0768: "1996"

[RebeccaRGB]

Sheesh. Am I the only one here that actually likes the fact that TI hasn't gone down the stupid path that desktop and mobile OSen have gone down? I had to get my dad to buy a TI-89 elsewhere because all of my local Office Depot shops carried the QWERTY keyboard "calculators" like the TI-92. Try explaining to your calculus teacher that the thing isn't a computer.
My Blackberry might have the processing power of a hundred TI-89's, but I doubt any self-respecting teacher will allow it as a "calculator".

a ti-89 is just as much a computer as a ti-92 or even your blackberry. a ti-83+ can even run a modified version of cp/m.

If it's Turing-complete, it's a computer. No way around it.

[hotaru]

If it's Turing-complete, it's a computer. No way around it.

actually, no real computer is turing complete:

Turing complete machines are defined as having unlimited amounts of memory, while machine instruction sets are usually designed only to work with a certain limited amount of RAM.

[Mapar]

Why can't programs be executed from flash memory?

i'm pretty sure they can.

As far as I can tell, those programs just copy it into RAM in the background.

what do you think happens when you run a program on any other platform?

Yes, but considering that it has less than 32K of RAM and is unable to do file I/O, copying the entire source code into RAM might not be the best solution. Plus, I've found that these addons sometimes leave the program in RAM. When your program takes up 20K, even after your PC based compression algorithms have had their way with it, such a memory leak is unacceptable. Also, why no comments? Why no scope? Why are there only global variables? Why do lower case letters take up twice as much memory as their upper case equivalents, and why can't they be entered from the calculator? Why are strings not supported well? Why can't I buffer graphics, even though it has support for storing and displaying pictures? Why does it run on AAAs? Why can't it run on a smaller USB rechargeable battery? WHY was I forced to buy THIS SPECIFIC calculator model? WHY couldn't I use my dad's old HP calculator? WHY AM I SO ANGRY?

The 83+ SE and 84+SE manufactured before 2007 have 128KB of RAM. Some trickery is required to access it, but it's possible. (you basically output some stuff to hardware ports 5 and 7)

[mojo-chan]

It seems like the problem is the competing desires of teachers, engineers and mathematicians.

Teachers want it locked down and simple to use in the "traditional" way that they already understand.

Engineers want lots of useful but non-maths functions like unit conversions, table generators, plug-in formulas for common tasks etc.

Mathematicians want the most powerful and flexible maths functions possible.


HP used to make "programmer's" calculators and "engineer's" calculators to meet these requirements but they seem to have given up on them.

[quettandil]

Sheesh. Am I the only one here that actually likes the fact that TI hasn't gone down the stupid path that desktop and mobile OSen have gone down? I had to get my dad to buy a TI-89 elsewhere because all of my local Office Depot shops carried the QWERTY keyboard "calculators" like the TI-92. Try explaining to your calculus teacher that the thing isn't a computer.

My Blackberry might have the processing power of a hundred TI-89's, but I doubt any self-respecting teacher will allow it as a "calculator".

Anyway ... one thing I miss from college are the HP 48g calculators. Reverse Polish notation FTW!

It doesn't need to have a keyboard in order to not suck. Not going down "the stupid path" is one thing. Not changing their hardware or software at all over the years and keeping the price the same is another, although it does incidentally mean not going down the stupid path. When you're not going anywhere, you can't pick the wrong road, it's true.

[danix]

a ti-89 is just as much a computer as a ti-92 or even your blackberry. a ti-83+ can even run a modified version of cp/m.

Yup. IIRC, it has the same processor that the first Macs had, so it might even be able to run Macintosh System 5 if I tinker with it enough.

It doesn't really matter that much about what I think about the calculator, it has more to do with what the teacher thinks. "Computer" back in my college days meant "device which can store answers to the test", or for short: "cheating device".

The TI-89 had basically the same processing power as the TI-92, but it looked less "computery" and thus was overlooked by the teachers.

Yeah, maybe it is time for them to upgrade the hardware, but it isn't like school tests are going to need big iron to solve them. The last real incentive I saw for upgrading my calculator (to a TI-89) was the ability to do calculus stuff on the TI-89 with the d(,dx) and (integral)(,dx) functions. Oh, and 3D graphing. But I seriosly can't really think of anything more powerful I would want my calculator to do; so maybe what they really need is a hardware upgrade, and keep the rest of the stuff as it is.

[darkspork]

The 83+ SE and 84+SE manufactured before 2007 have 128KB of RAM. Some trickery is required to access it, but it's possible. (you basically output some stuff to hardware ports 5 and 7)

TUTORIAL. NOW.

[Kartoffelkopf]

-snip-

System requirements for Encarta 96.
-snip-

I distinctly remember requiring the CD to be in the drive. In fact, I think it came on two CD-ROMs, so if you wanted to flip through you'd need to do a lot of disc changing. Same with pretty much all CD based games - extra storage space was the major draw of the CD, after all.

Yup, I reinstalled it recently for nostalgia and the CD does need to be in the drive. Encarta 96 only has one disc, though.
With Treasure Mathstorm, however, the only thing it installs on your computer is a shortcut to the respective file on the CD (????) so I just copied and pasted the needed data and ran it off my HD.

A number of PC games STILL do this, and my brother finds it amazing when we find one that doesn't (RA3, or Sins of a Solar Empire, for example).

[xpuctaqpGT]

It seems like the problem is the competing desires of teachers, engineers and mathematicians.

Teachers want it locked down and simple to use in the "traditional" way that they already understand.

Engineers want lots of useful but non-maths functions like unit conversions, table generators, plug-in formulas for common tasks etc.

Mathematicians want the most powerful and flexible maths functions possible.


HP used to make "programmer's" calculators and "engineer's" calculators to meet these requirements but they seem to have given up on them.

I'm a Teacher. And I want the best and cheapest calculator possible. Because when the school buys a set of 20 calculators, the less they spend on the calculators the more they can spend on my salary. TI is overpriced crap.

TI-84 24k ram 480k flash memory $112 at bestbuy.com
Casio 9860G 64k ram, 1.5 g flash memory $84 at bestbuy.com

Unfortunately, many of my coworkers learned on a TI and refuse to learn anything new.

[monteslu]

It seems like the problem is the competing desires of teachers, engineers and mathematicians.

Teachers want it locked down and simple to use in the "traditional" way that they already understand.

Engineers want lots of useful but non-maths functions like unit conversions, table generators, plug-in formulas for common tasks etc.

Mathematicians want the most powerful and flexible maths functions possible.


HP used to make "programmer's" calculators and "engineer's" calculators to meet these requirements but they seem to have given up on them.

I disagree.

Even if the math functions were to stay the same, there's no excuse keeping the hardware specs junk and the price high.

Why not have a bigger, high resolution, color, backlit, touchscreen with pinch zoom? Why not have more RAM, more CPU, and more internal storage?

http://twitpic.com/27zx04 <- highway robbery.

142 bucks is unacceptable for the ancient hardware in these things.

[mojo-chan]

Well colour screens do use more power than black and white ones. Most calcs don't even use a backlight which is pretty much essential for a colour screen.

The lack of RAM and flash memory is probably seen as a good thing by people in education. No room to store copious notes or programs to assist in exams. Actually back when I took mine they insisted that all calculators were factory reset at the start anyway. I didn't want to loose my little "light cycles" game that I wrote and didn't have a PC to back up to, so I simply made a fake factory reset program in BASIC.

Don't misunderstand, I want a better calculator too, but I can see why there is so much resistance in the academic world. I just wish that there were the more powerful units for those of us who want them, but aside from making it harder to force students to use the more basic models such units would probably be an even bigger rip-off since they would have to be priced considerably higher than the basic ones in order to maintain the product range.

[hotaru]

Well colour screens do use more power than black and white ones. Most calcs don't even use a backlight which is pretty much essential for a colour screen.

i have a (casio, i think... haven't used it in years) graphing calculator that has a color screen without a backlight, and it works fairly well. also, the gameboy color and the gameboy advance both have color screens without backlights. they work as well as any black and white lcd screen without a backlight.

The lack of RAM and flash memory is probably seen as a good thing by people in education. No room to store copious notes or programs to assist in exams.

except there's already plenty of space to store copious notes and any program you could ever need to help you with any exam.
there's not enough for more advanced things that people want to do, and the reason so often cited is to keep people from doing something they can already do quite easily.

[mojo-chan]

except there's already plenty of space to store copious notes and any program you could ever need to help you with any exam.
there's not enough for more advanced things that people want to do, and the reason so often cited is to keep people from doing something they can already do quite easily.

Let me introduce you to this thing we call "politics." Sometimes the illusion of security is more important than having real security. Just take a look at the UK and US's response to Islamic terrorism.

Anyway, you missed the most important point - that the calculators can be factory reset easily. In their default state they don't have many of the advanced tools that people would like but which would assist students in exams too much. There are also no flash memory slots, wireless connectivity and the like. Lack of a QWERTY keyboard makes it look like storing notes would be tricky, even if they were not wiped out by the reset.

As for battery life, sure devices which measure battery life in hours have them, but a lot of academic staff would consider changing the batteries more than a few times a year to be pretty poor. I don't think I ever changed my TI-85's batteries in the two years I was at college. You have to understand the mindset of people who are mathematicians but don't know a lot about technology. TI's calculators are designed by the marketing department, which is why they suck.

[Eebster the Great]

Even if the calculators were never updated and stayed in their antique state, they could at least reduce the price. There is no reason these should cost more than $40.

[mojo-chan]

There is no reason these should cost more than $40.

Except that people are forced to buy them at that price because they are what their school/college/university mandates.

[darkspork]

There is no reason these should cost more than $40.

Except that people are forced to buy them at that price because they are what their school/college/university mandates.

IT'S A CONSPIRACY

[scarletmanuka]

Some of this stuff makes me remember that computers used to be very basic...an audio board? The only reason I can think of that being there is that I'm guessing older computers DIDN'T HAVE SOUND. That just blows my mind. Even my fucking Amiga had sound.
Also, who still used a 386 in the 90s? Honestly?

People like my family; we bought our first IBM-compatible PC in 1990 (previously we had an old Z80A based early-80s computer), and it was a 386DX, because the 486 was brand-new and very expensive. We were still using that computer when I left home and got married at the end of 1996. And yes, it didn't have a sound card originally - I bought one in 1994.

Actually, the most interesting thing about that was the difference it made to games. Without a sound card, most games were content to just beep at you, but Star Control 2 actually did an impressive job of modulating the PC speaker to give you a reasonable imitation of digitised sound. So when I put the sound card in I wasn't sure how much more effective it would be, but when I cranked it up and met that Ur-Quan drone at the beginning of the game, it blew me away

At this point I should also note that one of the selling points of this particular sound card (Gravis Ultrasound Max) was that you could update the IRQ, DMA and port settings in software, rather than by opening up the PC and fiddling around with jumpers on the card. Yes, children, there was a time when you had to configure device settings manually -- in the hardware.

Now I'm used to old games taking up less than a gig of space (Fallout 2 is 32MB) but 8MB RAM?!
I'm still amazed that Encarta takes up less space than FO2. I know it's mostly text, but it has pictures and videos and stuff. How the hell can you fit that into 11MB?

Before Windows 95 came out, you could run an entire system in 4MB of RAM (though for later versions of Office you were well advised to have 8MB). But we expected a lot less from our software then, too. Bear in mind that software of the time was installed from floppy disks. Now ask yourself how big you'd want the program to be. (Of course, this didn't stop Microsoft from shipping Office as a box full of 40-odd floppies. And yes, we had to send it back because one of the disks was bad - I think it was disk 22 or 23, something like that - and had to wait a few weeks for a replacement box of floppies.)

Returning to the topic of Star Control 2, I still remember the apologetic note in the readme file explaining that the game had "expanded like a blowfish with water retention" to the staggering size of, IIRC, 9MB. And yes, that was important in the days of 40MB hard drives. Just as, a decade earlier, a 10kB user program was huge for the 8-bit micro systems. (In our 8-bit micro, the OS, the memory-mapped display, and device I/O memory areas all fit into less than 30kB. Now about 80% of single .dlls are bigger than that, and that's for a definition of "now" that includes Windows XP.)

tl;dr: Yes, computers back in the day really were staggeringly primitive by modern standards. Is it really that surprising?

[Whispering]

Ah, 1996 the year I graduated from high school. It's amazing how far computers have come in just that short amount of time. Well except for TI's they seem to be the same.

[mojo-chan]

Before Windows 95 came out, you could run an entire system in 4MB of RAM (though for later versions of Office you were well advised to have 8MB).

(Yorkshireman accent)

4MB! Luxury!

Back in my day we had 512Kb of RAM and we were happy!

(Okay, enough of the accent)

Seriously though, my first two computers:

Amstrad PC1512
640k RAM (upgraded from 512k)
20Mb HDD
5.25" floppy drive (and disks that were actually floppy)
CGA graphics (4 colours)
PC-Speaker
DOS 3.2 / DOS Plus / GEM windowing system

Amiga 500
512k RAM
No HDD
880k 3.5" floppy drive

Both ran graphical OSs with office apps. The OS for both came on one floppy disk, as did the word processors. The Amiga one (forget the name) was even WISIWYG. Of course the dot matrix printer was a bit loud and not very high resolution...

[Whispering]

Seriously though, my first two computers:

Amstrad PC1512
640k RAM (upgraded from 512k)
20Mb HDD
5.25" floppy drive (and disks that were actually floppy)
CGA graphics (4 colours)
PC-Speaker
DOS 3.2 / DOS Plus / GEM windowing system

Amiga 500
512k RAM
No HDD
880k 3.5" floppy drive

Both ran graphical OSs with office apps. The OS for both came on one floppy disk, as did the word processors. The Amiga one (forget the name) was even WISIWYG. Of course the dot matrix printer was a bit loud and not very high resolution...

Oooo first computer time eh?

My first computer was a Kaypro II:
2.5 MHz microprocessor, 64 KB of RAM dual, single-sided, 191 kB 5¼ inch floppy disk drives, and an 80 column green monochrome 9" CRT.

Then the family upgraded to a Macintosh Performa 460:
33 MHz, 4 MB of RAM, 80 MB HDD, an 8-bit color Apple 12" RGB montior, and a 2400 baud modem.

[scarletmanuka]

Well, I already mentioned a bit about my first computer, but apparently it's detail time now.

It was a Dick Smith VZ-200, which ran off a Z80A chip at 3.85 MHz. It had a text mode with a 32x16 character screen and a 128x64 "high-resolution graphics" mode. In the text mode you could actually do 64x32 graphics in 8 colours using the graphics characters in the character set (no coloured text though, and the 2x2 graphics characters couldn't have mixed colours), and there were four different screen background colours. In the graphics mode, you could only use four colours at a time, but there were two different palettes which you could switch between. After all, allowing 8 colours in the graphics mode would have meant the memory area reserved for video would have to double from 2kB to 4kB... Oh, and we didn't have monitors in those days; you plugged it into your TV.

It came with 6kB of memory free for your programs, though you could buy a 16kB memory expansion cartridge. Here's a picture - the thing sticking out of the back is the 16kB memory cartridge. Notice the non-standard, rubber-key keyboard. Those things were fine until they got dirty and the contacts slowly lost efficiency, so you wound up pushing harder and harder... you had to clean it periodically, but after a few cleanings it never really recovered well.

Programs were stored on cassette tape; you could use a generic tape recorder (as long as you didn't move the volume control around between when you saved a program and when you loaded it; we painted a mark on ours with liquid paper), but the branded one generally gave better performance. It took about five minutes for a longish program to load, and as often as not you'd get a checksum error (though usually you could just run the program anyway, at least if it was a BASIC program rather than a machine code one).

Oh, and there was a single peripheral expansion slot; you could get a printer-plotter for it, and also (later) joysticks, but you couldn't have them both connected at the same time. The printer-plotter wasn't hugely useful anyway since it only printed on a narrow roll of paper, so you couldn't use it for e.g. word processing. Though I do recall handing in a maths pre-calculus project with a roll of supporting computations clipped to it.

[mojo-chan]

Sounds exactly like the ZX81 RAM expansion. At the time there wasn't really anything better than edge connectors I suppose, or at least not at a reasonable price. If they had made the case partially support the cartridge it would have been better though.

[soren121]

The amount of money these things cost is absurd. I had to get a TI-84+ for school, because they won't teach with Casio or HP calcs. TI is basically printing money. The cost would be better justified with at least a QVGA color touchscreen, better interface and an ARM7TDMI processor or something similar.

I would love to put a Photoshop of this image with a TI-84 here, but I'm on my Ubuntu laptop and The GIMP is ridiculously useless. Maybe later when I get back on my desktop.

[darkspork]

The amount of money these things cost is absurd. I had to get a TI-84+ for school, because they won't teach with Casio or HP calcs. TI is basically printing money. The cost would be better justified with at least a QVGA color touchscreen, better interface and an ARM7TDMI processor or something similar.

"Oh, and one more thing," he said. His arms quivered with excitement from his black tee shirt. "We've made some revolutionary products before, but we've always set our sights a bit high. But I know it's time to look down for a moment at a product that's been around for over half a century but hasn't really changed in almost thirty years. This is something any student needs, and can be purchased only from a single company." He nodded and clasped his hands together in an attempt to hold the incredible joy behind his lips that he would announce barely a moment later. His expression resembled that of a royal flush leaking into a veteran poker player's face. He continued. "In 1984, we invited you to Think Different. Now it's time to do the same. I give you..."

He paused to give the world one last moment before it would once again never be the same. "The i84," he said in a very matter-of-fact way. Thousands stared at the graceful vision that appeared on the screen above, with a keyboard lain out in a very "old calculator" fashion, but somehow more round yet also more square. A glossed glass screen and shining aluminum frame distinguished it with its bretherin devices as much as the white fruit shape stamped on the back. "It does everything the popular graphing calculator we all know does, but better and faster."

"Illuminated keyboard, backlit color screen..." His voice flowed through the list of features, giving great distinction and meaning to each word, melting them all together as if to say "This is amazing" directly into the soul of all who could listen. He reached into his jeans to produce this technological marvel. A roaring applause conquered the room.

[mojo-chan]

Being an Apple product though you would need iTunes to "activate" it and there would be no way to program it yourself. You would get rounding errors if you held it wrong too.

On the plus side it could read email and browse the web (just not at the same time), and there would be hundreds of fart apps available for it.

[webheads]

I inherited an ancient Casio fx-70000G from my big brother -- kind of like a nerd family heirloom -- and the first time I used it, I kept trying to clear the screen by shaking it like an Etch A Sketch.

My classmates taking the midterm beside me were either really disdainful or really jealous.

[drewster1829]

This brings back memories...I found a Timex Sinclair 1000, with the Z80 processor, a 16KB RAM expansion module, and three cassettes (the cassettes were unopened) of programs...one is Frogger, at a garage sale for $10 about 10 years ago. It works! I wrote some simple programs and saved them on cassete tapes. I still have it, sitting in a box somewhere (but I think I broke the "guide key" for the RAM expansion card...those things are delicate).

Even better, and more relevant to this thread, is the prize I found at a church sale, also about 10 years ago. I found a TI-59 programmable calculator, with the original library module, and the little booklet of magnetic strips to record programs on. It even came with the original manual, "Personal Programming." It came with the charger, the case, the strips, the manual, the calculator, and it all works PERFECTLY. How much did a treasure such as this set me back, you ask? $1.00. I couldn't believe the luck of this find.

I've since written several programs for it (years ago) that still work. I can still plug it in and charge it, and the batteries still work (how is this possible? Wasn't it manufactured in 1977?!). My uncle told me he bought one new when the first came out. It cost over $200 (in 1977 dollars, mind you...that's like $500+ today). The ONLY thing that would make this calculator complete would be the PC100C thermal printer, but I doubt I could stumble across one for $1. That, or more library modules...they're kinda hard to come by, or I'm not looking in the right place...

Oh, I used to have a TI-83, but I think I gave it to my sister (and another uncle left his behind in this house, and it's just sitting there....I can't keep those things away). I have a TI-89 I bought about...10 years ago? (did I have a calculator fetish back then or what?) I rarely use it, ironically (I'm an undergraduate math major with one year left). Apparently the thing doesn't help prove theorems. The most use my -89 gets is with tutoring, honestly. Sometimes I actually have to calculate stuff (weird, I know...I hated calculating stuff, so that's why I majored in math).

[MichaelKarnerfors]

Doom on Ti calculator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsN2JIRGHAo

/M

[dbmag9]

Today's SMBC reminded me of this.

Spoiler:

[Jackpot777]

Doom on Ti calculator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsN2JIRGHAo

/M

IDBEHOLDL dammit!

[Bartimaeus]

Someone probably mentioned this, but there are very fancy graphing calculators if you look for them, they just aren't practical. I know it's a joke(a great one too), but I think part of the reason the graphing calculator has remained is because it's relatively efficient at what it does.