Talking to calculator over external hardware has always been a fun and challenging task. With article you can easily communicate on more then just the AVR platform. Using Energia, which is a modification of the Wiring and Arduino framework for use with Ti's Msp430 micro-controller line, One can use the arTICL library with minimal to no modification. The only change required was to change a NAN to a 0 for Energia seems to not understand NAN.

Using an msp430 launchpad with a MSP430G2553 MCU I was able to run one of the Example applications included with.


After flashing your MSP with the example code. Wiring up to your calculator is as simple as On the arduino. Pick out your digital pins. I used pins 9 and 10.


The final functional setup! My Ti-86 was used here for the sake of good picture quality. The CSE back-light was to bright for my camera. That being said it was tested on an 83/4+SE 84+CSE as well as this 86!


So using other hardware to interface with our beloved calculators, Easier then we thought. Using arTICL makes it much easier to the point of where using different hardware is almost trivial? Whats next? Maybe some wireless shenanigans. OR some really low power data logging. The MSP430 series line is a great set of chips for more low power applications which could be easily power right from the calculator with minimal impact on battery life.