Let's take a look at the TI-Nspire CAS EZ-Spot P1R2-DVT1.1 prototype!
About a month ago, I got flooded with messages from Critor, Adriweb, TheLastMillennial and Ti64CLi regarding a prototype that had surfaced on r/TI_Calculators of all places (which I don't regularly patrol).
An engineering student named Rob (u/gooseloom) posted a series of images along with a request for some help getting his calculator out of diagnostics mode.
Of course, only early prototypes boot directly into the diags.
Rob was very cooperative and understanding of the fact that his calculator had some historical value and he seemed to agree that it would be preferable for it to find a home in the community in a collection. I don't know if he will read this post but if he does, I would like to express my gratitude to him for agreeing to sell the calculator.
Obviously, a few community members expressed interest in the calculator and after some deliberation with them and Rob, we put together a game plan that would satisfy the most people which involved me purchasing it for my collection and having it tour the world for everyone to take apart.
Now that the calculator has been received by Adriweb, we can take a closer look at it!



The pictures contained a number of noteworthy details:

• The symbol at the top left of the screen while Boot2 is executing, signifying that the OS is being validated with development keys.
  
• The complete lack of a serial number or any markings on the back, uncommon even for prototypes.
  
• The color of the case, an unreleased white and yellow EZ-Spot variant.
  
• The DVT1.1 Diags, previously only spotted once in this prototype from cnCalc.org in China.

The color of the case seems to be a CAS clickpad version of this non-CAS TI-Nspire EZ-Spot, but it looks nothing like the CAS EZ-Spot that was released which was completely yellow on the back.
It runs OS 1.1.4797 just like comsmy's DVT1.1. Unfortunately, the one from China was never dumped because it got destroyed in a failed upgrade attempt and was thought to be lost forever. This will therefore be a very lucky second chance at dumping it.
That being said, actually dumping it will be much easier said than done because it is such an early version that it doesn't have USB support implemented yet! This will mean having to dump it through the J04/JTAG connector using some custom hardware.
The only person with the required hardware and know-how is Critor, so the calculator will be going on a trip to France next December to be dumped.
Hardware-wise, it seems to be the same as comsmy's.



Note that it uses the newer ASIC processor rather than an OMAP. In fact, I believe it might be the earliest prototype found using the newer technology.
Also of course, there is the J04/JTAG connector which is populated and allows the SST NAND flash chip to be reflashed.
It seems to have been manufactured in December 2006, 1-2 months before the DVT1.2 and DVT2.0 prototypes.
One of the ribbon cables looks like it might have some surface-level damage but luckily, there are no issues with the LCD for now.

That's quite an awesome calculator! Will the ROM dump for this calculator be able to restore the one in China we thought was destroyed? Or is it permanently bricked?

The calculator wasn't bricked, the OS was deleted to install a newer version but because the 1.1.4797 Boot2 didn't have USB support, he was never able to install another OS. To answer your question, yes, if successfully dumped, it should be possible to install 1.1.4797 on any proto but not on production models.

I recently received two large boxes from Pieman7373 containing many calculators that I've purchased over the last couple years, including two TI-Nspire CAS TouchPad DVT1 prototypes. I'm very happy to have found these as touchpad prototypes seem to be among the rarest nspire prototypes.
This specific revision has been spotted once before from a user on cnCalc.org in 2014, although it was largely overshadowed by the much more interesting PROTOTYPE 014 which he showed off in the same post
The two units I've acquired are serial numbers 002 and 280.



There is a large customs sticker on the back of the 002 which contains general information about make and model.



This sticker is in Spanish because it was imported to Mexico. These calculators were sent to Hildebrando Services Inc. in Mexico which is a sub-contractor that works for TI to develop the apps, so these prototypes were used for software development (nothing too surprising for a DVT). One interesting thing to note about the import label is the Pedimento number (an ID given by the Mexican customs to each shipment), which is 9012083. This is interesting because it is the same as the one on the keypad that came with an EVT1 prototype that surfaced in 2015, meaning these calculators were in the same shipment as that EVT1. A similar sticker is also on one of the keypads.



Hardware-wise, both of them are identical to each other and also the same as the one that surfaced in china in 2014.



The LCD is N1/N3_LB_PCR2_FPC_2410, and the MB is N1_MB_NKB_4420.
The J04/JTAG pads have not been populated but are there, which suggests that it would likely be possible to establish a JTAG connection. On earlier prototypes (EVT), the JTAG connector was populated but it was towards the top of the MB, so around September 2009, it was moved towards the bottom of the board, probably because TI was doing this and also wanted access to the reset button

There's also no spot for the li-ion battery and the charging circuit is removed.

Software-wise, the S/N 002 contains OS 2.0.0.900, which as far as I know hasn't been spotted before and will need to be dumped. It also contains 10MB of files which seem to be various QA tests. I haven't had much time to look through them properly but I'm not expecting too much.



The S/N 280 contains no OS and both contain 2.00.DEVBUILD Diags.

I got a hold of a TI-Nspire CAS TP RCB-DVT1 prototype a couple days ago, which is pretty similar to the two DVT1 prototypes from the previous post.
It came to me untested without a keypad, but thankfully, it worked right out of the box after inserting one of my keypads from the collection and charging the battery a little bit. The top left screw was missing and the top right screw was a completely different screw from the normal TI screws. It was a phillips head screw which does make it easier to open, so its plausible that TI would internally only put 1 easily removable screw if they wanted to open and close it a lot, but I have no idea if that was always the case or if the screws got lost and replaced somewhere in the last 10 years.
This one was made 3 months after the earlier DVT1s, but followed a similar path. It also has the same style of shipping label stuck to the back, as well as an additional sticker attesting that it was in the hands of Hildebrando Services Inc. Unlike the earlier prototypes, this one, has a Li-Ion battery (like production versions). This didn't stop the customs people from slapping that big sticker on the back, making it harder to open!



The pedimento is different from the other ones, so this one was sent in a different shipment.
The serial number reads: "CAS RCB DVT1-NOT FOR SALE 188 P-1209", which is quite wordy. In fact, the font size is considerably smaller than it usually is.



That being said, we actually get a little bit more information than the earlier prototypes, notably, that it was manufactured by Inventec in Pudong, China, and that it is a CAS version. The fact that its a CAS version doesn't really mean much besides the color of the case, since it is the exact same hardware as this non-CAS prototype that was spotted a few years ago.
The LCD is TG2995-C-LB-2410, and the MB is PCB-TG2995D-MB-4420.



Software-wise, it has an in-between version that hasn't been spotted to date: OS 3.9.0.450
(The closest production OS that TI released is 3.9.0.461, which is just a handful of builds away so it will likely be very similar) It'll of course need to be dumped. I haven't had much success with Fron yet, hopefully this is just a mistake on my part and not a problem with the OS not being dumpable for some unknown reason.



The Diags also seem to be a new version (Iris Nspire Diag Menu 2.00.837 2009-12-1).

I recently got my hands on an interesting TI-84 Plus CE Display Sample. As the name suggests, these are generally made in very small numbers and are intended for display, for example, the calculators pictured in promotional materials are generally Display Samples and lack a serial number.

Here is an example of some Display Samples in a promotional picture for the charging stations that can be found in the guidebook:

Display Samples are sometimes fully functional calculators, such as the TI-86 I discussed a few posts ago, but in this case, there is a PCB but it isn't populated! I personally think that is even more interesting, although an unreleased build of the OS would have also been very exciting.



The one I found has a sticker on the back that identifies it as

The board is dated 1635 (35th week of 2016), which would have been around the time TI was producing revision B1 of the CE, so "B1.3 evaluation" would be in reference to the hardware and of course, "Sample for New color" suggests this would have been a planned but not released color variant.
You may also notice, the lack of a serial number and the mention of the phrase "NOT FOR SALE" just like the unreleased marketing sample colors from a while ago. Another interesting thing is that it seems to be signed by Matt T. Nicolisi, Senior Industrial Designer for Texas Instruments. He is from Ohio and the seller was also from Ohio so it is pretty safe to assume this was his sample. It is not the first time we see the names of TI employees on prototypes, presumably, this makes things easier internally, since there often aren't serial numbers attached to the protos

The color is definitely not something that was released and looks like a metallic blue. Here is a video from Adriweb showcasing the interesting color.



Finally, the board revision "SG93/F/T-10-1" is one that hadn't been spotted yet, however, I haven't seen the board revision of a rev B1, which I suspect might be what it is.

I have a couple protos that I haven't really talked about (besides in sax) so I guess its time to make a new post!
Recently, I got my hands on a very rare TI-82 Advanced Prototype!



The back reads "K-DVT-211 DVT NOT FOR SALE", indicating that it was made by Kinpo (Taiwan), it is in the DVT phase of development, and it is serial number 211. This is the same as the two other known TI-82 Advanced prototypes (Critor's sample and this one which was spotted being displayed at Orme 2.18 in Marseille in 2018). I suspect that there wasn't a whole lot of hardware development since the hardware is the same as the TI-84 Plus-T and they are both essentially the same as a TI-84 Plus (dbus replaced with an LED, just for you notipa ), so its possible that K-DVT is the only TI-82 Advanced prototype revision.



On the back, there is a sticker which says "Made in China", which is what initially prompted me to purchase it in the first place (The serial number was not visible at all in the blurry ebay listing)
This sticker is very telling for two reasons:

1. All known production models were made by Kinpo in the Philippines, while all known prototypes were made by Kinpo in Taiwan (which is definitely China and not an independent nation... )
   
2. On the MP TI-82 Advanced, this information is molded in the case, its not a sticker!

The hardware is the same as Critor's sample, which is the same as the mass produced pre-A revision (SG82F 10-1), however, both mine and Critors' have a bit of rework towards the top of the board around the USB port as evidenced by the flux residue. This is of course not the case for production models but the components are all the same so I'm assuming this was simply due to problems with early production.



The one spotted at Orme 2.18 ran OS 5.0.0.0028, which is the same as the mass production models. In fact, although the TI-82 Advanced can receive OS updates, that functionality has been pretty much unusable because TI only ever released 1 OS version! That being said, Critor's sample ran an earlier version (5.0.0.0014). That version has not been made publicly available because it is under NDA (When TI sends out samples like this, they generally make the guys from TiPlanet sign NDAs, which as far as I know, is the reason why the 5.0.0.0014 OS is not available for download on TiPlanet)
That's rather unfortunate since 5.0.0.0028 contains a pretty nasty bug with the special characters menu. When navigating this menu, sometimes the cursor doesn't get erased, lines go missing and random junk gets displayed on screen. Weirdly, this bug was not present on version 5.0.0.0014, so it must have been introduced quite late in the development...
In fact, that's one of the first things I checked when I received the calculator and I can confirm that 5.0.0.0027 also doesn't contain the bug, meaning that we could finally have an OS update (although it would be a slightly earlier version) which patches the bug. This is of course, assuming I can dump it, which is easier said than done!
Critor wrote a news article last month about my new calculator, focusing on this bug.

Regarding dumping a ROM image, its quite challenging because there aren't any polished tools to help out. With only 1 OS being released, nobody has really taken the time to create a nice dumper. That being said, I'm not starting from scratch because BrandonW and Critor have dumped a 5.0.0.0028 before to create the OS update file on TiPlanet and they have been very helpful although I still haven't managed to dump it. The 82 Advanced does not support assembly, but there exists an exploit that was used to get the calculator to dump itself. It is also not supported by TiLP, so BrandonW wrote a python script to receive the dump. It must also be dumped one page at a time by creating an individual backup file to dump each page (of which there are 35 ), presumably because it was initially only really meant to be used once. Thankfully, BrandonW also made a python script to generate the corrupted backup files.
So with these scripts in hand, I set out to dump it... Unfortunately, the dumper crashes my calc and doesn't dump I still haven't figured out why, but I plan to sit down and take a closer look eventually...

EDIT: I managed to dump it today with a corrupted backup file to install MirageOS. Its sprinkled into 64 seperate files right now (one for each flash page) but from here, its pretty straightforward to put together a ROM image and an OS update file.
EDIT2: The files have been mushed together into a ROM image and an OS update file was generate but it seems this OS fails validation when sent to a physical calculator. Assuming I didn't make any mistakes while dumping (I double checked), it appears that the signature from the proto is invalid. Perhaps they did like the nspire series and had a different set of keys for dev units and production units. Either way, since the 82A uses 2048 bit keys, we're out of luck in terms of signing it ourselves but the most important thing is that the ROM image is intact and saved even though it can't be distributed.

I usually try to wait until I receive the calculator in my own hands before making one of these posts, but this is one of the most interesting protos yet and I'm very happy to have snatched it.

First off, here's a small history of the quest for a TI-92 prototype.
TI-92 or any 68K prototypes seem exceedingly elusive, I don't know if this is because they didn't produce very many or if they were very good at keeping them from leaking. Until now, we only knew of 1 unit which is in Patrick Verstrepen's collection. Unfortunately, he had not provided any images of his proto, so all we really knew of it was the serial number and date code from the listing of his collection from 2012.
Over the years, I managed to find 1 very early TI-92 which strangely had an engraved serial number (01000489 I-0995).
Early Inventec TI-92 serial numbers were all stickers (for units made in Italy, they were engraved, but those came later and used a different serial number format).
This early unit contained ROM 1.0 compiled on September 19, 1995, which is different from the earliest known revision at the time, 1.0b1 compiled on September 13, 1995.
That unit is now in Adriweb's collection in France.
France is perhaps the best place to look for TI-92 prototypes because it seems like all the early stuff is from Europe, so I assume it was a TI-France project

Now on to the new developments:
From looking at promotional material from 1995, one main difference sticks out. The hand symbol in the top left corner had multiple iterations, only 1 of which (the first one) was commercialized.



From the listing on leboncoin.fr (a French second hand trading site like eBay), It was very clear that the hand symbol was the 3rd one without a wrist/cuff. EUREKA!
I began chatting with the seller and putting together a plan with Critor to retrieve this prototype.
In doing so, I learnt that not only was this a prototype, but it was a very early one. He confirmed that there were stickers on the back with the words "Engineering Sample not for sale" and "Prototype", as well as the serial and date code 01182 0595. Earlier than Patrick Verstrepen's! I also learnt that I was speaking with the original owner of the calculator. He was given the unit to test it and showcase it to teachers at conferences. He was hired as part of a team to write a book about chemistry and physics experiments assisted by the TI-92.



Luckily for us, the early TI-92 design had 2x 512k OTP EPROMs (1MB) in the expansion cartridge which contained the ROM, meaning that it could not have been updated over the years... At least, that's what I expected... When Critor received the calculator, he reported back and told me the ROM version was 1.12 (the most recent version from May 8, 1996!). Sooo it was updated ? Upon closer inspection, the prototype cartridge did not contain OTP-EPROM and in fact, contained FLASH ROM! Just like the TI-86 prototype from 1996, TI used flash for prototypes and ROM for production models, allowing them to reprogram the cartridge to update the ROM! In fact, the connector under the cartridge is an elastomeric "Zebra" connector as opposed to the female pin header. These connectors were quite popular in the 80s and 90s and were known to be unreliable over time, but it does make it easier to remove and reinstall the cartridge since it just sits on the pads. For this reason, I suspect that TI had an external programmer to reprogram the proto cartridges.



You may also have noticed that the 2 Intel flash chips are 8MB (1024x8) chips, for a total of 2MB of memory. Twice as much as the production cartridges with OTP-EPROM!
Thankfully, the prototype also had a ROM chip soldered on the MB like later revisions of the TI-92 and that one was not flash. Indeed, it contained the original ROM version from when the unit was produced, 0.5d23 compiled on January 16th 1995, a full 8 months before the earliest known production ROM (1.0b1 from September 13th 1995)!



Evidently, the ROM is very different from production models. The about screen gives a lot more information and options, notably the amount of available RAM, the state of the stack and the option to turn APD off.
In the self test menu, there is also additional options to "PEEK" and "POKE" memory addresses (to read and write to individual addresses).

On the inside, the hardware is similar to production models with a few notable distinctions.

• The RAM is the same but in a DIP SOP package instead of its usual TSOP.
  
• Obviously the layout of the board is different
  
• The communications circuit for the dbus seems to be the old design used in the TI-82/TI-80, although it should be functionally the same
  
• There are 2 pads labelled VCC and GND. I'm not sure why they would want to measure the power rails? Maybe this helped them to diagnose hardware issues?
  
• The mask ROM soldered on the MB is a generic 1MB Sharp CMOS
  
• The 3 column drivers are a slightly earlier version than the one that made it to production (T6A39 instead of T6A39A)

Now on to dumping... This is easier said than done. Like a lot of TI calculators, the TI-92 doesn't support native code. There exists a shell (Fargo) which allows us to run machine code, but it has been tailormade for each ROM version and is thus incompatible with this early ROM. The last update of Fargo was in 1998, 23 years ago and the person who developed it (David Ellsworth) has since left the community long ago...
However, I managed to track him down and have begun discussing this with him. He seems very willing to give a helping hand in preserving this unique find
He informed me that time has not been kind to his calculators. One of his TI-92s got lost in 1999 and his other TI-92 no longer works even though it was kept in a drawer

Along with this unit, the seller also had another TI-92 prototype without a viewscreen connector which he said was slightly newer. That one was purchased by Critor for his own collection and has yet to be received. It will surely also contain a treasure trove of goodies . Hopefully that one also has an OTP-EPROM chip that could not have been updated.

Special thanks to Critor for receiving the calc, taking pictures/documenting his findings and hopefully helping to dump it.

EDIT: Critor and Lionel managed to dump 0.5d23 through the external module (1.12) and have provided me with a copy. The other TI-92 purchased by Critor contains 0.6a19, however, that version is on the external flash module so it cannot be dumped using the same method.

The last hand symbol:



TI were 'gotcha!' pioneers! .

Great job to critor and Lionel getting the new ROM dumped. Interesting how there haven't been many TI-92 protos found- I would've thought that, it being a completely new form factor for TI calcs, the development process would be long and involve many protos (like how there are so many Nspire protos). Anyways, it's pretty awesome that David Ellsworth was able to help you out in this.

Getting the 0.5d23 internal ROM dumped was achieved through a couple modifications in the Fargo dumper:
* hard-coding ROM_base and ROM_size respectively to 0x200000 and 0x400000, to dump both the internal and the external ROM / Flash in one fell swoop;
* adding 5 nops for the dumper binary's size not to change.
Needless to say, the latter shouldn't have been necessary, and I need to investigate when I can find some time

Haha, if you're really observant, you might have noticed its actually the icon that ended up being used in the voyage 200 a few years later



And the other unused icon ended up on all the nspires.



I actually had this same reflection a while ago. I would expect there to be more TI-92 protos than other calcs simply due to the fact that it was the first 68k (completely new hardware for TI) and the first CAS, as well as a completely new OS, so the software was all from scratch as well.
Looking at the 2 protos we now have (0595 and 0695), which are a good 7-8 months before release, I'm actually pretty surprised by how similar they are to the final product. They were almost ready for release at that point, so TI must have been working on the TI-92 well into 1994, if not 1993.

In the case of the nspires, there were lots because they were sent to schools for pilot tests, and then TI never recovered them. On top of that, it seems like some protos were sent to china to be destroyed by a third party and some of those have resurfaced as well. TI also sent some protos down to HITSS in Mexico for the development of apps and some sample software assignments to be used by teachers. Basically, it looks like TI spent almost 2 years shedding protos left and right not really caring where they ended up

I actually think that TI did pilot tests in classrooms with the TI-92, but its unclear whether those were "protos" or not and if they were protos, it would seem like TI recovered them at the end. Either that, or the pilot tests were really small scale with just one or a few classrooms and we just haven't been able to spot any yet.

I recently found a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition prototype!
As far as I know, this is the first one found although Patrick Verstrepen who was an engineering supervisor at TI at the time has 2 prototypes. Aside from the fact that they existed, very little was known about these prototypes because he never released any pictures of those units.
This is the only information I had about these units:


Presumably "TE" stands for "Teacher Edition", meaning it would be the ViewScreen variant.

I did know a little bit more about TI-84+ prototypes though because one cropped up on cncalc a few years ago and Adriweb got to see one when he visited the TI Dallas headquarters in 2011. If those were anything to go by, I would expect a TI-84 Plus SE prototype to also not have a name on the front and have the shiny silver variant of the front faceplate instead of the light gray variant because the early production models had that finish. Both of those assumptions turned out to be correct.



One of the TI-84+ prototypes mentioned above did not have the theta symbol silkscreened above the "3" key, but that doesn't seem to be the case for this one. The silkscreening does have one notable difference though which is the "," key above the "7" key which looks more like a backtick and less like a comma.



On the back, the serial number is "PTR 2093" which is more or less the expected format but I'm still unsure what this "TR" nomenclature means. It was used on 84+, 84+SE and 89T prototypes.
Edit: This serial format was also used on the unreleased TI-PLT-SU1.
According to Patrick's spreadsheet, it seems like the digits are not a serial number (likely something to do with the hardware) but there is no other numbers visible on my proto so I'm not sure what the "real" serial number would be.



Interestingly, the polarity of the batteries is inverted, instructing the user to put the positive end of the battery on the spring?? Additionally, the coin cell battery is different (389 or 390) and it was assembled in Taiwan which is not where early production TI-84+SE's were made.

Taking a look inside, we can see that the hardware is pretty close to production but the ASIC is different (a completely new version not present on any production model). The layout of the board is also different of course. It was manufactured in July 2003, which is approximately 8 months before the first production models around March 2004.



The USB circuit is there and looks fine but the early OS doesn't support it yet. This means that installing this OS on your TI-84+SE is irreversible without a silverlink. It also seems like one of the inductors for the USB port (L02K) was hand-soldered as indicated by the flux residue.
The PCB label on the bottom of the board is also mirrored which looks rather strange

It runs 83+SE OS 0.01, Base code 0.01s and Boot code 0.01. It was successfully and painstakingly dumped one flash page at a time by Adriweb. The OS update file generated from the ROM image can be found here in the TI-Planet archives.



The OS is very similar to the TI-83 Plus OS from that period which isn't very surprising but the clock stuff (which was new in the 84+ series) differs slightly from the final version. For one, the "Set Clock" option in the MODE menu is called "CLOCKSET" and it allows you to turn the RTC on and off as well as just setting the time. The isClockOn command also acts slightly differently when called on the homescreen.
There is also a typo in the archive full error message, which is rather odd since that wasn't there in the 83+ OS.



In the ROM image, there is the "GO MAVERICKS!!" easter egg which was discovered by BrandonW a few years ago when TI accidentally released OS 0.46 on their website instead of the latest version. This is probably in reference to the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA team. The easter egg is only found in prototypes and a couple early versions but is one of the more interesting ones as it consists of a PCL job which can be sent to a USB printer to print the following 4 things:



Steve Falaster was a software engineer at TI who evidently worked on the TI-84 Plus SE.
Right before the easter egg, there is also the phrase "Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus USB", which was a name used internally by TI for the 84+SE prior to its release (a TI-84+SE is essentially a TI-83 Plus SE with a USB port, an RTC and the S-RAM integrated in the ASIC). Later versions of the 84+SE had "TI-REF 83PLUSB/TA2" ASICs which is another reference to this internal name.

Critor on TI-Planet has also written news articles about this prototype here and here.

Today, I thought I'd talk about my TI-83 Premium CE prototype.




Like many of my protos, I found it on ebay.
This is one of the less interesting ones since it is essentially a production version.
The OS is 5.2.0.0035 and the Boot is 5.1.5.0014. Both of these are production versions and they aren't particularly early either (mid-2016). This matches up with the hardware though which is also from that period. The factory is L (Kinpo, Philippines), which is the factory that usually produces the CE... This is somewhat surprising since the only other known prototypes were from Kinpo, China but those were all pre-production.
On the back, the serial number reads "L-DVT-000270" followed by "DVT NOT FOT SALE" underneath.
I'm not sure what this would have been used for since this is more than a year after release but I guess they were still working on it at that point.



The ASIC is ET2017-01 which is the main difference with production models from mid-2016. That ASIC was only added around revision I in March 2017. This, along with the sticker on the back that reads "Tester SL" makes me think that it would have been an internal dev proto.
Its also possible that this would have been used for conferences like T3 or Didacta. For the 83PCE specifically, I know that they had production samples like this one at those events so that seems less likely.

Inside, the board (SG93/F/T 10-1) is the same revision as my metallic blue sample except that its populated of course... It still hasn't been spotted on any production calcs, but B1 is still missing from the docs and I wouldn't be surprised if this was just rev B1.

One of the older calculators in my collection is a TI-83 Plus Silver Edition ViewScreen Marketing Sample.



This is one of 2 known units, the other being in Patrick Verstrepen's collection.
Currently, there is a total of 4 known pre-production TI-83 Plus SEs:

• This Marketing Sample
  
• Patrick V's Marketing Sample
  
• Patrick V's early "TI-83 Plus 2"
  
• Chaosleo's Engineering Sample

Here is the sample on the left and a pre-A non-VS board on the right for reference:



Interestingly, for the TI-83 Plus SE, the production of ViewScreen units (Jun 2001) seems to have started a few months after the production of the clear non-ViewScreen units (Feb 2001).
This sample was produced in March 2001 which is in that time gap. The MB is actually the same as those early non-ViewScreen units (9867MB-40D) which is significantly different from the revision that went into the first production VS units (9TA867MB-42F). That being said, the LCD board is of course not the same since it has the VS connector itself. This particular revision of the LCD board along with the VS board itself (9867VISC-40D) never made it onto any production units.



Since this was produced after mass production had begun (albeit only for the non VS model), the software is unsurprisingly not very interesting. The boot code is 1.00 and the OS is 1.18 which are both common known versions.
When I initially found it in 2019, I posted about it here but I failed to notice the gap between the production dates of VS and non VS units. Although the information in that post is true, it does not represent the whole context.

I think that's... super cool

I just received a very rare TI-84 Pocket.fr prototype from andylithia (a calculator enthusiast who bought it second hand in China).
The serial number on the back is K-DVT-192, meaning it was manufactured by Kinpo in China, it is in the 2nd (DVT) phase of development and it is the 192nd. This is followed by the "DVT NOT FOR SALE" stamp which is on most protos from the mid 2000s or later.



On the front, there is 1 interesting difference with production models, which is that there is a spelling mistake on the "fenêtre" key, which is spelled "fenétre".



Software-wise, it runs Boot 1.03 and OS 2.55MP so no surprises there, this is the same as all the TI-84 pocket.fr.



Finally, opening it up reveals some more interesting quirks.



The PCB labels are the same as production versions (SG85-10-1 for the MB and SG85-20-1 for the KB) but interestingly, it uses a MX29LV800CTTC-70G Flash ROM instead of the A29L800ATV-70F used in mass production. Presumably this is just whatever happened to be cheaper at a given time because both are fully pin-compatible (hence why the rest of the PCB is the same).



The date code on the PCB is 4310, indicating it was manufactured in the 43rd week of 2010, which puts it only a couple months before the beginning of mass production.

What a coincidence! I just discovered that my TI-84 Pocket.fr was a prototype. I was going through my collection a little while ago, testing, cleaning etc and discovered that the back of my TI-84 pocket.fr had DVT NOT FOR SALE engraved in the back. I'd never noticed it before. I bought it a long time ago, and somehow missed it. A little googling led me to discover that it was a prototype.I found this thread around that time, I just hadn't gotten around to posting this yet.

Mine is K-DVT-180 so it's a tiny bit earlier than yours. It's pretty cool since it's a prototype of a pretty uncommon calculator.

I just received the earliest known TI-86 proto which I mentioned in this post
This was a very generous gift from Joerg Woerner who runs the Datamath Calculator Museum.



It runs version 0.2026 which is the oldest known version of the TI-86 "OS".
Just like my 1.4001, this one has a socketed ATMEL AT29C020 flash chip which allows the unit to be reprogrammable. It also contains the code to accept OS updates through the link port using the hidden menu (2nd MODE ALPHA F), which is not available on production TI-86 ROMS since they use OTP-EPROM.
That being said, there seems to be a small bug with the OS transfer code. When it inevitably fails (since I can't send any OS to it), an error is displayed on the screen but the calculator is still in the mode menu even though it has not redrawn it. This bug wasn't present on 1.4001.



Unlike the other known protos, TILP can communicate with it but cannot dump it because AsmPrgm is missing. I suppose since Asm( is present, I could have run the dumper manually but the built-in TILP dumper doesn't do that.
I quickly checked the catalog and noticed that AsmComp( is also missing. There is an extra token called Xmark. Aditionally, randM( and randNorm( are swapped in the catalog so I guess we can add "the alphabet" to the long list of things TI can't do properly


It doesn't contain the "Willy DO BE DO BE DO" easter egg so that must have been added somewhere between 0.2026 and 1.0.
In order to dump it, I removed the flash chip and put it in a PLCC32 to DIP32 socket adapter and slapped that into my EPROM programmer like I described in this post.

On the back, there's no serial number, just like the other known protos.


WabbitEmu doesn't load the rom correctly and detects it as a TI-83 so no emulation for now.
EDIT: Works fine with TilEm (thanks critor)

Internal pictures are available on Datamath

Very nice find! I wonder if this proto or ROM runs faster than the commercial TI-86 and ROMs in TI-BASIC?