Color-Screen TI-84 Plus Calculator Leaked 245
KermMartian writes "It has been nearly two decades since Texas Instruments released the TI-82 graphing calculator, and as the TI-83, TI-83+, and TI-84+ were created in the intervening years, these 6MHz machines have only become more absurdly retro, complete with 96x64-pixel monochome LCDs and a $120 price tag. However, a student member of a popular graphing calculator hacking site has leaked pictures and details about a new color-screen TI-84+ calculator, verified to be coming soon from Texas Instruments. With the lukewarm reception to TI's Nspire line, it seems to be an attempt to compete with Casio's popular color-screen Prizm calculator. Imagine the graphs (and games!) on this new 320x240 canvas."
And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:4, Interesting)
Have HP done something lately?
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. I'm clinging on my HP-48s, and I dread the day they'll stop working, because absurdly old tech or not, there's just nothing better on the market right now.
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Well, my HP 28C still works perfecly after about a quarter century of daily use, so I wouldn't be too worried..
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:4, Informative)
I replaced my HP-48 with an HP-50g and have no complaints. It uses four AAA cells instead of three, has USB, a full sized SD card slot, and a user replaceable coin lithium cell for battery backup.
The tactile keyboard is a pretty close match as well.
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think every OS and software platform in existence has a HP48 emulator. Currently I use one on my Android cellphone when I need to calculate something and I don't have the - increasingly rare - real thing with me, but as you say, without the excellent HP keyboard, it's nowhere near as fast to do anything with it.
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:5, Informative)
HP still offers RPN on a few of their calculators. In the graphing-calculator department, there's the HP 50g [amazon.com], which can switch between RPN and non-RPN modes.
They have a list of the six RPN calculators they still sell here [hp.com] (bottom of the page).
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:5, Informative)
Last time I checked the 50g was their top of the line calculator. Well built, powerful enough and with a good, clear, easy to read BW lcd. Software wise... it has not changed much. The 50g uses its "powerful" 200mhz processor to emulate the old 4-8mhz saturn one, the software in gneneral is just a minor evolution from the one found in an older 49g, it runs faster but thats about it. The one gripe I have with the 50g is its battery life, probably related to the fact that it its running everything emulated.
Do I hope HP will do something about its aging calculator lineup? No.
Am I happy with the current calculators? Yes.
Will I be tempted to buy a Casio or a TI? Hell no, once you go RPN you never go back.
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This! A thousand times, this!
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I can't find info on the screen resolution, but it seems HP has done nothing to improve it. Since you have it, how does the screen look like?
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Its a bit taller (131×80 vs 131×64), contrast is improved and glare reduced. The screen is noticeably better than the one in the 49g.
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on android I use hc-16c and free42. Wolfram alpha if you allow "cloudy" solutions.
There are a couple hp48 emu but the buttons are too small on anything other than a tablet.
If anyone can find better math software for an android device, post here?
Odd how you can get decent software on cruddy hardware, or cruddy software on decent hardware. I'd like something as powerful as a HP48 but not emulated... native. I know octave is available on android but the keyboard situation is icky.
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hp15c was brought back and then totally sold out.
you can find the new ones, still, on ebay (still new).
new cpu, new buttons and plastic but the same basic idea and even though it was $100, I did buy one. and one for a backup.
I hate touch screens and I loved my old style hp calc. when the 15c came back, I grabbed some to use and keep.
have not found a need for graphing. once I need more than the 15c, for example, I'll lift my lazy ass up and go find a computer to use (ob disc: I'm not in school and never a
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I bought the new 15C-LE too, but it's seriously buggy to the point of being unusable for any old programs that depend on the PSE function.
It could be fixed with a flash upgrade, but this is New HP, not the old one where the top guys had pride in what they did and didn't look for pennies to save, so it won't happen.
It doesn't support synthetic programming like the original either. And eats batteries if you hold down keys.
Yes, it's faster, but I'd trade it for a real 15C in a heartbeat.
My favourite calculato
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I use an HP 48 emulator on my smart phone every day. Sure I miss the button feel, but with vibrate tactile feedback works okay. Maybe HP should just make an android device with nice calculator buttons. Then just make good math apps, along the lines of math cad.
If course admitting that a graphing calculator is just a general purpose computer these days would probably get them banned by schools and test proctors.
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They did a re-release of the totally awesome HP 15C.
I have two on my desk, the original version.
This is the perfect RPN calculation tool.
http://www.amazon.com/HP-NW250AA-15C-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B005EIG3MW [amazon.com]
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I have a HP 17b11+ financial calculator. It can be configured to do RPN and works as a scientific calculator as well.
It's alsp got a clock
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:5, Interesting)
So I ask: Why do you, Slashdot users, like RPN?
I don't know that I can really articulate it, either, but I can report the results of an interesting experiment I participated in about 20 years ago.
I was an RPN-lover even then, having recently graduated from my 15C to a 28S, but most of the other geeks in the university computer lab where I spent a ridiculous amount of time couldn't see the sense in it. Late one night the discussion got somewhat heated and someone said that an advantage of RPN was that it was faster because it required fewer keystrokes. A measurable claim like that immediately sparked a demand for proof, so we decided to do some comparisons.
One guy got on the whiteboard and wrote down four very complex arithmetic expressions. Then for each expression, two candidates were selected, one from the RPN camp and one from the infix camp. Each was to write down on the board, under the expression, the series of keystrokes that would be needed to evaluate it. In all cases the RPN keystroke list was shorter, often considerably, but after the first was done everyone noticed a second interesting and unexpected outcome: The RPN-wielder finished writing down his keystroke list long before the infix-wielder -- and not just because of the number of keystrokes. Everyone watching noticed that the infix-proponent often paused for a second or two to think about how to handle the next bit, or stopped for a moment to go back to count up parentheses. In contrast, the RPN-er never paused, never hesitated, just wrote down keystrokes as fast as he could.
After that, we all decided that we should also time the remaining trials, which were all conducted with different candidates. The RPN user consistently finished 25% faster than the infix user, even though the keystroke list was only about 5% shorter.
Then someone (I think it was actually someone from the RPN camp) decided to write a truly horrendously complex expression. It had fractions nested at least ten layers deep and was, frankly, ridiculous. Two more stepped up to try and, once again, the RPN user wrote down keystrokes in a long list, without any more hesitation than it took to find his place in the expression. The infix guy, on the other hand got badly bogged down, backed up several times and ultimately gave up after his RPN competitor had been watching him struggle for five minutes.
To top it all off, actually punching all those keystrokes into real calculators showed that RPN was more accurate. On only one of the five problems was the RPN calculation not correct, while the infix calculation was incorrect on three out of five (determining which answers were correct took significant time and much arguing).
Bottom line, per our impromptu tests and my personal experience, RPN is faster and easier.
I could easily explain why it requires fewer keystrokes, but why exactly it requires less cognitive effort is harder to describe. I believe, though, that it's because when you use RPN you pick a "path" through the expression, and then just follow it. At each point along the path you only have to remember where you've been and where you're going. The calculator keeps track of the stack. With infix you have to manage the "stack" in your head, figuring out when to add and remove nesting levels with parentheses. That's not exactly right, but it's as close as I've been able to come.
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could easily explain why it requires fewer keystrokes, but why exactly it requires less cognitive effort is harder to describe.
Not really. It's how you would do it without a calculator. If someone told you to do 23 x 27, you would likely write down (or memorize) the two numbers and then do the multiplication. And if someone told you to calculate (4+7)*(11+31), you would first take 4 and 7, add them, then take 11 and 31 and add them, and finally multiply the results.
Just like in RPN. You get the same intermediate results too.
In other words, if you know basic arithmetic well enough to do it on pen and paper, you should feel at home using RPN. If you don't, it won't do you any good, and will even prevent you from faking it.
Also, most non-RPN calculator are still reverse in how they handle single-operand calculations. To get sin(90), you typically enter 90 SIN. The advantage is that when you need to use the result of one calculation, you don't have to store it. If you've already added 42 and 18 to get 60, and need to take cosine of that, it does not make sense to hit "STO 1 COS( RCL 1) =" instead of just "COS".
So when calculator users are already used to it for single operands, why not use it for two, like RPN does?
Re:And for all of us who prefer RPN? (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you are writing British English instead of American English, in which companies or organisations are considered plural entities in and of themselves, therefore the OP's grammar is just fine.
Re:HP-15c fiasco: HP doesn't want your money (Score:4, Interesting)
I hate chinese knock-offs, but when a shady-market HP-15c clone comes out I'll order a whole shipping container of them.
There is a 15C knock-off, but Swiss,not Chinese:
http://www.rpn-calc.ch/ [rpn-calc.ch]
The downside is that it's much smaller and without the HP feel of the keys. The plus side is that it uses the original ROMs, so it's more HP-15C compatible than the HP-15C-LE is.
Certified dumb for school use? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will this be a "certified dumb enough for school use during tests" device?
Re:Certified dumb for school use? (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, graphing calculators are largely an artifact of the past, except in the case of school examinations. Students need a calculator that is "dumb enough" to not write the entire exam for them and not be able to wirelessly share answers between neighbouring students. When a student enters the world outside school, the graphing calculator will be largely useless. If you are an engineer and you need "smart features" when doing a particular problem, you will likely use a proper computer and a dedicated software package tailored to the task. The only reason you might need a small calculator is to do quick calculations.
Myself, I'm a fan of the old HP 15C. No menus. Excellent key layout. Reverse polish notation. Everything you need, nothing you don't. Perfectly tailored to the task of doing quick calculations.
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Excellent key layout.
A scroll wheel or maybe even a little pad would be nice, for easier editing of equations. Live update of graphs/results as you edit the equation, with a USB interface to dump results to a PC would be handy as well.
Adding a colour screen is pointless, it is the interface that needs an upgrade.
Re:Certified dumb for school use? (Score:5, Funny)
Students need teachers/profs who are "dumb enough" not to realize that graphing calculators have enough memory to store an entire crib sheet of formulas that the students were supposed to memorize.
(Not that I'm speaking from experience here, of course.)
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Nothing still does units quite as easily as my TI-89. I take it everywhere and anytime we're with a supplier/customer that insists on non-metric (or even worse a mix of metric/non-metric) I just let the '89 sort it out.
I use it all the time to verify that I'm doing unit cancellation correction.
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Re:Certified dumb for school use? (Score:4, Interesting)
The entire math curriculum was design around the limitation of that calculator. Also it helped that most problems that the calculator was unable to solve by itself had a methodical solution taught in the textbook.
So for the problems where the calculator was able to compute the correct answer, I would compute and pretty print the intermediary step backward from there. For the few problems that were beyond the calculator reach I would compute a lot of discriminants, keep the one that matched a known solutions family then I would extract the meaningful coefficient and pretty print the solution with the test used.Since that software was written on the ti-92 keyboard procrastinating instead of drilling myself with math problems in the directed exercise portion of the math classes.
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If they grade on a curve and you're on a scholarship, I can easily imagine a "fair price" being too much for your competition to pay.
This technique is nothing new nor limited solely to 1st yr engineering. I was completely automating high school math problems including printing all intermediate results/steps two decades ago on a TI-81.
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In my case my program was not documented. Making the program was my 'studying'. I had a program for every ME course I took. For example in Fluids I had a very nice (but hard to understand) GUI. You gave it what you know and what you were looking for and it'd step you through the work. It'd show you the page numbers the equations were on and everything. Now I probably spent 4x as long making that program as my peers spent studying. And by time I ran through enough practice problems to help me learn the mater
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Dumb enough for primary/secondary school - maybe.
Dumb enough for college (or professional certification/licensure) - no way.
In courses from calculus to physics and beyond, scientific calculators without graphical bells and whistles are adequate for use with problems designed to demonstrate understanding of a subject.
If you really need data visualization use Matlb or Excel.
If you need to test for Matlab or Excel proficiency, let the students hand-write code on the exam.
It's just too easy to cheat with techno
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It's just too easy to cheat with technology to use much of it during testing.
And yet nobody seems to see the obvious truth that the problem is with the test, and not the technology.
Really, Ti (Score:5, Insightful)
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I suspect part of the reason they're upgrading is because you can't get screens as shit as their old one for a reasonable price anymore. Seriously. The last time I looked, 320x240 colour screens actually appeared to be cheaper.
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Z80s at 15MHz must be getting harder to get, too. They're already using 150KB of RAM and limiting it to 24k, too. At some point, you might as well upgrade it.
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Z80s at 15MHz must be getting harder to get, too. They're already using 150KB of RAM and limiting it to 24k, too. At some point, you might as well upgrade it.
You can still get brand-new 65C02s (now at 14 MHz); a quick shows Mouser has them in stock [mouser.com]. I'd think the Z80 would be similarly available, especially given all of the embedded systems that have used it over the past few decades.
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Yeah, frankly I'm surprised people are still using these. It seems like they should be able to make an iPhone/Android app that could do much better. For $100, I'd think they could make something comparable to a cheap Android phone in terms of computing power and capabilities. If they're worried about power consumption, maybe they could switch to a high-quality e-paper display. If they're worried about security, they could make a device that lacked network connectivity.
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High school (Score:5, Funny)
I seem to recall the major feature of any electronic calculator was the ability to write 80085 and make your classmates giggle.
Re:High school (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you have to admit it's an improvement: when you dial 8.0085 on a slide rule, it's not nearly as funny.
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You're underestimating the amount of innuendo a skilled operator can extract from a slide rule. They are, after all, far more phallic than your average calculator.
Just don't try it with one of those newfangled circular slide rules.
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laugh all you want, sonny, but my slide rule still is using the same set of batteries today that it shipped with.
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> I seem to recall the major feature of any electronic calculator was the ability to write 80085 and make your classmates giggle.
Isn't it 8085?
If your calculator can show "Bob"s [subgenius.com], that's pretty cool.
just emulate it (Score:3)
Except for nostalgia for the hardware itself, I don't see why anybody would buy these. You can get excellent emulators for pretty much any of these calculators on both Android and iPhone. And their interfaces actually work well on phones too. Even the phone hardware is often cheaper than these calculators.
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I suspect the only people who really use scientific calculators nowadays are students in exams. I don't know what the rules are like elsewhere, but when I did GCSEs and A-Levels, many years ago, exam boards had lists of allowed calculators and mobile phones were banned from exam rooms.
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Except for nostalgia for the hardware itself, I don't see why anybody would buy these.
Test taking - calculators do not have WiFi or Cellular radios.
Keypad - Physical keypads are superior to touch screens.
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Physical buttons. Not just physical buttons but physical buttons but physical buttons mapped to all the functions one would regularly use on a calculator.
Every time I try to use an emulator or 'soft' "scientific calculator" I find data entry is much slower.
My Casio fx 82 still works (Score:4, Interesting)
after 30 years! Used, overused and abused. Thrown in the wall, broken, reassembled. Loved.
Unfortunately my even older Texas Instruments was stolen some thirty years ago.
Before those, at school we used http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-59_/_TI-58 [wikipedia.org]
And before that I got my Citizen. Don't recall what model though.
Those were the days.
BTW, is there no web page with images of all these old models? For nostalgia.
TI-30LCD - pictures at http://www.datamath.org (Score:2)
Just found http://www.datamath.org/ [datamath.org]
http://www.datamath.org/Sci/Slimline/TI-30LCD.htm [datamath.org]
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I have a Casio fx 7000 that I still use. It's almost 30 years old, and only on the third battery. In high school I used to write programs on it that turned the display into a drawing program. You could plot lines using the crosshair. I used to draw flight simulator displays on it and trick my friends into thinking I'd written a flight simulator on it.
XKCD (Score:4, Funny)
Relevant XKCD [xkcd.com]
What a joke! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is 2012. Not 1982 anymore.
The only reason TI is popular is because they pay off textbook makers and contribute to elections for school board executives. $120 for something with 1/5000th of the computing power of a smart phone? A rip off.
When I moved to Canada senior year at highschool they were all dumbfounded why I had such a strange device that costed so much. In this day and age wouldn't an Android shit tablet for the same price with a crippled version of Maple be better?
Call me cynical but I did not understand why 32k of ram more is still a premium for these calculators when I went back to school in 2004. I felt like I was living in 20 years in the past. The profit margins have to be insane
What's the alternative? (Score:2)
TI is also popular because they seem to be the only company actually making higher end calculators. While in school is a major place you want those, there are uses out in the real world too.
I have a TI nSpire CX that I got because I kept finding myself needing a calculator aside from my computer, and I wanted something that could do more advanced math, should I need or want it, rather than just a basic one. So it sits on my desk for when it is needed.
I've found nothing that is near as good overall. While th
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Thing is, more powerful calculators actually do make it easier to advance in math quicker. The reason is you discover advanced math has a lot of repetitive bullshit. While it is important to learn how to do that stuff, once you know it, there is little point to repeating it over and over and over.
Also in the real world, you discover that you do not try to solve problems in an artificial vacuum where you have minimal access to tools, you have an enriched toolset.
The best math class I ever had allowed for any
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Come back when you have a TI-88 for sale.
I had one on order, and then they cancelled it. It was planned to be the HP-41 killer, but never made it because TI thought that the future of calculating was with PCs. So they came out with TI PCs instead, which was an astonishing success. Not.
Its time for TI and Casio to bite the bullet (Score:2)
Either bring out a calculator that is essentially a programmable scientific computer with a PROPER programming language, (not some hobbled joke that would have embarrassed an 8 bit home computer) and a PROPER display , or just call it a day , accept smartphones can do everything a graphic calc can do except better and just stick to producing cheap school calculators that can do logs, trig and notalot else. TI sort of tried with the TI-92 about 10 years ago but the display was a joke and it was dog slow. Oh
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Older (meaning non-Nspire) can be programmed in C and assembly, the others can be jailbroken to allow it. Hardly counts as a hobbled joke, especially considering they usually are essentially 8-bit computers (TI-83/84 have Z80 processors, TI-92/Voyage 200 have Motorola 68ks).
Displays could use improvements, but there's not too much to gain from moving beyond what the Nspire CXs have.
I have to disagree about the TI-92 being slow. It is compared to something modern (An Nspire makes it feel like it was the slow
Still using my TI-85 (Score:2)
Well, I say using: it sees very little real use any more, sadly. I still carry it in my backpack though.
Math Prof here... (Score:5, Insightful)
TI-fail. We've been talking, they haven't been listening. We don't want this (and I'm fairly sure I speak for Faculty and Students alike)
Don't get me wrong, color and higher resolution would be nice, but I'd much rather they sell the current device for what is more along the lines of what it costs to produce. Probably TI would still do quite well if they sold these beasts for $20....$120 is just ridiculous highway rapery prices.
Look, we (the faculty) need our students to use these. Are they outdated? Yes....but even though the students would get much more use out of tablets (which cost about the same) the TI83/84 are designed to be hard to program (and easy to reset). That coupled with the fact that they are the most sophisticated computational device that doesn't have WIFI access, we can be confident they give the students a level playing field during an exam of what is pretty much still the accepted amount of technological reliance needed to assist (but not interfere) with instruction of concepts from College Algebra/Calculus/Trig, etc. This is why we continue to use them. However, at the college I teach at, most of these are purchased by students who use them for one semester and then they become a worthless brick to the student. There isn't anything you can do with them besides try to resell them to someone else, and the cost is comparable to the textbook price, ie, significant (and don't get me started about book prices)
Its been a policy at my college that College Algebra (and above) courses require TI-83/84 calculators. However, as college continues to become more expensive many faculty are piloting alternatives. We're even getting to the point where we're considering letting the students use tablet/smartphone calculator apps (if they want) and just requiring they use a TI-83/84 at exams, which they would be able to check out or rent from the department during exams.
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For $120 a pop you can get a cheap tablet today and they are only going to get cheaper. I predict $25 and $50 cheap versions to be as cheap as they will get. On this hardware you will be able to run android, windows 8, or anything else designed for a touch interface.
Software the equivalent of mathlab or autocad.
For tests you can give out tablets that will have permitted apps already installed and the device hardened to being modified. Same approved apps students use on their own personal devices. Simple to
Why the heck do your course require a calculator ? (Score:2)
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I Love This Place (Score:5, Funny)
yeah, that my kind of crowd!
It's a calculator! (Score:2)
I would like a calculator to be just a calculator and nothing else.
One of the things that I like about my TI83+ is that when I power it on, it's there, ready to use instantly.
I also have the TI-nspire with the 84+ keypad plugin, and it's a joke. If I don't use it for a few days, the system has to RE-LOAD and it's like booting windows on a calculator, very annoying. And the touch-pad is a joke too. You have to fiddle with it for minutes in order to have the arrow appear.
TI - find back to your roots, let a ca
FWIW (Score:2)
did the plug fall out, again? (Score:2, Funny)
sigh. we've been having no end of trouble with the graphics fluid coming out if the plug is not properly sealed.
and now the 84 is leaking? damn. the last ECO must not have held.
I never liked the color idea, anyway. I see a red font and I want to paint it black.
$120+ bucks for this? (Score:2)
OK I officially dont get it.
What is the attraction of a graphing calculator these days?
I mean couldnt you just get a smartphone app that does the same thing but better? Doesn't the average smartphone have a much more powerful cpu and much better graphics?
Please point me to said app (Score:2)
No seriously, I'd be interested. I'm not a student, so I have no restrictions on what calculator I can use for whatever I like. I have an nSpire because I find nothing else comes close.
Can you find me an Android (since that's what my phone runs) calculator app that is easy to use, can do exact and approximate solving, has a CAS setup (meaning can solve algebraic and linear equations), and has at least reasonable graphing? Because I haven't been able to.
And please don't go and point to the Matlab app. Everyo
nspire is still far better (Score:2)
I have really loved the nspire CX CAS for my engineering classes. It looks like this new ti-84 is just going to use the same screen which the nspire CX uses which is just a cellphone screen.
It can solve simultaneous non-linear system of equations along with ODEs, integrals, differentials etc. The most I have given it so far is a set of about 40 equations and it still handles it just fine.
Our professors have started giving us more realistic problems and they are expecting more realistic solutions and things
You can take my HP-67 (Score:2)
from my cold dead hands. Almost 40 years old, and it still works great.
More details (Score:2)
For what it's worth... (Score:4, Interesting)
...I took my Comp Sci students on a tour of TI's DMOS6 fab in Richardson, TX last year. (Rather fascinating, BTW, largest completely automated fab in the world at the time, since replaced by a bigger TI fab!). At any rate, our tour guide (an engineering type) told us TI got out of the calculator business years ago. The only thing a TI calculator shares with TI the company is the name stamped on the case and a couple TI chips inside. They are designed and built by non-TI companies.
WTF (Score:2)
I think the best comparison for these calculators is this: http://xkcd.com/768/ [xkcd.com]
Or one could instead grab any android phone, install an app with a Python interpreter and have something to match the matlabs and mathematicas of the desktop (for only the cost of the hardware, not having to fork thousands of $$ in software license).
Re:There's not an app for that!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't our smartphones be capable of everything of what a calculator can do?
Yes, and more, like allowing a student to text an answer to another student during a test. Still, it is impressive that they think they can charge so much for a device whose only selling point is that it is too hobbled to cheat with.
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" Still, it is impressive that they think they can charge so much for a device whose only selling point is that it is too hobbled to cheat with."
As with textbook prices, "assraping a captive audience" pays off handsomely.
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Some of the TI graphing calculators can share answers anyway using an the built in IR port or bluetooth that some of the newer TI's have already anyway. Most teachers I have had don't care what model of calculator you use as long as it is a TI. Math classes may as well be graded by who has the most expensive TI branded calculator. For one of the standardized tests I was forced to take they only allowed TI branded calculators and would not let me use my cheap casio scientific calculator because use of all ot
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Wouldn't our smartphones be capable of everything of what a calculator can do?
Certainly. But a dedicated calculator is still going to have some advantages, such as vastly superior battery life.
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Certainly. But a dedicated calculator is still going to have some advantages, such as vastly superior battery life.
So if you have an exam that lasts as long as some cricket matches, you're golden.
Seriously, from a practical point of view - why does this matter much? At this point we're all used to charging our smart devices nightly or every other day.
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Interesting, but it's not actually a counter-argument to my statement.
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Yes, smartphones are capable of everything a calculator can do, and more. However, what I find perplexing is that, no matter how many calculator apps I try, I can't find one that I actually prefer over my old TI-83 Plus. Here are a few edges it has over calculator apps I've tried:
1. Battery life.
2. Physical keys.
3. Variable support. Even the best apps I've tried don't let you store many variables, or as easily.
4. Stupid easy and fast scripting abilities.
There are also some subjective intangibles, familia
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I have RealCalc on my phone, but at the end of the day I still reach for my TI-86 (home) or 92 (work) on my desk. Probably because it's quicker: no need to wake it, unlock the screen, navigate to the app, launch the app, then constantly repeat the first two steps when it invariably goes to sleep before I'm really done.
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I have RealCalc on my phone, but at the end of the day I still reach for my TI-86 (home) or 92 (work) on my desk. Probably because it's quicker: no need to wake it, unlock the screen, navigate to the app, launch the app, then constantly repeat the first two steps when it invariably goes to sleep before I'm really done.
Whoops, I meant TI-89 at work, not 92.
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Strictly speaking they are not necessary. A test can be written to allow a student to do without the calculator, rather than the current situation in which there are convolutions so that certain problems cannot be easily done with a calculator.
A phone simply is too uncontrolled. Questions can be specially written to counteract the capabilities of
Re:Superseded (Score:5, Interesting)
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I have the same CR2032 battery in my TI-30X that it came with in 2001.
Your AAAs are likely in a compartment that doesn't require a screwdriver to open because your graphing calculator is an electron-guzzling behemoth.
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Honestly, it's difficult to see this as anything but too little, too late (for non-high school students, at least) when the Wolfram Alpha app on smartphones is so much more powerful.
Too powerful. TI, cynically but effectively, has targeted the overwhelming majority of their calculators at the educational market, roughly in the middle school to undergrad range, depending on local and instructor policies. To this end, they gimp the devices hard enough that teachers and standardized test admins mostly don't freak out about them.
Yeah, for everything except keyfeel(which could be solved by a $20 USB or BT HID keypad with a calculator layout), the ship has sailed long ago in terms of power,
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TI could release the official TI-xx app for the iPhone/Android, sell different features, etc, and probably make a boat load of money.
Because an iPhone/android phone on the desk is even more of a distraction/cheat-risk than a graphing calculator that runs arkanoid. My math teacher used to make each of us wipe the memory in front of him before each test.
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