Slashdot Mirror
TI-84 Plus Released
clear issue writes "The TI-84 Plus has now been shipped, and is avalible through a few distributors. (Try froogle) Besides the new stylish interface, when compared to the 83+, the 84+ has a number of technical advancements including a 2.5 times faster processor speed. To see how this new device compares to your current calculator, check out ti's comparison pdf chart. TI has even dedicated an entire web site for the promotion of the 84 Plus."
If you want to have a real chuckle, check out the Custom Graphics section. I was a TI 99/4A die-hard, and I couldn't help but remember my old system, and coding graphics from 99er Magazine, in all its glory, upon setting eyes on those custom graphics. I must have one of those calculators.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
How long before they relase the TI 99/4A?
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
With the TI-84 Plus, all students can now share their work by connecting their TI-84 Plus to any TI presentation tools for the whole class to see, fostering a collaborative learning environment.*
(*) Kids can now network to the smart kid in class and steal answers via infrared USB. No longer do you have to seat near the geek to get good grades!
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
I emailed "daddypants" while it was still in the Mysterious Future, but to no avail.
that was my first programmable device, probably the start of the end of my school and the beginning of my career as a programmer !
MP3 Search Engine
now i can play tetris 2.5 times faster!
It sure beats the hell outta my abacus but my abacus has really low power consumption.
The Erogenous Zone
Not at all. The different calculators are aimed at different groups and for different purposes.
The 92/+/v200 are aimed at engineers and other professions/things to do while the 83/+/84/+ are aimed at highschool students (mainly).
The TI-92 isn't allowed on SATs and some other tests because of the QWERTY keyboard. This one probably would be allowed by standardized tests and by teachers in school, so it's good that they're working to improve the TI-8x type calcs.
OK, so I haven't actually purchased a calculator in 15+ years, but it looks like this model is really geared toward the education market - it includes algebra tutorials, etc. Will a new calculator ever be marketed to make me want to turn in my trusty HP-41CX? (which btw runs on "normal" batteries available in any drugstore, so I never have to worry about the built-in custom rechargable battery dying like with my old, now completely useless TI calculators.)
I remember the awesome training video that came with the TI-82. This weird guy with a pocket protector standing behind a bluescreen which projected a giant image of the TI-82 in the background. Then it would show extreme closeups of his hands hitting the buttons...pure calculator pornography!
There was also a great showdown comparing the TI-82 to Casio and HP competitors (TI won of course). It was funny because you could tell the calculator dork really liked the HP best, but had to put on a good face because it was a TI video, at least I think it was...does anyone else remember that? God, I have no idea what I'm talking about...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I liked the "convince your parents" section. I'm not really sure that being dependent on a calculator is such a good idea.
I see things like "14/2", "sin(0)", Integral(1/x,x), etc. in people's histories all the time. Those are the things that you should know how to do; the calculator is making you lazy. Now for things like 239874/12398 calculators are nice, but I'm not sure it's worth $130 to a high school student for something that a 30 dollar scientific calculator can do fine. Graphs are nice, though.
Going of on a tangent (heh), I rather dislike TI (I found a bug that kills your memory and TI refuses to fix it), so go with an HP48/49 if you need graphs. TI is for students that "want to do well on tests", HP is for people who do mathematics on a regular basis, IMO. That said, my TI89 is pretty useful.
My other car is first.
"Bar of Soap" is a design methodology that inherently is supposed to deteriorate, collect dust, and give the device an 'outdated feel and look' within 6 months time. On OOBE, it is supposed to feel like a bar of soap, give the user an intimacy like only a bar of soap can give you, and inspire that 'oooh, intimate toy' feeling. And then 6 months later, when it starts to get 'dirty', gives the user a desire to 'replace it with something new'
The old, rugged case, even with years of grime and dirt, still didn't give you the 'replacement' feeling. BoS is a dirty consumer electronics design trick, and it sucks to see the TI's going that direction
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Just look at the apps that come built-in on this thing:
Cabri Jr. - now students can use their calculator to get all the answers in Geometry!
"Alter geometric objects on the fly to see patterns, make conjectures, and draw conclusions" No longer will students need to learn how to prove things, they can just draw two triangles and say "my calculator says so".
Probability Simulation - "Explore probability theory with interactive animation that simulates the rolling of dice, tossing of coins and generating random numbers on your handheld."
Come on, this is NOT necessary. Every TI I have seen has nCr and nPr function built in. Why not teach the students HOW those work rather than using this shortcut method?
When I was in high school, most of my teachers were really good about not allowing the use of calculators on quizzes or tests. There were a few in the school, however, that gave "use your calculator" as a solution to hard problems. Calculators like this will only add more to this growing problem.
When TI finally releases a better calculator, I hope they also release an upgrade for the 89. After all, the hardware will be sufficient for a long time. With 700k+ memory and a good-sized processor (I think it's 33Mhz underclocked to 11Mhz), it should work very well for just about everything but non-linear differential equations and other extremely CPU-intensive operations.
When the time comes, all we will need is a firmware upgrade to keep it around for even longer without having to upgrade. I've used this calculator for 6 years now, and I recommend it to everyone looking for a high-performance calculator. I hope to try the new HP calculator so I can compare to the competition, but I just don't think I can set my 89 down after all this time. I know it all too well.
Ugh. For the Nth time, you can't use a Palm on an exam. Plus, using a stylus on a calculator is like using a wooden spoon to do open heart surgery.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I feel bad and perhaps it is because I feel ripped off by the "you have to buy 20 diferent calculators during your schooling monopoly" (i.e. Class A requires TI-83 Class B requires TI-84, ect.. and no they will not let you substitute a diferent model number) but it seems like a racket. 99.999999% of the functions are available with palm os and windows CE software.. Why pay all this cash for a limited device when I can buy a cheap palm that can do 3x as much.. Oh yeah: The monopoly at school.. thats why.
-=SiGH=-
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Real engineers use slide rules! :-p
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Although it looks funny.
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
Before I begin this rant, I should mention that Texas Instruments does not actually make these things anymore. They sold off their calculator division long ago. Hence these things are TI's, not Texas Instrument calculators.
The company that does make them makes a good deal of their total revenue of these things. And in order to keep this revenue coming in, they have made themselves the official Calculator of Calculus (TM). Every major textbook is geared for this calculator, and even the AP exam requires it (or something very much like it) these days. I get students in Calculus straight out of high school who ask me to tell them what the "official calculator for the course" is.
Now, there are some really useful things you can do with a calculator in a Calculus class. The problem is 90% of all high school calculus teachers are not trained enough to use them properly. And using them improperly is worse than not using them at all.
I use to be head proctor for the placement exams for the Engineering school at Cornell. The year calculators were added to the Calculus AP, we saw a statistically significant drop in scores. However, when I complain about these problems, I get called a technophobe.
God, how I hate these things.
Am I the only one that is disgusted by all these "Need to Convince Mom and Dad?" buttons (see bottom left) that are popping up everywhere?
I mean, how long before companies begin to advise children to cry out loud and shout that their parents don't love them if they don't want to buy them their product?
Yeah, it's a bit offtopic. I know.
I like having my calculator batteries last for months, if not years, on end. My ancient TI-85 is always near, always ready.
Plus, the input area on a TI calculator is much larger than even the screen on a PDA, which has to display both the input interface and the results.
Hardcoded keys are fantastic for memorizing quick patterns. Would you try to replace a computer keyboard with a few square inches of touch-sensitive LCD and a stylus?
...
In college I remember taking the final and 10 guys spent all of 10 minutes taking it. They had programmed their calculators with every possible question (from the homework) and all made 100%. I spent 3 1/2 hours taking the test because the test was so hard no one else was done in 3 hours so they gave us more time.
...
I still hate those guys, but I am not bitter
Let me tell you it isn't a myth if you are doing upper level math on a graphing calculator. Doing 3D plots will often take a Ti-89 a minute or two to generate and rotation is on the order of 2fps. Also doing symbolic solving for complex series can often take a couple minutes. That's why I eventually turned to either Maple or a Ti-89 simulator running on my laptop (same great interface and programs but at 800MHz instead of 8 =) With a numeric keypad it was about as fast as entry on the calculator (improved text entry for variable names with slower entry for special symbols because you had to point and click em). The good thing about the slow CPU was that I had to change batteries twice a semester (before midterms and finals, don't want dead batteries during an exam!) vs recharging daily for my laptop.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Look, this calculator is all sorts of cool. What it is not is stylish. Not even remotely. Heck, it's so ugly, you'd get kicked out of Starbucks by your local Apple crowd just for bringing one!
"Pretty print" is worth whatever dollar amount they put on it. It virtually eliminates mistakes made by careless calculator users. I am an engineering student in my senior year and I don't know how I would have survived without my TI-89.
I am really astonished that TI (or anyone else) continues to make any calculators at all without this function.
--for non-TI 89 users--
"Pretty Print" is the feature which takes:
lim(e^(42x*sqrt(2))\x,x,0) and puts it on the display as you would have written it by hand. It also keeps pi/sqrt(2) as an answer as you would have written that by hand rather than a decimal approximation (unless you use the approximation button)
Prior to 1983, I went through at least one TI scientific calculator per year -- literally wore them out as an engineering undergrad. After having one go on the fritz during a chemistry final, it was time for a change.
And what a change indeed. Bought an HP-41C, which was quite expensive on a student't budget, but I figured that maybe it would last two or three years. Twenty years later, it's still within arm's reach, looks just like the day I bought it, no bouncing keys, no flickering display.
But the real reason it's still in my arsenal is that it turned out to be the ideal tool for working EE AC circuits problems. The '41 can do complex math, in both polar and rectangular coordinates, and flip back and forth between those two representations with ease. I have fond memories of walking out of a tough exam after only 20 minutes, handing my completed (and aced) test to the very suprised professor. Thanks Dave and Bill!
...-.-
I purchased the TI-83 Plus Silver Edition about a year and a half ago. The Processor is 2.5 times faster than the TI-83 Plus it has 24KB RAM and 1.5MB flash memory and it stores up to 94 applications. It also came with a cable to hook it up to an USB port. As far as I can tell, the 84 is nothing more than a repackaged 83 silver edition.
On a good note - despite heavy use I have only had to change the batteries once in the last 1 1/2 years.
Bullshit, from the collegeboard website:
Calculator Policy You may use almost any four-function, scientific, or graphing calculator on the SAT I and Math Level IC, and Math Level IIC Subject Tests. You are not permitted to use:
* Hand-held minicomputers or laptop computers
* Electronic writing pads or pen-input devices
* Pocket organizers (PDAs)
* Calculators with QWERTY (typewriter-like) keypads
* Calculators with paper tape
* Calculators that "talk" or make unusual noises
* Calculators that require an electrical outlet
The bolded entry is why the Ti92 is banned and the Ti89 is not.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You know, it's bizzare almost. This seems to be pretty much the only truly new calculator from TI in the 80x range since I was a sophomore in highschool, like 7 years ago.
:P. TIs were fun in HS, but it's just amazing to me how little they've advanced...
a 2.5x speedup? The machine I had then was a pentium 75! I guess this is what happens when you have no competition.
Why would you need more CPU power in a graphing calc? Well, graphing for one thing. It can take a couple seconds for these things to draw a graph. There are plenty of high-power low-cost chips out there that could crank most of those out almost instantly.
And lets not forget the games
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
* Calculators with QWERTY (...) keypads
They didn't ban Dvorak layouts now, did they? Just reprogram your TI-xx to Dvorak layout, and its entirely legal!
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Real engineers hardly ever use calculators, considering there are things like Matlab around.