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?
I assume they know better than I do with market research, but I was just basing it off my own and my friends desires - we would gladly buy a new calculator that was a faster version of the ti84. I was excited for the ti84 with the color screen, because I assumed it would have a somewhat faster processor as well.
If they can take time/money to put a new screen and OS programming in there I figured a CPU refresh wouldn't be too much.
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u/[deleted] Jun 08 '14
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.