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Following links from links from the article, I came across http://www.ti.com/tiris/ which is the list of the RFID equipment that TI is already selling to companies. In fact, their item RI-TRP-RFOB looks exactly like the Mobil SpeedPass that I stopped using a few months ago, although I wonder which version it is- they have a 64-bit read-only, an 80-bit read-write, and an 88-bit read-only with a challenge-response mechanism, all working at 134.2kHz.

Even better (or worse for consumers,) their RI-I01-110A looks a lot like the square "anti-theft" stickers that I've seen on different items at Wal-Mart for years... which leads me to believe that pretty much every Wal-Mart in the country already has RFID readers at the doors, and they just need to install more 13.56MHz tags on/in their merchandise in order to attain their dream of "total retail visibility".

I wonder if the "de-activate" device they have at the cash registers is actually turning off the tag, or if it's just registering the tag as "sold" in a separate computer system which is (as far as you and I know) only being used for loss prevention purposes, and the reader looks up the serial number and recognizes it as sold and therefore doesn't squeal at you when you walk out the door.

I also have an idea for a device I'd like to see on the market, which would read an RFID tag, show you what data is contained in it, and which could "toast" a tag after you get it home- so you could verify that it is indeed shut off. It would have to work with several frequency bands, and would probably have the same low power limits that the in-store readers are limited to (in order to get FCC type-acceptance.) Free idea for a business venture if somebody knows how to build such a beast, and I'll be one of your first customers...

A calculator is always nice to have. And you can plug in a keyboard. And while you're out traveling, you can also be collecting data!

A calculator is always nice to have. And you can plug in a keyboard. And while you're out traveling, you can also be collecting data!

A calculator is always nice to have. And you can plug in a keyboard. And while you're out traveling, you can also be collecting data!

A calculator is always nice to have. And you can plug in a keyboard. And while you're out traveling, you can also be collecting data!

I actually found the Texas Instruments 92 (now the Voyage 200 to be quite good for reading e-books on, and the batteries can last quite some time.

All you need is the Ti Ebook Reader.

As for the ebooks, I grabbed a bunch of the project gutenburg books, and converted them over. I probably still have them on my HD, if anyone wants them.

No other compiler in history has this many knobs and dials.

I disagree with that. The Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio compiler for the C67xx series DSP's is WAY more complicated and truely scary in how amazing the optimizer is - Even the assembler has optimization flags....

see docs here

I belive now there are more tools to graphically analyze optimization bottlenecks.

I love GCC though and appreciate the multi-platform optimization issues that arise. I believe what we need are computer languages that are more 'optimizable' than C and C++ are - Especially when you look at alternate architectures like the c6701 DSP (8 parallel execution units manually pipelined) and other vector based processors like altivec. These architectures don't fit the PDP-11 cpu style that C was meant for.

--jeff++

I found an 86 not that long ago. They're still sold, they're just hard to find.

Its listed under "Additional Graphing".. Not under discontinued, like its predecessor the TI-85.

"You're forgetting who put all those PCs on the government worker desks. it wasn't some kickasss software a Unix vendor or local open source guru developed.

Was a little company from Redmond."

I realize this is a troll, but I'll bite.

The company that put the PCs on the government workers' desks wasn't from Redmond, it was from San Diego, or Austin, or Houston. All three of these companies started without Microsoft, and all three would still be providing computers to government workers, with or without the Redmond bully. (Oh, and Compaq was started by three guys from Texas Instruments, who wanted to design a computer to run all of IBM's (UNIX) software.)

TI-89 Titanium comes out this summer! My TI-89 has been my best friend through AP Calc BC, and with USB and more RAM I can't wait for this one to come out.

You will not be safe for long....

Judging by the picture on the Applications page, this thing ain't a pocket calculator or PDA.

Judging by the picture on the Applications page, this thing ain't a pocket calculator or PDA.

I purchased the TI-83 Plus Silver Edition about a year and a half ago. The Processor is 2.5 times faster than the TI-83 Plus it has 24KB RAM and 1.5MB flash memory and it stores up to 94 applications. It also came with a cable to hook it up to an USB port. As far as I can tell, the 84 is nothing more than a repackaged 83 silver edition.
On a good note - despite heavy use I have only had to change the batteries once in the last 1 1/2 years.

Compared to the TI-89 (and 92), the 84 has a feature set more target to middle and high school users. For example, their Startup Picture picture is not a feature targeted so much at college users.

According to this the TI-99/4A was discontinued.

Along with the TI-86, 92, and 95. I remember when the TI-92 was the "Amazing Calculator" only the rich kids could afford. Kind of weird they continue with the TI-8x line but not the 9x.

I emailed "daddypants" while it was still in the Mysterious Future, but to no avail.

Gnuplot sucks compared to Derive.

RFID may be coming, but its not exactly bursting out at least in the UK.
I investigated RFID for implementation within my company, but came up with
next to no suppliers, apart from one company who after several phone calls
'forgot' about the samples and paperwork they were meant to send. And I simply don't have the
time to implement from electronics up.

IMHO if someone wants to make some money on this, set up a company now, as no-one
else seems to have their act together with customer relations or advertising (yet).

I actually *wanted* to implement this, so imagine the chance someone who's indifferent,
or uninterested in this technology has of being persuaded to implement it in industry.

And that should impress me how?

Its a pretty vanilla ARM core with a few tweeks

I wasn't trying to troll with the grandparent comment, but if you look at the CPUs being developed specifically for handhelds by Texas Instruments or hell even intel with their multimedia extensions. These chips open up a new world of apps for PDA/Handheld products with DSP tech built in to them.

This is just another "been there done that" core from motorola.

Every board has a CPU (Actually, every chip is some kind of CPU), even if it is a dedicated CPU

• Here's a chip that's a resistor array... Is that a CPU?
• What about this TI uA741 Operational Amplifier?
• Are Optoisolators a kind of CPU?

Wrong on both counts. Cooling it and then reheating it back to room temperature causes small mechanical movements which could make the mechanism work a little longer (though it is not very likely).

The electronics, of all things, won't give a flying crap -- every IC I have seen, including delicate DSPs and such, is rated to at least -40 degrees Celsius (datasheet for a TI DSP, commonly used in HDDs, look at page 130). Unless you immerse it in liquid nitrogen, it won't be a problem. I'd be more worried about water condensing on internal surfaces and such.

There's worse...

The full x86 instruction set is large and complicated (some of the complexity because of its history). Adding an OS like Linux and all the hardware for a PC just adds a whole lot more stuff for a student to have to deal with.

If this is a learning exercise, wouldn't it make sense to reduce the clutter of the environment (OS, PC hardware) and isolate the learning to only what is relevant. Why not start with a simple 8 bit microcontroller like an Atmel AVR, TI MSP430 or prehaps Cypress PSOC? Once the teaching mission has been accomplished and students are comfortable with programming concepts and basic computer architecture ideas, step up to using a higher level language like C on these micro's, then step up to the PC environment including an OS like Linux. At that point, the learning options expand greatly.

This plan lets students acquire a deeper understanding at first, because they can explore the microcontroller completely - it is simple enough for a beginner individual to understand every aspect of its operation, unlike a PC. As a bonus, there is a great sense of accomplishment in fully understanding something instead of partially understanding it, and a stronger feeling of connectedness if you can make a micro do something physical.

Those of us whose introduction to computing was through simpler machines like the Apple II (it even came with a full circuit diagram!) must know what I'm talking about. I don't know if I'd be nearly as interested as I was in my youth if I were just starting out in computing today and my introduction was a PC. I'd probably just use it to play games, like most kids seem to do.

Why would you want to do that if you can give it a hundred-dollar LCD? I don't see how a flexible panel helps there.

Good point, but there are places you'd like to mount something on a non-flat surface. In the late '80s, I worked at Texas Instruments when they were the contractor for the HARM (High-speed Anti Radar missle), and you wouldn't believe the space and geometry constraints! Our drafting group designed flexible circuit boards for places where you didn't have the clearance to run a wiring harness.

I never had the sort of clearance to actually see where the flex circuits went, but I can imagine that you could easily make the case for a screen that bends. Imagine opening a panel on the missile and having a screen behind it that's cylindrical instead of flat -- that's so many cm^2 more room for wiring (or explosive).

Interestingly, you now find flexible boards like the ones we were building in everything now, from cell phones to giveaway McDonald's toys. I like to think that, in addition to turning Saddam's radar installations into molten slag, we helped build the volume and technology for the next generation of consumer products (for better or for worse).

You couldn't. Quoting from the Texas Instruments website

"The RFID transponders (tags) designed by Texas Instruments for both the United States and Singapore RFID systems feature a digital signature encryption protocol that has a challenge/response authentication to ensure complete consumer protection.

This technique makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible to duplicate the transponder (tag), or the secret encryption key. And, even if the key were duplicated, it would only be valid for one tank of gas, making it a very expensive tank of gasoline for a would-be criminal."

Now, I suppose you *could* steal someones Speedpass keytag/watch/whatever, bounce every possible challenge code off of it repeatedly and capture ever response code, reverse engineer the challenge/response algorithm to figure out the encryption key, build a speedpass emulator, and upload it with your newly discovered encryption key. But then, wouldn't it be easier to just get a job.

My take is that it's more secure than the credit cards in my pocket. So what's the problem then?

TI does have DAQ, both in it's Calculator Based Ranger (CBR) and it's Calculator Based Laboratory (CBL). Of course they also sell books, curriculum, etc, to really capitalize on the market.

They're both pretty slick devices. I remember in high school we used the CBL's with pH probes to do titrations (of course, we had to first do them manually with cabbage juice as an indicator)

When I was substitute teaching, the CBR (which is primarily a motion detector) was very useful to demonstrate to students why an equation and graph of the form y=mx+b was useful. TI has overhead projectors for their calculators, and one of their programs allows you to plot using the motion detector in real time. This wast he "A HA!" moment for a lot of my students, when they saw that the slope was rate (how fast they walked) and the intercept was their starting point from the sensor. Of course, we did some game type stuff, where you turn the projector off, and ask for a volunteer to come up, and walk in front of the sensor to get a graph that has a line with slope 10m/s, and intercept of 2 meters. The kid on crutches had a blast trying to do this. It's also fun trying to watch them when you ask them to get lines with undefined slope, and is a good lead in as to why a vertical line is not a function . . . man I miss teaching . . .

TI does have DAQ, both in it's Calculator Based Ranger (CBR) and it's Calculator Based Laboratory (CBL). Of course they also sell books, curriculum, etc, to really capitalize on the market.

They're both pretty slick devices. I remember in high school we used the CBL's with pH probes to do titrations (of course, we had to first do them manually with cabbage juice as an indicator)

When I was substitute teaching, the CBR (which is primarily a motion detector) was very useful to demonstrate to students why an equation and graph of the form y=mx+b was useful. TI has overhead projectors for their calculators, and one of their programs allows you to plot using the motion detector in real time. This wast he "A HA!" moment for a lot of my students, when they saw that the slope was rate (how fast they walked) and the intercept was their starting point from the sensor. Of course, we did some game type stuff, where you turn the projector off, and ask for a volunteer to come up, and walk in front of the sensor to get a graph that has a line with slope 10m/s, and intercept of 2 meters. The kid on crutches had a blast trying to do this. It's also fun trying to watch them when you ask them to get lines with undefined slope, and is a good lead in as to why a vertical line is not a function . . . man I miss teaching . . .

Just get the connectivity kit here

The closest thing to what what he's looking for is the DOS version of Derive running on the Hewlett-Packard HP200LX, a 80186 (not a typo) based DOS handheld. (A bit of searching should turn up a demo.)

Derive for DOS is old and the interface is a bit clunky (compared to Maple or Mathematica), but it beat the tar out of a HP48. Heck, on a 200LX, it's probably still the best and most usable symbolic math package in something approaching the size of a scientific calculator. (Though that may be changing with the availablity of source code for systems like Axiom and Maxmima.)

You ought to look into the '89. It's really amazing that TI's products have been so static over the years, but also somewhat cool. Ti's most advanced calc is now the voyage 200, which is basicaly a suped up '92, from what I can tell. I remember using the 92 back in highschool.

TI Specs on Card Reader

13.56 mhz, 8"/5" Read Range...no tracking yet (hoping that 802.11x has already sucked these frequencies)

64 bit unique card ID set by TI, 2K storage on card, magnetic strip optional, 847(?) kHz subcarrier signal required for power/transmission

TI RFId Site

Maybe I should fix the URL...try http://education.ti.com/us/product/tech/89/feature s/89bid.html instead. Don't ask about the other one.

TI-83 Plus Silver Edition

I know what RPN is, and if you don't know what it is, then you're a newbie in the calculator world and don't deserve to use a HP calculator. It's a pain in the butt to here people make fun of RPN because they don't know what it is, and it's even more of a pain trying to defend it against arrogant people like you. There's already a link on the press release that's devoted to describing RPN. This parent does not describe to be ranked as funny.

Lay off, and go to "calculator standard", www.ti.com.

As much as I love a good conspiracy story, integrated the first integrated circuits date to 1958. A much better story would be the Roswell (UFO crash in July 1947) - Transistor (Bell Labs produced the first one in December 1947) connection.

Sure, I should've provided links to begin with. As far as the TOS systems go, they are proprietary usually and don't necessarily relate to your field anyhow. They're usually Oracle DB's with some type of application that sits on top of that.

As far as RFID goes, there are various vendors doing things for container terminal tracking, I don't know if they have technology that would apply to lab work or "smaller" and less rugged tagging needs:

Texas Instruments has a division:
TI-RFID at Texas Instruments

SAIC, really big contractor, interesting docs:
SAIC

The RFID Journal:
RFID Journal

Wherenet (RFID vendor):
Wherenet RFID Products

Transcore (RFID vendor):
Transcore Products, Services

How many folks that are paranoid about rfid tags currently own and use a cell phone? Or have a discount card from their grocery store?

The longest range I know of on RFID (I write code for a company that implements wireless solutions, mostly in warehouses) is almost 20 ft. And that's at very high frequencies (14MHz, with active tags (they're quite a bit more expensive) and using lots of power (up to 60w). Texas Instruments makes a decent one, but so do the likes of Brady, Symbol, etc... This is nothing new...

Besides, they're just tags. Removable. If you think someone is going to be watching your purchased items, throw the tag away. Fairly simple really.

But if you have no cell phone, wear aluminum hats, etc... you could always make your own furniture...

TI also has some Exteral 'Features' that you may purchase. One is called the CBL 2 Unit that allows you to collect real world data from various probes (Temp, v+, Light) This data is entered into the Calculator so that you may run a variety of stat programs on the set.

I'd steer clear of it as a replacement for the HP simply because that TI doesn't graph.

As for your missing manual, it;s on-line. Five clicks in to the TI web site i find:
http://education.ti.com/us/product/tech/36xs/guide /36xsguideus.html

I was recently in the market for a new scientific/graphing calculator as well and decided on a Texas Instruments TI-89.

I have been using it for about 2 months now and have been extremely impressed with its usability, extensive range of functions and most of all its ability to do symbolic manipulation, differential and integral calculus and matrices.

It is approximately the same form factor as the HP-48S, but it isn't a RPN calculator. It is pretty reasonably priced at $225 Canadian (approx. $169 US).

The Mathematics system is upgradable and programs can be downloaded to the unit. There are also quite a few user groups out on the web. Such as these guys and these guys

Here is a link to the page on the TI site about the TI-89.

Here are some of its features:

Symbolic manipulation for algebra, calculus and differential equations.

Real and complex numeric results.

Symbolic manipulation for algebra, calculus and differential equations.

About 188K bytes of user-available RAM.

About 639K bytes of user-available FLASH ROM for user data archive and/or Handheld.

Electronic upgradability of operating system including maintenance and feature upgrades.

Pretty Print shows equations and results with radical notation, stacked fractions, and superscript exponents.

Active Calculator Home history screen can hold up to 99 previous entries for deep recall.

Real and complex numeric results.

Symbolic units for use in equations, computations, and unit conversions. Over 100 units in 28 unit categories. 20 constants with symbolic units.

Graphs functions, parametric and polar equations, recursively-defined sequences, 3-dimensional surfaces, and differential equations. Up to 99 graphing equations defined and saved for each graphing mode.

Interactive analysis of function values, roots, maximums, minimums, integrals, derivatives, intersections, inflection points, and arc lengths.

Recursively-defined sequences access any number of previous terms.

Slope and direction fields for exploring differential equations. RK and Euler numeric differential equation solving methods.

Real time rotation of 3D surfaces.

List-based one- and two-variable statistical analysis, including eight regression models.

Statistics plots including scatter, xy-line, box and modified box plots. Histograms and regression lines.

Matrix operations including inverse, determinant, transpose, augment, elementary row operations, and reduced row echelon form. Matrix elements can be real or complex and numeric or symbolic.

Advanced matrix operations including eigenvalues, eigenvectors, LU and QR decompositions.

Column-logic expressions in data/matrix editor are retained for automatic recalculation when values change.

Interactive numeric equation solver.

Hexadecimal and binary operations and conversions.

Extensive programming capability with number and size of programs limited only by available memory. User-definable functions extend built-in functionality.

Optional assembly language programming.

Command catalog screen to access and show "help" information for each function and command. Memory management to create folders for specific applications or subjects.

255 symbols in the character set including Greek, system, and international characters.

Link capabilities for data transfer through I/O port.

Powered by 4 AAA batteries with lithium battery backup to protect memory during main battery change.

Hope this helps.....

Percontor

I did a project a while back using TIGA and the associated chips. You might want to take a look at , FPGA and User Interface Guide.

It's all obsolete and legacy now. But it gives you a good idea about how a current day graphics card is designed. Back then, the various components had to be implemented on separate chips (eg. RAMDAC's, clock oscillators, memory decoding, graphics).

TI also had the TMS34082 vector processor. You could have up to four of those in a slave/master configuration (a bit like the PS2 VU0 processor). The TMS34020 supported 1/2/4/8/16/24/32 bit pixel sizes and had a parallogram rendering instruction (Two of those allow you to render a triangle). If they had kept the product range going and allowed Moore's law to keep going, they would probably have been able to keep up with 3Dfx.

Intel also has the i860 which combined the floating point and graphics processing onto a single chip. The Intel XEON chip still supports this instruction set.

If you can access the IEEE and ACM archives, you'll find out about dozens more such processors.

Presently, you should have a look at the OpenGL extension a href="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/regis try/ARB/vertex_program.txt">ARB_vertex_program and "a href="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/regis try/ARB/fragment_program.txt">ARB_fragment_program .

Any Google search on these topics will provide an almost infinite list of topics.

Does TI show up anywhere on this list? I'd be interested to find out.

I interviewed there once. I knew beforehand that they have random drug testing, and I'm pretty sure you have to pass a drug test prior to employment. Drug tests, in my mind, are a major invasion of employee privacy.

But the first thing I saw when I went into the building was the TI Ethics Office. Now, maybe I'm just being a bit overly paranoid, but you read the policies on that site. On the surface it looks good -- and probably, some of it is beneficial -- but it gives me the heebie jeebies with regards to employment.

Is the idea to have the smallest possible OS capable of doing x or y?
check...

Is the idea to have the smallest possible OS that looks like Windows 95?
check...

Is the idea to have the smallest possible 'distribution' of Windows 95 attainable by just removing unecessary features?
i agree with the parent here.

Do we want smallest in terms of RAM usage, or smallest in terms of disk space? What do we then if we run it on a RAM disk? Which space counts?
no prob, bob.

Honestly, this post seemed like a good idea when I started typing it. Now I'm apprehensive to hit the submit button. Maybe that's a bad sign...

I bought a HP10Bii (business calculator). 2 days later, I had to return it to the store because the LCD screen was losing segments. I got a replacement. 2 days after I got the replacement, the same exact problem happened.

That went back to the store, and I now own a TI BA II Plus, and will never buy another HP calculator again.

A good bit of OMAP documenation is already available on the web.

(An AC already posted this in reply to this comment, but I think it deserves more visability)

What do you think is lacking in this documentation? They give you CodeComposer, have a device driver writing guide, give you the instruction set, etc.

I haven't used these particular documents myself, but have been pretty happy with other TI documentation.

It's on the web...

It depends on the cpu architecture.

For a neat learning experience, try programming the Texas Instruments C6701 family of VLIW DSP's. 8 different execution units allowing you to specifically designate 8 instructions to execute in parallel - depending on the instruction type - 'flying' registers, manually specified wait states - NOP takes a parameter! Multiple busses, 256 bit wide program memory, etc, etc. The TI tools include an 'Optimizing Assembler' which is totally amazing - without it you would end up spending days on a 10 cycle loop plotting out flying register dependancies and opcodes in a 2 dimensional matrix...

--jeffy++

Not enough details provided to tell. Given the cost, I would put a part before it, e.g. a step up/down switcher and some caps to handle (electrical) noise.