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Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

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Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#151

Post by asperous »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #150
asperous wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break out of, maybe things will change. Apple actually supports this: "When you give a test to your students, you can lock their iPad in to an assessment app and turn off features that you don't want them to use." https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204775 I tried it just now with desmos testing…

This works if the device is supplied by the school, but you can't lock a student's personal device.

I just tried it on mine and it worked fine.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#152

Post by jedberg »

asperous wrote: post #124
jedberg wrote: post #7

This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily added. As long as that is the case, they will win, because the test companies don't want to deal with people having internet access and notes. Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break…

> Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break out of, maybe things will change. Apple actually supports this: "When you give a test to your students, you can lock their iPad in to an assessment app and turn off features that you don't want them to use." https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204775 I tried it just now with desmos testing…

The device has to be under Apple's management software. It's basically like a corporate IT management platform but for schools and teachers to use with their class set of iPads.

But it doesn't work on personal devices.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#153

Post by WorldMaker »

fwip wrote: post #47
roland35 wrote: post #11

I am not a fan of the lobbying side of this story, but I do think that the TI graphing calculators are good products. They are very durable and easy to use. I fondly remember programming a multiplayer poker game in TI-BASIC on a road trip complete with a CPU player! I also would browse TIcalc.org to look for new games and utilities. I later bought a TI-89 Titanium which opened up the gaming possibilities! Check out s…

Very cool :) My road-trip project was Connect-4. A couple of my more ambitious friends got into Z80 assembly, which was super helpful for them down the road.

In High School, I recall that I built a random maze generator in TI-BASIC, added a really basic movable sprite, and slowly added some very simple/dumb RPG mechanics to push it towards becoming a terrible roguelike.

(One of those lost HS projects it would be fun to revisit but the code was lost when the calculator itself suffered a factory resetting memory/power glitch due to a static electricity discharge event in some College move or another.)

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#154

Post by pixelbath »

lozaning wrote: post #31
eurleif wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no ability to store notes What? It can run custom programs. Of course it can store notes.

Hell I had a buddy in high school that went through and wrote a custom program that's only function was to perfectly 'emulate' the entire calculators menu system, so that when asked to demonstrate that he had no notes or programs, he could go through the entire process of showing nothing being archived and then wiping the memory. Dude wound up in the Stanford CS program after high school, so clearly he learned someth…

I wonder how many individual variations on this specific functionality have existed or currently exist on TI calculators in the wild. It's common enough that I see it mentioned every time TI calculators are brought up.

When I got my TI-85 (one of the earliest ones), I was one of two kids (the other kid had some $500 HP monstrosity) who had a full-on graphing calculator so "clearing the memory" wasn't even on the teachers' radar. I remember my calculus teacher being impressed that I could simply enter the terms of a binomial equation and it would just spit the answers out. A few years later, TI-83s were simply the required calculator for those classes.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#155

Post by zerocrates »

tzs wrote: post #76
jedberg wrote: post #7

This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily added. As long as that is the case, they will win, because the test companies don't want to deal with people having internet access and notes. Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break…

> This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily added. There was a similar concern with typewriters when I wanted to type rather than hand write exams in law school in the '90s. By then most typewriters included some memory and some kind of display, with a delay between your typing and putting the characters on the p…

The law schools and bar exams have now settled on software that reboots a computer into a limited environment just for testing, where the administrators get to configure what kinds of features like copy and paste or spell-check are available (and of course, no stored memory from beforehand, or web access).

The DC bar had just moved from typewriters (with the same "lines of memory" restriction you mentioned) to computers for its essay portions when I took the exam only a handful of years ago.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#156

Post by DanTheManPR »

I've used the same TI-89 since I started my engineering coursework in 2004. It's a very useful piece of everyday kit for those of us who need to do basic algebra and calculus on a day to day basis. In particular, I find it indespensible when just doing desktop brain work with pencil and paper. I'm sure using a smartphone would probably work just as well, but I like buttons.

What bums me out is that there hasn't been any attempt to release a version that slims down the whole package, without revamping much of the actual capabilities of the device.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#158

Post by asperous »

jedberg wrote: post #152
asperous wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break out of, maybe things will change. Apple actually supports this: "When you give a test to your students, you can lock their iPad in to an assessment app and turn off features that you don't want them to use." https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204775 I tried it just now with desmos testing…

The device has to be under Apple's management software. It's basically like a corporate IT management platform but for schools and teachers to use with their class set of iPads. But it doesn't work on personal devices.

Look up the self app lock. That's the feature I just tested on my personal device that worked fine

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#159

Post by macintux »

lb1lf wrote: post #67
bsamuels wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick with those is you can make a TI-BASIC program that will make it look like you cleared the memory - fake empty "programs" list and all. There were a few tiny details you couldn't replicate like the highlighting animation, but they never noticed when I did it.

When I was in our high school equivalent, our maths teacher blew that trick out of the water simply by having us all clear the calculator memory, then having us swap calculators at random. Worked a charm. Next time, noone had bothered to hide notes as they didn't want to spend time helping some random sod out. Solidarity is dead. (You could, of course, try to counter this by having the entire class install the same c…

I’d be in trouble: I use RPN calculators, and am practically crippled if I try to use anything else.

Of course, I’d probably not be in as much trouble as whatever poor sod got stuck with my HP.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#160

Post by 4gotunameagain »

> The company established partnerships with big textbook companies that integrated TI-specific exercises (complete with screenshots of buttons) into classroom curricula. It sought approval for standardized test use from administrators like the College Board. And every time a competing tech innovation came along, it lobbied to maintain its perch atop the parabola.

Absolutely disgusting

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