Texas Instruments Threats, and Bombs, Rapidly Defused
Texas Instruments Incorporated. Beloved creator of worldwide-use calculators, fine electrical equipment, and high explosives.
In this week that will forever go down in history, TI merged its fields of expertise into one product to blow them all away: The TI-C4s, a new line of explosive-rigged calculators. And CMU – the unique, insane school it is – has turned their plot completely on its head.
Texas Instruments professed just one reason for their calculators to completely stop their modification. TI calculators have long had a dedicated, passionate fanbase of programmers and hackers, modding and sharing detailed games and elaborate projects the world over. And TI hates them. Despises them. In a recent press release, representatives of the corporation — bombarded with incensed outcries and comparisons to the Desmos software’s community scene — said a total of eleven words before having to leave the room to calm down. On the personal and corporate level, TI wants its hackers gone..
We should have seen TI’s more drastic measures coming a long, long time ago. True fans of the company recognize, or even remember if particularly lucky, their work on the elaborate BOLT-117 laser-guided missile. Widely regarded as a gorgeous piece of engineering, TI opened the industry of building hyper-capable electronics into massive dumb bombs. If only they had a modern product of hyper-capable electronics to stuff with dumb bombs.
Under this proud banner was the TI-C4 released. Identical to a TI-84 Plus CE – if one ignores its seven-segment countdown panel and several extra pounds – it has become TI’s new flagship product overnight. Nothing better represents their modern poison-dart-frog-esque sentiment: if you don’t mess with the calculator in any capacity, the calculator will not disassemble your anatomy to any degree.
CMU students have taken up the challenge. We’ve reached out to a newborn student organization at CMU – lovingly named We Don’t Blow *** Up Committee — to see what CMU is doing about the latest threat to students having a good time. Founded last Tuesday by two CMU Esports Platinum CS:GO players who earned “Most Enthusiastic Counter-Terrorist” several years running, WDBUC has burgeoned overnight into a training camp for amateur bomb defusal specialists. They’ve bulk ordered hundreds of TI-C4s, enduring countless cease-and-desists from the mailing room, to fund their operation; and shared why they turned their passions towards these new products.
“Well, firstly, spite,” said one. “Good and pure rage. Everyone’s now got a bone to pick with TI over them being little cowards. Surely one of them is a cybersecurity guy, and we can share if not.”
“And on a more serious note,” answered the other, “they’re a perfect dual playing ground. You can work from afar, breaking in through software and trying not to trigger the automatic anti-modification detectors, or you can go in by hand and work on the electronics up close. We’ve never been able to get this many CS and ECE students in a room without critical mass burning down the school. Things are looking good for us.”
The WDB*UC is indeed seeing wide, wide success. It’s attracted CMU’s elusive drama and creative writing students as rapt spectators to the tense defusing rooms. It’s provided free bombless calculators to two high schools in the Pittsburgh area, and free calculatorless bombs to other unnamed grateful parties. And it’s witnessed yet another TI executive tragically pass away from a stress aneurysm — whether simple coincidence, or a successful push against injustice, I’m not at license to say.