So, you've got a calculator and the desire to make it obey your every command. Good. Let us begin. The following skills are really basic, but are necessary to programmers.

Creating a New Program: Press the [PRGM] button. Now press [F2] (Corresponding to "Edit"). Type in the name of your program; remember that it is case sensitive, and must be 8 characters or less. Press [ENTER]. Congradualations! You have created a program. You can run it now, but it will do nothing. Press [EXIT] to leave the editor.

Opening an Existing Program: Press the [PRGM] button. Now press [F2] (Corresponding to "Edit"). Use the F-Keys to select the program that you want to edit. If there are more than 5 programs on your calculator, press [MORE] to cycle through them. After selecting the program, press enter. You are now back in the program editor. Hit [EXIT] to leave.

Running a Program: Press the [PRGM] button. Now press [F1] (Corresponding to "Names"). Select the program that you want to run by pressing its corresponding F-Key. Then hit [ENTER] to run the program. NOTE: The first time that you run a program after it is edited, the calculator takes longer than usual to start the program. Don't worry, it's normal.

Deleting a Program: This tutorial will instruct you to create many piece-of-junk programs that you will want to delete soon after their creation to save space :). To delete a program press [2ND], then [3]. You will be in the memory menu. Press [F2] (corresponding to DELETE), then press [F1] (corresponding to ALL). Scroll down until you are pointing to the program (or variable) that you want to delete. Press [ENTER] to kill it. WARNING: Once deleted, there is no undelete or recycle bin. It is gone forever. There is no confirmation message. Hit enter and the program is history.

Breaking a Program: When running a BASIC program, you can "break" it by pressing [ON]. What this does is ends the program immediately. This is a useful thing to know if for some reason the program goes into an endless loop and never stops.

Concerning Battery Removal: Never remove the batteries from your calculator unless it is necessary. When the calculator is off, you may remove or replace any or all of the AAA batteries safely (As long as your backup battery is working). If the AAAs and the backup battery are removed, your calculator's memory will be cleared. If the calculator is on, removing any battery will wipe the memory.

Well, that's about it. If you understand everything on this page, you are ready for Chapter 2: Input/Output.

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