The Texas Instruments Graphing Calculator

 

 

General Stuff

  • Turning the calculator ON and OFF
    • ON key is at the lower left of the keyboard
    • Press blue 2ND, then ON to turn it OFF
      • Blue 2ND is always pressed before a second function to get the blue printed action to happen.
  • CLEAR key clears the display to the Home Screen (blank)
  • ENTER key is similar to the “=” key on other calculators
    • It evaluates expressions, executes commands and selects Menu items
  • Menus (MODE, MATH, STAT, VARS, ZOOM, etc.)
    • selects various modes and actions
    • use the arrow keys, then ENTER – OR – push the number of the selection
    • a “down arrow” on the bottom line selection means there are more under it
    • 2ND-MODE[QUIT] exits out of a menu
  • Possibly Confusing Keys
    • Use the “(-)” key on the bottom row to indicate a negative value,
      and the “-“ key on the right side for subtraction
    • Use the “^” key to exponentiate, or raise a value or variable to a power
    • , 10, e each require an argument after entering the function key
    • x is the multiplicative inverse or “1/x”
    • STO> will store a value in a named variable letter
      • use the ALPHA key in a sequence with a letter to select
      • “X,T,Θ,n” selects “x” quickly, but would be modified by graphing
  • Order of operations follows the standard “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”
    • Use parentheses to force operations to happen in the order you want

 

 

Graphing

  • Verify in function mode (FUNC) using the MODE key
  • Enter equation using the “Y=” menu
  • Press GRAPH to plot the graph
  • Use the ZOOM menu for a better fit on the display
    • selection 0: ZOOMFIT will scale the plot for best fit
    • selection 6: ZSTANDARD restores scaling to default values
    • OR you can manually change scale and range values in the WINDOW menu
  • Use the TRACE function and arrow keys to display (x, y) values on the graph