Color screens are an advancement that most graphing calculators have, inexplicably, forgone for ages. But finally, Texas Instruments is moving one of its old battleaxes to Technicolor: the company is due to release a color version of its TI-84 calculator, according to a post Friday at TechPoweredMath.

Calculators were one of the last display holdouts seemingly opposed to the idea of the color wheel. Even as computers, and then smartphones, cropped up around classrooms and labs with their millions-of-colors displays, the various strains of TI workhorses remained staunchly in the black-and-white era.

Following a rumor of a Technicolor-enabled TI-84 called the TI-84+ C Silver, a Texas Instruments source confirmed to TechPoweredMath that the finest members of its brain trust are, in fact, hard at work on such a device. TechPoweredMath notes that an update to colored screens would require a serious overhaul of the TI-84’s operating system.

In February 2011, Texas Instruments released a new graphing calculator named the TI-Nspire, which includes not only a color screen, but Windows and OS X-compatible software (and costs about $50 more than the TI-84). It’s not clear why Texas Instruments is attempting to catch the TI-84 up to the TI-Nspire’s level, rather than leave it in the monochrome dust.

Fond though our memories of our graphing calculators are, it's about time they got a screen upgrade. Texas Instruments provided no release timeframe, but the company has posted an information request form for the rare beast on its website.