUIT returns you to the home screen where calculations are made.
CLEAR with the cursor on a blank line of the home screen clears th e screen . In other cases it clears the
line with the cu rsor or removes a menu.
The key ALPHA puts the calculator in upper-case alpha mode, activating the blue lette rs and
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