TI-73 series

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TI-73 series are graphing calculators made by Texas Instruments.

The original TI-73 was originally designed in 1998 as a replacement for the TI-80 for use at a middle school level (grades 6-9). Its primary advantage over the TI-80 is its 512 KB of flash memory, which holds the calculator's operating system and thereby allows the calculator to be upgraded. Other advantages over the TI-80 are the TI-73's standard sized screen (as opposed to the TI-80's smaller screen), the addition of a link port, 25 KB of RAM (as compared to the TI-80's 7 KB of RAM), and a faster 6 MHz Zilog Z80 processor (as compared with the TI-80's 980 KHz proprietary processor). The TI-73 also uses the standard 4 AAA batteries with a lithium backup battery (instead of the TI-80's 2 CR2032 lithium batteries).

In 2003, the TI-73 has been slightly redesigned and redesignated the TI-73 Explorer to indicate its currently intended use as a bridge between the TI-15 and similar calculators and the TI-83 Plus, TI-84 Plus, and similar calculators.

Due to lack of demand in middle schools, the TI-73 and TI-73 Explorer have not been huge sellers for TI and are not carried by most retail stores.

There is also a 'shell' to use assembly on it, known as Mallard.