0768: "1996"

[xpuctaqpGT]

I also noticed, College Board allows other calculator brands. Casio, HP, and Sharp calculators are permitted as well.

[Gasp]

This: http://midp-calc.sourceforge.net/Calc.html

Doesn't work with most non Nokia or Sony phones.

[sliverstorm]

I find myself wondering if there is a calculator out there that can be loaded with a stripped down version of linux, loaded with matlab, and set up with sane keybindings. You'd probably want to strip things down a lot considering the lack of storage on most calculators, and many of matlab's libraries would be excessive for the old-fashioned displays, but I'm sure it could be done eventually.

That would really be the calculator of the future.

[tuckels]

I had to wikipedia TI. Here in Australia, it seems every calculator is a Casio.

I would have to disagree. All the calculators at my school are currently TI-83+, but they are slowly being fazed out in favour of TI-84s. It still annoys the hell out of me that pretty much every student has a phone with more power than a TI, yet we're still forced to pay $100 for a second hand one bought from the school's hire program, and it has the mental capacity of a chimp. Surely an update is required by now, considering that the technology is now so updated....

But anyway, blah blah blah etc.

tuckels could be doing that thing that I also do, where My Town == Australia. I know for sure that where I live pretty much all the calculators are Casio.

Yeah, it's just me generalising.

As for calculators in schools, we (In a public school in NSW) use $30 odd Casio fx-350MSes.

[wagner]

What is with TI's current trend of locking out programmer hobbyists? I'm sure their calculators produced a large group of geeks fluent in computerese who all got their start on TI.

It's all about the standardized tests. In order to curb cheating by storing content on such devices, I've heard that you are required to reset your calculator memory in front of the proctor. If you can write compiled code, you can bypass any such measures they put in place. They offer a signing process (for a fee of course) that allows you to write compiled code that can be loaded onto the calculator and is exempt from the wipe.

[Fritzed]

I got the distinct impression that in the last panel the guy was essentially turning to the camera like he was questioning TI directly as they read the comic. Looking back, I see absolutely nothing to signal this, it's not like he has a face. I have to know, did other people see him turn to look at you?

[Technical Ben]

To me the funniest thing was how I also use to keep old copies of computer shopper around. They don't write them like they use to. The mags kind of gone past the golden age. (probably got some cover CDs lying around somewhere...)

[BAReFOOt]

My first thought was: If you “get” the point of a dedicated calculator, you’re old!

There is more powerful software for my mobile phone… including a Python interpreter… than any dedicated calculator can offer. And when I’m at the desk, I have a dedicated key for Qualculate!, and if I need it, there’s advanced mathematics software, just one “emerge” away, plus Haskell just waiting to be used.
(No, “school requirements” is not an argument. Since it’s also your fault, if you go to a school that still lives in the 20th century and/or accept that from your country. )

[dvrvm]

College Board issues aside, I have fond memories oi TI-BASIC, writing in it a 3D graphing engine and a stock market analyzer. With enough patience, I could make anything ... but friends. (Although with my chatterbot experiments, I certainly tried.)

Hey! I actually entertained a few friends with my TI92 games I remember me and a friend constantly pushing the edges of that machine trying who could make the more complicated and high-tech RPG while still being able to run at a decent speed

[Meloncov]

What is with TI's current trend of locking out programmer hobbyists? I'm sure their calculators produced a large group of geeks fluent in computerese who all got their start on TI.

It's all about the standardized tests. In order to curb cheating by storing content on such devices, I've heard that you are required to reset your calculator memory in front of the proctor. If you can write compiled code, you can bypass any such measures they put in place. They offer a signing process (for a fee of course) that allows you to write compiled code that can be loaded onto the calculator and is exempt from the wipe.

I never had to do this for any of my APs or SAT. I saved a couple minutes using programs I already had to brute force a couple problems on the AP Calculus test.

[mafaraxas]

As a math teacher, it's actually really nice that this technology has NOT changed. I can teach my students on the calculator that I learned on and maybe one of them will teach a future math student on a TI-83+ as well.

Even if they keep all the software, interface, etc. intact, there's no good excuse for not upgrading the hardware.

[tmk]

This: http://midp-calc.sourceforge.net/Calc.html

That's a pretty sweet little calculator, thanks for the link!

[psyEDk]

I believe you mean 'of' TI-BASIC.

[Leibnix]

I bought a HP 50g some time back. This thing is supposedly not dumbed down for the silly school boards, yet it is probably every but as underpowered as TI calculators. One thing that can be said for these things is they require little power, so the battery last long. Yet I'd rather recharge every 48 hours and have a 1GHz pocket lisp machine or something.

[BiggAl]

heh, I had a shitty green and white casio, think it was an fx-9750G+ or something... I wrote a blackjack game on it but I had great dificulty doimg anything more with only about 30 floating point variables... I wish I'd known more about boolean logic back then as I could have leveraged a hell of a lot more storage from it...

[hintss]

my netbook is $299.

and I'm typing this comment on it...

[oliphaunt]

... so - *someone* has to mention it: is "oi" a typo (meant to be "of"), or am I missing something?

There is a typo. "oi" in alt-text, instead of "of"

I noticed as well. From this I deduce:

• Randall probably uses the dvorak layout.
• If so, he doesn't touch-type properly (nor use a "natural" keyboard with separate sections for left and right hand).

[flguy1980]

In spring 1998, my senior year, I took Analytic Geometry in high school. The teacher was an unprofessional, rude nervous wreck who had been there since 1971. She has since retired, after 38 years of turning the school's math department to the point that half the student body was taking their math classes online just to snub them.

She allowed calculators on exams, but insisted on clearing your calculator's program memory before the exam. I told her she did not have permission to touch my personal calculator, so I was forced to use a school-owned TI-82 instead of my personal TI-82.

Later on in life, I was a high-school teacher for three years. PC Support, not math. Nonetheless, it gave me a theory for students hiding notes in calculators: "If you've gone to the effort to program your calculator to help you 'cheat' on an exam, you know what you're doing". Through my college-math career--Precalc, Analytic Trig, DIscrete I and II, and Calc I and II--I never had a single instructor insist on clearing calculator memories.

Think about the instructors who would allow you one sheet of paper with anything you want written on it. By the time you wrote an entire semester of notes on it, you've learned it and don't need the cheat sheet.

[hintss]

my math teacher bring in an index card of notes. I did write a month's worth of notes on it, meticulously done, with 3 lines on each line of the index card. took days to write. The teacher now uses it as the example along with the one she used in college. I learned 2 things:

1. you will refer to it
2. bring a magnifying glass

(I used a magnifying glass to write it...)

[chrth]

Anyone else bothered by the rendering of the Computer Shoppers? They should be twice as long and the characters should be straining to hold them.

That box must weigh three tons.

[BioTube]

I remember the one time I actually had to program my calculator to solve a problem - I learned first hand that TI-BASIC and C use completely different syntaxen for 'for' loops, leading me to use an ugly hack in its place.

[narlin]

Wow, A friend and I just pulled one of those old Computer Shoppers out just last week and were doing the exact same thing. Best GOOMHR moment ever!

[jjsavage]

Man this is exactly what I thought when I looked at TI graphing calculators in the store! They should be like $10 now! Or they should have full-color touch screens for the prices they're charging.

[freddyfish]

does anyone besides me still think the ti-89 is the hack for ALL math( except stats because its just hard to type in the data on that calc))?
admittedly i hate using matlab since its bulky and makes my computer cry... but seriously. symbolic integration is AMAZING. as is solving systems of equations by simply typing them in

[Zironic]

Through my college-math career--Precalc, Analytic Trig, DIscrete I and II, and Calc I and II--I never had a single instructor insist on clearing calculator memories.

I think that's interesting because in High School I was allowed to use calculators and formula sheets on the math tests, but once I started university things changed quite a bit, they don't allow any aids whatsoever though in return they made the questions trivial to solve by hand if you just knew what you were doing. (The answer would usually be nice and even rather then 12.4135 that's often the case in calculator allowed exams).

Maybe the solution would just to do the same to all the earlier exams, then you wouldn't have to worry about the calculators being too advanced since they're not there to begin with : p

[rancidtuna]

I grew up with a Casio 9850GB Plus. It was waaaayyyyyy better than any TI I could find due to the fact that it was $70 cheaper and no teacher knew how to clear it. So I wrote multiple programs for several classes where I just plugged in numbers for my longest formulas/equations and it spit out the solutions.

[Freiberg]

does anyone besides me still think the ti-89 is the hack for ALL math( except stats because its just hard to type in the data on that calc))?

Absolutely they do. My TI-89 Titanium has saved me on more than one year's worth of grades and standardized tests, especially after I learned to program it (TI-BASIC was my first programming language).

[riva0047]

Somebody needs to 3 wolf moon the amazon review for the TI-86. I would, but I'm lazy.

[oddoneout]

As much as I loved my TI, it's become redundant and it's sole function is being the spare calculator for when I lose my little Casio one.
Now I'm studying maths at uni, graphical calculators aren't permitted and even when we were allowed to use graphical calculators back in college we had to clear the memory before the exam begun. Not that I had anything worth deleting, any useful programs I'd done could easily be put back in within 2 minutes.
Unfortunately it was a big waste of £53, the casio fx something actually displays surds and doesn't change everything into decimals, or weigh my bag down.

[DRStevens]

BTW, makes me wonder: why isn't there some decent ipod touch/adnroid phone replacement for a HP 50g / TI-89? Doesn't seem that hard to program one...

I have an HP 48 emulator for my android. There may be apps which are more powerful, but I get all nostalgic whenever I need to split a bill.

[mowdownjoe]

No kidding. Last semester, I was going to be mostly reusing books, so I figured I could use some of my financial aid money to get a copy of Windows 7 for my computer. I figured I could reason it away by saying that as a CompSci major, I could reason that it'd only be helpful to have the latest tech. One graphing calculator later, and my ol gaming compy is still on XP, stuck on 4 GB of RAM.
Seriously, TI... you can make them cheaper, can't you?

[SirMustapha]

The stick guy got so upset on the last panel that his head jumped from his neck. Randall caught just the moment when it happened. Amazing art!

EDIT: I assume that phenomenon is what xkcd fans call "Get out of my neck!".

[Mental Mouse]

I got the distinct impression that in the last panel the guy was essentially turning to the camera like he was questioning TI directly as they read the comic. Looking back, I see absolutely nothing to signal this, it's not like he has a face. I have to know, did other people see him turn to look at you?

Actually, he does have a flat side of his head-circle, which I was reading as indicating his face. In the last panel, I see him more as three-quarter profile, facing the woman.

[project2051]

Bahh...

When I was in high school I used a slide rule, and in college I did basic on a DECsystem-10 using a DECwriter.

Bahh... you youngsters and your fancy calculators and color monitors.

[neoliminal]

I've thought about this very situation, and been saddened that CollegeBoard allows TI to keep their monopoly unopposed. It's really up to them to break it, because until they allow other calculators in, the most friendly, fair, modern, cheap calculator won't be a success due to the test restrictions. TI is freaking printing money with the prices they charge for this terrible, old hardware!

Three words: Kickbacks.

[reffu]

I don't think College board restricts you from using anything other than a ti.

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/tes ... .html#list

The AP calculus calculator list has a lot of other calculators too. The SAT calculator list just says they can't communicate or have a touch screen, stylus or qwerty interface

[KarmaDoor]

I remember my parents taking me out shopping for my graphing calculator back in high school. (They likely figured it was a large enough education expense to purchase it for me.)
It was a Casio CFX-9850G-w and it seemed light years better than the TI-83 models almost everyone else picked up. The slight downside was having to manually recode programs. Color was so worth it in terms of legibility. I find it sad that its successors are still the only models with hue endowed displays. I do remember using it on the SATs, too, though I had brought my fx-115D along just in case.

Some years later I had to get a TI-92 for a college course. What a waste! It was a massive pain to use, the assistant instructor never could get the programs to transfer properly, and the manual was more for reference than actually learning to use the unit.

Most recently I purchased a TI36X SOLAR to replace the essentially dead fx-115D (I truly didn't feal like replacing the battery of a non-hardcase calculator.)
Wow! TI engineers actually can make better hardware and software! It's really a nice unit. Being completely solar, it slows down based on how much electricity is available so it doesn't lose progress. It also has quick unit conversions, which makes everyday real-world use a breeze.
For some reason, substantial improvements seems to only apply to the scientific line and not the graphing.

There were some graphing programs for PDAs which were hard to justify with only the same level of capabilities, cost half as much for the software, and didn't even have a nice button arrangement. (Dinky on-screen keys, anyone?) I presume this has moved forward in the last ten years, but I somehow doubt it.

[another josh]

I miss my HP-48G. It served me well in college until I pulled it out of my backpack and found the screen cracked, and couldn't afford a fix or replacement. I had enjoyed it's RPN input method, as well as the programs you could write to use the IR port as a remote control, which you could then use to randomly change the channel on a common room TV while you were studying and other people were trying to watch something. The look on their faces when the channel changed and they couldn't figure out why and you were just sitting there with your calculator sitting beside you. Ahh, liberal arts majors were so much fun to tease.

[geekmom]

I'm taking a week-long College Board sponsored AP Calc training next week. We'll see just how much they assume that everyone will be using TI's. It's not just about requiring them on the test. If all the curriculum and trainings and examples are written with the TI in mind, guess which calculator all the teachers will recommend?

Brave new world... I too did all my maths in the dark ages before graphing calculators. We used punch cards in my computer science classes, too.

[IIAOPSW]

GET OUT OF MY HEAD RANDALL

I too have made a 3d graphics engine for my TI. it defaults to isometric mode but can be made to work for any arbitrary set of axises (no parallel perspective, sorry).

then I started adding new features, got distracted and never made it functional again. it just sits there.

as for being able to make anything but friends in TI BASIC, try python.

Code: Select all

import friends