Full Review of the Color TI-84 Plus

KermMartian writes "The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition isn't the first color-screen graphing calculator, or even TI's first color calculator, but it's a refresh of a 17-year-old line that many have mocked as antiquated and overpriced. From an advanced review model, the math features look familiar, solid, and augmented with some new goodies, while programming looks about on par with its siblings. The requisite teardown uncovers the new battery, Flash, ASIC/CPU, and LCD used in the device. Although there are some qualms about its speed and very gentle hardware upgrades beyond the screen, it looks to be an indication that TI will continue this inveterate line for years to come." Lots of screenshots and pictures of the innards too.

Comments

The real question...

[Frosty Piss]

Does it have RPN?

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have RPN?

>not will it blend.

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that was HP's niche, like in the 48G's. I never noticed an RPN mode in my TI's.

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh! Lameness filter encountered.

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

of course not - we need "zomg colour!" screens for maths instead

Re:The real question...

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Why is this tagged as off topic... Unless I am completely missing sarcasm or an inside joke.. RPN is Reverse Polish Notation.. which is most definitely on topic when it comes to calculators..

Re:The real question...

[hedwards]

That's mostly my feeling on that. But, a color screen allows the calculator to be more insightful when complaining about format errors, it has an easier time of highlighting things.

And if you're wanting to graph multiple lines at the same time, that's a bit easier to read as well. But, I think the higher resolution on the newer displays, along with the better refresh rate are far more useful than the color aspect. But, once you switch to using a modern LCD, there's little reason to stick with monochrome, and they're probably actually cheaper than using a monochrome one of that size and resolution.

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean, "RPN it have does?"

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

why is parent marked off-topic? HP's 48 series RPN calculators were awesome - I still have my 48GX and it's amazing!

Re:The real question...

[elfprince13]

You're looking for Cabamap.

Re:The real question...

[jfdavis668]

Of these a Beowolf Cluster Imagine.

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

RPN it has. Not.

Re:The real question...

[CodeBuster]

I agree, it's absolutely a relevant question. As all regular calculator users know, Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) is a much more efficient method of inputting and computing complex functions or large series of calculations with a minimal number of keystrokes. Although it's not as common today, engineers of a certain vintage will probably remember with fondness their HP-41 Series or perhaps even the HP-67 or HP-65 (for the real old-timers) programmable calculators.

Re:The real question...

[CodeBuster]

Yes, meant parent grand the what precisely that's.

Re:The real question...

[c 0xFF]

You RPN understand don't.

The keystrokes reversed simply aren't. You operators place operands after. RPN notation infix is.

English designed isn't RPN for. Informative 1 + unintelligible 1 + or ? You decide!

Re:The real question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Likely not, since TI still sticks to algebraic notation. My use of calculators goes back to the early 70s, and RPN is a much easier method of using scientific calculators.

Re:The real question...

[CodeBuster]

A few years has it been since last picked up an HP calculator have I.

Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

emulate on an emulator. On your smartphone. Free and better.

Re:Emulate

[meloneg]

emulate on an emulator. On your smartphone. Free and better.

And not allowed in the classroom settings that these things are mainly used. Too easy to switch to notes/google/more powerful apps.

Re:Emulate

[TemperedAlchemist]

Graphing calculators are typically banned anyway.

The most you'll be taking a test with is a TI-30.

Re:Emulate

[The Wild Norseman]

Graphing calculators are typically banned anyway.

What evidence do you have for this statement?

The most you'll be taking a test with is a TI-30.

I guess my daughter's math classes (AP math and AP statistics) are outliers then. They're all required to use a TI-84/85.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the OP was referring to standardized tests. If memory serves, when I took the ACT graphing calculators were forbidden since you could easily store all manner of cheat sheets onboard.

Re:Emulate

[Dexter Herbivore]

Graphing calculators are typically required in advanced math courses anyway.

FTFY.

Re:Emulate

[Joehonkie]

The requirement of TI-84/85 in so many classes and standardized tests is a freaking sin. It's almost like a government granted monopoly that fills Ti's coffers, despite equal or better alternatives existing since the whole graphing calculator became an option (I say "almost like" because my understanding is that most of these testing agencies and schools are not being controlled directly by the central government and merely make the decision out of laziness and not wanting to review new or competing technology). TI has never needed to lower their price despite nearly no change in the base design and yet an increasing market and cheaper components. Sad.

Re:Emulate

[CaptainJeff]

This statement is incorrect.

Most standardized tests where a graphing calculator would be useful, in fact require such a calculator. The current set of AP tests require/recommend a TI-84 or TI-85. The SAT itself highly recommends a graphic calculator.

Cool story. The SAT specifically does not allow calculators with a QWERTY keyboard. The TI-92 (the original one with the symbolic algebra solving system) had one and was, therefore, not allowed for the SAT. So, TI came out with the TI-89, which runs almost the exact same software as the TI-92, specifically so one could use an SAS-equipped calculator on the SAT. This is why the TI-89 is such an odd beast and somewhat harder to work with; the software was not really designed for that form-factor.

Re:Emulate

[Murdoch5]

Which is retarded. Why force a student to do hand driven math when most of the work they sit down and do is just repetitive steps that a computer can do in 1/5000th of the time. Well coming up with an equation is important and being able to visualize what your trying to solve is important, doing hand driven calculus isn't. There is no need for me sit here for two hours, reducing an equation only to have it in a form I can finally solve. My calculator should take the equation I came up with, reduce it for me and present me with a nice final state equation I can then solve.

Re:Emulate

[The Wild Norseman]

Oh, I totally agree. I can sort of understand the requirement for having some sort of calculating device that isn't also a smart phone, even though I think that cheaters eventually are going to suffer for the cheating.

I think that slide-rules should be brought back into the high school level. Some can be expensive, but not as much as a graphing calc and it's probably best to learn how to do the math with paper and pencil to really get the deeper understanding rather than "learn how to use the damn calculator first before you try and learn the damn math."

Re:Emulate

[The Wild Norseman]

I believe the OP was referring to standardized tests. If memory serves, when I took the ACT graphing calculators were forbidden since you could easily store all manner of cheat sheets onboard.

If that's the case, it wasn't clear to me. So, yeah, I guess that's reasonable.

My other comment was to bring back use of a slide-rule and all of these particular technological issues regarding cheating all go away.

Re:Emulate

[RazorSharp]

emulate on an emulator. On your smartphone. Free and better.

And not allowed in the classroom settings that these things are mainly used. Too easy to switch to notes/google/more powerful apps.

It does highlight a major problem with our education system: the reason TI-84s cost so much is because they're required in so many high school math classes. As the summary states, they're antiquated and overpriced. Of course, the cost is negligible to middle class and well off families, so it's just one more factor that holds back those in poverty. Let's face it, there are a lot of bad parents out there who, given the choice between putting their child in a class that requires a $100 calculator and sticking them in Math-4-Dummies, they'll choose the latter.

It's a similar to the well known problem with textbooks.

In many ways this reminds me of the absurdly high price of a version of Microsoft Office. It could be sold at a profit at a fraction of the price it's currently at, but people 'need it' despite the fact that the functionality isn't unique or costly. Microsoft's lock-in is formats that don't play nice, Texas Instruments' lock-in is textbooks they've built relationships with and teachers who can't think outside the box.

Hopefully one day Sal Khan kills textbooks as we know them today and FOSS/ODF just flat out kills MS Office.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved my TI-89. That thing was a beast that could do it all. The best part was the case was interchangeable with the TI-83, so you could have an 89s innards with the 83 skin and no one would know the difference unless they picked it up. Now there were a few problems with some of the keys, mainly the prog key but if you knew this it was easy to remember and work around. all in all that thing was/is one of the best graphing calculators that TI ever made. The Casios with color were still by far a better all around calc though.

Re:Emulate

[CWCheese]

Graphing calculators are typically banned anyway.

The most you'll be taking a test with is a TI-30.

Do you have to bring the TI-30 inside its original vinyl blue-denim case? Looped through your belt?

Re:Emulate

[jythie]

Because the point is to learn the math? The coursework is not designed to teach you how to use a tool, it is to teach you how the underlying pieces work.

Re:Emulate

[Turmoyl]

I'm sure that this is true in many settings, but my Pre-Calculus I instructor at a community college allows me to use Algeo Calculator on my Nexus 7 for tests. This says a lot as he is older, and technically challenged. He made it clear what my limitations with the device are, thereby giving me enough rope to hang myself. I appreciate his trust, and will not take advantage of it.

My large screen, auto-scaling, color graphing and pinch zooming are envied by many of my fellow TI-using students.

Re:Emulate

[bemymonkey]

Have you found a decent Android calculator app? I'm currently using "Scientific Calculator" by Rohan Laishram, but it has annoying syntax issues (like opening parentheses that need to be manually closed for certain operations and throwing a syntax error if you don't close them)...

Re:Emulate

[bleh-of-the-huns]

When I was in high school and college, we were permitted to use these types of calculators (in my case the HP 48G back in the late 80's early 90's.. I forget exactly when), however the teacher would walk around to each persons desk and hold in the factory reset button, and remove any mem cards (the PSION my friend used to have).

There was never any need to store formulas or anything, as those were provided on a separate sheet in addition to the test questions and answer paper (okay.. it was a huge sheet that included pretty much every formula used in science, math, chemistry, electrical and mechanical eng, so if you did not already know the formula, you would not be able to pick it out of the list anyways.. or rarely)

This was in South Africa many years ago.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

And in my college calculus class, about six years ago now, you were not permitted to bring in any sort of calculator whatsoever. No TI Ninety-Twelve, no dollar store four-function, nothing. (Nobody asked about slide rules; that might have been pretty funny).

Math classes exist for you to learn math.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe yes, that would be considered an outlier. I know that any class I've ever taken, or have friends who have taken, banned anything even remotely programmable.

But hey, if your daughter is in a class where you could literally program the test, hit 'enter', and write down the results on the test, all the more power to her.

God help her if she actually has to do anything herself in the future though.

Re:Emulate

[pulski]

My TI-82 was definitely not allowed during the SATs.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

What evidence do you have for this statement?

NCEES Calculator Policy NCEES is the official organization for professional engineering exams. Any engineer that is required to or for that matter desires to have a Professional Engineer registration in any state has to take their exams. The only TI families they allow are the TI-30 and TI-36. Definitely no graphing calculators on the list though some do have the ability to solve some calculus such as basic derivatives, integrals, etc. and solve quadratics.

Re:Emulate

[hedwards]

Which you can do with a graphing calculator as well. You just don't have access to the internet. In some cases you can upload flash cards to them though.

Re:Emulate

[hedwards]

Because a calculator won't tell you if you've gotten the wrong answer or give you a way of verifying that the answer is correct?

Yes, it will give you an answer, but without knowing how it got the answer, you have no way of knowing if the answer makes sense. If you do it out by hand, you can trace the steps and see if there was a mistake at some point and correct it if applicable.

Re:Emulate

[hedwards]

Most schools I've been to that require those calculators, have some for loan or rent. The college my mother works at rents them out for about $10 a term. Which for most students is cheaper than buying their own. It's not until you get past calculus that they'll usually let you use a TI-89.

Re:Emulate

[LordLimecat]

SAT and AP exams, as well as all AP in-class tests, allowed TI-82/83/89s.

The 89 MIGHT have been banned on one or two of those, owing to its ability to factor algebraic expressions and to perform integration / differentiation.

Re:Emulate

[danomac]

I use RealCalc by Quartic Software.

I tried many free calculators, but this one was so good I bought the paid version for a few bucks. Damn handy to have.

Re:Emulate

[Murdoch5]

Yes, so teach it once, maybe twice and then use the right tool for the job! Sure I can sit here and work out some super nasty and ugly complex equation, or I could enter the starting EQU into my Ti-89, press enter and see the final form.

Re:Emulate

[Murdoch5]

You use the calculator to skip the manual steps. The error is mostly going to come from entering the wrong starting equation or you telling the calculator the wrong information. I'm only saying that you should use it to do to the brute force work, after that just enter you data and get the answer.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

"Enough rope to hand myself": This is pretty much it. I might be hesitant on something with internet access. But you can make tests that are calculator and notes resistant. Not sure about the few close form solvers out there.. but my favorite are calculus problems with close form solutions but mess up the numeric integration on a computer. Mix those in with some problems yield irrational answers and you could probably assure less than a 50% if they just use the calculator. Multiple selection, multiple chose (essentially grouped T/F questions) can be equally evil beyond the imaginations of poor unsuspecting college students. Since the tests are essentially timed. Notes are easy enough to defeat with process questions or like the actuarial exams do, by quantity so you effectively have to know how to do a problem just by looking at it. I wouldn't be as severe as those exams (I call those 1-hour long 4-hour exams).. even files and question pools can usually be mitigated with a sufficient number of possible questions combined with the above and enough randomness.

Re:Emulate

[JDG1980]

Because the point is to learn the math? The coursework is not designed to teach you how to use a tool, it is to teach you how the underlying pieces work.

Then they should be asking essay questions instead. Ask the student to describe how the underlying principles work.

It's ridiculous to throw a bunch of equations at the student and then say "no, you can't use the easiest and most obvious way of solving these, the method that everyone would use in the real world."

Re:Emulate

[crazyjj]

Graphing calculators are typically banned anyway.

There was a time when this was true. Now most high school and college level classes actually require them (in the U.S. anyway). And before you start bad-mouthing the current generation for how easy they have it, keep in mind that the courses have gotten appropriately harder too. You wouldn't believe how much complex graphing now goes on in even a basic algebra class compared to back in the day, when everything was still done by hand.

Re:Emulate

[bemymonkey]

I bought real calc too, but it has problems with longer calculations with many different steps. I get the feeling that it doesn't quite follow the order of operations properly... I was hoping for something along the lines of a standard Casio 2 line scientific calculator.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubtful... once you get past algebra and trig, there is little need for calculators in most math classes. I just finished a math minor and I can't remember the last time I pulled out a calculator except for completing general arithmetic.

Re:Emulate

[maird]

The bunch of equations that are thrown at the students are essay questions. Just because it says solve for X doesn't mean you are expected to give no more than the value of X. It usually means you are expected to show how X is obtained via your working (i.e. your essay in mathematical syntax). When I did math exams just giving the numerical value of the final answer to a question was usually marked incorrect since there was no evidence it was any different from a lucky guess.

Re:Emulate

[tibit]

I had a self-made circular slide rule in high school, then got a real one for college, just for the heck of it. Way easier to use than the linear one, IMHO. The self made one was, um, interestingly made. I scribed it on stainless steel, but based on a divider plotted on A3 paper using a Roland flat bed plotter. I think I wrote a QuickBasic program to generate the HPGL for the divider.

Re:Emulate

[Glsai]

I was just happy that my professor let me use my TI BA-20 calculator on my last test. I figured it would give me an edge over all the kids using a TI-89. (Yes I did actually use that on my last test, granted it was only college algebra and it was so many years since I've had to use my graphing calculator that I just grabbed what was available as I couldn't find mine.)

Re:Emulate

[jythie]

I had a professor once who liked giving 'test of twos'. You knew ahead of time that the answer to every single question was '2', thus showing your work was what was important.

Re:Emulate

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Yep, toughest tests I ever took were take-home tests for a differential equations class I had. All essay questions that you had to know how the equations applied in each instance. Did you no good to look anything up if you couldn't figure out which ones applied. A 50% got you an A in that class.

Always dreaded take-home tests after that.

Re:Emulate

[darkfeline]

That's genius. Must be a pain to grade though.

Re:Emulate

[darkfeline]

The default calculator for Cyanogenmod is surprisingly good, like all of the default apps on it. Interestingly, it can do 2x2 matrix operations as well. (Although it isn't a replacement for a hardcore graphing/scientific calculator.)

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look ok PocketCAS http://pocketcas.com/ or MathStudio http://www.mathstudio.net/share/ Running on iPad are far better than any traditional calculator.

Re:Emulate

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a graphing calculator allows the curriculum to be more advanced, as students won't be bogged down by doing every simple calculation by hand. They can also get a deeper understanding of the mathematics because they can visualize it. I have tutored math students taking everything from basic algebra to differential equations, and the students who are allowed to use graphing calculators are usually assigned more difficult problems than those who aren't.

Also, I have had many students taking Algebra 2 who are unfamiliar with what graphs of functions look like (such as f(x)=2^x) because their professors did not allow graphing calculators. Then they struggle with limits the following semester, and derivatives/integrals after that.

Re:Emulate

[TemperedAlchemist]

I am current generation. They were banned in every serious high level math class I've taken thus far.

They were allowed in highschool but my highschool calc class was a joke. I didn't even use anything more than a four function calculator. Since then I've been using my calculator progressively less.

Re:Emulate

[mysidia]

I guess my daughter's math classes (AP math and AP statistics) are outliers then. They're all required to use a TI-84/85.

Your experience might differ from mine, but I was generally allowed to use graphing calculators, on any test where using a calculator would have been reasonable (obviously, no graphing calculator to take a history exam, or biology test, where there is no math work). In the vast majority of cases where I couldn't use one, non-graphing calculators were similarly restricted.

And they were still useful as a visual aid, even if a simpler calculator had to be used on the test; it was convenient to be allowed to use a graphing calculator, however, and if you actually needed the CAS or graphing functionality as a crutch, and couldn't otherwise work the problem, it would be likely that you run out of time, or lose most points by failing to show the complete derivation for the right answer (can't just punch Factor(), Solve(), Integrate(), or Simplify() into a CAS, and then write the answer on your test, because you get basically no credit, as a result of failing to show how you arrived at that -- the steps, and correct interpretation of the problem were very often held to be just as important or more than winding up with the most perfect formulation of an answer).

I used a TI-83 throughout grade school starting with Algebra I, and half of high school, then a TI-92 from Junior year of high school after finishing Algebra II (in other words, through Trig and High school calculus), and then through college...

And I took many tests with these, and their advanced functionality was meaningfully useful in some cases.

I was not hindered by restrictions on graphing calculators, with the following exceptions 1. Standardized tests, And NON-Math classes that required math.

That's right.... no issues using a graphing calculator in any math class throughought my schooling, it was always allowed to have any TI graphing calculator, and normally for any particular class -- the policy would be the same for all tests (Eg; whether calc allowed or not for a class would not vary from test to test), with the sole exception of 1 term of grade school Algebra, where calculators were restricted to 4-function or banned completely on certain tests ---- all kinds of calculators were always allowed to bring into class and to do homework with, it was only TEST events that were standardized by a testing organization, or certain non-Math classes that I ever found to be restricted:

* I was a computer science scientific computing; for the most part, calculators of any kind were not allowed in any college computer science class tests, even when there were questions involving number crunching. (graphics calcs on equal footing)

* In several electrical engineering classes, there was also some big time number crunching, and no kind of calculator at all was allowed. (graphics calcs on equal footing)

* In college Physics II, only a basic scientific calculator was allowed, no graphing calculators.

* On the ACT/SAT tests; the TI-92 was allowed. The problem was not that it was a graphing calculator, however, the TI-83 was allowed. Apparently the test administrators are concerned about a calculator having a qwerty keyboard, so I could use my old TI83. The TI89 has similar functionality, and would likely not have been an issue (the TI92 just stands out).

* In high school chemistry; at first, at first only a 4-function calculator was allowed on the test -- this was not per-se a school policy, but an individual teacher's personal decision to disallow.

Later during the term, use of the TI-83 or TI-92 were allowed, as long as we could demonstrate to the teacher, that we had completely erased the calculator's memory, so that we could not have stored formulas or notes..

Of course, many of us were well familiar with calculator TIbasic programming, and hesitant to do that, then, and lose all the custom programs we had written...

Re:Emulate

[mysidia]

Certain graphing calculators are allowed on the ACT, such as the TI83. The TI92 is banned on the ACT and the SAT. The TI89 is I believe currently banned on the ACT, but not the SAT.

All calculators with computer algebra system (CAS) functionality are now banned on the ACT.

But graphing capabilities are allowed.

The calculators have memory capabilities, but I believe, it is against the rules of the ACT, for you to bring in and utilize notes, formulas, or pre-made programs that you stored on it outside the test room during the testing time.

Re: Emulate

[TanHongCheong]

In Singapore schools that are equivalent to US high schools, the graphics calculator is an essential tool to solve examination questions.

Re:Emulate

[jythie]

I recall each question being fairly short in how much work it took, so in general it was fairly obvious if the student knew what they were doing or not. But yeah, compared to being able to just see if their final answer matches a key, harder to grade.

Re:Emulate

[eyenot]

> Microsoft's lock-in is formats that don't play nice,

Why are we blaming the formats? It's Microsoft that doesn't play nice.

Luckily where I'm attending college, there was a pre-existing expectation that some students will be using Open Office. OO is installed on library and lab computers. Open format handling is already integrated with "Explorer". One instructor had trouble opening an open format essay, I got extra time to hand in a print-out instead.

I've also found that this "Texas Instruments makes people use their calculators" (not that you've said so, but numerous others here have) just doesn't hold true.

I didn't advance very far in math in H.S. so I've been running the gamut from College Algebra to Calculus II. I've used the same TI-83 the whole way, but started supplementing it with lower end calculators along the way, at first the TI-30XS MultiView for the "MathPrint" but now (with the TI-36xPro) for thing like the pi/e/i button and differentials.

Along the way, I've looked many times over to the Casio alternatives and decided to stay away because the instructors said they'll be teaching the needed button-pressing in terms of using a TI model. However, no instructor at any time said I couldn't use a Casio, just that "you'll have to learn to operate it yourself".

If I recall, this was the attitude twenty years ago when I was in High School, as well. I personally doubt the quality of education in a school that requires a specific brand of calculator. I imagine that the instructor is incapable of doing the work without one, and worse, that the instructor would be lost if they had to use another brand of calculator, not cognitively knowing what they're doing with the calculator so much as just parroting "steps".

Re:Emulate

[eyenot]

Notably, the TI-36Pro will solve a derivative given a specific value of X, or an integral given a specific interval, but neither will produce the output formula of a derivative or anti-derivative, and the answers produced aren't always in exact form either.

battery life

[thoper]

"Power: Rechargeable lithium-polymer battery, ~5-10 hours of use
Battery Life: Officially 5 days of classroom use or 2 weeks of homework use
  "

That's really, REALLY crappy! for a 15Mhz, 1287k ram device! i would have espected at least ten times that!

Re:battery life

[Aaden42]

Given that my TI-85 used to run an entire school year on maybe 2-3 sets of four AAA batteries, having to charge the thing weekly (and realistically probably more like every couple of days with any real use) is insane. I'd have nightmares about the thing dying in the middle of a test!

Re:battery life

[rcamera]

i wonder how much of that battery usage is going into refreshing the lcd screen? seems like this would be a perfect application for color e-ink displays.

Re:battery life

[Jane Q. Public]

"That's really, REALLY crappy! for a 15Mhz, 1287k ram device! i would have espected at least ten times that!"

I've noticed a LOT of gear lately using rechargeables where replaceable batteries would have made a lot more sense.

Take outdoor equipment for example. I've seen a lot of otherwise high-end flashlights and headlamps that use rechargeables... and I won't even look at them twice. If I'm out in the wilderness for 5 days, a regargeable is almost completely useless to me. Same with "lantern" - style devices, and just about anything else that can be battery powered, like cameras.

I mean, seriously. For some of this equipment, rechargeable batteries make no sense at all. Yet they want to sell it for $150 or whatever. I just laugh.

Re:battery life

[rsmith-mac]

It's the backlight necessary for the color screen. They probably could have done a reflective display, but that's almost self-defeating from a color standpoint.

As far as calculator technologies go, you're going to be hard pressed to beat a monochrome LCD. Which is also why all of the complaining about the TI calculator line still being monochrome is silly. Sure it's outdated, but it's a calculator, not a phone. The intended purpose and operational requirements are entirely different.

Re:battery life

[Cid Highwind]

Battery Life: Officially 5 days of classroom use or 2 weeks of homework use

So, in practical terms 5 hours of dopewars or 1-2 hours of Mario.

Re:battery life

[tibit]

I wonder if they would have gotten better battery life by using a higher-powered ARM chip to emulate (JIT) the legacy firmware. It'd probably sleep most of the time.

Re:battery life

[nabsltd]

Take outdoor equipment for example. I've seen a lot of otherwise high-end flashlights and headlamps that use rechargeables... and I won't even look at them twice. If I'm out in the wilderness for 5 days, a regargeable is almost completely useless to me.

I'm not sure how many hours/day you'd need the light, but with this and a pair of these, I can get 80 hours of light without a recharge. You may not be able to find those exact batteries, but there are many available with the same specs.

In addition, if 50 lumens is more than you need for "just seeing a bit", you can reprogram the Hexbright for lower output. If you want to signal an airplane, the 500 lumens comes in handy. Last, if you can find the tiniest hint of civilization, the USB recharge allows you to use just about anything to get more time.

Re:battery life

[Jane Q. Public]

"I'm not sure how many hours/day you'd need the light, but with this and a pair of these, I can get 80 hours of light without a recharge. You may not be able to find those exact batteries, but there are many available with the same specs."

Okay, but those are not even close to the mass-market products I was referring to.

In general, give me a rechargeable flashlight, and a similar flashlight with disposable lithium batteries, and I'll get much better performance with the disposables, especially in cold weather. They are also lighter in weight. AND they have a 10-year shelf life, so I can put a flashlight in my glove box and know it will work 2 years later.

They are not as environment-friendly, but I do save my batteries for recycling.

Re:battery life

[nabsltd]

Okay, but those are not even close to the mass-market products I was referring to.

Most of the mass-market stuff is complete junk, anyway. Really good flashlights are a niche product.

AND they have a 10-year shelf life, so I can put a flashlight in my glove box and know it will work 2 years later.

The 18650 Li-Ion batteries have very little storage loss, and again the advantage of the Hexbright is that you will still get some light out of it, even though the brighter settings may be disabled. Someone measured the current drain on the Hexbright at 2A when it was turned off, which gives you years of storage time.

Why are calculators still relevant?

[SirGarlon]

For the sake of discussion, can anyone explain why a special-purpose graphing calculator is still useful? It would seem to me that a good smartphone app could replace a device like this, let alone a general-purpose laptop that can run Matlab, R, and Gnuplot.

Disclaimer: I have degrees in math and physics and never saw the use of a programmable calculator before. Generally I worked with equations and a pencil when I was a student and Matlab or C code once I got a job.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[wikid_one]

Standardized testing is the only reason I ever had a specialized calculator like this (TI-89). Now that I am out of school it has just been collecting dust in my desk drawer.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

because for exams etc. schools want a controlled locked down device so you cannot "cheat"

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

They keep making them shitty enough so that they are allowed into exams.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[FunPika]

Many colleges utilize graphing calculators in courses now instead of requiring all work to be done out on paper. Calculator apps on smartphones are generally disallowed due to the possibility of switching into another app (such as a web browser or text messaging) during an exam.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Aaden42]

Because teachers are paranoid the chill'ins will cheat in class. Anything with a radio is verboten as a matter of course, and likewise anything "too powerful" isn't allowed. Finagle forbid they actually spend braincycles on solving a problem and leave the arithmetic to something that's designed to crunch numbers quickly and correctly. Far better to keep them busy doing busy work.

Of course any smart phone today could run Derive in a DOS emulator and probably still have enough cycles left over to play Angry Birds, but that would make math "too easy." Can't have that...

Funny story: Talked to a physics teacher (high school level) ages ago in a school where they standardized on HP's line rather than TI's. HP's did infrared communications whereas TI typically requires a physical cable to "network" between devices. The teacher said one day he looked up from his desk during a test and noticed a bunch of mirrors and prisms strewn about the room with students carefully aiming their calculators. Being an extremely cool teacher, he said something to the effect of, "I know what you're doing, but you had to use physics to make it work, so I'll let it slide once. Get ride of the glass and don't do it again."

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[h4rr4r]

Which means students just cheat by storing the formulas in the calculators. That is how we did it.

There were even fake reset the calculator applications.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Alioth]

I have a good emulation of an HP48GX on my phone, however, although the emulation is extremely faithful (it's actually a proper emulation and uses the ROM from the calculator, rather than just an app that looks like the calculator) I'd much rather use a real calculator because the problem is on a small touch screen with no tactile feedback, it's very easy to miskey and I spend half my time correcting miskeys. Also, with the application up and the screen turned on with the phone, and if I'm spending significant time doing maths problems, the phone's battery gets significantly used (my phone isn't brand new and the battery has lost a fair bit of capacity due to age). By comparison an actual calculator will go an awful long time before running its batteries down.

Now I could use the computer to do it, but I'd rather have a separate device that's not using up screen space while using the computer.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Dexter Herbivore]

The simple answer, to prevent cheating in tests. It's a limited use device that typically can only be used for the intended purpose. (I'm sure some have worked out a way to cheat with them, but if they're inventive enough to cheat with them then they generally have useful life skills and should probably pass anyway, pity about the moral implications though).

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[halivar]

Crunching the night's XP for PC's and henchmen at the dinner table. That's about it.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of which I should probably dig mine up to replace the batteries that are still in it 15+ years later... Ooops

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used an HP-48 during high school as did several friends (1992 or so). We all used the infrared data transfer to... help each other during tests (we aimed our calculators ).

The calculator was so new at the time that none of the teachers had any idea that this was possible.

I look back on the experience and don't consider it cheating, we primarily used it to transfer things that would otherwise need to be memorized (I used it in Poly-Sci for geography answers - no one questioned me having a calculator out...). Mathematical proofs and such were still required knowledge to be successful.

I'm quite proud of figuring this all out back in the day. Made school easier and taught me about wireless data transfer before it was a common thing.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[cheekyjohnson]

Is it really cheating, or are their tests simply flawed? It sounds like their tests ask you to answer poorly-thought-out questions that don't actually test a student's critical thinking abilities. Probably the typical, "Here's an equation right in front of your face. Now mindlessly repeat those steps you should have memorized in class to solve the equation."

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[kannibal_klown]

Schools and tests. Even back before cellphones hit critical mass, using graphing calculators made life easier. Not just the graph, but having functions, program-ability, the history on a big screen, etc.

Now that cellphones are big... well schools still don't want them using the cellphones in class. Some don't even want them brought into the building. So you can't just allow students to just start using them in class.
Is he googling the answer?
Is he texting someone for help?
Is he using an advanced polynomial solver?
etc.

So, graphing calculators. And a specific kind to perhaps reduce how easy it is to program or the built in features. Heck, there was a TI out while I was a in college that would solve advanced equations and give you the answer as something like Answer = 2x + 1/Pi

I mean sure, pen and paper is fine. But some standardized tests are set up so you barely have time to take the test by plugging stuff into a calculator. And writing it all out and stuff adds a little bit more time and thus makes it hard to finish.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[UnknownSoldier]

Dedicated keys.

While every calculator is a computer, not every computer is a calculator. Having dedicated keys helps streamline problem solving when all you have is graph paper and pencil.

But yeah, Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, Octave, Derive, Excel, have pretty much replaced calcs. I haven't used my HP48SX and HP48GX in years -- partially because of the emulator.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[h4rr4r]

No these were just word problems constructed to make you use some specific formula. Memorizing dozens of them is pointless. In real life people lookup that kind of stuff everyday.

There was no critical thinking involved.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Charliemopps]

it's called "tenure"
The same professors have been giving the same tests for so long, that the answers are still available on old tripod sites. They fear the internet, not because it would allow their students to cheat... their students cheat all the time... they fear the internet because it makes it obvious that every bit of knowledge required to pass their class can be contained on a single webpage.

Any class that's teaching you a skill that you're expected to use in the real world, should allow you to use all of the tools that will be available to you in the real world on the test. Doing away with the same test transcript they've been using for 40 years might make them miss their evening scotch once a quarter but it's a small price to pay don't you think?

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[azadrozny]

This is the biggest benefit I see. I still keep a (non-graphing) calculator on my desk for quick problems. It is cheap and reliable. I could use my phone or computer, but then you need to unlock it then find the calculator app.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Nelson]

Since you mentioned it, what are the good calculator apps for smartphones? THey all seem to focus on a smaller subset of things, I'd like an HP48 or Ti89 replacement. Either that, or why not Mathematica or Maple or Derive on the iPhone?

Any suggestions?

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[jythie]

Some people like general tools that can do everything mostly well, some people like specialized tools that are designed around doing one thing, it is an old preference argument.

Though setting aside that, one thing people like about these dedicated devices the physical keys and large amount of space devoted to them. A smartphone (assuming one even has one. geeks consider them universal, but they really are not) will generally provide a smaller UI (display + input) and input has no tactile feedback.

As for laptops, that gets into the whole 'computers in the classroom' argument, which has been well covered on slashdot.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[OhHellWithIt]

Because teachers are paranoid the chill'ins will cheat in class. Anything with a radio is verboten as a matter of course, and likewise anything "too powerful" isn't allowed. Finagle forbid they actually spend braincycles on solving a problem and leave the arithmetic to something that's designed to crunch numbers quickly and correctly. Far better to keep them busy doing busy work.

The way it would work if they had more powerful devices is that one kid would write a program and the rest of the kids would get him to give or sell it to them. Unfortunately, kids still cheat today, by any means available. My H.S. daughter has regaled me with a few of the attempts she's seen.

Also, great story about the prisms!

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[bfields]

We used them when I was teaching introductory calculus as a grad student in the 90's.

A smartphone's certainly capable enough, but I can still think of a number of advantages to a special-purpose calculator:

• If you're using it an hour at a time in class, something with dedicated calculator buttons is probably going to be more comfortable than the touchscreen interface.
• There's less to go wrong. In a class with 30 students, I'd be afraid one of them would always have a dead phone battery or a crash or.... (Or worse, I would while I'm trying to demonstrate something.)
• They're generally No wireless networking, so you can give test problems that might require calculators without having to deal with the whole "how do I know you aren't texting with someone during the test" problem.

But sure maybe some day it will make sense to require everyone to have a phone and standardize on some single calculator app.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

What an awesome lesson! Cheating is OK if it involves physics, and if you only do it once.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it really cheating, or are their tests simply flawed? It sounds like their tests ask you to answer poorly-thought-out questions that don't actually test a student's critical thinking abilities. Probably the typical, "Here's an equation right in front of your face. Now mindlessly repeat those steps you should have memorized in class to solve the equation."

When I went to college, many courses had a final exam with a "you can take one A4 sheet with whatever cheat sheet you want to scribble down for yourself" policy. If you hadn't known what you were doing, it wouldn't have saved you anyway.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[bfields]

Memorizing formulas is the easy part of learning anything, I don't know why that's the thing some students obsess about, and as a teacher I'd be concerned about students not memorizing things they probably should, but it's not the end of the world.

It's when they start trying to message someone to get help that I'd get really worried.... It's not likely to work as well as they think it will, but I still wouldn't want to have to deal with it.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[bfields]

I've taught introductory calculus and we definitely didn't reuse exams.

There are some things you need to be able to have at your fingertips without having to google for them each time.

But even that aside, my big worry wouldn't be that they didn't memorize the quadratic formula or something, it'd be that they paid somebody to go sit on the other side of a chat session and coach them through the test. At that point we're really not testing the student any more.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[gander666]

I still have, on my desk at work, my HP41CV. I have had it rebuilt once, and it can be a pain to find N cells for it. I also have a perfect emulator on my iPhone, with the roms (warts and all), but 9 time out of 10, I unzip the case and fire up the HP41CV.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Chris Burke]

The most difficult math course I ever took was my first college math course, Calc II with Maple. Why yes, use of the symbolic calculus program Maple was so important to the class it was in the name. We took our tests at a workstation with Maple on it.

When my adviser suggested I take this version instead of normal Calc II, I didn't hesitate because I naively assumed this would make the class easier.

Turns out that when you remove the time it takes to do the actual mechanics of taking integrals and derivatives, you can instead focus on problems where the difficulty is figuring out how to set up that integral and derivative. Which is much harder than following some rules by rote.

That's why Feynman Diagrams were such a big deal -- they actually allowed physicists to figure out how they should be applying the equations of quantum mechanics to a specific problem. It let them figure out what to calculate. How wasn't the challenge.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[tibit]

This is the post of the day for me. Couldn't agree more!

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[KGIII]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ab.x48&hl=en

http://www.mksg.de/

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some things you need to be able to have at your fingertips without having to google for them each time.

Name some things so I can see if I agree with you.

That said, if someone truly needs to memorize something, that will probably happen on its own. I've memorized countless things without even trying merely because I had to use those things frequently. I didn't need any test to help me nor did I need to sit there and specifically try to memorize formulas; it just happened.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Mr. Freeman]

1. Tactile keys are far superior to touchscreens in just about every way. You don't have to hit a key multiple times for it to register, they work with gloves, you don't smudge your screen, they're cheaper, etc.
2. Cost. People balk at the $120 price tag of a calculator and, as you have done, suggest using a smartphone app. Do you have any idea what a smartphone costs? About $600. It's only "cheap" if you also purchase a long contract with the phone which costs even more money. This argument also applies to laptops which, in addition to being more expensive, require the purchase of an operating system and mathematics software such as mathematica. (NOTE: I admit that there may be free alternatives for these.)
3. Durability. Some engineers have to run equations in the field. Laptops aren't durable enough and neither are smartphones. You can drop a calculator onto concrete from waist height and it might have a scratch or two, but it'll work just fine. Try that with a smartphone or laptop and you're liable to destroy the entire unit in spectacular fashion.
4. Battery life. Although the TI-84 COLOR seems to have absolutely shit battery life all other models have very good battery life. The TI-83, TI-84, and TI-89 will all last months of use on a single set of batteries (4 AAA batteries). Furthermore, the batteries are replaceable. You can simply swap them out if they die. Laptops and smartphones require that you sit them down next to an outlet for an hour or more in order to charge them. (Yes, laptops can use interchangeable batteries, but they cost about $80 each.)
5. Ease of use. A calculator requires that you turn it on before you can use it. It never needs updating, it never complains about software problems, it never requires any maintenance. Smartphones require regular software updates. Laptops require lots of software updates and other maintenance.

Note: I didn't mention their use in standardized testing. I find the argument that something is desirable because it's highly limited to be very silly. However, even after discounting this argument I have still provided at least 5 good reasons for calculator use. People who claim that calculators have no advantages other than being highly restricted are simply fooling themselves and ignoring reality. Are calculators good for ALL uses? No, of course not. There are many jobs and situations in which one will always have access to computer software or where one will require the additional power of computer software. It's just silly to claim that calculators are worthless because some people happen to be in the situation of having to use computer software.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Mr. Freeman]

>Memorizing formulas is the easy part of learning anything,

Clearly, you've never tried to major in engineering.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mathstudio.net/

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[ShoulderOfOrion]

This. Exactly. Dedicated keys.

My HP 32 sits next to me on the desk, ready at an instant to answer questions like what is 1.83mm in inches, or what is the square root of 50. Much faster than pulling up an app on the tablet or smartphone, and much less wasteful of battery power.

What I haven't used in years is the programming functionality of the calculator. That's where Octave and other PC applications now shine.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[bfields]

First-semester physics and you can't quickly produce the basic equations for acceleration, momentum, kinetic energy? Learning to do symbolic differentiation and don't know the product rule? I think you likely have a problem.

Point taken that you don't necessarily have to sit down and memorize them (I never did), though I think there's no harm in doing that and it might help. I'd agree that not knowing them is more a symptom than a cause. But it's a potentially serious symptom: if you're approaching the exam and don't know the product rule, I'd rather the message be "you've got a problem and need a lot more practice", not "don't worry, you can look it up someplace".

But again the real problem with internet-connected devices in exams isn't their use as a reference but as a person-to-person communication device. The exam *does* need to test the student, not somebody else....

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another story: My 1963 class in differential equations, the teacher told a story. Correctly working the problems required coming up with a numerical answer. One problem reduced to coming down to 4/2= One student got to this point, pulled out his slide rule, and carefully got 1.99. He couldn't understand why he got a zero on the problem. The point is: Think, don't reach for the calculator or computer. Save them for later. And teachers should not have to allow calculators in class, they should be teaching fundamentals, not arithmetic.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[Chris Burke]

Thanks. Last time I related that story, someone just couldn't believe that a class was harder with Maple doing the grunt work. They assumed I just hadn't taken much math so it was the hardest by default. Then tried to impress me with their standard engineering math curriculum.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[tibit]

The hardest math courses I ever took was a series of hardcore numerical methods served by the math department, taught by a dyed-in-the-wool math professor who did know his math. You had as much materials available as you wanted to, and no exams -- just homework. I think 50% of the homework got you an A. The homework was easily 20 hours per week if you wanted it to be presentable and really something worth putting your name on. It was all about just getting the computations done, there was very little grunt style of theory -- it was all about analyzing the performance of the code as you implemented it, and getting it where it had to be. Of course you had to put down some equations to show why the code was performing the way it did, but that was really minor. Just applying the relatively simple math was lots of hard work -- I had an undergrad numerical methods course and it was a joke in comparison. I then took finite element modelling and had a good laugh at how they ignored the numerical stability aspects, and pretty much went with whatever Ansys had spat out. When you get to the nitty-gritty, applied math is hard. It's nothing like the purely theoretical pen-and-paper, armchair stuff some people excel at.

Re:Why are calculators still relevant?

[UnknownSoldier]

Yup, some of those old calcs have fantastic battery life.

My HP48SX would last a year on 3 AA batteries (a month with rechargeables.) Its "Saturn" CPU is a 64-bit CPU too ! Sadly almost everyone doesn't prioritize battery life anymore.

But what about battery life?

[Anonymous Coward]

The linked article says nothing about battery life. If I have to recharge the thing every evening, that's not worth colors on the calculator screen.

Re:But what about battery life?

[KGIII]

RTFA: "TI claims that the battery is good for about a week of in-class use or 2 weeks of homework, and my unit seemed to last around 8-10 hours of use on a charge (in a very unscientific test)."

what is this review doing here?

[fliptout]

The target market for this calculator is high school.. How many slashdotters are in high school?

Re:what is this review doing here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I need it for me engineering classes....

Re:what is this review doing here?

[wonkey_monkey]

I have no idea. Do you? Quite besides which, target markets have never meant much to geeks.

Re:what is this review doing here?

[Dexter Herbivore]

It's an update of a classic gadget that a lot of /.ers would have used. Geeks get nostalgic about gadgets, that's why it belongs here.

Re:what is this review doing here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of us geeks have gone on to sire progeny which have reached or are reaching an age to which these devices are marketed.

I hate how the trend on slashdot is to dictate what does or does not belong on slashdot. Just because it does not pique your interest does not mean the same holds true for all of us.

I am very grateful for the teardown as my daughter will need a graphing calculator next year. I will not be buying this one with it's anemic battery life.

Re:what is this review doing here?

[fliptout]

The trend of dictating what does or does not belong here has come about because slashdot has changed from being a hardcore geeks hangout to a shitty tech blog.

Congrats on reproducing.

Re:what is this review doing here?

[Cid Highwind]

It's relevant to the slashdot demographic in that it's the same damn calculator we used in high school... 15+ years ago.

Re:what is this review doing here?

[TeknoHog]

How many slashdotters are in high school?

Based on spelling, lack of original and critical thinking, and overall naivete, it looks like a huge majority, including the "editors".

Re:what is this review doing here?

[Anthony J. Bentley]

The TI-84+ series is used a lot in college environments. Where I went to school, it was the most powerful calculator allowed for Calc I-III and Linear Algebra. (After that, I got the more powerful TI-89 for use in my engineering classes.)

Re:what is this review doing here?

[eyenot]

Maybe there's less to be "geeky" about. And the audience is massive, now. My first Slashdot ID was in the 10,000's. New users are showing up in the seven digits.

Color not needed

[aaaaaaargh!]

Why would anyone need color on a calculator? It just drains battery life! I'd rather like to see standard batteries with long life, a small form factor, tons of easy to use functions including CAS, good keys, and an outstanding printed manual. Apart from the form factor various older HP and TI calculators fit this description, but I'd love to see something like the Casio Slim but with CAS and RPN. ;-)

Re:Color not needed

[kannibal_klown]

The only thing I can think of, is if you're doing something with color / heat maps.

I've seen some stuff like that. But then again not for anything I needed to do, even in college.

Though breaking it down to a high school level, perhaps as an alternative way to depict 2D in a broad way. X, Y, and color-map to visually approximate the Z value for something really complex.

Re:Color not needed

[neminem]

Obvious answer: because games are better in color. Corollary fact: if you're fiddling about with a gameboy in a high school lecture, you'll get in trouble. If you're fiddling about with a TI in a high school lecture, you probably won't unless the teacher sees what you're doing (ever notice just how many variations on the "hide what you're doing screen" program have been written for TIs?)

Color makes sense. ;)

Yes, I fully admit, I played the *crap* out of Tetris in calc in high school.

Re:Color not needed

[kannibal_klown]

Well that's the obvious "demand" answer... kids want to be able to play cooler games. And of course TI realizes this.

But I'm sure there is a more practical reason... like an actual use / need for color other than a nicer UI and games. Something math / science related that would affect a High School or College student.

Though college students would probably want to use either a more advanced TI calc that's easier to program... or just use their Smart Phones / Tablets.

Re:Color not needed

[locopuyo]

You can easily distinguish multiple plotted lines in a graph if they are different colors.

Re:Color not needed

[Anonymous Coward]

or if you aren't dumb

welcome to reality!

ps. I used a TI-84 to grad level at a proper university.

slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Site already slashdotted?

Geek summary - tech specs

[UnknownSoldier]

Pity the article was too darn lazy to summarize the tech specs:

CPU: custom z80 @ 6 / 15 MHz
LCD: 320x240, 16-bit
RAM: 128K of internal RAM, 21K user-accessible
ROM: 4MB Flash ROM chip, 3.5MB user-accessible.
IO: serial port, miniUSB jack
Keys: 50 dedicated keys
Programming languages: TI BASIC, z80 Assembly

Pity people couldn't provide benchmarks of couple common integrals across the HP48GX, HP49, HP50, TI-82, TI-84, so we can see how fast it is.

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Joehonkie]

I also demand screenshots of homebrew video games that are the obvious main purpose of having this thing in a boring math class. (And I wonder why I have trouble with even simple arithmetic)

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, they didn't state if it passed the Acid3 test or not.

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

z80 Assembly

I didn't see any point in the device, but now you made me want to buy it.

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

Only because the other page linked has the full technical specs.

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask and you shall receive. The first two programs released even roughly related to gaming for the device:
http://www.cemetech.net/programs/index.php?mode=file&id=854
http://www.cemetech.net/programs/index.php?mode=file&id=856

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[AmiMoJo]

I understand why it lacks features that educators/exam writers don't want, but why is the CPU always so weak? I'd be amazed if a custom Z80 were cheaper than a really low cost and much better performing ARM. Power consumption is similar for embedded ARMs.

Why bother design and manufacture a custom 8 bit CPU that has to deal with bank switching and similar crap to access 128k of RAM, with software written with a custom compiler, when TI already makes very low power 8 bit (STM) and 32 bit (STM32, ARM) CPUs?

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they already designed and wrote the software for the TI-84. They want to do as little product development work as possible.

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Alioth]

Apropos of nothing, but I'm sure the Z88DK supports the TI calculators, along with a lot of retrocomputing hardware. The Z88DK has cross platform libraries for things like graphics and I/O etc. (although I think the sprite library only supports ZX Spectrum and Amstrad targets)

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to draw pictures pixel by pixel.

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I'm an HP fanboy all the way (15C -> 28C -> 48S -> emu emulators -> 50g and 50g EMU,) but the thought that I could dust off my thirty year old Z80 Assembly skills (built on the TRS-80 MIII) and dish up something on the TI.... dark side tempting me..... must resist.... RPN is forever king................. Caving in.

Re:Geek summary - tech specs

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/148/148260.html

Most important question

[h4rr4r]

Is it $10 or less yet?

A state needs to contract out the creation of calculators to some firm and just get them for $10 a pop. There is no reason TI should be getting $100 for them.

Re:Most important question

[OhHellWithIt]

Is it $10 or less yet?

A state needs to contract out the creation of calculators to some firm and just get them for $10 a pop. There is no reason TI should be getting $100 for them.

Yes, there is. TI is able to make more money if they're $100 a pop. FWIW, my kid's H.S. requires a TI-80-something for algebra, etc. It really irks me, because A) we weren't even allowed to use a four-function calculator in my high school classes (1972-1976), B) the thing is more sophisticated than the "engineering" calculator I got for college, and C) no one in my daughter's generation seems to be able to figure out how much change they should get/give in their head.

(And yes -- you damn kids get off of my lawn!)

Re:Most important question

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt. In the quantities these things are manufactured, there's no excuse for their price, other than TI having done everything they can do to ensure that math curriculums specifically require their calculators.

Also inexcusable is the piss-poor speed of the thing. Cheap cell phones have better processors. ...and the amount of storage space is a joke, they could have easily given the thing a microSD slot.

Honestly, these things cost as much as a Nintendo DSi, which comes with not only two color screens, but one accepts touch input (with a stylus, which makes it as easy as using paper and pen), and it also has two cameras and an SD card slot, and a CPU that runs at a decent speed. There's no reason why TI's piss-slow calculators with barely-color screens should cost more than any other calculator.

Of course, rather than replace the things, schools should just get rid of them and replace them with normal calculators. I remember my high school math class trying desperately to pretend like graphing functions on the calculator was somehow a useful thing to do. Probably this was because of TI's influence. If the curriculum didn't emphasize graphing, then the calculators could be replaced with any cheap calculator.

Re:Most important question

[guruevi]

You could probably build one with an Arduino chip in them for a lot less. How hard is it to emulate all the necessary features and print a 3D case that looks alike?

Re:Most important question

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes. In high school I was doing square roots and cube roots on paper or with my slide rule. Now, my niece doesn't even know what a root is. Of course, on the other side of things, my dad still has a copy of his logarithm book from school.

Re:Most important question

[eyenot]

Just explain to your niece that the nth root of A is simply A raised to the power of n to the power of negative one! She won't need any calculators after that!

Same calculator and same price for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Same capabilities and still >$100. Are we paying for buttons here? This is no longer special.

I'm surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised nobody has posted this yet.

can it run crysis

[Anonymous Coward]

can it run crysis?

Magical Black Boxes

[KalvinB]

Students shouldn't be allowed to use things they don't understand. Calculators are for solving thousands of calculations and calculations with large numbers. Students should know how to do the same work by hand using smaller sets of calculations and smaller numbers.

If you don't understand the math, you won't be able to know if the answer your calculator gave you is right or how to find the problem if it's wrong.

It's not about making math "too easy." It's about actually understanding math. It's about learning how to actually solve problems and think logically. Just plugging it into a calculator doesn't teach you much. Any monkey can do that.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

> Students shouldn't be allowed to use things they don't understand.

Congratulations, you just completely invalidated every driver's ed program in the country.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[cheekyjohnson]

If what they want is to test people's understanding of the math, then perhaps they shouldn't be expecting that students simply memorize formulas and procedures without understanding them. If their students can answer the questions on the test merely by having something ready to solve it on the calculator, then I'd say the test itself is flawed.

Solving tedious problems is not the same as understanding the underlying logic behind why the math works.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Aaden42]

Find me a monkey that can look at a problem and determine the correct formula to plug into their magical black box and know which numbers should replace which variables. Explain to me how understanding (or not) the algebra/calculus/etc. behind an equation influences the correctness of the calculator's answer? Understanding how to frame the problem is the important part. Given the ability to do that, technology can do the math for you, and you'll get the right answer. Absent that human ability, it doesn't matter if you can do math like Rain Main, you're not going to be solving any real problems.

It's quite likely that a student who's, "Bad at math," could learn to identify applications of certain solving techniques, punch them into a suitably advanced calculator, and arrive at the correct answer. They might not have the first clue about how to actually work the numbers that the machine is doing for them, but I have a hard time seeing how there's value per-se in knowing how to crunch the numbers. The value is in solving the problem. If the middle part of the process is "magic," that's surely not optimal, but it's better than being stuck on step one and having no solution at all.

I'm not saying understanding of the math is a bad thing, but crunching the numbers is something that's significantly difficult for many students and causes significant amounts of stress about math class or, "Math is hard," sentiments. Many of these students have approximately zero chance of ever needing to perform differential calculus in their future lives, but they might just find some use in being able to find solutions to some of the types of problems than these math techniques can answer. If you get them past what is to them essentially black magic in the math itself, you can enable them to actually get some benefit in their life. You may also prevent the total shutdown to learning that often occurs when you give a student something that they're completely unequipped to solve and then rub their face in it like a naughty puppy for being too dumb to do it.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Reilaos]

And I really wouldn't mind that. Drivers should understand at least the basics of pistons, power braking/steering, and momentum, I think.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[xtal]

I'm not a mathematician but I do have an Electrical Engineering degree, and have done a lot of very advanced math - and over all those courses in university, I did not use a single calculator on an exam given by the math department. Paper, pencil and an eraser. That's it; that's enough to learn all the mathematics we know. Interestingly also, it was not until my first year of University that I properly seperated in my brain that the concepts and tools math teaches are fundamentally different from math "problems", or puzzles - the most common application of those skills used on tests.

This point is lost on teachers who by and large don't understand and are not qualified to each math. It is a similarly absurd situation to trying to teach Shakespeare in a language you don't understand. It's not going to work.

Computers should be used to turn sets, matricies and functions into pretty pictures that can be visually explored and tweaked.That's what they're really good at.

Just make the numbers work out; use symbols for relationships and functions; there's lots of fun to be had there!

For physics and such, sure, you need something to plug in numbers. Physics uses math. It isn't math.

The elephant in the room - the real "secret" is that taught properly by people who understand and appreciate what math is, math is very simple, very easy, and those who don't understand it are often quite intimidated by those who do.

Math is not solving puzzles. That's what high school math classes are, and it should be a source of national shame.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but that's a total heap of progress-fearing bullshit. In schools there are plenty of cases where students are supposed to apply math, like in physics, construction and electronics.

However, thanks to retarded people like you an insane amount of time, effort and resources -- both on the part of the student and the teacher -- is spent on crunching numbers, or going to waste while you're looking for that misplaced decimal comma, or exactly where in your four-pages long calculation you made some silly error. Time which could have been infinitly better spent trying to understand/teach how to solve the fucking problem in the first place!

Sure, ban calculators all you want in math, but keep the problems on a manageble scale then, and ban the wannabe math-teachers from anything related to real work!

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and I forgot. There's another reason for exiling these wannabe math-teachers.

These verbose, overlong and overcomplicated "solution" where you write and rewrite formulas on no end in order to get "x=" totally obscures what the hell you're actually trying to accomplish, and does not really contribute anything but as an element to wear out and confuse the student. Showing what you're starting with, and what the result is should be enough, you're trying to solve a problem, not to provide proof.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[azadrozny]

I agree, in part. Students should be given tools only after they have been taught, and mastered, the underlying principals behind the tool. I don't understand why you would prohibit a student from using a tool, like a calculator once they understand basic math. For example, if an assignment or test calls for the student to average a list of number (as part of a larger operation). Why not permit them to use a calculator for that? Sure you could make them do the math on paper, but that can be slow, tedious, and introduce errors that further complicate the lesson. Consider that if they use a calculator, they can practice more problems in a shorter period of time, thus helping them to learn and understand the larger lesson.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a very large difference between knowing in general how an internal combustion engine works (something which indeed SHOULD be taught in high school, at least in its basic form), and asking them to understand or know how many microns of space are the allowable margin of error between a piston and the block, or knowing the coefficient of friction between moving parts, or something equally obscure and meaningless to anyone not a fully licensed automotive engineer.

But basic knowledge of how an internal combustion engine works, or what makes a car move forward? By all means that should very much be taught in schools. Add in changing tires, oil, and basic vehicle maintenance, and that would solve thousands (although I assume it would be far, far more) of problems every year when a light goes on in a car, or someone gets a flat tire, and they're completely and utterly useless in identifying or fixing the problem.

So yes, basic knowledge of ubiquitous things in society would be extraordinarily beneficial, and absolutely should be taught.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm amused by your request for a literal monkey that can do this, and ignoring the fact that they were obviously exaggerating by saying an actual simian could do as such instead of just throw it at a wall and then poop on it, you're still missing the point.

What this calculator allows is for the student to just make the screen of their TI-84 look identical to the question on the test in front of them, push "solve" or whatever, and then write down on the paper the resulting X=45, Y=17.

There's a difference to knowing WHY a formula works and being able to work with it, and essentially just scanning the exam and hitting 'solve'. News flash: In real life, there's rarely a "solve" button that will make everyone smile and clap at you.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Your analogy, while somewhat humorous, does not fit. If the driver's ed program purported to teach the physics behind the car's engine such as combustion, momentum, torque, etc. then your analogy would be appropriate. A mathematics course is supposed to teach mathematical concepts, which include algebraic manipulation and in some cases calculations. Using a tool that does all the work that is supposed to taught and learn in the class does not actually facilitate learning. I'm not saying that one cannot find an appropriate use for calculators in a classroom. However, if a teacher uses the calculator's factoring function to teach students about quadratic factoring, then they have failed at this objective. This is the main point of the GP.

Your analogy would be more appropriate if the driver's ed program allowed the students to bring in their personal robot that would do the driving for them.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention they'll just do it anyway.
See: teenage sex

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[KGIII]

Your analogy, while somewhat humorous, does not fit. If the driver's ed program purported to teach the physics behind the car's engine such as combustion, momentum, torque, etc. then your analogy would be appropriate. A mathematics course is supposed to teach mathematical concepts, which include algebraic manipulation and in some cases calculations. Using a tool that does all the work that is supposed to taught and learn in the class does not actually facilitate learning. I'm not saying that one cannot find an appropriate use for calculators in a classroom. However, if a teacher uses the calculator's factoring function to teach students about quadratic factoring, then they have failed at this objective. This is the main point of the GP.

Your analogy would be more appropriate if the driver's ed program allowed the students to bring in their personal robot that would do the driving for them.

To be fair, your analogy doesn't work all that well either. You'd have to then ask that they know not only what the program for the robot is doing but also understanding the algorithms so that they truly understand the "why" of it all. At least that's my current thought on the situation.

I guess, really, is that an analogy can almost always be complained about because people will assume it isn't the same no matter how close it is. There's probably a reason for this but I'm not qualified to figure it out.

I figure the next step will be allowing the kids to Google the answers as it is, after all, what they'll be doing later on in life/work.

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[FileNotFound]

Yes. I completely agree.

This would eliminate so many common and extremely dangerous misconceptions.

Just a few weeks ago I had an argument with a coworker who insisted that his massive SUV with all season tires could stop better in the snow than my sedan with studded snow tires because he had 4WD on his SUV. The fact that 4WD does not help you stop was not obvious to him nor did he believe me when I tried to explain this to him. He ultimately blames his ABS system for "trying to kill him" because "It didn't even try to stop! The wheels just kept spinning!" (Yes. That's because you have 3 season tires and were on ice and thus had no grip. Spinning tires at least let you maintain steering. No ABS would have caused a spin.)

Re:Magical Black Boxes

[thegarbz]

If you don't understand the math, you won't be able to know if the answer your calculator gave you is right or how to find the problem if it's wrong.

THIS TIMES 10000. I tutored first year maths and electrical engineer at a university. Part of my job was marking both assignments and exams. I was gobsmacked at the number of people who made early mistakes in large problems which led to simply absurd numbers that wouldn't pass anyone's sense test and yet ploughed along through the remainder of their test with this mistake.

There's students who don't check their work, and then there's students who don't know HOW to check their work. My favourite exam we were only allowed to use the simplest of calculators, 0-9 with M+ and MRC buttons and a sqrt if we're lucky. The exam was all imaginary numbers making all the calculators useless for anything other than checking arithmetic.

Still Missing

[Murdoch5]

A full CAS, the Ti-84 was a good calculator, I loved mine and it worked great. However it fell short for me because it lacked a good CAS, hence why I bought a Ti-89 Titanium. I know a lot of people, engineers included wonder why anyone would bother getting a calculator with a CAS built in, it's simple, why do algebra by hand and risk making a mistake when your calculator can do it MUCH faster, more accurate and in most cases with a better final answer.

Re:Still Missing

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be good with engineering, but your English is terrible.

Re:Still Missing

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been nice if you at least once typed out what CAS is, exactly. I'm guessing you don't mean "column access strobe".

Re:Still Missing

[Anonymous Coward]

Our teacher wouldn't give the answers for the majority of the homework. I would use the CAS in my HP to check the answers. Learning sucks if you don't have feedback.

What can it do ....

[jopet]

that I cannot, for example, do with Maxima and octave on my Nexus 7, much more quickly and without that feeling of being trapped in the distant past?

Re:What can it do ....

[pavon]

It can keep a battery charge for more than a couple days.

Re:What can it do ....

[jopet]

Thats true and highly relevant for people who have no chance to get close to a mains plug within 24 hours :)

17 years?!?

[mulhollandj]

Is that how long it has been since I was in high school?

Actually....

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's a transflective screen without a backlight it's not an issue at all.

I have a neo geo color (sadly now missing the battery cover. Only reason I don't use it more.) and that thing will run for at least weeks if not a month on a pair of AA's with a color screen on pause with a real time clock cycling in the background.

Most awesome portable console ever IMHO, if only it had more games....

Inveterate

[Anonymous Coward]

> continue this inveterate line for years to come
> inveterate

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

yea, but...

[Cyko_01]

Does it run blockdude?

SAT Reasoning

[tepples]

I don't know about ACT, but the math sections of the SAT Reasoning Test require the student to provide a scientific or graphing calculator, and this graphing calculator cannot have a touch screen or QWERTY-arranged keyboard.

Re:SAT Reasoning

[tlhIngan]

It does highlight a major problem with our education system: the reason TI-84s cost so much is because they're required in so many high school math classes. As the summary states, they're antiquated and overpriced. Of course, the cost is negligible to middle class and well off families, so it's just one more factor that holds back those in poverty.
[...]
Hopefully one day Sal Khan kills textbooks as we know them today and FOSS/ODF just flat out kills MS Office.

So you're replacing one expense with another? After all, if you want to encourage Khan Academy, we have to fix the digital divide first where kids have to go to McDonalds in order to actually view the losson. Nevermind actually being able to afford a $100 calculator.

I don't know about ACT, but the math sections of the SAT Reasoning Test require the student to provide a scientific or graphing calculator, and this graphing calculator cannot have a touch screen or QWERTY-arranged keyboard.

The latter two restrictions are to prevent the use of PDAs and PDA-like devices which can do more than just calculate (like hold pages of notes), and to prevent use of laptop computers.

The former is interesting because in this day and age, it also blocks the use of cameras to record test material - either ot bring out or to cheat with (I'm not quite sure they thought of using a cellphone camera to send the question directly to someone outside... but it does cover the senario).

The laptop thing should be fairly obvious as well - after all, who can argue with someone wanting ot use their laptop as a graphing calculator?

Re:SAT Reasoning

[mysidia]

The laptop thing should be fairly obvious as well - after all, who can argue with someone wanting ot use their laptop as a graphing calculator?

My laptop has a Dvorak layout keyboard... do you think I should bring that in to the ACT? :)

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

[gmclapp]

I've never had any complaints with TI calculators. They would charge me more to put a color screen, or a touch screen, or whatever else on it. I don't need that stuff for math, so I don't want to pay for it. I have a TI-89 Titanium that got me through a mechanical engineering degree, and that I use every day at work. It's a rock solid calculator. I've never thought: "man I wish this had a touch screen..."

Other ancient texts

[tepples]

It is a similarly absurd situation to trying to teach Shakespeare in a language you don't understand. It's not going to work.

Is it like trying to teach the Bible if you aren't fluent in ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek?

Re:Other ancient texts

[Anonymous Coward]

It is like trying to teach modern calculus by using idioms and phrases from Shakespeare.

Re:Other ancient texts

[KGIII]

No, it is like rain on your wedding day.

That's the point

[Sycraft-fu]

It is targeted at education and math teachers get all uppity if the calculator can do too much since they don't know how to effectively teach or test their students.

If you want CAS TI's color model is the nSpire CX CAS. More powerful overall and has a full CAS setup on it.

Re:That's the point

[Murdoch5]

Well I wouldn't go as far as to say they don't know how to teach. I just finished some very intense math courses dealing with advanced vector calc and to be honest there is no way to really teach it where it's clear and straight forward.

Re:That's the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Next you should sign up for some courses dealing with remedial comma use.

In my physic course we could have anything

[aepervius]

We were being tested on solving a frigging problem, and not on whether we could retain by heart 100 of equation. We were being tested on understanding not tore memory. We could have books, lessons, anything. The math was usually simple enough anyway, approximated to the first number after comma. In the end we did not have all perfect note we had a gaussian around the middle, because the problem given were real world physic, chemistry and engineering problem that we had to solve and show our reasoning.

Who cares about rote memoring ? In real life you can look up any reference. The most interresting stuff is : can you look the correct reference up, do you udnerstand what you were taught, and can you on your own solve a problem.

After you are 7 or 8 year old any rote memory teaching is *lazy* and icnredibly backward in our world.

Re:In my physic course we could have anything

[mcguiver]

But by the time that you take physics, you understand the underlying math. I was tutoring a relative in math and she was using her graphing calculator to solve basic algebra. Yes, the calculator was able to give her correct answers but she didn't have any idea on how to rearrange basic equations, isolate a variable, or anything like that. Being able to use a calculator was, in my opinion, a great disservice to her. Without being able to understand the basics of equation solving she will struggle if she takes any more advanced math or science courses.

Size of target market

[tepples]

target markets have never meant much to geeks

Unless the target market ends up not big enough, in which case the product never gets mass-produced or falls out of production because not enough people want it. This happened to 4" tablets priced for use without a cellular data plan (such as the Nokia N810 in North America and the three years of Android prior to Galaxy Player introduction in October 2011), it happened to 3-4" tablets with a gamepad (such as GP2X), and it happened to 10" laptops at the end of last year.

Anecdata

[tepples]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Many of us geeks have gone on to sire progeny

You must be new here.

But seriously, you're right that many Slashdot users have younger relatives in their mid-teens, such as my younger cousin. So we have your anecdote and my anecdote, and the plural of "anecdote" is "data".

Re:Anecdata

[eyenot]

You linked to an article that sides entirely with the concept that the plural of "anecdote" is *not* "data".

SAT and ACT demand buttons

[tepples]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Are we paying for buttons here?

You're paying for buttons because SAT and ACT demand buttons. It's like the handheld video game market, where the developer pays for buttons by navigating the developer and game approval of Sony (PSP/PS Vita) and Nintendo (DS/3DS) for games in genres that aren't very suitable for a phone's touch screen.

Android

[mrops]

Is it to hard to come up with Android ROM to kill this thing once and for all. The kind of battery life this has can be easily had on a Nexus 7.

Put in a custom graphic calculator ROM and let TI RIP.

I realize there may not be such a ROM and the fact its highschool kids who use it, its unlikely a group with capability to actually customize such a ROM will ever do so.

Re:Android

[elfprince13]

Unfortunately, there's this thing called the "College Board". They make the SATs.

Re:Android

[HaZardman27]

I have a Nexus 7 and found a couple free graphing calculator apps that completely eliminate any need I might have otherwise had for a full graphing calculator. I actually first started looking at apps because I wanted my old TI-83 for something but couldn't find it. Granted, students wouldn't be able to bring a fully functional Android device with them to a test, so I guess that's why TI can continue to charge the ridiculous prices they do for these things.

Re:Android

[Dahamma]

Why on earth would you want to mess with a tablet's firmware when you can much more easily write a graphing calculator app for it, and still use the tablet for other things?

Re:Android

[tibit]

Yeah, because the SAT is the only thing one ever buys a calculator for. If you're good at it, you can get decent score on SAT without a calculator.

Re:Android

[nabsltd]

When did they start allowing the use of calculators during the SAT? I suppose about the same time that you could get a "perfect" score while still having some wrong or unanswered questions. OK...some Googling has shown my guess is correct, and also given me the conversions, so now I know what to tell young people if they ask what score I got.

Oblig: get off my lawn

Re:Android

[CodeBuster]

The TI-83/84 and also the HP 48/50 series calculators have vast libraries of available math functions and decades worth of programs created by generations of calculator users. Even if the phone apps can match some or even most of the built-in features they would still be wanting if they couldn't load and execute programs written in the TI-BASIC or RPL languages. The full programmable calculator arguably still serves a certain niche.

Re:Android

[Dahamma]

I wasn't saying anything about the need for the calculator hardware itself, but that trying to hack the firmware for Android to become a TI calculator doesn't make any sense (in the end Android firmware is mostly Linux with a particular userspace and libraries/APIs). A hacked "firmware" on a completely unrelated device won't get you any closer to running those TI programs.

You'd be better off emulating the calculator in an app, which was my point. And given all of the emulators out there already, I kind of think emulating a calculator with a 15MHz Z80 isn't going to be as complicated as the PSX, C64, or GBA.

Re:Android

[CodeBuster]

You'd be better off emulating the calculator in an app,

Ah, I understand. Yes, that could be done although the typical android device is not as large as the actual calculator so it might be a bit difficult to display the full panel of buttons at once without having some way to drag a "viewing window" of the android phone screen around the virtual calculator keypad or some method to switch between viewing the virtual calculator screen and the keypad. It should probably also be noted that an emulator of this type, especially one that allows loading and execution of separate programs, would probably not be possible on iPhone without jail breaking because Apple specifically bans those type of emulators or programs that load and execute dynamic code or other programs specifically to prevent developers from circumventing their app store.

Re:Android

[Dahamma]

Well... first we were talking about Android... maybe the OP knew the Apple walled garden crap (though I doubt it). But, hey, in any case even jailbreaking is far from somehow changing the firmware to become a TI calculator :)

And to follow up... turns out there are actually several projects doing just what we are talking about. You may need to provide your own ROM but that's just for copyright purposes...

http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/01/17/nostalgic-and-awesome-fully-working-ti-83-ti-85-and-ti-86-android-emulators-hit-the-market/
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/02/15/nostalgia-ti-89-calculator-emulator-finally-comes-to-android-download-it-while-you-still-can/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.supware.tipro&hl=en

A few comments

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad to me that these things are required by many high school level math classes but they don't teach kids how to actually use them. They are incredibly powerful tools that most kids just played tetris on. Not sure what the situation is today, since everyone has a smart phone, but I digress...

When I was in Jr. High I had a TI-83+ that I would program to do my homework and tests for me. First I would learn how to solve the problem on paper. Then I would learn how to solve the problem given a generic set of input. Then I would write a program to do it on the calculator.

I could never understand why our tests were a list of 40 pretty much identical problems with the numbers switched around.
Take trig problems for example: find the measurement in degrees of a certain angle, find the length of a side of a shape given other information, etc. If you know how to solve the problem, solving 40 of them and writing everything down is a complete waste of time!

Unfortunately my teachers did not share this attitude. How strange.
Thus at 14, I learned that school was not necessarily about learning.

Re:A few comments

[spiffmastercow]

Thus at 14, I learned that school was not necessarily about learning.

That's a little late to learn that lesson, don't you think?

Re:A few comments

[Kahlandad]

First I would learn how to solve the problem on paper. Then I would learn how to solve the problem given a generic set of input. Then I would write a program to do it on the calculator.

Thus at 14, I learned that school was not necessarily about learning.

Seems like you did a lot of learning to me...

What does it matter?

[Vrtigo1]

As the article indicated, we've had the TI-82/83/84 for the better part of two decades. Educational institutions and teachers know how to make it work for what they want it to do in a classroom. I personally don't know anyone that's purchased a graphing calculator for something other than a math class, so I have to assume education is a very large segment of the graphing calculator market share. Personally, I don't see anyone being exceptionally compelled to change their curriculum away from the TI-8X, and since many courses require that you have a TI calculator, the review is probably moot for a percentage of the market numbering in the high nineties.

Re:I'm gonna piss in your ass

[loonwings]

Did you ever know that you're my hero?

Write tests where cheating is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

I went through college with an HP48GX... before there was standardization. We weren't allowed to use calculators at all in most primary and high school classes. Some professors allowed them, some didn't. The best classes and profs I had were the ones where the prof wrote the tests and homework to test that you knew the concept, rather than testing that you could solve that one problem. I had classes that only had takehome exams that were still hard- I could "cheat" all I wanted to, but unless I really understood the subject matter I was being taught I couldn't do well on those tests. The prof would write each student's exam separately, putting variations in the numbers or equations.
I learned (and was prepared for real life as an engineer) far more from classes where I had to prove that I understood the concepts than I did for classes where I just had to spew back memorized tidbits.

Clearly the free market is not doing its job

[spiffmastercow]

For this price you can get a 7" Android tablet and buy a graphing calculator program for $5 or so. Hell, Wolfram Alpha will even show you calculus solutions step by step. TI really does not deserve to be in business at this point.

Re:Clearly the free market is not doing its job

[Mr.CRC]

Why blame the free market when the reason for TI's lack of innovation is a captive market driven by government schools?

Re:Clearly the free market is not doing its job

[spiffmastercow]

To my knowledge there were no laws and in most cases not even organizational requirements for using the TI-83. It just happened to be the most commonly used calculator, and thus the most commonly purchased. Much like Windows.

Because vi sucks, that's why.

[Cid Highwind]

The real question is why "offtopic" instead of "troll".

Does anyone really think "Does (some TI calculator) support RPN?" after 40+ years of HP using RPN and TI using standard notation could be anything but an attempt to wind up the tired postfix vs infix debate?

Re:Because vi sucks, that's why.

[Frosty Piss]

The real question is why "offtopic" instead of "troll".

Not really.

HP used to be the "gold standard" for a LOT of things including calculators, which like many of their products are now craptastic junk.

I would seriously consider a non-HP calculator *IF* it had RPN.

Re:Because vi sucks, that's why.

[Bing Tsher E]

HP split off the 'gold standard' part of the company to became Agilent, and they retained the shit part of the company as HP. The Corvalis Division (group that made the HP calculators, the HP95-100-200 Palmtops and the very first generation Omnibook) somehow just got lost in the shuffle. One can hope it didn't get subsumed into the shit part of HP that remains.

I own a really weird RPN calculator that TI actually produced. It is RPN but only 8 digit floating point without scientific notation. It's a quaint collector's item.

My calculator of choice is the HP-11C.

Re:Because vi sucks, that's why.

[lastx33]

Me too. My 11C is 32 years old and my daily user. The design is near perfect and only bettered by the 15C for it's complex number handling in my humble opinion. I must admit I was never a fan if TIs, always considering HP to have much better quality and of course, RPN. The output from HP these days is all from China and the build quality nowhere near what it was - the only plus is that they still make a few RPN models.

Re:Because vi sucks, that's why.

[Frosty Piss]

My first HP 41 was made in Corvallis, and cost me around $300 new "back in the day".

Drawing on the screen has got to be really slow

[Dwedit]

15MHz Z80, and a 320x240 16-bit screen. Drawing to that screen has got to be slow.
Copying bytes from memory to an IO port is 24 cycles per byte on the usual code (ld a,(hl) \ out (n),a \ inc hl)
The screen itself is 153,600 bytes large.
So it takes more than 3,686,400 clocks to output an entire screen image, most likely a lot more time. This suggests the entire screen can be updated 4 times per second with unrolled code, and that's not counting the code needed to set up and get ready to output data to the screen, or generate said data. More realistically, the screen could be updated updated 3 times per second.
For things like solid color fills, probably much faster, possibly as high as 8FPS.

Re:Drawing on the screen has got to be really slow

[Alioth]

Their Z80 implementation may not necessarily use the "classic Z80" timings. Indeed, Zilog's own current Z80 based microcontroller offerings are pipelined, and will get a throughput of up to 1 instruction per CPU cycle. The basic Verilog TV80 implementation of the Z80 also executes instructions in fewer clock cycles than the classic Z80 timings. I'd be surprised if the TI implementation has the same timings as the classic Z80.

There's also various screen memory layouts that reduce the amount of work the CPU has to do, such as monochrome bit map with colour attribute overlay (so for drawing a graph, typically you're dealing only with 1 bit per pixel) and some of the graphics operations are likely not done by the CPU. You can also have memory mapped displays and avoid I/O instructions altogether (except for switching in and out different bits of the frame buffer). I don't have a TI calculator so I don't know what scheme it uses for writing to the display but I'd not be surprised if it has something analagous to a GPU to put stuff on the screen, and if it doesn't, then I wouldn't be surprised if the screen is memory mapped. I'd also be very surprised if their CPU uses classic Z80 timings.

Re:Drawing on the screen has got to be really slow

[Dwedit]

You might think they're modernizing the processor, but they haven't done anything like that in the previous models. This new model has the same selectable clock speeds as the last one, so I doubt they are using any timings other than classic Z80.
Communication to the display screen is done through Z80 in/out instructions. I haven't read the documentation on how to communicate with the LCD device, but I don't think they're using anything other than 16-bit pixels.

Did they fix the security?

[jonwil]

Or are they still using weak easily-cracked RSA keys? (the only purpose of which is to allow TI to say to schools and teachers and exam boards and stuff that their calculators are protected against "hacking" by kids trying to cheat on the math tests)

Go cheap

[eyenot]

I've been getting along fine using a duo of TI-83 and TI-36XPro . My Calculus instructors were impressed that the combination offers the functionality of a TI-80somethingorother (86?) but about $50 cheaper. Additionally, you end up with two screens and two calculators capable of performing integrals, so it's a good choice for multitaskers as well.

The world Needs more RPN

[niftymitch]

I would love a refresh of my HP-21....

As a calculator it did all I need.

As a computer none of the durn things including my wonderful HP-41 did the job that can be done with Python.

Sadly the world of calculators if full of mandates that center around standardized tests and classroom arithmetic. This will clog the pipe and remove innovation for decades more.