Back in the mid-90's we had a TI version of sneakernet where you would copy programs from one student on to your TI-85 via a link cable; this is how I got Tetris back in the day. I assume OP did the same.

Was it that only the 85 could connect to a com port, but then you could connect the 85 to the 82/83? I seem to remember pleading with the one kid with an 85 (who didn't even care about games).

The 82 also had a com port

I don't remember if you could connect an 82 to an 85, but I do remember you could connect it to a PC as well over serial

I chopped my TI-83 link cable in half and wired it to the parallel port, like this: http://www1.inf.tu-dresden.de/~aw4/ti85.html

and this: https://web.archive.org/web/19990117001444/http://www.geocit...

IIRC there was a way to connect the TI-85 to your serial port and use some Windows or DOS software to copy files onto it. (Everyone's PC still had at least one serial port on it back then).

(Edit: I am assuming you were asking how it's possible I didn't use it, not how it's possible that people were copying programs onto their calculators.)

I don't know. It's been too long. We must have done graphing on paper.

I don't remember a lot of coursework in math that required me to produce a decimal value. For example, we wanted √2 instead of 1.414.

In physics, I think we used regular calculators.

I used to be bewildered at my parents not remembering certain things from high school. But, now I'm living it :).