Patrick Verstrepen worked as an engineering supervisor for Texas Instruments from 2001 to 2010. In broad terms, he worked on new product releases as a product specialist/bug tester and trained the support staff. In this role, he of course, ended up with a remarkable collection of prototypes (internally referred to as beta or pre-production models), which I believe to be the largest ever assembled. He has approximately 30 prototypes of graphing calculators, which is about as many as both me and critor's collections combined Shock
EDIT: no longer the case but still a very impressive collection.
We've know about his collection for a few years now, but for the first time, he has agreed to share pictures of a few of these prototypes. I'll start off with the prototypes that had not been discovered by the community until now.
First up, a TI-83 Plus SE prototype named "TI-83 Plus 2", S/N 016



Aside from the obvious name change, there is also no black bar above the F1-F5 keys, which gives those function keys pretty bad contrast and I would assume that's why it was added. He refers to this calculator as the "Zonder Silver Edition". I am not quite sure why that is. Perhaps "Zonder" is the code name for the TI-83+SE (for which we haven't identified the codename as of now)
EDIT: its just dutch for "without", so "without silver edition" because its an "83 Plus 2". Not the codename, not even close.

Next up, a TI-89 Titanium prototype with no name.



Patrick has 2 of these, the serial numbers on the back use the strange "TR" nomenclature, which was used in the early 2000s to denote testing units. We first found out about this nomenclature back in 2014 when a TI-84+ prototype surfaced in China. The serial numbers for his 2 units are "1TR 5172" and "1TR 5168".

From here onwards are the protos that had already been spotted by the community. That being said, some of these are still extremely rare and collectible.
A TI-83+ prototype named XX-X, which was just recently uncovered in May by Joerg from the Datamath museum.



A TI-Nspire DVT 1.2 prototype named "TI-XXXXXXXXXXX"



A TI-Nspire CAS DVT 1.2 prototype named "TI-XXXXXXXXXXX"



A TI-Nspire CAS P1-DVT1 prototype with no name. He owns 2 of them! (S/N 000375 and 000067).



And finally, a TI-Nspire CAS+ PVT prototype. I'm not sure which one this is, he has written that he has a PVT1.1, which is relatively common, and 2 "P1 PVT", which as far as I know, hasn't been spotted.



Huge thanks to Patrick for taking the time to share some of his collection with me. Smile
Thanks for getting all these great pictures from Patrick. At last, after all these years... congratulations ! Very Happy

CAS+ P1 PVT are quite common, just a little less than CAS+ PVT1.1.
They're slightly older.

CAS+ PVT1.1 are preloaded with OS 5.0.554, built on 2006/08/28, and using PCB PH1_MP_MB_6441.
CAS+ P1 PVT are preloaded with OS 5.0.529, built on 2006/08/15, and using PCB PH1_PVT_MB_6430.
critor wrote:
Thanks for getting all these great pictures from Patrick. At last, after all these years... congratulations ! Very Happy

CAS+ P1 PVT are quite common, just a little less than CAS+ PVT1.1.
They're slightly older.

CAS+ PVT1.1 are preloaded with OS 5.0.554, built on 2006/08/28, and using PCB PH1_MP_MB_6441.
CAS+ P1 PVT are preloaded with OS 5.0.529, built on 2006/08/15, and using PCB PH1_PVT_MB_6430.

Looks like he just signed up for Cemetech!
Regarding the PVTs, I have 2 PVT1.1s, one of them is pre-loaded with 5.0.529 and the other with 5.0.554 Wacko Neither of them are P1 PVT though...
Thanks.

Versions can be slightly different since software versions and hardware revisions aren't released at the same time, but I can confirm you :
  • CAS+ PVT1.1 are very common
  • CAS+ P1 PVT are quite common

The most interesting CAS+ are DVT and EVT.

mr womp womp wrote:
He refers to this calculator as the "Zonder Silver Edition". I am not quite sure why that is. Perhaps "Zonder" is the code name for the TI-83+SE (for which we haven't identified the codename as of now)

Sounds like German to me... but since Patrick's dead web site was located in Belgium it's more likely to be Dutch.

Texas Instruments calculators code names are usually related to animals.

Anyway it doesn't make sense...
https://translate.google.com/?um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=fr&client=tw-ob#view=home&op=translate&sl=nl&tl=en&text=zonder
critor wrote:
mr womp womp wrote:
He refers to this calculator as the "Zonder Silver Edition". I am not quite sure why that is. Perhaps "Zonder" is the code name for the TI-83+SE (for which we haven't identified the codename as of now)

Sounds like German to me... but since Patrick's dead web site was located in Belgium it's more likely to be Dutch.

Texas Instruments calculators code names are usually related to animals.

Anyway it doesn't make sense...
https://translate.google.com/?um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=fr&client=tw-ob#view=home&op=translate&sl=nl&tl=en&text=zonder

Yeah you're right, probably not a code name. Still leaves me wondering what it means though Rolling Eyes
Since zonder means without in dutch, Patrick only meant that it is a TI-83 Plus Silver Edition without the Silver Edition I guess Wink
Ti64CLi wrote:
Since zonder means without in dutch, Patrick only meant that it is a TI-83 Plus Silver Edition without the Silver Edition I guess Wink

That's so obvious now that you say it, of course that's what it means Laughing
  
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