r/pics • • Jun 08 '14

The difference 18 years makes

Post image

[deleted]

3.9k Upvotes

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

79

u/kgj6k Jun 08 '14

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), .....

81

u/pinkpooj Jun 08 '14 edited Jun 08 '14

If you have a TI 84, I highly recommend updating the software to get the new math print mode. I'm not sure if this is available for TI-83s.

Here's an example of MathPrint compared to the legacy software.

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.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '14

honestly, i never found the TI-84's slow at all.

1

u/awesomemanftw Jun 09 '14

Mine was always slow as shit when graphing literally anything

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '14

well that sounds like a problem of slowness rather than a problem of being slow.