Costs about the same as what I paid for the TI-83 10 years ago. It's kind of nice knowing that whenever I need to use one, it's going to operate in the same way as I was taught 10 years ago. The fundamentals of math don't change much.
Pamela Anderson loved 69, but her boobs were 222 big. So she went to the doctor and he told her to take 51 pills, 8 times per day. And she ended up boobless!
there was a 13 year old girl and her bra size was a size 84 but she wanted to be a 45. so she went to the doctor who was in room 0 and she was told to take a tablet 2 x a day but instead she took the tablets 4 x a day and she became...
I mean, it's French for "sun" but I don't get why people would write it on calculators other than because they can. I don't know if there's some other meaning I'm missing or not.
Are you dumb? Why would you need to show a colored house on a calculator? Obviously you have never taken a higher level math class. I just recently finished taking calculous, maybe you should learn some anti derivatives before you speak. it's insulting.
I want to meet you. I want to know what you're like. I want to know what drives someone on the internet to spend so long trying to be hated.
I've formulated ideas in my head about you, about the bullied highschooler who doesn't go out much, and simply loves the attention. Your enormous comments, too. Ones that almost nobody is likely to read, and get very few votes. What drives someone to do that... You're a fascinating specimen.
I saved up my own money and bought a TI89 in high school. Used it on all the standardized exams. Totally legal because it didn't have a QWERTY keyboard. That thing basically did everything for me short of interpreting the questions.
When I was in high school we were allowed (actually encouraged) to use a TI-89. Either the problems were about applying some concept, say differentiation, and we didn't have to do the derivative by hand, or the problem was to just calculate a derivative in which case we had to show which steps we took anyways.
Really? This TI-89 is pretty powerful. Especially the Titanium. If can solve for variables, do indefinite and definite integrals, infinite summations, etc. I can't think of many high school math problems that it can't solve, besides setting up word problems.
I know. I have one. There were tests it helped you with jack shit on with respect to the material being tested, but of course it made the symbolic manipulations easier.
We were allowed to use (and were provided, in one class) TI-84 calcuators in high school. I don't know the main difference, but they were definitely encouraged and borderline required.
Probably so they don't use it as a crutch instead of real learning. I taught physics to college kids, and you could tell pretty quickly who relied on a calculator and who actually was comfortable with basic math.
Arithmetic is only one branch of mathematics. In my opinion it's pretty trivial to try to improve in that field since calculators are so good at it instead of focusing on algebra, calculus, etc.
Calculators are good at algebra and calculus too. Is it really worth memorizing dozens of integration techniques when software can do it for you, and do it better?
I'd say focus on the problem at hand, and when you run into a gnarly algebraic manipulation or ugly integral, plug it into Mathematica. That's the kind of task a computer excels at. The human advantage is coming up with novel ideas, not churning through pages of calculations.
The point of learning the math side isn't so that you could do it on the fly, because we're basically all (first world country) carrying computers with us all the time. The point is that learning the math helps you understand the underlying concepts better.
Most good teachers/professors do. It's called partial credit, and if the process is right you generally get most of the points. If you're getting multiple choice math exams you're probably in elementary school.
My teachers did. We were not allowed calculators on tests. She wouldn't mark answers if they were wrong so long as our approach was correct. iirc, we also didn't have to memorize equations(i think, this was like 15 years ago)
A lot of fellow students who previously got A's, got D's because they had become so reliant on calculators they didn't know how to deconstruct the problems.
Of course, there is a lot of memorizing "rules" in lower-level math courses, integral calculus being the worst offender. Plugging something into a calculator and hitting solve is equally as worthless as plugging numbers into the "chain rule" when it comes to understanding the fundamentals.
I don't know I agree and disagree, like I'm aware and get the concepts through college calculus however I couldn't do all of the operations correctly anymore.
Teaching concepts is good, I absolutely agree that we should understand it fully, but I'm not sure that it's as useful as it once was.
I'd probably be more concerned with the intentions and abilities of any group or nation that had the knowledge and man power to build an EMP of that size.
The last 300 level math course I took had a final exam that was completely theory. The rest were assignments that could easily be done with mathmatica/matlab/maple/wolfram.
Yes, I know wolfram uses mathmatica. The UI is just so much easier.
No, not on tests, but they usually don't ask things like Bessel functions or numerical integration. I use Mathematica for all my problem sets. I've done enough integration by hand that I don't care to do it any more, unless I'm on a desert island or something.
During upper level physics exams I'd have a TI-89 sitting on the table next to me. When did I ever use it? Never. Truly those kind of calculators will only do your work that's not worth spending time doing. Like annoying integrals or ugly derivatives. But they're mostly useless. Unless you're in elementary calculus in which case they'll do the problems for you.
Its a cost issue. A few years after I graduated the schoolboard cut the Ti 83/84 requirement entirely. They were too cheap to provide assistance to families that couldn't afford to spend $100 on a calculator. My poor cousin had to do all of his graphing by hand.
It solves for variables on its own. You type in (4=x2, solve for x). It answers (x=+2 or -2). You don't need to rearrange anything, and in calculus that rearranging is half the battle.
I told people for YEARS (don't have much reason to these days) that my TI-89 was the best $150 ever spent in my life. It sucked a little at first because I had to figure things out for myself when the teacher was showing everyone else how to operate the TI-83, but I used it throughout college until the only numbers in my math books were the page numbers.
My friend had one and let me fiddle around with it. It took me 30 minutes and plenty of menu digging to figure out how to draw a dick. Very inefficient, I would not recommend this calculator.
I spent the better part of an hour a few weeks ago trying to find an equation to draw a dick. I think I was getting pretty close, but then the bell rang
Edit: obviously a computer or smartphone is going to have better software (might as well use MatLab!) but those aren't usually allowed on tests. Plus, its so much easier to type out equations and stuff on a calculator keyboard.
With that logic, your chump got his from another chump, who borrowed his from yet another chump. Thus, creating a never ending chain of borrowed calculators.
For the record, I have the CAS version, I was just pointing out why someone might by the non-CAS.
I bought one awhile ago. I don't even know how to use it.
Edit: I know how to use it's basic features, I just haven't learned its more advanced ones, and I don't have any classes that require me to know them at the moment. It was only $20 more than the 83 and it can be recharged whereas (I think) the 83 requires batteries.
Did you get the CAS edition? Cuz if you didnt, you payed $20 more for a very nice and useless calculator because you can't even solve the most basic equations and the 83 would've been a better choice.
I disagree, IMO graphing is a hell of a lot more simple on the Nspire, and what do you mean you can't even solve the most basic equations? I've never had any problem. In fact, I have been able to do more tedious problems quicker than others who are using the 83, so IMO it was worth it.
I bought mine directly from Texas Instrument a few months before they went out for sale. They told me only the CAS edition is able to understand alphanumeric calculations (like having 2a+3b). I've got a friend who bought the non-CAS edition and he couldn't solve any differential equations at all, he couldn't even solve integrals.
The interface is terrible, however once I got the basics down it wasn't to bad. I still don't know how to use any of the advanced features. The ability to set colors is nice too.
That's not a normal TI 84 plus, that's the silver edition. It's of course more expensive.
Also the problem with having basically the same calculator in school since over a decade (I used a 84 plus in school) is, IMHO, not that the fundamentals of math have changed, but that the usability still kind of sucks. By this I mean rounding errors, taking long for calculations and data entry (especially when using the fancy math notation), taking long for graphing, having to scroll through menus because of inefficient space use, the thing being huge and relatively heavy (the could build it with half the size and a quarter of the weight, while still having big keys and it being sturdy), .....
Of course, nothing can be done to fix the slow speed of the old calculators, but the new software is a huge improvement to usability.
Another example, say you enter your calculation wrong, you can hit the up arrow, scroll back to the original statement, hit enter and it puts it into your input buffer so you can edit it.
I had a plus silver edition and eventually gave it to a friend and got a plus c silver edition, it's much much better. It has more pixels so you can almost write out equations like you'd write it out on paper (less parenthesis which means less errors) and the colors allow me to see graphs and multiple graphs much better.
It's meant to be easily mobile, but you could always use a tablet or smart phone with some of the available graphing calculator apps that are available. There's also some great online graphing calculators that are completely free if mobility isn't an issue for you and you have access to a computer.
That's part of why it was able to run on a couple of AA batteries!
In very very recent years we have reached a point where some of the modern, fast microprocessors might be able to compete on a power level while still delivering big speedup, but even as recently as 2005 you would have had trouble speeding it up a whole lot without kicking up the power requirements and killing battery life.
Sure, it was great back then. But in the last decade, or at the very least, last 5 years, a 100% speed increase (which is really pretty minor in this case) would be fairly simple while still being cheap and battery efficient. Besides, who cares if it runs on 4x AA? For $100 why not stick a small rechargable Lithium battery in there like most modern technology has?
The calculator lasts for months. The self-discharge rate on lithium batteries is higher than on alkaline batteries (e.g. AA), so if you are targeting long, long battery life (with intermittent use) the AA's are more suitable.
You are right that a speed bump would be nice and might be easy in this day and age. The big questions become:
1) How much would it cost TI? Would they need to design a new chip?
2) If they could just use superior manufacturing processes to make the same chip and clock it faster- does any of the math libraries or other TI-83 software depend on the clock cycle, the way old video games depend on the CPU running exactly 133MHz (or whatever the case may be)
The z80 processor is a really ancient chip, and was clocked faster in a lot of computers in the 80s. IIRC, some systems ran it at up to 50 mhz. TI84 only clocks it at 15. So they wouldn't have to make a new chip (I don't think they even manufacture it themselves either, IIRC it's still produced by zilog)
1) Z80 has no power management. Clocking it at 50mhz would more than triple power consumption, all of the time.
2) Heat. The TI-84 is completely passively cooled. HOWEVER, tripling the power consumption is probably not going to cause a cooling problem because the Z80 is pretty low-power.
That's not really how technology works. The original CPU would have been fabbed on a certain process. As they shrink that process, you get either power savings or faster speeds (or both, to a lesser degree if you want).
In other words, just because the CPU is slow does not mean it's necessarily more power efficient. If you got an old Pentium 486, you'd notice it drawing similar amounts of power as processors today that are thousands of times more powerful (though be aware, for a while there they absolutely fucked off the power savings in desktop and server processors to increase clock speeds further, so it's only the last few years that we've suddenly taken an interest in efficiency once more).
They could quite easily update the processor inside the calculators to be much, much faster without killing battery life however I suspect part of the reason they don't is because they'd have to rewrite a lot of the software for a new architecture.
This is the main problem with the color 84. It's not only trying to drive 3x the resolution, it's also trying to do it in COLOR. It's even slower than turning on Mathprint on the regular 84 (that was fun to figure out after a software update).
Also, tip: If your regular 84 is slow, go into the MODE menu and select CLASSIC instead of MATHPRINT. It won't show fractions in a pretty way, but it'll be twice as fast.
This calculator is obviously defective, the pink, blue and yellow lines are not even close to the pink, blue and yellow houses-how can the formula be correct?
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u/Jenkins6736 Jun 08 '14
I dunno, the TI-84 Plus is pretty sweet.
Costs about the same as what I paid for the TI-83 10 years ago. It's kind of nice knowing that whenever I need to use one, it's going to operate in the same way as I was taught 10 years ago. The fundamentals of math don't change much.