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

TI Calculators saved my college career.

[Xenopax]

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

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.

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).

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: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.

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?

[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.

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

[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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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....

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?")

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: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.