I just put in new batties into my TI-83 plus calculator. For some reason a black line appeared. HELP?

Question

Even stranger. The black line suddenly faded away leaving a useless empty screen. None of the keys would work so i took out the batteries and replaced them with another new set. Nothing happened. I held down the "on" button and the down arrow button a couple of seconds and a black box appeared. What should i do?

Answer 1

hit clear a couple of times.  Sometimes when you put batteries into the calculator, the screen resets, it isn't broken, you just have to clear the lines, they should go away and you should be able to use it like normal.  Just make sure to be gentle, only hit the on button once, and then hit clear a few times.