83Plus:Hardware Revisions

The TI-83 Plus has gone through about 50 different hardware revisions, and has evolved significantly from the 5-chip original 1999 design to the 3-chip design used presently. Careful analysis of hundreds of TI-83 Pluses has led to the following conclusions.

Produced by Inventec

Inventec produced the prototypes of the TI-83 Plus and the earliest production models; serial numbers indicate production began in March 1999, which is nearly a year later than the TI-73. Hardware revisions are not comparable between factory codes I and S, but they are comparable between factory codes S and P.

Interestingly, after having switched to the 3.3-volt Inventec 6SI837 for quite some time, Inventec produced a short run of 5-chip TI REF 9815455GAII-based TI-83 Pluses as factory code I, hardware revision D.

Production expanded to Shanghai, as factory code S, in 2000. By 2002, Shanghai was Inventec's sole production of the TI-83 Plus. Only hardware revision A used the 5-chip architecture, while all later models use a 3-chip architecture around either the Inventec 6SI837 or the TI REF TI-738X ASIC. Hardware revision E changed to a LCD with poor contrast, and use of this poor-quality LCD continued at least through F. Hardware revision J synchronized hardware revision lettering with Nam Tai, as both manufacturers switched to 3.3-volt LCD drivers and eliminated the LCD daughterboard entirely. During revision K, and without bumping the hardware revision, the LCD driver was switched from the T6K04 to the NT7564H; this happened sometime during 2007.

Late in 2007, production moved from Shanghai to Pudong. The Pudong LCDs have the poorest contrast ratio of any TI-83 Plus hardware, but the hardware is otherwise identical to Shanghai-produced calculators of the same revision.

Inventec (I)

Inventec (factory code I)
Revision	First Seen	Last Seen	CPU	ASIC	RAM	FlashROM	LCD Driver
XX-X Proto			Z84C00	9815455	SRM2B256SLMX	Am29F400BT	T6A04
A	Jan 1999	May 2001	Z84C00	9815455GAII	SRM2B256SLMX	Am29F400BT	T6A04A
B	Mar 2001	Apr 2001	6SI837			MBM29LV400TC	T6A04A
D	May 2001		Z84C00	9815455GAII	A62W5308M	MBM29F400TC	T6A04A

Inventec Shanghai (S)

Inventec Shanghai (factory code S)
Revision	First Seen	Last Seen	CPU	ASIC	RAM	FlashROM	LCD Driver
A	May 2000	July 2001	Z84C00	9815455GAII	GM76C256	HY29F400TT	T6A04A
B	Aug 2001	May 2002	6SI837
C	Jan 2002	May 2003	6SI837			MX29LV400TTC	T6A04A
D	May 2002	Apr 2004	6SI837			MBM29LV400TC	T6A04A
E	Apr 2004	Apr 2005	6SI837			MBM29LV400TC	T6K04
F	Feb 2005	Jun 2005	6SI837			MBM29LV400TC	T6K04
J	Feb 2006
K (early)	Mar 2006		TI-738X				T6K04
K (late)		Aug 2007	TI-738X			S29AL004	NT7564H

Inventec Pudong (factory code P)
Revision	First Seen	Last Seen	CPU	ASIC	RAM	FlashROM	LCD Driver
L	Dec 2007	Apr 2013	TI-738X			S29AL004	NT7564H
M	Jul 2013	Dec 2013	TI-738X			MX29LV400CTTC	NT7564H

Produced by Nam Tai

Nam Tai produced the TI-83 Plus alongside Inventec from the first year of production all the way until the end of 2010, if not later. The baby blue Target cosmetic variant was only produced by Nam Tai. Earlier Nam Tai calculators were plagued with the LCDs missing rows/columns, but the contrast of the LCD is superior to Inventec's. Hardware variants are scattered throughout date periods and are not exactly chronological.

Nam Tai (N)

Nam Tai (factory code N)
Revision	First Seen	Last Seen	CPU	ASIC	RAM	FlashROM	LCD Driver
A	Oct 1999	Aug 2000	Z84C00	9815455GAII	SRM2B256SLMX	MX29F400TTC	T6A04A
C	Aug 2001
D	Dec 2001
E	Feb 2002	Feb 2003	Z84C00	9815455GAII	W24258S	MX29F400TTC	T6A04A
F	Feb 2003	Apr 2003
G	May 2003	Dec 2005	Z84C00	9815455GAII	HY62WT08081E	MX29F400TTC	T6A04A
H	Mar 2005	Dec 2005
I	Mar 2006
J	May 2006	Sep 2006	TI-738X			S29AL004
L	Mar 2007
Q	Apr 2007
S	Apr 2007	May 2007
T	May 2007	Jun 2007	TI-738X COB				NT7564H
U	May 2007	Jul 2007	TI-738X COB			MX29LV400CTTC	NT7564H
V	Jan 2008	Jan 2009	TI-738X COB				NT7564H
X	May 2009	Sep 2010	TI-738X COB			MX29LV400CTTC	NT7564H

Produced by Kinpo

Kinpo co-produced the TI-83 Plus with Inventec Pudong for a brief period of time, but was soon the sole TI-83 Plus manufacturer. Kinpo's calculators can be quickly identified by an angled plastic bezel immediately below the LCD. While LCD contrast and durability is excellent on these calculators, the new Kinpo LCD driver used on later-production calculators (perhaps isolated solely to the Philippines factory) can cause issues with community assembly programs; earlier hardware uses the NT7564H LCD driver. Hardware revisions are comparable between Kinpo China and Kinpo Philippines.

Certain calculators produced by Kinpo Philippines, especially those sold at Walmart, began using a new serial number format, with the first letter indicating year of production (A=2019, B=2020, ...) and the next two digits indicating the week of production. Since hardware revisions do not appear to be encoded in this format, direct comparison of PCBs is necessary to determine a calculator's hardware revision.

Kinpo (K)

Kinpo China (factory code K)
Revision	First Seen	Last Seen	CPU	ASIC	RAM	FlashROM	LCD Driver
pre-A	May 2011	Jul 2011
A	Apr 2012	Jul 2012
B	Jun 2012	Apr 2014
C	Apr 2014	Aug 2014

Kinpo Philippines (L)

Kinpo Philippines (factory code L)
Revision	First Seen	Last Seen	CPU	ASIC	RAM	FlashROM	LCD Driver
C	Jan 2015	Nov 2016
D	Dec 2017	Jun 2018	TI-738X COB				New Kinpo
E	Jul 2018	Jan 2021	TI-738X COB			MX29LV400CTTC	New Kinpo