tikey(1)

📦 version 0.2^20160515gcc7dc08, in fedora 43, fedora 44

💅 tikey — the manual page, but make it make sense

okay bestie, welcome to tikey(1), a General Commands Manual situation. buckle up, this one's actually adorable.

✨ NAME ✨

tikey — remotely control a graphing calculator 🎀

like, you're the main character, the calculator is the sidekick. you type, it obeys. periodt.

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

tikey [ options ] text ...

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically, tikey lets you type commands on a TI graphing calculator that's connected to your machine, using the "remote control" protocol. not every calculator speaks this language, bestie — it's supported by the newer models. iykyk.

whatever you drop in the command-line arguments gets typed out as ASCII strings. cute, right? but here's the thing — if you need to send a special keycode, you can't just type it like a normal little word. you write it as an octal or hexadecimal value with a \ or \x in front, like this:

  • \111 — octal
  • \x49 — hex

both of those? that's the Y= key on the TI-83 series. 💅

for the actual keycode values, go check the calculator SDK documentation. i don't make the rules, i just read them. 🙈
  • -c, --cable=type[:port] — use the link cable you specify. if you don't specify one, tikey will go hunting for USB cables plugged into the system (so brave of it). the cable type can be either the full name or the 3-letter abbreviation, your choice:
    • GrayLink / gry
    • BlackLink / blk
    • Parallel / par
    • SilverLink / slv
    • DirectLink / usb
    • VTI / vti
    • TiEmu / tie
    • UsbKernel / dev

⚠️ and heads up — for serial- and parallel-port link cables, you also have to specify a port number. no skipping that part, bestie.

  • -m, --calc=type — use the calculator model you specify. if you leave it out, tikey will try to figure out the model all by itself. it's giving psychic energy but honestly it's just polite.
  • --timeout=n — wait up to n milliseconds for the calculator to respond. give it a lil grace period. 🫶

🌸 OTHER OPTIONS 🌸

  • -v, --verbose — print out details of link operations. the gossip version. you get to see everything that's going on. 👀
  • --help — print out program version information.
  • --version — print out program version information.

(yes those two do the same thing, and yes that's iconic of them. we love a duo.)

🧚 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🧚

  • TITOOLS_CABLE — default link cable to use, if the -c option isn't specified.
  • TITOOLS_CALC — default calculator model to use, if the -m option isn't specified.
  • TITOOLS_TIMEOUT — default timeout value in milliseconds.

set them once, live your life. 💖

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

tiget(1), tiinfo(1), tils(1), tiput(1), tirm(1), tiscr(1)

the whole friend group, fr fr. go say hi.

⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

Benjamin Moody <floppusmaximus@users.sf.net> — thank you for your service, king. 🌈

and that's the whole page, bestie. this little slice of the internet is brought to you by TITools 0.1, dated August 2010. yeah, it's vintage. it still slays. 🎀✨💅

📦 where this page comes from