[KLUG Hardware] TI Calculators, USB, Windows and Macs

[Andrew Thompson]

Through a rather nice stoke of luck about a month ago, I happened to
acquire a Texas Instruments TI-82 graphing calculator, and finally got
some batteries for it last week. Once I had it working, I turned my
attention to the little socket at the bottom and had a look online to
see about hooking it up to a computer. What I've learned so far:

Texas Instruments makes (or made) THREE different Graph Link cables for
their full range of graphic calculators: two serial port models, and a
more recent USB version. This one will connect ANY of the TI graphing
calculators to a Macintosh, but will not work with certain specific
models under Windows, including the TI-82.

TI makes no mention at all of Linux on their site, but
http://www.ticalc.org/ offers plenty of information on connecting to
these calculatorts under Linux. Unfortunately, I've not yet found any
information there specifically about Linux/USB/TI-82. I HAVE found a
page (http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_usb/) on one effort to develop a driver
and emailed one of the parties involved. I'm waiting on that one, but I
thought I would go ahead and ask the group here:

Does anyone know about USB implementation differences between the
Macintosh machines and x86-based PC's? Any idea at all whether this is
more likely a Windows-specific problem, or something inherent to USB on
ALL PC's?

-- 
Andrew Thompson <apthmpsn@imagerie.com>
The Imagerie