In high school, after getting my TI-83+, I also started to learn to program things.
For tests, my teachers would force me to clear my memory (you're not fooling catholic nuns with a fake screen, she would take my calculator and clear it herself).
But I got good at programming. I was so fast that I would just spend the first 30 minutes of a 1-hour test re-writing the programs and then spend 5 minutes completing the test and be excused to go to the computer lab for the remainder.
Eventually I got so annoyed of typing things out on the TI-83+ keyboard, and as I progressed the programs got more complex, that I bought a TI-92 with a qwerty keyboard and would be able to write solvers the test in 5-10 minutes and fully solve a test in 5-10 minutes. I mostly did it so I could have more time in the computer lab.
I still have those calculators too, I should see if they still work some day :)
I absolutely did this as well, though for the most part you could hardly call them "solvers", just tools to help me more effectively check a stack of educated guesses. IIRC a lot of the problems could be bounded well enough to brute force on my TI-83+.
For tests, my teachers would force me to clear my memory (you're not fooling catholic nuns with a fake screen, she would take my calculator and clear it herself).
But I got good at programming. I was so fast that I would just spend the first 30 minutes of a 1-hour test re-writing the programs and then spend 5 minutes completing the test and be excused to go to the computer lab for the remainder.
Eventually I got so annoyed of typing things out on the TI-83+ keyboard, and as I progressed the programs got more complex, that I bought a TI-92 with a qwerty keyboard and would be able to write solvers the test in 5-10 minutes and fully solve a test in 5-10 minutes. I mostly did it so I could have more time in the computer lab.
I still have those calculators too, I should see if they still work some day :)