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Pocked-sized Pioneers
- The author talks about how a Christmas present of a TI-57 programmable calculator initiated his lifelong love for coding.
- The calculator could store up to 50 programmable steps, which required innovative thinking and reduced basic logic into the smallest feasible form.
- Despite the device's limitations, the author enjoyed programming on it, feeling like they were learning a secret language that could unlock immense power.
- The humble calculator taught the author the fundamentals of programming: the joy of problem-solving and the excitement of creating.
- A few years later, the author found themselves on a new frontier with another programmable calculator, the Texas Instruments TI-59.
- The TI-59 had enhanced functionality compared to the TI-57 and allowed for specialized maths, statistics, engineering, and finance programming.
- It also featured magnetic card storage, which allowed the author to build a library of solutions, routines, and utilities they could share or revisit later.
- Debugging a program on the TI-59 still required careful scrutiny of each line of code, but the author found each successful program a testament to their dedication and problem-solving skills.
- The author's love affair with programming comes full circle with the TI-59, serving as a bridge between early programmable calculators' limitations and the boundless possibilities of future home computers.
- The humble devices introduced the joy of coding to countless others and inspired a community of enthusiastic programmers.
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