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Texas Instruments TI-Primaire Plus

Date of introduction:	February 2014 Available: June 2014	Display technology:	LCD dot matrix
New price:		Display size:	2 * 11 characters
Size:	6.8" x 3.2" x 0.6" 172 x 81 x 14 mm³
Weight:	3.4 ounces, 97 grams	Serial No:
Batteries:	2*CR2032	Date of manufacture:	mth 02 year 2014
AC-Adapter:		Origin of manufacture:	China (K)
Precision:	13	Integrated circuits:
Memories:	1
Program steps:		Courtesy of:	Michel Zwawiak

Texas Instruments introduced in 2014 with the TI-Primaire Plus in France the successor of the Galaxy 10. Matching the design of the TI-106 II and the technology of the TI-30XS MultiView the TI-Primaire Plus is a very capable calculator for young students.

Like the original Galaxy 10 introduced already in 1988 allows the TI-Primaire Plus fractional arithmetic. You can use two different modes:

• Euklid's division: 56 / 5 = 11 (Q) 1 (R)
• Fractional division: 56 / 5 = 11_1/5

With the SIMP and F-D-key you can shorten results and convert between fractional and decimal display:

• 35/70 SIMP 1/2 F-D 0.5

The TI-Primaire Plus features an interesting dot matrix display with 2 rows of 11 characters using each 5 * 7 addressable pixels allowing the calculator to display results as they would be printed in a text book.

Dismantling this TI-Primaire Plus with the date code K-0214 (K for Kinpo electronics, Inc. reveals a pretty common construction with two printed circuit boards (PCB's). The main PCB hides the single-chip calculating circuit under a small protection blob of black epoxy and drives the graphing display with a heat sealed fine-pitch connector. The keyboard makes use of a much simpler second PCB and a heat sealed connector, too

Please notice on the smaller PCB near the calculator circuit two jumpers labeled with:

• J4 (ENG)
• J5 (FRANCE)

With J5 set active. We assume that Texas Instruments implemented both the "French fractions" and "English / German fractions" in
the Software of the calculator chip. We know this approach since the beginning of fractional arithmetic calculator:

• English / German fractions: Galaxy Junior, Galaxy 9x, Galaxy 40x.
• French fractions: Galaxy 10, Galaxy 9, Galaxy 40.

If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.