Some observations, in no particular order, about TI’s graphing calculators that I have yet to see others discuss:

Battery:

In models accepting a CR1616 or CR1620 backup battery, a CR1632 will not fit unless the retaining bits of plastic are sawed off

The TI-92 accepts also CR2016 and CR2025 for a backup battery

According to the instruction manual, the TI-92 has a variant with a backup battery soldered to two prongs which are screwed into the calculator. The manual advised customers to contact customer service if they need to replace that battery

The TI-84 CE fits a Nokia BL-4C, though it isn’t wide enough to occupy the entire battery compartment. The BL 5C also fits lengthwise, but its thickness will make the cover not fit

The earliest TI-81 type has a battery door without the molded “sections.” Revision A of TI 81 introduced a foam pad to the door. The TI-82 introduced the molded sections to the battery door, also making the door more rigid than the two earlier versions

A Toshiba backup battery (presumably OEM due to its occurrence in calculators but not stores) from a 0292A TI 81 has a voltage of 2.9

Before the TI 83 Plus body, battery contacts were directly soldered on the circuit board

The 81, 82, and 85 did not have a low battery message

Design:

The design of TI graphing calculators generally grew in length despite electronic components becoming more compact

The “latch” of the 81, 82, and 85 covers wear down faster than later ones do

The TI-86 never used the revised body of the 83 Plus while the non-Plus 83 and 82 had 83 Plus body variants

The TI-83 has 3 screws securing the back while the 83 Plus has 7

The keyboards of the 81, 85, and 86 used a thin font while the rest used a bold font

The 81 and 85 were revised to sport bold number keys of the 82 while retaining thin fonts on the rest of the keys

The 85 did not have a LCD cover variant with golden model number to the right although the 81 and 82 did

There is a detachable VSC panel for the TI-81 although there are not pictures of a detachable 81 VSC (I regret not buying an 81 with a “link port” (according to the seller, which also sold 81s without the "linkport") from eBay for $6)

TI-81 0292A with ROM 1.6K uses OTP ROM

My 0990 TI 81 came with plastic washers under the screws under the display panel (not seen in other revisions)

The TI-85 is faster than the 86 despite sharing the same clock speed

Later TI-82 revisions have the ABS plastic marking on the inside of the body and battery door

The TI 82 on the front cover of a manual appears to be a modified TI-81 due to its lack of the link port

The early TI-81 variants did not have the FCC message on the rear case

The TI-92 would be significantly less bulky if it did not have the “bulges” for AA batteries and had instead used AAA batteries

Some calculators do not have SMD fuses

Display:

The TI-82 series did not use the superior TI-85 LCD despite being released after the 85. This design choice also was not a compatibility issue with the 82 in a separate hardware family from the 96x64 TI-81

The Ti-82 in the 83 Plus case used a glossy LCD, just like early 82 revisions

TI’s blue and green displays in graphing calculators were always glossy, but except for the 86, black and white displays were matte Actually, the TI-83 Parcus disproves my point.

The 92 Plus is not much slower than the non-Titanium 89 despite the far higher pixel count

In the examples I have seen, 84 CE displays shift color when tilted left to right while 84 CSE displays shift color when tilted top to bottom

The MEM menu in the TI 84 CE is not resized to the dimensions of the LCD, instead keeping the 16 character limit of earlier versions

The 85 lower ribbon cable has 2 thicker stripes on the left while the 86 has 3 thick stripes

The LCD cover with larger borders on earlier models casts undesirable shadows

Other:

There is relatively little discussion about TI-85 and 86 revisions

The TI 84 CE responds to the F row of keys on a USB keyboard

The TI 84 CE OS doesn’t seem quite as polished as the OS for earlier TI calculators (moot point)

I’ll add to this if I find some more interesting observations or if I get the opportunity to take pictures. If there's anything that's actually been discussed a lot, let me know.
A number of those things have been discussed/noticed/mentioned already, but regarding some of them:

Pi Time wrote:
The MEM menu in the TI 84 CE is not resized to the dimensions of the LCD, instead keeping the 16 character limit of earlier versions

True, although now they use the extra space for some metadata display, for instance, appvar "subtype" like Python scripts.

Pi Time wrote:
The TI 84 CE responds to the F row of keys on a USB keyboard

Well, since OS 5.1.5, HID USB keyboards are supported, and the key mapping is not a dumb one, and considering the alpha+top keys indeed are function keys sometimes mentioned as F1-6, well it makes sense to have them mapped as the F[n] keys on a real keyboard, yep.

Pi Time wrote:
The TI 84 CE OS doesn’t seem quite as polished as the OS for earlier TI calculators (this is very subtle, however)

Well, that's one non-objective item in the list - What do you mean?
Adriweb wrote:
Pi Time wrote:
The TI 84 CE OS doesn’t seem quite as polished as the OS for earlier TI calculators (this is very subtle, however)

Well, that's one non-objective item in the list - What do you mean?


To be fair, that item wasn't very provable, considering that OSes for other models have been updated and patched for many more years that the 84+CE OS. What I was thinking about was mostly cosmetic, including:

-Unformatted text in the About section of the mem menu
-OS 5.3.1 just crosses out Asm84CEPrgm instead of cleanly removing it
Pi Time wrote:
The 85 did not have a LCD cover variant with golden model number to the right although the 81 and 82 did

That's just false, the TI-85 did have a gold bezel variant like the TI-81 and TI-82.
Pi Time wrote:
-OS 5.3.1 just crosses out Asm84CEPrgm instead of cleanly removing it

That's because programs can still use the token... It wasn't removed, just "disabled" on-calc.
Here is a picture of the TI-92 backup battery that is soldered on to prongs and screwed into the board.

Pi Time wrote:
The early TI-81 variants did not have the FCC message on the rear case

That's because the RFI rules that require the calculator to bear that label were passed in mid-1989, so taking into account a bit of lag from when the rule is voted on, it makes sense that in 1991, the message was added.
Here is the rule as stated in the US federal register on April 25th 1989:
Quote:
§ 15.19 Labelling requirements.
(a) In addition to the requirements in
Part 2 of this chapter, a device subject to
certification, notification, or verification
shall be labelled as follows:
[...]
(3) All other devices shall bear the
following statement in a conspicuous
location on the device:
This device complies with Part 15 of the
FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the
following two conditions: (1) This device may
not cause harmful interference, and (2) this
device must accept any interference received,
including interference that may cause
undesired operation.



Quote:
The TI-85 is faster than the 86 despite sharing the same clock speed

That's because of the awful paging system, the TI-86 OS is constantly swapping things between memory pages.
mr womp womp wrote:
Pi Time wrote:

The 85 did not have a LCD cover variant with golden model number to the right although the 81 and 82 did

That's just false, the TI-85 did have a gold bezel variant like the TI-81 and TI-82.
Pi Time wrote:
-OS 5.3.1 just crosses out Asm84CEPrgm instead of cleanly removing it

That's because programs can still use the token... It wasn't removed, just "disabled" on-calc.
Here is a picture of the TI-92 backup battery that is soldered on to prongs and screwed into the board.


Thanks for elaborating on the purpose of the crossed out but not removed Asm84CEPrgm token.

As for the 85 bezel, I know that there is a gold variant with thin lettering directly after "Texas Instruments." What I was referring to is the variant with bold lettering to the far right, as in this example: http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/Images/TI-82_I0194.jpg
I'd actually be interested to see an example of the TI-85 with that bezel, if it exists.
Quote:
The TI-85 is faster than the 86 despite sharing the same clock speed

Patrick Davidson will be very pleased with this piece of information.

Very nice list, you don't see this kind of information discussed too often.
  
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