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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?

#421

Post by Wowfunhappy »

lonelappde wrote: post #415
csande17 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, a student could easily write an app that fakes the Desmos Test Mode confirmation screen, just like how a student could write a TI-BASIC program that displays "MEMORY CLEARED" on the screen. What's old is new again...

It's not "easy", that is to DRM. It would have to be installed using private developer keys or jailbreak or pass app store approval.

Anyone can install up to three custom apps on an iPhone from xCode using a free Apple ID. The catch is that they will stop working and need to be reinstalled after seven days, so not useful for every day use, but perfectly fine for testing or, in this case, mischief.

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

#422

Post by tlb »

xnyan wrote: post #418
brokenmachine wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my ignorance, but how do sleeveless shirts help facilitate an escape?

Lots of prisons have dress codes for visitors of prisoners banning visitors from certain kinds of clothing. On the banned list of items, you will never see Burberry tweed or men's sport coats, but rather t-shirts, types of shorts or other clothes poor people wear (often called "trashy" clothing). It's about shame and control.

The link below shows a cross section of expensive designer fashion, exclusively for rich people. Almost all of it would be banned by prison dress codes.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=expensive+designer+fashion+runway&...

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

#423

Post by Izkata »

tanr54ok wrote: post #340
therealrootuser wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was the little known, but powerful combo called "GROUP" and "ARCHIVE". GROUP allowed you to package together a set of programs. Archive would allow you to take that group and store it in the long term memory of the calculator. You can then "clear the memory" of the calculator, but can then immediately unarchive the grouped programs and get everything back how it was. That said, I don't recall my teachers ever g…

Lol In the 90s the venerable ti82, 83, 85 just had battery backed ram. No long term memory. Get off my lawn.

Note that they didn't say a version number. The TI-83 Plus most definitely did have long-term ("archive") memory. I even still have mine in working order.

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

#424

Post by colejohnson66 »

jointpdf wrote: post #210
frostburg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice but as far as I know it doesn't have a real CAS despite its processing power.

If it runs Python, then couldn’t you use SymPy as a CAS (in addition to NumPy, seaborn, etc. for numerical computing / visualization)? By the way, I like the idea of this calculator and hope to see more like it. I think something that combined this with ideas from WolframAlpha (natural language CAS, problem explainers and expanders) and Khan Academy (spaced repetition, gamification of learning, progression of tutoria…

There’s also Maxima[0] which is written in Common Lisp. Not sure how well it would run on an M4 though.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_(software)

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

#425

Post by jacobolus »

filleduchaos wrote: post #392
jacobolus wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about pedantic correctness. “Lower level” math courses also should not have excessive amounts of arithmetic. What arithmetic is included should be there for the express purpose of practicing arithmetic (at which point a handheld calculator is exactly the opposite of what you want). At any point that arithmetic isn’t the point of the problem, the arithmetic used should be designed to not be a barrier or ti…

There is quite the gulf between learning how to program and having to look up cosines and so on in mathematical tables (which I once had to do when my calculator stopped working five minutes to the start of an exam), a gulf which handheld calculators occupy very comfortably. > Learning to fluently navigate a handheld calculator is not an important life skill It very arguably is. Contrary to what HNers seem to think,…

Nobody needs a $100 Texas Instruments graphing calculator to tally up receipts or compute the cosine of 28° (the latter is something a carpenter might need to do, but should not be showing up extensively in high school math classes).

If people want to buy $5 “scientific calculator”, a 4-function calculator with a paper tape, use a free calculator app on their phone, type their arithmetic into google, ...., that’s just fine.

These devices are simple and straight-forward, and do not need extensive practice to understand.

If schools really want to spend class time practicing computations with a portable calculation device, learning how a slide rule works is much more pedagogically valuable. At earlier ages, learning how to use a soroban or counting board is also worthwhile. These devices have no hidden parts, and learning to use them is, in itself, mathematical.

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

#426

Post by la_barba »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #4

TI calculators are the biggest technology racket in education. The fact alone that most schools won't allow the use of Casio equivalents deserves an anti-trust investigation. There are programs that even dictate which TI model is accepted.

I don't think its a "racket". The thing with stuff like this is that nobody wants to be on the hook for re-certifying every single calculator as "equivalent".

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

#427

Post by hatsunearu »

Yeah no, please tell me when they figure out a good calculator software that can replace my TI-nspire CX CAS.

It has a pretty powerful symbolic math engine that is pretty insanely powerful and it might as well be considered cheating. Difficulty of integrals is limited by how fast I can type it in my calculator.

But the problem is the keyboard sucks ass (because stupid SAT requirements) and programming it is also hard. I want something that is free or pretty cheap (I can see myself paying 50 bucks for this) that has a nice symbolic + numerical math engine (fuck you SymPy you suck ass) and has textbook-style symbolic math entry (so integrals look like long S's and not Integral[]).

I think MathCAD comes close but its symbolic math is a little suboptimal.

It's fucked up when the best thing that matches these requirements is the official emulator for TI-nspire cx cas that you get a license for when you buy the calculator.

I might make my own but making a full math engine sounds like a huge project (considering SymPy is nothing short of a disgrace)

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

#428

Post by hatsunearu »

hatsunearu wrote: post #427

Yeah no, please tell me when they figure out a good calculator software that can replace my TI-nspire CX CAS. It has a pretty powerful symbolic math engine that is pretty insanely powerful and it might as well be considered cheating. Difficulty of integrals is limited by how fast I can type it in my calculator. But the problem is the keyboard sucks ass (because stupid SAT requirements) and programming it is also hard…

Desmos seems pretty nice. https://www.desmos.com/calculator

Things like this has already existed for a very long time though. Like Grapher in Mac OS.

When will some galaxy brain disrupt the market for high end math software like Mathematica and others?

It's 2019 and I should not be doing integrals and symbolic manipulation on paper. At least outside of school.

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

#429

Post by la_barba »

krick wrote: post #377
5trokerac3 wrote: post #4

TI calculators are the biggest technology racket in education. The fact alone that most schools won't allow the use of Casio equivalents deserves an anti-trust investigation. There are programs that even dictate which TI model is accepted.

Schools are the real problem here. After all, you don't get triggered by the fact, that there are very specific books every student has to buy for the course, do you? I think you should.

You haven't described what the problem actually is with schools. Homogenized knowledge systems are a simple way of having a common "API Layer" in our consciousness that other humans can access.

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

#430

Post by [deleted] »

tripzilch wrote: post #417
jacobolus wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now the math department? They were a different story. No calculators. Period. Ever. Made higher-level calculus... interesting. There is no reason for any math course at any level to ever need a calculator, period. The point of math courses is learning to think, not learning to avoid fat-fingering tiny buttons or learning the specific crappy interface of some anachronistic antique machine. Without an electronic calc…

You're right except for when the exam is in numerical methods :)

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