Texas Instruments Announces New Calculator

S. Kinney writes "TI recently announced the development of a new calculator, known as the Voyage 200, to replace the TI-92+. The software changes are rather minor, as the device is designed to be compatible with the 92, though the addition of a clock makes the Voyage more functional for some, and the case of the device enjoys a new design. Perhaps the most useful upgrade to the 92+ is the addition of more memory, for a sum of 2.7 MB of storage. No word on release date, but it'll be interesting to see how this comes out. It may be one more step towards releasing a modern-day Avigo, their failed PDA from a few years back. "

Comments

Re:Is this a joke?

[timbck2]

Whoops, I guess I should have read the product announcement before posting. Mea culpa.

Still, I can't get very excited over a new calculator announcement. Heh.

TI Calculators saved my college career.

[Xenopax]

I would have never gotten through my long lectures without my handy tetris playing calculator.

Re:TI Calculators saved my college career.

[Mandrias]

This is why I like the TI-89.

Almost all the power of the 92 but in the form of an 86... It's saved my life on multiple occassions.

Re:TI Calculators saved my college career.

[connorbd]

Yeah. I've often found the layout restrictions to be ludicrous at the very least -- what if my calculator of choice is a PalmPilot?

It's incredibly arbitrary, that's for certain...

/Brian

Re:TI Calculators saved my college career.

[Zerth]

Especially since the 89 also fits inside the /case/ of an 86

Re:TI Calculators saved my college career.

[Electrum]

Especially since the 89 also fits inside the /case/ of an 86

It would take some work to transplant it. I tried this a few years ago, and unfortunately, you can't just swap boards. The screw posts on the inside are in different places. You'd have to drill through the 89's board to get it to fit in the 86 case. And the screen doesn't sit exactly the same, so you'd need to do some modifications there too.

That's not funny lookin', that's a lowercase 'q'!

[HalfFlat]

It does look a bit odd, you have to admit.

I'm probably still sad over HP's decision to disband their calculator division. Still, in comparison, the TI calculators don't look as classy as (say) the HP-28C or its ilk - at least to my eyes.

A USB connection does seem like a nice feature.

Not being a TI user, I can't speak for their functionality. Do they have a RPN mode? What are the keys like? Are they easy to code for?

Does it do RPN?

[edremy]

Without RPN, it's just a toy. Worse, it's a toy given to college students who never learn how to do anything more complex than 2+3. A complicated chemistry problem involving 3 whole steps is way beyond them. Sadly, I speak from experience...

I mourn for the HP calculator division. My 11C still works great after 20 years- I keep it in my flight bag for weight and balance calcs. My 28S died last year after 14 hard years of use through college, grad school, postdoc and 2 jobs. I suspect I'll still be using my 49G years after the last of these are sitting in landfills.

Eric

Re:Does it do RPN?

[Digitalia]

While many students treat their TI calculators as toys, they are also valid tools for many others. Also, take a look at the software archives at ticalc.org. I believe an RPN input program was actually released to allow for you RPN-fans to use it.

Re:Does it do RPN?

[ameoba]

Oi! If I had the mod points, I'd do my part to shick it to the RPN fanboys. WTF are multiple messages about how great HP calcs were doing up at +4 as responses to TI announcing a new unit?

Re:Does it do RPN?

[mizhi]

I have to concur... until TI releases a calculator that does RPN, I'm sticking with my HP 48G. Sure, it's slower, doesn't have alot of memory, but I've found that I can do long sets of equations faster than on a TI. I used to use TI's until I got my HP. Now I cring whenever I have to use infix on a calculator.

Re:Does it do RPN?

[porky_pig_jr]

well, WITH RPN, the college students never learn how do anything more complex than 2 ENTER 3 +.

Re:Does it do RPN?

[Mr_Matt]

Since when have TI calculators used RPN? Troll much? I remember buying my first real calculator ten years ago or so - the guy at the store said "you can buy an HP, which uses this ancient, crufty notation, or the TI here, which uses straightforward notation." Being a moronic teenager, I went with the simple solution. And darn it if that TI-85 didn't work beautifully all the way into college, or at least until my chem partner dropped it off the table. Then I bought a TI-86, which saw me all the way through a physics degree, and still works fine today. And I never had problems doing computations with n steps to perform - I just kept on nesting, and life was great. Plus, while the other guys w/ HP calcs were spending hours figuring out how to do things like arcsin and nested exp()'s in integrals, I was solving problems and getting work done. And that suited me just fine, you know?

Besides, after that second year or so, calculators of any ilk were [forbidden|useless|not needed anymore] for everyday work in my classes. By then, it was all about derivations, and numbers gave way to symbols. But for the time I needed number crunching, the TI served admirably. Not bad for a "toy."

I submit that there's plenty of religious flamewars living around /. today - did you really mean to start another with the TI vs. HP crowd? :)

Re:Does it do RPN?

[bbhatt]

Of course it has RPN:
http://www.perez-franco.com/symbulator/download/ rp n.html

resolution

[llamalicious]

must have, more pixels.

zooming and zooming and zooming to cheat when finding the intersections of lines on paraboli is much too time consuming.

double or triple the resolution, maybe you'll only have to zoom once.

Re:resolution

[Neon Spiral Injector]

If you ask nicely the TI-92+ will tell you where two lines intersect.

If I were still in school, I'd have to have one. I got a 92, and then the + module when it came out.

The TI-89/92 series are very powerful (sorry no native RPN, but you can always download a program) calculators if you take the time to learn to use them.

Re:resolution

[SirNAOF]

Who needs a calculator to find intersections? They aren't that hard...

I bought a TI-89 about 3 years ago for my high school calculus class. I could never use it, but I had it. I couldn't use it in my college calc classes...or my electrodynamics class...I finally pulled it out about a week ago to do some simple calculations I could have done with my trusty TI-30X, only because I didn't have a pen and paper handy. I've used my slide rule more in the last 3 years than I have my 89! And that slide rule was just a gag gift for my graduation...

I think having to actually do the problems and think about them is much better in the long run. You'll remember more of it than just punching buttons.

Re:resolution

[dillon_rinker]

Ok, wise guy. =) Provide me with numerical coordinates for the intersection(s) of the following two equations. You can't use any mechanical aid to calculation (no slide rules OR electronic calculators). You can reference tables in books, provided you also prove that particular entry you use is correct.

y = -0.437(x^3) - 1.42(x^2) + 4.84(x) - 12
y = 13.9 sin(8.16x) + 2.4

Note that a calculator geek will provide an answer with the appropriate number of significant digits in about five minutes. I imagine you will find this impossible given the restraints above. If not, then I want to shake your hand.

Traditional (ie non-calculator) textbooks and teaching techniques generally pick "nice" numbers for problems. They do this because it is unrealistic to expect the student to produce correct answers in a reasonable period of time, and to do that for all the odd problems on the page, and to do that in one evening, along with all your other homework. However, this is completely unrealistic; NO problems encountered outside the classroom have "nice" numbers unless they are specially constructed.

However, with calculators, you can solve "real-world" problems, using realistic (multi-digit, non-integral) numbers. This is useful both for practical reasons (students aren't shocked when they encounter REAL problems) and for motivational ones (no more students asking "When will we have to factor x^2-9 in the real world?")

Re:resolution

[Big Ben August]

What?!
The 85 and 86 (I've owned one each, still have the 86) have a function whereby you can find the intersection of two functions in GRAPH mode. You give it an upper and lower limit, and it finds the intersection between.

Or am I crazy?

--Ben "oooh... a calculator and PDA" August

Re:resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

I've computed one of the intersection points. I'll give you the method to use since typing in all the work is a bit much for a little Slashdot box like this without access to decent math symbols :) You can use this method to compute the other 6 intersection points. Throughout I'm assuming that we're using radians for our degree measures.

First, we can deduce pretty quickly that all of the valid solutions lie in x [-2pi,2pi]. Draw a graph and simply plot the two lines. The cubic formula tells us that the first equation has 1 real and 2 complex roots so there aren't any intercepts other than the one near -6. If you're very good at drawing graphs you can already determine that there are 7 intersections of the two curves although the positive solutions may require steady hands.

Since we want intersections, set the ys equal to each other and simplify until we have a polynomial on one side and a trigonometric on the other.

(-0.437x^3-1.42x^2+4.84x-14.4)/13.9=sin(8.16x)

Next we use the continued fraction expansion for sin to give us the approximation

sin(t)=t/(1+t^2/(6-t^2+(6t^2/(20-t^2+20t^2/(42-t ^2 +...)))))

In our case do t=8.16x as a substition and we can truncate the expansion at a convenient point because it's good enough for the range -pi to pi which is essentially the range we're interested in from above.

Now, cross multiply until we have equality between two big honking polynomial expressions. Move one side over and we've got a polynomial in x equal to 0. Is this starting to look more solvable? :)

Take the first derivative and do a few iterations of Newton's method. You'll probably want to keep the graphs from the beginning around for your initial guesses. I did the leftmost solution since that one should have the least accuracy due to our approximation of sin. I got (-6.131,5.66) although you can of course carry these calculations out to any desired accuracies.

Re:resolution

[line-bundle]

Traditional (ie non-calculator) textbooks and teaching techniques generally pick "nice" numbers for problems. They do this because it is unrealistic to expect the student to produce correct answers in a reasonable period of time, and to do that for all the odd problems on the page, and to do that in one evening, along with all your other homework. However, this is completely unrealistic; NO problems encountered outside the classroom have "nice" numbers unless they are specially constructed.

I think they pick nice numbers because it makes it easier fot the idea behind the method to be easily seen. Real world examples tend to bog students down in details which are beside the point of the excercise.

Re:resolution

[bertok]

Actually, that is a very nasty problem, with or without a calculator. It has about 7 roots, not counting complex solutions. The roots are closely spaced, the accuracy of the input numbers is low, and the values encountered are large. The problem is not solveable analytically, and even the best numerical methods have trouble finding all the roots. Using Mathematica, I could find all the solutions (to arbitrary precision) in about an hour. I'd like to see anyone that can do it armed with nothing more than a calculator in under five minutes!

Re:resolution

[SirNAOF]

Ok, I doubt anyone could do that without a significant amount of work. But I'm sure its possible. I'm not saying that calculators are evil and shouldn't be used. I just think that in "standard classroom applications" they are not necessary.

And that's a freakin' ugly problem...If I didn't have a job to occupy my time, I'd work on that...

Re:resolution

[dillon_rinker]

Amazing..that's exactly why graphing calculators are used. Rather than bog the student down in the details (ie plotting dozens of points to get an accurate graph), they allow students to see the graph itself and how it relates to the equation that produced it.

I think the details are important, don't get me wrong, but at a certain point you move on to the next level of abstraction.

Re:That's not funny lookin', that's a lowercase 'q

[_DMan_]

The TI's were very easy to code for, about the same level of difficulty as learning BASIC.

I learned to program on my calculator while sitting in boring English Literature and History classes in high school.

Me want!

[CrosseyedPainless]

My geek 'nards just expanded 20%, and my 92+ is already starting to look like something an Amish farmer would be permitted to own.

Damn them, DAMN them for pre-announcing this!

connector cable ?

[kigrwik]

It seems they changed the connectors. That's good, but I hope the plug sticks a bit better.

I can't remember how many times my 2 players, 2 calculators chess games crashed because the cable had moved a tiny bit.

Let's build a Beowulf Cluster !!

[kigrwik]

It could be done, with a USB hub and a master job server on a PC...

Imagine this: inverting a 10x10 matrix in *five* seconds !!!!!

I can't hold back my tears of joy!

[Guppy06]

I'm sorry, I don't care what the rest of you say about HP and reverse Polish notation, the TI-92+ is a thing of shear beauty, and I for one am glad that they're making a sequel. My TI-92+ was worth the money alone in both the cost of a book of integration tables as well as the time and effort of flipping through it.

Symbollic integration is a beautiful thing and it came in damned handy in my Partial Differential Equations class. Thank you, TI, for making LaPlace transforms easier to handle.

And before you all jump on my back, I'm not saying I can't do the integrals myself (I did them just fine on all the tests, thank you very much), but it kept the homework from consuming months of my life.

So bad-mouth TI's stuff all you want, I'm still probably going to get this bad boy as soon as it comes out (still have quantum mechanics classes ahead of me).

Re:I can't hold back my tears of joy!

[Orangedog_on_crack]

AMEN! I bought a TI92 back in 96 while in college and I loved it! The only thing I didn't like is that it couldn't do base conversions but that was a fairly minor issue. You should have seen the geeks ooh and ahh when I walked into class and said "Behold, the mighty TI-92."

Re:I can't hold back my tears of joy!

[abischof]

> I did them just fine on all the tests, thank you very much

This is a bit off-topic, but go with me on this. Why is it that Americans have the tendency so say "thank you very much" when they really mean "contrary to what you may think"? For instance, the above phrase could be alternatively worded as "I did them just fine on all the tests, contrary to what you may think".

What's the etymology to this beast?

Re:I can't hold back my tears of joy!

[Fourier]

the TI-92+ is a thing of shear beauty

You say so. I always thought the '92 resembled a large brick. The TI-89 looks to have the same functionality, but in a form factor that actually makes sense for working side-by-side with a piece of paper.

Of course, I'm an HP user, so what the hell do I know...

Re:I can't hold back my tears of joy!

[yesthatguy]

Not to hold anything against the 92+ (and I believe the 89 does it as well), but HP calculators can do symbolic integration too. Therefore, you're not deciding between RPN and symbolic integration, you're really only deciding between RPN and algebraic data entry.

The benefits of RPN are somewhat similar to the benefits of Dvorak - you can do many things with one or two fewer keystrokes, or more efficiently, and you can lend your calculator to someone for a test with the full knowledge that they'll be screwed (like having an unfamiliar typist use Dvorak..."Hey, your calculator/keyboard is broken!"). In addition, now that I'm used to it, RPN seems easier and more logical than algebraic entry. I'm not really sure why, it just does :)

Re:I can't hold back my tears of joy!

[yesthatguy]

What type of base conversions are you talking about? My TI-86 can do decimal/octal/hex/etc. conversions, so I'd hope that the 92 can as well. If not, that seems like a pretty big thing to not have included.

Re:I can't hold back my tears of joy!

[Steve Hamlin]

I think it could be a sarcastic reply-in-advance to the slightly insulting comment that he anticipates you might say next.

As in,

"I did them just fine on all the tests, contrary to what you might be thinking right now and planning on saying."

<voice = sarcastic Steve Marin>
"Wellll, thaannkk YOU"
<voice = off>

No etymology links for you, though.

D'oh!

[Wire Tap]

Personally, I had always hoped that TI would make another calculator that would be better than my TI89, yet be in the standard shape of the TI89, without the QWERTY keyboard. Having the QWERTY, and thus the horizontal layout, prevents the calculator from being used on many college placement exams, and college exams themselves.

When I saw this story I was quite hopeful, until I clicked on the link. Oh well, maybe they will make a new one, better than this one, with the non-QWERTY layout, soon. I'm waiting, TI!

Small and powerful

[Shaheen]

I had a TI-92 once. It was stolen a week or two afterward (this was in high school). I switched to an HP-48G the next week. There's something to be said for small and powerful rather than big and conspicuous. Too bad HP is out of the game now.

Re:Small and powerful

[ameoba]

TI-92 is the -wrong- calculator for HS. Not only is there the theft bit you mentioned (Hey, it looks like it should play video games... NAB IT!) but it also automates nearly all the math you'd ever do in HS (algebra, trig & HS calculus are trivial on it, geometry is still good). Anything but proofs can be done by the TI, in such a way that it'll be acceptable to the average overworked, undermotivated HS teacher. Not to mention that it's QWERTY keyboard prevents it from being used on the SATs and other standardized tests.

Of course, when I got mine my freshman year of college, it sure made doing homework while learning to drink a lot more bearable.

Re:Small and powerful

[Neon Spiral Injector]

So get a TI-89. Looks like the rest of the boring TI series, no QWERTY keyboard, so it can be used on the SATs (I think that is the main reason TI made it). But still has the fuctions and can run the programs of the 92.

Maybe if I had an 89 in HS, I might have gone past Geometry (Algebra II was before that, had part I in middle school). Those same overworked, undermotivated teachers made me hate math so much. If I had the ability to automate away the 2 hours of homework each night, I might have stuck around to see what Trig and Calc held for me. As it was, I didn't get those until college.

Re:Small and powerful

[sinserve]

Not only that, but the TI-89 has much better
battery life.
The 92 uses power, even when it is off!

Re:Small and powerful

[5KVGhost]

"Not to mention that it's QWERTY keyboard prevents it from being used on the SATs and other standardized tests."

I've been out of high school a while. What is the QWERTY restriction supposed to accomplish?

Re:Small and powerful

[alexburke]

while learning to drink a lot more bearable

What does this bearable stuff taste like? Where can I get some?

Re:Small and powerful

[yesthatguy]

The QWERTY restriction is, as far as I know, designed to prevent theft/copying of test questions. With an efficient data entry system, one could easily copy all of the SAT math questions during a test sitting.

Re:Small and powerful

[mother_superius]

Actually, I hear they banned the TI 89 too now, something about infrared beaming data.

Re:Small and powerful

[kflash15]

Unless you have unknowing moderators at your SAT exam center. I used my 89 and it got me a near perfect math score in about half the time it took the other people testing. Then I got to play spyhunter while I was waiting...

Re:Small and powerful

[alexburke]

You say don't?!

keys

[friscolr]

this thing has more keys than my keyboard! (i use a happy hacker keyboard)

Re:keys

[micromoog]

Why would you want to use that thing? It reminds me of the keyboard on very small laptops, where you have to press a special shift key to do ANYTHING other than type letters/numbers . . .

Voyage 200 Does not have USB

[Deathlizard]

unfortunatly the Voyage 200 has the same stereo jack plug that the previous Ti calculators had. it only now comes with the usb version of the link instead of having to go out and buy the serial link.

Nice name

[TheGreenLantern]

Voyage(TM) 200 Personal Learning Tool

I realize there comes a point where you can't just call something like this a calculator, but Personal Learning Tool? Who thinks these names up? Is like a bad Japanese translation of the real name or something?

Re:Nice name

[Datafage]

Um, you do realize Texas Instruments wouldn't have a Japanese name, right?

Gratutious Simpsons quotation.

[Anonymous Coward]

TI recently announced the development of a new calculator, known as the Voyage 200, to replace the TI-92+. The software changes are rather minor, [...] though the addition of a clock makes the Voyage more functional for some.

Guess TI learned from Homer:

"People are afraid of new things. You should have just taken an existing product and put a clock in it or something."

-- Homer Simpson, on the revolutionary baby translator of which he is presented with a prototype, which makes Maggie's baby-talk intelligible.
( Immediate source)

(Note that shameless, off-topic karma-whoring is done in AC mode! Recommend adoption of practice.)

What do people typically use these for?

[mttlg]

Ok, I admit that I'm a bit out of touch with advances in calculator technology. What I'm curious about is what advantages these new gizmos have over earlier graphing calculators - what do people actually do with them? In high school, graphing calculators were mandatory for calculus, so of course we did all kinds of neat things just because we had the calculators, but in college I really only used my TI-85 for repetitive calculations. Now that I deal with words more than numbers, I don't use it at all. This new calculator seems to be marketed for educational use, so what wonderful things are younger kids doing with these things in school (other than playing games and cheating on exams)? And yes, this is a serious question. I honestly want to know what role these newer calculators play in education (not enough to hunt down the answers myself of course, just out of curiosity).

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[AdamHaun]

Well, the major advantage of the 89/92 line over the older series is that it can do advanced Algebra and Calculus functions. Mine does derivatives, integrals(definite *and* indefinite -- very nice), series, limits, and so forth. Also, the newer ones have the capability to handle calculations involving infinity, and will also give exact answers: for example, lim x-> infinity of (1 + 1/n)^n comes out as e, which is more useful than the decimal form. The interface on the 89/92 is also improved, with a menu system supplementing the traditional pushbuttons. I wouldn't be without my 89 when doing "real" math(higher level calc, physics), but I think it's a bit overkill for the high school level.

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[Wire Tap]

This new calculator seems to be marketed for educational use, so what wonderful things are younger kids doing with these things in school

Unfortunately, this is one of the things that hurt a student's math career. I really don't see the place for calculators in high school math classes. Physics? Chemistry? Sure, but not math. High school math classes should be aimed at teaching the material, and making sure the students have a very intimate knowledge of how and why things work out as they do. If the students use calculators, vital intermediary steps are removed from the process, and most of the students will miss quite a bit from those steps.

That being said, yes, I used my 89 in high school. Not for repetative calculations, not for cheating, but I used it to teach myself. If I couldn't possibly understand why a certian derivative came out to be what my answer was on homework some night, I would punch it in, set the variable to an arbitrary number, and check the output value. It helped me verify that what I was doing was correct. After one or two verifications, I would not use the calculator again during that lesson.

However, I regret that I used it at all. I don't have a particularly good sense about numbers. I am fairly well apt at most mathematics, but admit that I can't do basic division in my head. I had my Chemistry teacher teach me how to do long division last year - MY SENIOR YEAR. He was amazed that I couldn't do it, as I was 4th in my class, and never complained about a math exam. It's all because I used my calculator earlier in life, and I lost my number sense.

So, the moral of the story is: do not use the calculator when you are still learning the very basics. It will rob you of something that you can never get back: the prima facia experience of the methods and solutions. After the material is learned, sure, use the calculator to simplify your life in your job, etc... I sure plan on it!

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[dillon_rinker]

As you indicate, arithmetical calculators can be damaging if misused. I have seen students use calculators to multiply by zero and by one. I have seen students retry these operations several times, thinking they pushed the wrong buttons when the result is either their original number or zero. The end product, of course, is stupid people.

HOWEVER, the topic at hand is GRAPHING calculators. These, when used properly, are a joy to behold. Graphing 20 equations of the form y=mx+b is a good night's homework assignment, and you expect no intuition to develop from it except among the sharp students. However, with a graphing calculator to display the lines and mark the axes, you can have students graph 20 lines during class, and they can realize for themselves what m and b mean - the former describes the steepness of the line, the latter the 'height' of the line above the origin. You can do teach this concept without preceding it with the usual weeks of training in formal algebraic concepts. You can spend a single day on the slope-intercept form of linear equations and expect that students will retain more for longer than they would if you spent a week on it without graphing calculators.

Think of any form of graphing that you've ever done...without a calculator, it is a laborious and inaccurate task of plotting points and connecting the dots badly. With a graphing calculator, it is a matter of entering MANY equations and developing understanding of how varying parameters varies the graph, and creating a deep understanding of the relationship between the graph and the equation. Compare that with merely knowing that an equation with a squared term will probably be a parabola.

I could go on and on, but I'll simply restate my point: graphing calculators are powerful tools for developing intuitions about the relationship between equations and graphs. Without them, you simply can't do this. With them, you can still teach how to graph on graph paper, but having done so, you can move on to skipping the pointless (pun) manual labor and studying the equations and graphs themselves.

I had my Chemistry teacher teach me how to do long division last year - MY SENIOR YEAR. He was amazed that I couldn't do itBegin rant...Long division is an algorithm, one of many that can be used to divide multi-digit numbers. It's a poor teacher who expresses surprise at a students' ignorance. Ignorance of an algorithm does not equate to poor "number sense", as I use the phrase, but that's a topic for another day. Anyway, it's a poor teacher who expresses surprise at a student's ignorance. They are either making themselves feel superior, or they are so inexperienced with human nature that they have no understanding of the concept of forgetfulness. The fact that someone was supposed to stand up in front of you and explain an algorithm to you eight years ago has ZERO correlation with whether or not you remember that algorithm now. End rant...

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[Wire Tap]

Without them, you simply can't do this.

It's funny you say that... I firmly believe that you can. After enough practice with the equations, and using calculus to graph them, it becomes simple to judge the shape of a graph, and it is very easy to "see" the intercepts, etc.

By using the calc, one stops relying on his or her intutition when it comes to "Seeing" the graphs, and more harm than good is done.

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[Rude Turnip]

My TI-85 has had staying power for almost 10 years and has followed me from high school to college and the workplace. It does everything I want it to, mostly thanks to the equation solver function.

To answer the question of what people typically use these for, here is a timeline of how I've used mine: Trigonometry, Chemistry, Physics, Calculus (3 yrs, both HS and college), all sorts of finance courses (time values of money, cash flow analysis, etc.), valuation of privately held companies. There's just no limit!

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[squidfood]

My experiment:

Methods: Lately, with a long commute after work, trying to puzzle out some (engineering-type) problem, I find myself trying to do many "back of the envelope" calculations in my head. Observation: Didn't learn either on a calculator.

Results: I am absolutely terrible at long division, but do a pretty good job visualizing graphs and operations (even nonlinear) like the "shape" of two functions when divided/multiplied by each other.

Conclusions: (1) I am more visual than numerical. (2) Long division absolutely sucks as an algorithm.

I support (2)---various experts speed math tend to agree with this.

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[dillon_rinker]

After enough practice with the equations,
Perhaps I should have explicitly stated that time is a constraint. There's only 180 days in the school year. There are other things to learn. There is not sufficient time to get enough practice when graphing by hand. It is impossible to devote the time to graphing a class of equations by hand when you don't have a graphing utility; most of your time is spent plotting points rather than considering the graph and its relation to the equation.

and using calculus to graph them, it becomes simple to judge the shape of a graph
Using calculus is out of the question. Using a graphing calculator, I can teach slope-intercept concepts to 6th graders with no formal algebraic training. They can graph 20 lines in 20 minutes. Most will consider this overkill as they will 'get it' after 10-15 or so. They grasp the relevant concepts and we move on to another one. Those same 20 graphs, without a graphing calculator, are a long and onerous homework assignment which all but the math geeks resent. The negative emotions interfere with long-term retention.

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[mttlg]

Unfortunately, this is one of the things that hurt a student's math career. I really don't see the place for calculators in high school math classes. Physics? Chemistry? Sure, but not math. High school math classes should be aimed at teaching the material, and making sure the students have a very intimate knowledge of how and why things work out as they do. If the students use calculators, vital intermediary steps are removed from the process, and most of the students will miss quite a bit from those steps.

The problem here isn't that calculators are used, it's how they are used. If the curriculum isn't designed to account for the strengths and weaknesses of the type of calculators being used (basic, scientific, and graphing, and yes, it does matter which type is selected for a course and all students must use the same type), then what you describe will take place. This has been the common result as calculators have been used more widely in schools in recent years, simply because there is a severe shortage of real teachers out there. Calculators have been used as a crutch to help poor students deal with poor teachers, allowing the educational system to claim improvement while the situation worsens. Beyond the quality of education issue, many teachers simply don't know how to properly integrate calculators into their curriculum, but find that they must due to the widespread social acceptance. I was shocked when the SAT II Math 1c and 2c tests came out, having taken the regular Math 1 test the year before and finding it to be reasonable (and not requiring a calculator at all). I took the Math 2c test the first year it was offered, ending up below the 90th percentile with a perfect score. That's right, over 10% of the people who took it got everything right. The exam was obviously not properly designed for calculators.

However, this does not mean that calculators can't be used properly in a high school setting. A course at that level that makes use of calculators but does not teach the use of the calculators is doing it wrong. A course that was taught successfully without calculators and adopts the use of calculators without a change in curriculum is doing it wrong. Calculator use must be limited to fundamentals that have already been learned - nothing beyond the basics should be needed before calculus for general use. The strengths and weaknesses of the calculator must also be taught - quick computation vs. time and effort spent on entering in numbers instead of solving the problem. Calculators allow people to make mistakes faster, so checking the results to make sure they make sense (which requires understanding the operations) must be emphasized. And of course, an occasional "no calculators" quiz or exam is good, as are equations that simplify quickly without a calculator but take forever with one. You can't just drop calculators into education and pretend they aren't there.

However, I regret that I used it at all. I don't have a particularly good sense about numbers. I am fairly well apt at most mathematics, but admit that I can't do basic division in my head. I had my Chemistry teacher teach me how to do long division last year - MY SENIOR YEAR. He was amazed that I couldn't do it, as I was 4th in my class, and never complained about a math exam. It's all because I used my calculator earlier in life, and I lost my number sense.

You seem very quick to blame the calculator. I would seriously question this unless you were a math whiz before using calculators - did you even learn long division before being corrupted by the evil calculator? Quite simply, not everyone understands math as well as everyone else. Some people can think in terms of even the most abstract concepts, some just can't work with basic numbers, some fall into both categories at the same time. Sometimes people just take a while to latch onto certain concepts - I'm still figuring out better ways of visualizing things and performing basic operations that I had trouble with in school. If your education was really impaired due to the use of calculators, I would place the blame on the school system and your parents for not teaching you properly (and yes, parents need to be involved in education, and I'm not just saying this because my father was a math teacher).

So, the moral of the story is: do not use the calculator when you are still learning the very basics. It will rob you of something that you can never get back: the prima facia experience of the methods and solutions.

One of my first toys was an ordinary pocket calculator. Later on, I got my first scientific calculator before I knew what most of the functions did. When I got a graphing calculator, I learned a lot about programming and algorithms that I never understood before (never having used a computer for programming despite growing up with at least one in the house at all times), while playing games during classes or just being creative (I had so much fun with my Space Invaders "game" that was just two alternating pictures - it took some people quite a while to realize that it was a trick). Having these tools never robbed me of anything. If anything, calculators allowed me to explore things before understanding them, helping me along and giving me insight that I may not have had the patience to discover otherwise (like the relationship between 9 and repeating decimals). I used calculators to supplement education and not replace it. Maybe I'm just an anomaly, but this is proof that calculators don't have to be harmful.

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[Wire Tap]

I do see validity in your argument - I suppose I am just old fashioned (and I'm only 18). I _know_ the calculators can be amazing teaching tools, but I'm reluctant to rely on them for some reason, even though I have had good experiences with them.

What you said makes sense. A calculator would be a useful tool when teaching kids without the formal knowledge of the equations and algebra behind the graph, etc. So, I concede to you.

I'm just bitter because I'm so terrible with the numbers after being introducted to a calculator in my grade school years. It's a shame - so many kids are robbed of their potential, or so it seems.

At any rate, I still love calculators. :) I want to get the new HP calc! Now, if only I could use it on my college exams. *grin*

Best to you!

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[dillon_rinker]

Elsewhere in this thread I mentioned watching students use a calculator to multiply by zero or one, so I'm well aware of the damage that can be caused by allowing a calculator to substitute for teaching or learning.

HOWEVER...well, you get my point; they can be a powerful and useful tool if used properly. I wouldn't hand a kid in gradeschool a calculator any more than I'd hand them a chain saw. Both are too powerful for the kid to manage.

I would still suggest that even when the kid has formal knowledge of algebra etc., a graphing calculator can be an excellent aid IF it is being used to remove drudgery. If the goal is to look at and consider the graph, and how changing A changed its shape (think y=Ax2+Bx+C), then why do I want to waste five minutes plotting ten points and joining them badly when the calculator will do it in a second? On the other hand, if I am introducing quadratic graphs for the first time (y=x2), I would rather see it graphed by hand.

You are wise not to rely on a calculator. I feel that if you approach calculator usage from that side you are more likely to learn more and have a better intuition for when to use a calculator and when to chug through the symbolic manipulation.

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[aardvarkjoe]

It seems to me that this was more likely the product of not knowing how to do long division in the first place, not starting to use a calculator in high school. You should be learning long division by fourth and fifth grade, and by the time you reach high school it should be completely second nature, after thousands of repetitions. I question whether you knew it well enough in the first place.

That said, as someone else pointed out, long division is just an algorithm, and not a particularly important one at that. I'd bet that not one high schooler in a thousand could begin to explain why it works; they just know that it does. Doing division by hand is generally time consuming and error-prone, and so you might as well use a calculator. It's a handy thing to know, and good for those in elementary school to learn, but I'd hardly call someone a mathmatical failure if they don't know how to do it.

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[Leliel]

..What I'm curious about is what advantages these new gizmos have over earlier graphing calculators..
I haven't seen this particular question addressed in the responses. I think the greatest advantage the TI-92/89 had over their predecessors is the ability to do symbolic notation. Combined with their ability to manipulate matrices quickly and easily, this gives the calculator nearly Matlab-level functionality (minus Simulink's block diagrams, of course)

Personally, I used my TI-89 extensively in college. I wrote programs to do everything from Observability/Controlability matrices for Controls class to Sallen Key design for analog circuits to the Newton-Raphson solution method for analyzing power systems. Not to mention using the command-capture feature to document alot of my work.
Writing programs forced me to learn the material well in addition to reducing the time spent working on homework. Many of these programs would not have been useful/useable on my old TI-86 (which lacked symbolic notation).

In summary, the additional features improve the ability of the calculator to do excactly what calculators are meant to do - reduce the amount of tedious calculating you (the user) have to do in order to solve the problem at hand. As a user, "tedious" calculations can be anything from long division to solving differential equations if it's merely a step in your problem-solving process.

And, ok, admittedly, having Final Fantasy also comes in handy during some of those particularly boring lectures. ; )

Re:What do people typically use these for?

[bbhatt]

I use my TI-89 and TI-92 Plus at work. They aid in testing other math software :) They have helped me learn a lot of computer algebra stuff.

Rant about calculators..

[abelsson]

Using a calculator in school absolutly destroys the students abilities to *think*.

It's a good shortcut when you acctually know the math, but getting a calculator that will integrate (2x+1)/(1+x^2) (ok, that's easy, but you get the point) for you doesn't exactly encourage thinking. The problem with the superficial learning that you get from using calculators (especially symbolhandling) is that you can't really solve any problems. As soon as you go outside the boundaries of the calculator you're lost.

An analogy is that calculators is a bit like using windows: sure it's easy and nice, but you never gain understanding. While doing it by hand is more like unices: it's hard in the beginning, but all that is rewarded when you *understand* how it all fits together.

I have a ti-89, but i use it as little as possible. In my university no calculators are allowed during exams, and if you're stupid enough to use them in class you don't have much chance of passing the exam (simply because you wont understand)

While calculators are obviously good, lets keep 'em out of school!

Re:Rant about calculators..

[bje2]

In my university you couldn't use calculators for exams in any course that tought strong math theory (i.e. all the calc classes, etc...) but you could use it for applied classes like stats and things like that...

i think calculators with complex functionality like these do server a prupose...if i'm doing a physics problem that involves integrals, why should i not be allowed to use a calculator that makes the mathematics part easier...i've already taken calc...i know how to do it...i'm still thinking on the physics problem, i'm just using the calculator to simplify the actual math involved....

Re:Rant about calculators..

[Capt_Troy]

Agreed. There is too much emphasis on teaching how to do something on the calculator. Once you are in college, and you understand the concepts and how to perform the mathematical calculations then it's ok to use a calculator to save you from doing an hour long calculation, however, that's as good as magic if you don't know how it worked!

Troy

Re:Rant about calculators..

[Negadecimal]

In my university no calculators are allowed during exams, and if you're stupid enough to use them in class you don't have much chance of passing the exam (simply because you wont understand)

What university is that shortsighted? True, I can see forbidding a calculator when you're actually testing a student's ability to calculate. When a student is first learning about integrals and matrices and such, they'll appreciate the material more if they get a glimpse under the hood. But it doesn't take that many examples to get there, either.

And when you start dealing with actual math applications instead of the math itself -- as plenty of classes do -- complex or repetitive calculations just get in the way of abstract *thought*. When I'm solving a fluid dynamics problem in a physics class, I'll demonstrate *more* learning by choosing the correct expression to evaluate and letting my calculator handle the integration and unit conversions. And I'll be able to solve more problems in less time, increasing my curriculum exposure.

While calculators are obviously good, lets keep 'em out of school!

Nice contradiction.

Re:Rant about calculators..

[abelsson]

While calculators are obviously good, lets keep 'em out of school! Nice contradiction. But once you understand math, there's no reason why you shouldn't use calculators: they're quicker and don't make as many mistakes. Just don't use 'em for learning.

-henrik

Re:Rant about calculators..

[ScottBob]

I have a ti-89, but i use it as little as possible. In my university no calculators are allowed during exams, and if you're stupid enough to use them in class you don't have much chance of passing the exam (simply because you wont understand)

At my university, the calculus classes were optimized for calculators, and you were lost if you didn't use one, because the answers weren't round. Not that it made it any easier, you still had to show every step of solving the problem; you just used the calculator for the sake of time. In fact, the professor had a TI-85 with an overhead projector attachment so he could show how integrations looked when plotted, slope fields of differential equations, etc. He would even let us transfer the programs on his calculator via a link cable (or give handouts with programs to type in if you had a TI-81 or whatever.) He said he knows all the tricks of graphing calculators, and that people often stored "crib" in the form of text files or bitmap images on them, but he didn't worry about that, because the problems were written so that if you had taken the time to learn the material rather than entering crib on your calculator, it would take less time to do the problem because you know how to do it than it would take to scroll through a text file of crib to find the right solution and not finishing the exam when time ran out.

Defending RPN and HP calculators

[HalfFlat]

I freely admit, when I was first introduced to RPN on a calculator, it seemed odd. Yet it's not some bizarre geek snobbery that has me say that it's worthwhile - after getting used to it (and it did not take long, really) it really is much more efficient.

• Quicker entry - no need for explicit entry of matched parentheses.
• Consistent entry - all operators act like postfix operators. Algebraic and non-scientfic calculators have a mixture of infix, prefix and postfix operators.
• Easy viewing of intermediate calculations - at least on large-display RPN calculators. This allows on-the-fly checking of the calculation which can catch errors early.

Speaking of HP calculators in particular, they do or did have a couple of very strong points that tended to distinguish them from their peers:

• Very robust! Renowned for withstanding accidents, drops, etc.
• Good tactile feedback on the keys (the latest one excepted.) The HP-28*,48* had great keypads, unrivalled on any other calculator I've used.

The later HP graphic calculators also supported an algebraic entry mode for those who found it easier or more intuitive than RPN.

I'm glad your TI worked well for you! But there are good reasons why the HP calculators are so widely recommended.

Re:Defending RPN and HP calculators

[kigrwik]

For some "heavy" formulas (electromagnetic fields, electricity, thermodynamics, ... more than half of Physics, actually) it is quite a pain to do the parsing "in your head". Hence the use of the 'standard' notation. (either native on the TI or with the 'eval' key on the HP)

However, as you hinted, the HP calculators suffer from a too small screen. Both on width and in height.
Besides with the TI you can copy and paste parts of formulas, I'm not sure it's that easy with RPN.

But I agree with a former poster that a plugin for RPN for the TI would be good. For some stuff it's just faster.

Re:Defending RPN and HP calculators

[Capt_Troy]

I still have my HP 48G that I bought in calculus class in high school. I love that thing and still use it to this day. I spent some time getting used to it, sure, and now I wouldn't do it any other way.

I bought it in 94, and all throughout college (grad in Dec 99) I was able to perform any calculation on it that was required while TI users had to get programs. Of course, I'm sure the 92 and the new one can do all that too, they just weren't around too much at the time, mostly TI 85s.

Re:Defending RPN and HP calculators

[Uttles]

Well you're right about programs. The TI-85 had an extensive amount of functions, and many people didn't know how to use them or bother reading the manual to find out, but the good thing was that it was extremely easy to program. I used an HP more than I hinted in the original post, most of the time just out of curiosity or to play games while bored in class, and I didn't find it very easy to program. Maybe I just didn't talk to someone who knew enough about it. I definitely didn't take the time to look in the manual.

Re:Defending RPN and HP calculators

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It is nice that you found some use with your calculator.

As I understand it, the HP drawbacks are:

*cost
*butt slow chip

I had very robust TI and Casio calculators - one Casio survived being thrown into a ditch full of snow and being chewed some by a dog. They've all probably survived falls onto concrete.

I only use the graphing calculators for large operations as I can see the entire data set and order of operations on one screen, even after it has been solved, if I find an error I can recall the entire calculation, correct a number and reexecute the entire computation, as well as having more than one data point and operation per line - large display HPs still only have one, anything with more than what, 6 data points end up scrolling off the screen.

And now that I'm not in any type of school, I don't have the time to retrain myself into doing everything in RPN. I can do it but the learning curve, the cost and the cost of errors is too high to merit getting proficient in HPs.

Re:Defending RPN and HP calculators

[Capt_Troy]

Don't know how many class hours I lost to joust!

And programming the HP was indeed quite a chore, only did it once, and it was not fun. Lucky for us, it already does almost everything you can imagine.

I heard once of the lead designer of the 48 series at a conference was once asked if the calculator could do some sort of calculation. He responded, "Beats me, lets find out..." and sure enough, it did.

TRoy

Re:Defending RPN and HP calculators

[wal9000]

The best thing about HP RPN calculators is that you never have to lend them to anyone!

Would-be borrower:"Can I borrow your calculator?"
HP owner: "Sure"
(Would-be borrower looks at RPN key layout, confused)
Would-be borrower: "Oh, err... nevermind"

Re:Defending RPN and HP calculators

[line-bundle]

Even in the non-geek world RPN rulez.

HP tried to NOT have an RPN business calclator, but failed. This is why they introduced the 17Bii (with RPN) soon after the HP-17B (without). The business market decided they want RPN. And also the 19B/19Bii.

Open Hardware calculator?

[RevRigel]

With the demise of HP's calc division, and the continual and unparalleled suckage of TI's calculators, has anyone else thought about doing an open hardware/open source calculator design?
It'd be possible to make kits for them, even to the point of doing injection molded plastic, if you were making a few hundred or a few thousand. Circuit boards would be dirt cheap in those quantities. Just use some low power processor with decent floating point and integer performance, and make it readily expandable/hackable.

Anyone?

Re:Open Hardware calculator?

[Milican]

Whatever. TI's calcs don't suck. I love my TI-89 and all the wondorous goodies it has to offer. I wrote some programs for it in one of my "accounting for engineers" classes which allowed me to run circles around everyone else in the class. Basically the program extended the solver functionality to calculate the results to all the easy and tedious equations in any order and combination. I'll bet the HP-48ers who were lamelessly pounding away at the keyboard were quite envious. Oh well what does finishing the final an hour before anyone else in the class prove? Can you write a program like that on your beloved RPN calc? Nope. RPN is cool, but calcs should do alot more these days. 'Nuff said.

JOhn

Re:Open Hardware calculator?

[RevRigel]

HP calcs are quite programmable; I've written several such programs myself over the years in UserRPL. Also possible are assembly, SysRPL, Pascal, and C.

Re:Open Hardware calculator?

[Pyrosz]

Here is a question that has stuck in my mind on this subject...

Wouldn't the cheapest, lowest model of a Palm Pilot work for this? Can it not be used as a complex calculator like the others? Yes, I know it would need software to do this, but thats not all that complex and someone probably already has it. Ok, granted it might not be as quick to use the stylus to enter numbers as using a keypad but Im sure it wouldnt matter in the end. Or is it a problem in schools and not allowing the use of PDA's in the classroom?

Re:Open Hardware calculator?

[RevRigel]

I've considered this, but it seems to be that the main advantage of a calculator for medium complexity calculations is having a huge array of specialized buttons that can be memorized -- a user interface that never changes (with the exception of the context buttons just to the bottom of the HP's screen). It would take either a cumbersome menu system or entirely too much screen real estate to do the same thing on a Palm Pilot. A Palm Pilot also isn't a fantastic number cruncher; I don't believe the Moto processors do much floating point.

The new ARM10 core supports a VFP10 floating point coprocessor, as well as having extremely low power sleep modes that would be necessary for use in a calculator. It even has some DSP-like features in its instruction set. Instead of struggling to graph a parabola like current calculators do, it'd be able to do 3d surfaces, FFTs, etc. easily. It would be an obvious extension of that to add an expansion module with high quality ADCs and DACs on it and use it as a realtime DSP control box with a very approachable user interface.

Don't forget that a lot of what's great about HP48s is simply the clicky buttons (the 49 and TIs have mushy buttons that don't give you any tactile sense of when the calc considers it 'pushed'), too.

Tetris® on a calculator and how to make it

[yerricde]

handy tetris playing calculator.

Which calculator is that? BPS has never authorized a TETRIS® game for the TI, Casio, or HP calculator platforms. You may have had a falling tetramino game (incidentally, here's how to make one), but it wasn't Tetris brand (for instance, I remember playing "Jetris" on a TI-89 calculator, where the J was a reversed half-uncial T); if it was, the author infringed the trademark on Tetris. We don't want ticalc.org to shut down again, do we?

palms?

[SlamMan]

perhapse somebody could explain why these still exits? Why isn't there software for the palm that does this? At the $120 bucks I had to pay for my TI-89 a couple years ago, I could almost buy a palm pilot. If you need nasty portable power for math in industry, wouldn't you use mathmatica on a laptop anyway?

Re:palms?

[1D10T]

Why not a Palm? I really prefer a Calculator because the keyboard is made for exactly that cause. A touchscreen like on a Palm wouldn't do for me. Then I'd be faster calculating in my head.

A laptop on the other hand is much larger in size and needs a long time for booting, so you cant use it for quick calculations. Also it is quite a lot more expensive and if you just need it for calculations this additional expence is not neccessary. In addition to this the power supply of a laptop is much worse than on a calculator. My TI-92+ can live on its battteries for 4-5 months. On a laptop I would have to recharge every few hours.

Re:palms?

[SlamMan]

Valid points, but how often do you have to do really complex math calculations where you aren't at a desk with a computer (exculding schools)? I'm not saying we don't need calculators, but when it gets to the point of needing to do anything using an integral, its not something most people need to do in the field. For the additional cost of a ti-92, I'm sure someone could market a calculator keyboard attachment to a palm. My main beef, though, is simply that software to do this sort of thing doesn't seem to exist for the palm pilot, not that this sort of calculator is useless.

Re:palms?

[Rob Simpson]

You can, however, attach an expandable keyboard to a palm, though they're pretty expensive. Anyone know if you can get just a number pad? There is some pretty good software, too - EasyCalc is GPL'ed, free, and has nearly everything except an equation solver. The only calc program I know of with an equation solver is C4Everyday, which is $20 or so.

what they're actuaclly used for..

[bje2]

all this increased functionality is great....but everyone knows what they're really used for in high school and college...

cheating...

simple as that...

i'll admit it...i (more then once) stored formulas, equations, etc, in the memory of my Ti-85 (in high school) and my Ti-92 (in college)...

they should forget all these high-tech upgrades that most people will never use, and slap some more memory in there, so the calculator can store some more "data"

Dvorak layout?

[yerricde]

Having the QWERTY, and thus the horizontal layout, prevents the calculator from being used on many college placement exams, and college exams themselves.

Watch a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard hack appear on ticalc.org.

A question about calcs...

[Gorthalm]

Whilst I was in school, I was fortunate enough to be given an HP48g... This calc was, and is, far superior to any TI calc I have ever come accross... not only was I using it for The Calculus, Diff EQ, Lin Alg... but of course the physics and engineering classes as well. Once introduced to RPN, I'll never go back.

My question is this: With TI firmly entrenched in the education market... all those schedule of classes reading "TI foo required...", does anyone outside of the student arena use these things? Sure they are feature packed, but I'd think once one wanted to do calculations which would actually use the calculator to it's fullest, they'd move to Mathmatica, or Mathcad.

Twice since leaving school have I seen the HP's used in the field... one is at my work, a weather prediction / ship routing company, and the other was on Junkyard Wars... I think they were carving a prop from a 2x4. As of yet, I haven't seen those TI behemoths outside the hands of students.

Oh, and for a touch of flaimbait, just try pi! on your TI82 ;-)

Failed Avigo

[banda]

It may be one more step towards releasing a modern-day Avigo, their failed PDA from a few years back.

Texas Instruments is notorious for releasing excellent consumer electronics products and then either crippling them or letting them wither and die. Witness the Avigo and the TI99/4A.

In the case of the Avigo, it was arguably a better PDA than the Palm Pilot that it was competing against. The applications it sported were certainly better and more comprehensive than those Palm was offering. However, TI made the dev kit for the Avigo platform expensive and difficult to obtain, so nobody of consequence wrote any additional software for the Avigo.

You would think Texas Instruments would have learned their lesson after doing exactly the same thing with the TI99 home computer 15 years before. Both platforms were innovative, high quality products that became commercial failures due to poor marketing and dismal support.

I have to wonder why they even bother to develop these products. It's like consumer product development and manufacturing is a hobby for them, but marketing and support are too much of a pain in the ass, so they don't do it.

Re:Failed Avigo

[banda]

Wow!

Thanks for the informative essay.

Note to moderators - Please mod up this AC comment!

To make my feelings clear on the issue of TI consumer products: I loved my TI99/4A. I loved my Avigo. TI just didn't love these products as much as I did.

The T9 keyboard almost prevented me from buying my heavily discounted Avigo. But, the T9 keyboard turned out to be a wickedly fast method of entering text. It was, as you suggested, a great design feature that was never effectively "sold" to the consumer marketplace.

That, I suppose, is why I think of TI's dabbling in PDAs as hobby-like. TI had a great product, but they didn't convince anyone else it was great. They had a head start on their PDA competitors, but they didn't appear to have a support plan, or a vision for how the Avigo would penetrate the market and hook consumers into the "Avigo line" for generations to come.

I will probably continue to buy TI consumer products when I need them: Their quality and innovation is beyond reproach. That quality just barely makes up for my suspiscion that my new purchase will only enjoy support for a short time and will probably never be the standard in the marketplace.

Change the icon?

[Pathetic Coward]

So, if it's a calculator, why does the story have a PDA icon?

Re:Rant about luddites...

[phurley]

Computers extend our ability to handle tasks. I never used one of these TI's, but my trusty HP and a student copy of Mathematica took me far. I really have a hard time understanding why being able to integrate complex expressions is a useful skill when a computer/calulator can do it just as well (better).

I can calulate a square root by hand and do repetative arithmatic - but I don't. Same thing with calculus. The important part of a tool like these is to change the focus of the class. Don't spend three semesters learning the mechanics of calculus, spend more time _understanding_ what the math means and how to apply it to interesting problems (finding volumes, interest, control systems, etc.).

I agree it is the understanding that is important, but the calculator only handles the mechanics - it frees us to concentrate on the understanding.

pth

HP = bash. TI = CMD.EXE

[edremy]

Imagine the /. response to MS announcing a new, more powerful DOS command line and touting it as the newest, greatest thing. Imagine that bash and ksh were no longer developed and might not be long for the world: how would you like to move to CMD.EXE?

That's how we HP/RPN fans feel about TI calculators- working on a calculator without RPN is simply crippling. Until you really understand RPN, you have no idea how slow other methods are.

Calculators..

[AnalogBoy]

this is pretty damn cool. I had a TI-92 in school, which got stolen.. extremely quickly. Knew who did it too, but being a geek, didn't confront him. Geez. Today i'd just lock his accou..err, wait.

Calculators ruined my brain though. I was in 'experimental' math classes since 7th grade, previous to that i was in a private school that didn't stress mathematics.. all in all, i've used calculators since the late 1980's. When, much to my shock, as im preparing to re-enter school and get an AA, i found i could not properly solve a long division or long multiplication problem on paper or in my head, i felt incredibly stupid. I rectified that situation extremely quickly.

In 7th grade they let us use a calculator made by TI which actually had a modulus function - in other words, NO paper work for most problems! When Math for Business and Technology came along, all was done using calculators - everything. So, in conjunction with the fact that I hated school until my senior year, i think my brain may never do mathematics again.

I want a nice Color PDA before I go back. I don't know how they feel about these in class now - but since i can't read my own writing most of the time, i think it may be helpful - and i can write faster in graffiti-esque than in cursive or print.. Now if they'll only make a good calculator (WinXP Powertoys-like) for palm/wince

Re:Calculators..

[jandrese]

This is the second time someone has come out and said that Calculators ruined their long divison ability. I just have to ask: is this really such a bad thing? It's not like long divison is really that hard to learn later in life (it's learning the multiplication tables, forward and backward, that's the real struggle), and I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to work out a long divison problem by hand since grade school.

Long division is in many ways a waste of time in grade school (especially considering how long it takes to teach it to kids). The only real advantage I see to it is that it helps kids learn how to handle long complex tedious procedures (especially since you have to do a LOT of long division in grade school). If you really need the skill later in life it's not that hard to pick up (for someone who already has experiance with complex procedures).

Note, the above assumes you can already do simple division (IE, you know that 56 / 7 == 8). I recommend never letting kids look at a calculator until they have the multiplications tables (at least up to 10) memorzied fully.

Of course this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Re:Calculators..

[1D10T]

I think at school it really helps to be able to do a lot of calculations in your head. It simply helps in mathematical problems to see properties of the numbers involved in it (i.e. noting that there are only squares or something like it). If you only use calculators in school you dont learn that. But if you want people to know something of mathematics they should be able to solve some simple problems. Grade school is not about teaching kids how to become an accountant, but teach them something of the science.

Calcuputer

[ImaLamer]

I always liked my TI-99A much more. It even had color... but that was only because you had to hook it to the TV.

Mine work flawlessly until I moved out, left it there for a few weeks and my brother smashed it with a hammer. He didn't know it worked.

He opened the expansion drive and used it as a [heavy] garage to park his hotwheels.

But now as I want to get him into programming... I wish this machine was around so I could teach him basic.

Time for a TI92+ emulator for Palm

[gelfling]

Of course putting the test answers into flash would be problematic.

Re:Time for a TI92+ emulator for Palm

[hibu]

Or you could use LyME, a free clone of Matlab for Palm from Calerga. It has many numerical functions, graphics, and even support for 68k machine code!

TI-89 is the best I've had

[boy_afraid]

The TI-89 is the best you can have because the TI-89 and up are not allowed in college exam rooms, that's why I got the 89. And yes, I did use it to put a few notes and formulas I just couldn't remember. I have yet to learn how to program for it, but when I used it in class all the ppl thougt I was a genius because I always had the answers. I told them I was using the calculator, not to cheat, but so that I new what the target was for the problem. I told them that I actually read the manual and that's how I know how to use the full potential of the calculator.

YES, I AM A RARE PERSON BECAUSE I ACTUALLY DO READ THE MANUALS OF ALL OF MY STUFF BEFORE I USE IT!

Slide Rule

[wiredog]

Seriously, that's what we were taught in freshman year of high school. I didn't use a calculator in HS, or College either. I, personally, don't think calculators should be used in high school math classes.

Re:Slide Rule

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Not true. Basic scientific calcs should be acceptable in HS. By that time, you should be able to do basic arithmetic on your own, and that allows you to avoid basic arithmetical errors.

Solvers, and higher functions, no. And there should be NO calculators in elementary or Jr. High.

Re:Slide Rule

[aardvarkjoe]

I didn't use a calculator in HS, or College either. I, personally, don't think calculators should be used in high school math classes.

So just because you didn't use one, you think that they can't be of any use?

It should be prohibited to use a device which undermines what is being taught at the time -- therefore, calculators shouldn't be used in elementary school, when you're being taught arithmetic. (Except in special circumstances, of course -- teaching them to know how to use a calculator is a decent idea.) That's common sense. However, as my HS math teacher put it, he trusted that if we had made it all the way to calculus, that we already knew how to add, subtract, do long division, manipulate algebraic expressions, and so forth. If we didn't, denying us calculators wouldn't do anything -- we wouldn't be able to do the math either way. And allowing calculators makes it possible to do a much wider variety of problems, and to concentrate on the concepts being taught, rather than worrying about low-level things that are secondary to the topic at hand.

Do you also claim that high-level programming languages should be abolished, because it's not necessary to use anything more advanced than assembly? It's really the same idea.

Re:Slide Rule

[FatRatBastard]

You also shouldn't be able to use graphing calculators in calculus. The reason we make you graph equations *isn't* to get homework with pretty little pictures... its to drill you on doing first and derivitives, find maxima/minima/inflection points, etc.

Re:Slide Rule

[thogard]

My hs calc instructor would disagree with you. He was convinced that I couldn't add, subtract or divide. On one problem he noticed that I had something like 24/4=9 and at a later step fixed the problem. Thats when he figured out I didn't do decimal. He also taught the Fortran class and knew octal as well as I knew hex. After that he would only deduct a bit if I slipped into base 16. At the start of the next school year, he gave us a quiz to see how much trig we rememberd. There were questions involving taylor series and such and calculating things like. After a summer of building a fast floating point trig library for the 6809, I knew the stuff quite well but I did all the work in hex floating point and then converted to decimal. I got 99 points out of 100 since he deducted a point for doing it hex and not octal or deciaml. Its the higest any one had ever scroed on that test. Too bad the rest of my scores weren't as good.

My first semester Calc in college, the instructors rules were simple. If you write the software your self you can use it. I got an HP-28C and procedded to write the software. Since professor Freed was a good programmer, he insisted I explain how things worked. Then he changed the rules, you had to build the hardware too. Got as far as booting the 32016 cpu but never got the second board built that would fit in a handheld case.

Does anyone know of a supplier of side rules? I want one. You would think "think geek" would have one. click here to search their site for one. maybe they will get the hint.

Opinions of a TI geek

[MBCook]

I've followed TI cals for years. I've programed them, used them, and own most all of the models. My current favorites are the 83 (for simplicity), and the 89 (for power). Here are my thoughts on this new calculator:

First of all I have to say that I'm glad they redesigned the 92(+). It's always been a great calculator but the thing is big as hell. It's thick, heavy, HUGE (which is why I like the 89). I'm sure that this one won't weight nearyly so much, which is a MAJOR plus.

It's good to hear that it's compatible with software made for the 92+. This means that tons and tons of games are all ready ready to go. If they don't work, chances are that they won't need much tweaking before they do.

Having more storage is also great. I've always fought with my calculators trying to put on all the games that I like without running out of memory. The flash on the 83+ and 89 is nice, but you can't run assembly programs out of it. You have to move them from flash to normal ram to play them, which is anoying. This is the one thing that I hope they change.

Over all looks good. I'm sorry I didn't write more, but I've got lots of surfing to do. I can't wait to get my hands on one in a store of find someone who buys one so I can check it out first hand.

Re:Opinions of a TI geek

[Niten]

Not trying to be a nitpick here, this is just for your info... if you download the latest ROM update for the 89 (I think it's still version 2.05), running assembly programs out of flash memory becomes possible.

It will not be possible for such programs to modify their own contents when they are run from flash memory, but this usually doesn't matter.

Re:Tetris� on a calculator and how to make it

[Xenopax]

I actually forget what the actual name of the game I played in college was. It was some form of tetris, but you are right it did have a generic name, not the Tetris brand.

calculators do nothing for number dyslexia

[f00zbll]

Calculators are great and all, but for people who have number dyslexia, it doesn't do much. I didn't realize I had it, until college. It's nice that calculators have more features, but I find it is easier to work from theory or in reverse to double check my calcualtions. Using a calculator actually made it worse, since more is hidden and gives a false impression. The calculator isn't going to know I reversed 2/5, and 6/9.

HP's are for coders and those who think like them

[Pinball Wizard]

What is it with the RPN bashing today? Ever heard of a stack? Well, thats what RPN is - you load numbers onto the stack. Then, when you press an operator(+-?*, etc) it performs that operation on the number or numbers at the end of the stack, depending on the operation.

This is very natural to the thinking of mathemeticians, engineers, and computer scientists. Furthermore, it allows you to do complex operations without needing to resort to using brackets or moving the cursor. If you need to quickly blow through a bunch of calculations, RPN is much faster than using traditional notation.

I can see not wanting to learn RPN if you aren't majoring in the above named disciplines. But if you are going into math, CS, or engineering, and RPM seems too hard for you, its time to switch majors.

Good for TI-92 users, bad for HS students.

[Julius X]

When I was back in High School, I would never have bought a TI-92 (the plus hadn't come out yet) because due to its QWERTY keyboard layout it was banned on all tests--most notably the SAT.

A couple years later when I went to college, the TI-89 came out with all the functionality of a TI-92 PLUS in a TI-86 packaging---perfect I told myself. That would have made the ultimate calculator for High School or College.

Now they go back to the TI-92 type layout. This is probably good for professionals, and it is no doubt a good machine, but I would never use it when its already larger than my Sony 505 laptop. (Granted, no good Graphic Calculator software exists for PCs besides the XP powertoy which won't run on this laptop).

I wish they had kept the TI-xx naming string too, because those models already have an established market--and with this new name, that might be lost.

Anyone bet how long it'll be until we see the TI-90 with components from this new one but in a TI-90 formfactor?

Re:Good for TI-92 users, bad for HS students.

[ScottBob]

There are numerous emulators out there for TI calculators, I have an emulator for my TI-89. Of course, you have to own the calculator so you can transfer the ROM image to the emulator, but you can install it on a laptop and not have to carry both the laptop and calculator with you when you go somewhere.

Re:Good for TI-92 users, bad for HS students.

[alleria]

Granted, no good Graphic Calculator software exists for PCs besides the XP powertoy which won't run on this laptop.

Huh? I have no clue what you're talking about. I haven't looked at the free software side (although I do know that there are some there too), but in commerical software, we have: Mathematica, Derive, Maple, MatLab (and that's just general stuff), as well as Stata, and other more specialized packages.

You're not seriously going to claim that you couldn't find a good math package for your laptop, are you?

P.S. if really desperate, go find a TI-92 ROM and run it off a PC emulator -- they work perfectly.

Re:Good for TI-92 users, bad for HS students.

[Julius X]

I was referring to free and easy to use Graphing Calculator programs, not necessarily huge expensive (not to mention combersome and bloated) packages such as Mathmatica & Matlab.

I'm not looking for an emulation of another hardware platform....just a simple Graphing Calculator app for me to use, without having to dig up ROM images or anything of the like.

Macs have come with an amazing 3D graphing calculator for years...and for the first time, Windows users have something similar in the WinXP Powertoys' Graphing Calculator.

Well in actuality

[Uttles]

I graduated Comp. Engineering and Math Minor. I used the TI-85 because it was much easier, despite what you claim. I guess once you use something for a while and really try to get good at it, you can do it quickly no matter what the device is. Me personally, I didn't feel like spending my free time learning how to use a calculator, I'd rather be out doing something, so I stuck with the TI-85.

PS - as for doing multiple calculations, the TI-85 would let you copy and paste, or you could write a program in like 2 minutes that would go through everything automatically.

Re:Well in actuality

[Pinball Wizard]

I graduated Comp. Engineering and Math Minor.

If thats the case, you would pick up the HP in no time. If you understand how stacks work(and you undoubtedly do) you can use an HP.

The really cool thing about HPs is that you can load a bunch of stuff onto the stack - then each time you hit an operator, it 'pops' values off the stack and 'pushes' the result back onto the stack. You can also do things like move values up and down the stack.

Although I must admit, copy and past sounds like it would be nice. But the HPs are also programmable, and you can store things like defined values and formulas that you can call up at any time.

RPN or bust!

[smittyoneeach]

I will own no other type of calculator.

Re:RPN or bust!

[bbhatt]

FYI, the 68k calculators internally use RPN.

1 a sin() 2 ^ a cos() 2 ^ + =

[Hobbex]

Yeah, I wonder why anybody does math with infix notation. Why can't they teach clearly more intuitive formulas like:

0 1 e i Pi * ^ + =

or:

u v * ' u ' v * v ' u * + =

in school....

TI rescued my degree!

[ThaReetLad]

I love TI calculators. I recall one evening before a math resit exam cramming the contents of the manual for my new calculator into my head rather than my course notes. Time well spent as it turned out.

On a slighly different note, how will schools and colleges cope when all calculators come with wireless networking built in as the line between calculator an palm PC blurs, and how will kids react when told to clear the memory of their digital address book before an exam?

Why not just buy a Palm?

[joshv]

You can pick up an m100 real cheap, plenty of memory, and get some great graphing software relatively cheaply (check out powerOne graphing software for the Palm). There are also some great, free RPN calcs for the Palm, and I am sure many many more other programs than will every be available for the TI.

-josh

Re:Why not just buy a Palm?

[TheMightyZog]

One word: buttons.

I would never want to use a palm as a replacement for a calculator, even with the best calculator software loaded onto the palm. A touch screen is not a good interface in that it doesn't give you the sort of feedback that a good set of keys do (the keys on my HP 32SII and 48GX are incredible). I have a great RPN calculator loaded on my palm, and it's great for doing the occansional calculations when I don't have a real calculator available, but I always go back to a real calcuator whenever I can.

Re:Why not just buy a Palm?

[afidel]

Because there is no symbolic integration software for the Palm! This is the main difference between the say Ti-83 and the 89-92 et all, the ability to enter a derivative and get a non-numeric answer in response.

Re:I can't believe people still use HP

[jridley]

Everyone that I know that *really tried* to learn RPN wound up being MUCH faster and more accurate in the end. I absolutely HATE algebraic calculators now. I don't see how anyone gets any useful work done on them. Sure, they're fine for adding up a grocery bill.
When I was in school, mid 1980's, you could tell the TI owners because they were buying a new calculator about once a year. They broke that fast. The buttons started bouncing after just a month or so of heavy engineering-student use. Most TI owners gave up and bought an HP within a year or two.

Of course, it helps being on a college where you could hand an HP to almost anyone and they knew how to use it.

Wow!

[SpinyNorman]

Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these running Linux?!

Sorry - someone had to say it :-(

Re:Wow!

[connorbd]

Actually, I wonder if you can do that -- the low-level driver routines are available on some models, hacked on others...

/brian

Re:Not too excited...

[GTRacer]

HP's are work.

Maybe at first...I got a 48SX my second year of college and that thing took a lot of getting used to. But, the more comfortable I got with RPN, the more I could do faster and more naturally.

I was able to upgrade to a 48GX (through the courtesy of Office Depot's Customer Service department) and I never looked back. I used that thing almost every day at school and even some at work after graduation.

I still have it here in my desk some 8+ years later and the thing works great. Now if I could find a 4MB card for less than 400 bucks...

GTRacer
- It's pretty sad when your *calculator* has a pkzip clone...

mp3

[geekoid]

can't believe they didn't put an mp3 player in it, even one that could only store 10 songs.

Is it worth it?

[krs-one]

I am currently a high school student in 11th grade. I own a TI-83+ and it is an amazing calculator. Granted, the 89's and 92's are beyond amazing, I don't think that you need much more than that (83+). I've spoken to several people in college calculus and they have all said that they can do just fine in the class with their 83+'s (and they did do well, FYI). I realize that the 89's are symbolic manipulators and such, but do you really need that?

Calculus is possible without a symbolic manipulator, so I want to know, is it really worth investing 130 bucks and buying a 89 or even more money and buying a 92/92+? Another thing that holds me back is that the 92/92+'s are not allowed on standardized tests (the SAT for example) since they have a QWERTY keyboard and need to be plugged into the wall.

-Vic

Re:Is it worth it?

[bbhatt]

What needs to be plugged into the wall?

i'll keep saying it, thank you very m;uch

[cheezus]

I believe it's sarcasm. Didn;t you brits invent that?

Re:i'll keep saying it, thank you very m;uch

[MrFredBloggs]

Yeah, right.

My HP calculator had a clock 8 yrs ago!

[zerofoo]

This is new technology???

-ted

TI vs. HP

[dillon_rinker]

Lots of TI vs HP threads in the discussion. They are all silly. They all boil down to:

My Turing machine is better than your Turing machine!

Re: Meaning of sarcastic "thank you very much"

[kwertii]

> I did them just fine on all the tests, thank you very much

You are sarcastically thanking the person in advance for correcting the presumably negative mental opinion they've formed as a result of what you've said prior to that.

So in this case, the poster is assuming that the reader will think he can't do integration himself because he said he has a fancy calculator with symbolic integration. He corrects this erroneous assumption, and thanks the reader very much for then amending their derisive, evil thoughts.

k

postfix notation

[Fourier]

Sure, you laugh. But have you ever written down a column of numbers, then drawn a horizontal line underneath, then added them all up? Sounds rather like postfix to me.

Of course, the real power of postfix is unlocked only when you have a nifty stack to play with...

Re:Tetris� on a calculator and how to make it

[dimator]

Damn you for linking to everything2! I'll be clicking around there for 4 hours now.

TI-85

[Oxide]

I bouth that baby in 1992 when I joined college. It never failed from keep on impressing me as I go on with my Math and engineering classes. I'm doing my post graduate degree now and It keeps reminding me that TI makes the best damn calculators out there.

I dont know if I will need this new voyager 200, but I think I will buy it just for good times sake when I used to use the TI-85 (ABCD) keyboard to program.

Back to the Abacus

[Lizard_King]

A personal anecdote about why I ask you to read your new calculator's instruction manual before using it:

In college, I was taking an introductory Electrical Engineering course which dealt primarily with the basics of circuits and such. Our second test of the semester (we only had two tests, so this was a biggie) required you to use complex algebra to solve all of the problems. Now, complex algebra is not difficult, rather its a pain in the ass, meticulous and time consuming. So I heard that the bookstore was selling this new calculator (HP x46 or something like that) that performed complex algebra with the press of a button. Sweet! I was able to convince my parents to cough up $100 so I could run down to the store and buy one of these technological wonders. I picked one up, and sure enough - it performed complex algebra with the press of a button. I took the test the next day (which was rather easy) in record time.

When I received the test back and my score was 5 out of 100, I realized that I had been pressing the WRONG BUTTON during the entire test. Damn. Drop class, do not collect $200, go directly to the Registrar's office.

Please - learn from my mistakes and read the manual (RTFM!). One more request - no "you stupid asshole" comments; I know it was retarded.

tehmasp

[(v)Jargon(v)]

actually ti.com says its only 1 mb of actual data archive

Re:tehmasp

[Dijital]

2.7mb of Flash RAM, but the ceiling on Archive has been lowered to 1mb (so all the kiddies can keep from locking up the mem with archived games...).

Another Nerd Toy?

[Ymaster]

Last time I checked you could send e-mails to other students with these things. Plus you can store all kinds of codes in them that can only spell cheat in my mind. Gawd...don't ever lose on of these toys at school! Someone might go home happy and pawn it for some beer or something worth wild. Now if only you could play super mario with one..lol

Re:That's not funny lookin', that's a lowercase 'q

[connorbd]

Actually, the 85/86 language was called TI BASIC, but as far as I can tell it doesn't resemble BASIC in any useful sense. It's really its own language.

/Brian

Thanks to my TI-89

[xg0blin]

I never had to learn math...and I'm a math major
What else can you say about a calculator that does the factoring for you, and gives you the exact results still in fractional form rather then the inexact decimal.
I remember when the prof. told me I had to show my work in college algebra when we were finding complex zero's on exams. I failed that exam needless to say.....
Can't wait to try this one out

but the qwerty keyboard?

[sean23007]

i wish they would discontinue the qwerty keyboard, because it basically renders them useless for students who are not rich enough to buy another one. if you can't use it on the test, don't use it anywhere. learn, dammit. and games are worthless.

oh crap- my contradictory views will probably get me killed (again).

Still Using my Avigo

[WickywiK]

I don't know about anyone else out there but I'm still plugging away with TI's PDA known as the Avigo. I got it at Office Max when they began clearancing them three years ago for $90 (keep in mind the Palm III was still selling for $250+). I'm still happy with it though and I can sync it with Outlook and there has been tons of free software created by dedicated enthusiasts that still keep it floating (check out http://avigo.dhs.org/portal/).

It's an extremely sturdy PDA and has withstood some major falls (unlike the delicate Visor my wife owns). Actually, I think the HP Jornadas have borrowed a lot from the original Avigo design.

Just my off-topic two cents.

Re:Engineers

[bbhatt]

>

Well, they do.