I wore the buttons off my calculator and did 90%+ of my programming on it (only used the desktop app to write and push code to the calculator near the end of my time using it). Then I took a HS class on Java, taught myself PHP, and never really looked back to my calculator. TI-BASIC was a great start but so limiting once I discovered other languages.
I don't know if I would have been as confident to try programming later if I hadn't had that experience with TI-BASIC (indeed, a truly limiting language!).
I had a solver program where you’d pick the “style” of the math program (like “4x + 2 = 12” or similar) then be asked to plug in the “4”, “2”, and “12” from the previous example and it would solve for “x”.
Similarly, my little brother inherited my Ti-83+ and spread all the personal software I had written to his entire class: a simple kinematics solver (byebye thinking about intro physics homework), blackjack/21 (Vegas dealer rules, no splits), and several chemistry homework utilities.
Needless to say, teachers were not impressed with my/his cleverness.
One thing that my game had that the original did not (and I don't know if I invented this or copied it from the version I played) was a hidden demand parameter that persisted between days. Advertising and word of mouth from satisfied customers would cause it increase, while customers going away empty-handed would cause it to decrease. That turned the game into a kind of clicker where the numbers could continue to go up and up. I also added the ability to save your game by serializing the game state to an image file, since that was the only way to save data on the TI-83 Plus that wasn't likely to be clobbered by another program.
1. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/how-do-you-make-an-addictive-v...