TI Launches Three New Graphing Calculators

confusedneutrino writes "Texas Instruments has announced 3 new graphing calculators to be available later this year. The TI-84 Plus and TI-84 Plus Silver Edition will be available this spring and are essentially the TI-83 Plus/SE, respectively, in a new case and with USB support. (The TI-84 Plus does sport a 15 MHz processor, compared to the TI-83 Plus' 6 MHz, though.) The TI-89 Titanium will be available in the summer and features 3x the available ROM of the 'old' TI-89 and will also have USB capability. Looks to me like a Voyage 200 minus QWERTY. I personally don't feel an inclination to upgrade at all..."

Comments

TI-92

[BJZQ8]

I still love my TI-92...While in college waiting for teachers to show up, I played lots of Tetris games on Fargo, which was the assembly-language system made possible only because of a buffer underrun...

Re:TI-92

[BJZQ8]

I know you're being sarcastic, but it is interesting for one reason....IT IS HAPPENING ON A GRAPHING CALCULATOR. I am well aware of the swarms of buffer overflow exploits out there...but again, this was on a graphing calculator, and was put to good use, not DOS'ing SCO.

Why not a PDA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not a PDA that runs graphing calculator software instead?

WTF?

[tuxette]

It's the most powerful TI graphing handheld allowed for use on the AP* Calculus, AP Statistics, AP Physics, AP Chemistry, PSAT/NMSQT**, SAT(R) I , SAT II Math IC & IIC exams.

BEWARE! "Back in the old days" rant coming...

When I took those exams, we weren't allowed to use those fancy calculators. If we were even allowed to use calculators at all, we were only allowed to use the most basic scientific calculator you can find. No graphics, no programming, nada zip zero.

OK, rant over. I guess the old-fashioned kind of calculator is hard to find these days. But I'm quite curious now. Have the questions been adjusted to account for use of all these fancy calculators?

Re:WTF?

[mritunjai]

old days ???

Dude, you're not allowed to use any programmable calculator even in post grad courses in IITs (Indian Institute of technology) even NOW... and nobody misses them.

As for problems involving them, we have something called "lab exercises" where usually a Solaris/Linux/WIndows box running MATLAB is at your disposal and you're supposed to solve some fairly "interesting" problems ;-)

Re:WTF?

[NegativeK]

Have the questions been adjusted to account for use of all these fancy calculators?

Absolutely. The test has been adjusted quite well for those calculators.. If you know how to use a TI-89, you can get at least a four. The questions seemed like they were designed for 89/92 gurus.. I'm a math major now, and I knew my stuff back then, but that test (AP Calculus BC) went a lot faster with the 89, and it was/is completely legitamite. Yeah, yeah, you have to show work, and half the test you can't use a calculator.. But it is nice to be able to do a Riemann sum with a calculator just to make sure you didn't screw up anywhere. ^.^

There's a reason people call "AP Calc" "AP Calculator."

Re:WTF?

[default luser]

This is not necessarily a good idea. Case in point:

In 1993 my junior high got a "great idea" ( read: they got a great deal from TI ), and loaned scientific calculators to every student.

However, these were TI's ugly blue colored scientific calculators with limited funtionality ( compared to your average $20 Casio those days ), and they had a solar cell that was VERY suscpetible to breaking (ie: drop it on the floor, it cracked ). Even with the plastic cover on, a book dropped on top could mean a cracked cell.

The worst part: in order to simplify return of the calculators at the end of the year, EVERY student had to take one. And the worst part was the replacement price was $30, quite a bit higher than the average scientific calculator you could buy in the store.

I ended up keeping it safe at home, so did a lot of people. As for the people who used them, many broke them more than once over the course of the year.

It's not a bad idea in concept, but bad execution could sour the deal.

What's the point?

[jabber01]

Is there still a niche for calculators? I mean, between engineering computers, calculation programs, and PDAs with scientific calculators in software, dedicated calculators seem to be more and more on the wane.

Sure, I keep one on my desk, both at work and at home, for incidental calculations, but any "heavy lifting" is done via spreadsheet or a quickie program, or the likes of Mathematica if you're a real freak.

So, is there still a point to "scientific calculators" which seem to be becoming PDAs with specialized keyboards, less the address book, less the calendar, with the math software in firmware.

TI-85

[jargoone]

Ah, that brings back memories. I was 1337 enough to have the 85 instead of the standard issue 81 that everyone else had in high school. I don't remember what the differences were, but everyone was jealous. And it was BLACK. Not as cool as the geeks that turned the TVs on and off with their HPs, but still cool.

I remember writing programs to save myself 5 minutes a problem on my Econ exams in college. The professor was always puzzled why I would finish so quickly. I told him at the end of the quarter.

Cheating

[lxt]

Surely calculators like this offer more chances for cheating on your exams (SAT, AP etc) - the programming features on these calculators can instead be used to store plain text, enabling you to write down formulae, notes etc.

I've used a graphing calculator for SATs, and was never asked to erase the memory. With USB, you could simply type up your notes on a PC, transfer them, and use them...

Re:Cheating

[JackPo]

TI realizes that this could be used as a cheating tool. Around a yr (or 2 yrs ago), it developed a piece of software call TestGuard that is suppose to help alleviate this problem (it wipes slsected portion of a calculator). I am not sure why this did not quite catch on.. If students really want to cheat, the HP49G+ is by far a superior version for cheating, its text editor allows for panning, and with a 1 gig SD card inserted into its expansion, can you imagine the PDFs that could be stored? ;) Due to these problems, you can see that the AP has now split into 2 sections, and most college courses ban calculators outright.

And they're dropping the 86

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

Personally, the 86 was my favorite of the bunch. Most powerful and straightforward of the calculators, but not crossing the line of being more like a computer. But instead of upgrading the 86, they're making programs that provide some of it's unique functions to the other calculators:

A suite of TI-86 features is being created for the TI-83 Plus and TI-89 in the form of free APPS, including:

* Polynomial Root Finder
* Simultaneous Equations Solver
* Differential Equation Graphing (built into the TI-89)
* Constants and Conversions (built into the TI-89)

Re:Abacus

[tuxette]

When I was in Thailand, I encountered a lot of merchants who used the abacus to calculate whatever. People who had calculators used them more to show tourists the Arabic number price than to calculate the final sum.

Bordering on off-topic, but...

[Fortunato_NC]

My little bother did a steady business in TI-8x calculators during high school. Our high school required "accelerated" math students to purchase a TI-81 (or 83 or 85, whatever the "state of the art" was at the time) to use in class and on homework.

My brother would buy calculators cheap from kids at the end of school in June and sell them to the next year's students the next year for about $10 less than the school asked for the new ones. He probably made $250-$500 a year off those calculators. Not exactly chump change to a 15 year old.

great

[Nrlll9]

the currrent state of calculator technology is sad. they got so long to improve and they still have shitty UI and small memory. someone like apple ought to get into the market.

My favorite calculator

[pcraven]

My favorite calculator was one I picked up in the late 80's. It had 128 built in formulas and was from Radio Shack. You could program several other fomulas as well.

What I haven't seen other calculators do well, is that this had excellent support for greek and other odd math characters. And the calculator was very small. I didn't usually like hauling around the TI's.

The build in formulas are nice when you can't remember some formula you really needed. Very handy.

The calculator is similar to some of Casio's calculators today, but I don't see them with good support for math symbols. I'd still use it today, except that it fell apart. You have to squeeze it together just right and hold it that way for it to work correctly.

there are no more workhorse calculators

[Hollins]

No one make a decent calculator anymore. People are hoarding 10 year old HPs off eBay. I'm using the 48SX I've had since 1990. My requirements aren't too severe:

• a large set of functions available through a configurable interface
• RPN
• a flexible programming language
• a decent-sized graphical display, but it doesn't need to be so large to make the calculator a mini-laptop. I need to use it in the field
• tactile buttons that always register and are sufficiently durable to last a couple decades
• a large 'enter' key prominently placed near the center of the keypad
• a tough case made of thick plastic that doesn't creak when squeezed, can be dropped a few times without damage and isn't painted with some shiny paint that flakes off. Actually, which isn't painted at all except for the silk-screened indicators over the buttons

HP stopped making an attempt at the last three some time ago. If I have to put up with a cruddy interface, eventually I'll take the speed hit and use a PDA with stylus. Until then, I'm hoarding old calculators off eBay. The 38SII, while not graphical, is probably the best professional scientific calculator for everyday use, but even they're getting expensive. I'd stick to old 48s/g for graphing.

6Mhz

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when my Amiga 500 had an 8 MHz 68000. I bought a Telebit modem which had a 16Mhz 68302. Had to buy a A4000. Couldn't stand to have a faster processor in my modem then in my workstation. Now even calculators are catching up to these speeds. I wonder if you can do a bullwhip on these (BLWP -- branch and link with workspace pointer) like the good old 99/4A.

Re:Common comparisons to HP not necessarily valid

[part15guy]

I cannot use any calculator besides my HP48G (aka secret weapon) any more. If I have to balance my checkbook and do not have secret weapon with me, then I do it by hand. No TI calculator will work for me.

Diminishing returns

[Unknown Kadath]

I don't think I'll be upgrading from my trusty TI-85. It has been dropped, kicked, and occasionally drop-kicked regularly for the past 10 years and still works perfectly. (I guess this is a plug for the 85...do they even still make it?) I have a 93 which mostly sits in a drawer. Whenever I've considered using it, I've realized that I'd be better served by a computer with a math package--bigger display, easier input, more flexible software, faster processing. So, what is the point of a 15 mHz calculator, or a USB-capable one? You don't need something like that in high school (would a student even be allowed to use one?), and you have better resources in college and in the working world.

Bet you could write some great games for these uber-calculators, though (there were already good games available for the 83/85/86/89 when I was in high school.) Which would have been all the reason I would have needed to get one, had they existed back when I needed something to keep me awake through AP Calc.

-Carolyn

Re:Common comparisons to HP not necessarily valid

[harrkev]

This does not say much...

First, it can be safely assumed that almost ALL people who use RPN also know how to use old "algebraic" calculators. Yet they still use RPN.

I do not know of ANYBODY who became proficient with RPN who prefers algebraic calculators.

The reason that RPN is dying is because HP was the only company making RPN calculators, and they are not very competetive now. You have a shelf full of calcuators, and the shiny TI machines are brand new, and at a good price. The HP one (if they have one) may have been sitting there for a while, and simply cannot compete on such things as screen resolution and memory.

Did you bother to read the manual?

[SuperBanana]

Forget the 48 models, the 49 and all the new stuff. The 48GX is OK if you have to have graphing but the single and dual-line models have better UI for daily use.

You obviously never bothered to read the section on "user defined keyboards", where you can map any command(and even a custom program) to any key. You can set up the "UI" any way you want; I assume you mean keys, because the very same commands do the very same things across all the RPN calculators. Swap, rotate, drop etc are all the same. Since you can take a set of RPN commands and make them in to a program, this is incredibly powerful. I found it endlessly useful, particularly in physics.

Dismissing the 48/49 series simply because you didn't like the fact that your favorite buttons for stack manipulation weren't there on the keyboard shows you never bothered to read the user manual. And I fail to see how 4-5 levels visible on the stack(more if you use one of the programs that installs a custom small font) is inferior to one or two lines. You can even make your own keyboard template if you wish; there are tab slots in the case to keep one in place. You can also just create scripts, and have different directories for different task sets that require similar functions. Oh, and i'd like to see you do a 3x3 matrix on your 1 line screen. Have fun pushing buttons if your RPN program returns more than one number...

Never confuse "crappy" with "I didn't understand how to use it." The 48/49 series, while being useable to do 2+2 kind of stuff, are really designed for people who do repetitive calculations and such. Not just graphing...

Base conversion.

[zCyl]

16C - awesome calculator for programmers, especially embedded work. There is no better number system converter available at any price. No I can't do bin/dec/hex in my head faster than the 16C and neither can you. Expensive due to relatively low numbers produced.

Try the trivial (and free) script at the end of this post, run as:

base 0xF43B
base 0b0010101
base 0755
base 521

Output:
Dec Hex Oct Bin
493 1ed 755 111101101

Whenever you're programming, a command line is closer than a calculator.

#!/bin/sh

NUM="$1"

perl -e "printf (\"Dec\tHex\tOct\tBin\n%d\t%x\t%o\t%b\n\", $NUM, $NUM, $NUM, $NUM);"

Good ole HP 48G

[ducomputergeek]

My HP 48G is almost 10 years old. It still does more than I need it too and it only has 32k of ram. Hell it was good enough to send us to the moon, it's good enough to add, subtract, multiply, and solve stress equations on the fly...