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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?

#451

Post by yitchelle »

bsder wrote: post #441
yitchelle wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for the HP calculator back in the early 90s. It was the first generation HP calculator that is looking to using new keyboard technology. The amount engineering effort to keep the tactile feedback was significant. It had to be just the right amount of click as well as the amount of pressure needed to make the contact. The tactile feedback on the HP calculators is one of the those things that defined that prod…

If you don't mind my asking: what was the "old" generation technology? It seems like with modern manufacturing we ought to be able to replicate that.

To be honest, it has been too long ago for me to remember the details Sorry. From what I can recall, The "old" technology needed to be updated as the manufacturing methods were too costly.

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

#452

Post by bsder »

yitchelle wrote: post #451
bsder wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind my asking: what was the "old" generation technology? It seems like with modern manufacturing we ought to be able to replicate that.

To be honest, it has been too long ago for me to remember the details Sorry. From what I can recall, The "old" technology needed to be updated as the manufacturing methods were too costly.

> The "old" technology needed to be updated as the manufacturing methods were too costly.

Sure, costly for a volume manufacturer. However, for low volume, boutique manufacturing, you can tolerate a whole lot of "non-optimal" methods that may actually be easier to manufacture even if not cheaper.

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

#453

Post by yitchelle »

bsder wrote: post #452
yitchelle wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, it has been too long ago for me to remember the details Sorry. From what I can recall, The "old" technology needed to be updated as the manufacturing methods were too costly.

> The "old" technology needed to be updated as the manufacturing methods were too costly. Sure, costly for a volume manufacturer. However, for low volume, boutique manufacturing, you can tolerate a whole lot of "non-optimal" methods that may actually be easier to manufacture even if not cheaper.

I don't think that HP would see themselves as boutique manufacturer of calculators. :-)

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

#454

Post by bsder »

yitchelle wrote: post #453
bsder wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "old" technology needed to be updated as the manufacturing methods were too costly. Sure, costly for a volume manufacturer. However, for low volume, boutique manufacturing, you can tolerate a whole lot of "non-optimal" methods that may actually be easier to manufacture even if not cheaper.

I don't think that HP would see themselves as boutique manufacturer of calculators. :-)

I mean for a hacker/maker to clone. HP is clearly not going to bring back an HP 48SX.

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

#455

Post by ineedasername »

fulldecent2 wrote: post #334
mandevil wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SAT II Math exam is administered 6 times during the 2019-2020 school year. To be used 100 times, it would have to last over 15 years. For IB/AP Calc it's even worse, that is literally given on one day to the entire country (modulo a very small number of makeup exams), so would get two days of use per year (one for AP, one for IB). If you used the same set of calculators for both, we're talking about the hardware…

I have previously been on site for an SAT II reading session (this is the part following the proctoring). It was hard enough to get the logistics right for getting all the scantron sheets and papers to where they needed to go. And overnight shipping printers and other equipment on failure. Adding any more logistics into this process would increase costs and provide no headline-worthy benefit. * The teachers, not the…

Yes, the logistics would need to be worked out. However I've proctored large LSAT tests and not found the workload of reading instructions and gathering papers to be so burdensome that I wouldn't have been able to deal with calculators. This isn't rocket science, portraying it as insurmountably difficult or expensive really over estimates the problem: A nominal increase to the test fee would easily cover additional costs.

Either way, the headline-worthy benefit, if I take your meaning with that phrase correctly, is that this is a standardized test. You don't get to "standardized" by not providing equal equipment to test takers. Regardless of whether it's "easy" to do, it is a necessary condition for actually being a standardized test.

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

#456

Post by mcphage »

mattbreeden wrote: post #139
mcphage wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can easily store notes on a TI calculator. I had a TI-85 in college, and was occasionally guilty of writing TI-BASIC programs to make tests easier You're thinking in the wrong direction—testing companies don't really care if you can access notes that you wrote, they don't want you to be able to quickly type up new notes as you take the test. Specifically, they don't want you to be able to copy down the test que…

You can do this just as easily as it was to make your original notes

> You can do this just as easily as it was to make your original notes

Maybe kids have gotten better at it since I was in school, but text entry on the TI-8x was a laborious process, and calculators with qwerty keyboards (like the TI-92) were quickly banned.

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

#458

Post by esrauch »

onemoresoop wrote: post #191
esrauch wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They presumably didn't want people using a TI-83/85 effectively as a gameboy.

http://tiwizard.com/downloads/

Right: I meant the prison presumably doesn't want prisoners playing games (as is easy to do on these calculators). I'm actually a little confused that was a controversial thought.

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

#459

Post by unsignedint »

Baeocystin wrote: post #300
the_pwner224 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a TI nSpire CX CAS in high school (like the 89 but with a color LCD screen and hackable with Lua and C - it runs Doom and GBA/NES emulators). In the final year of high school I was taking a class that did not require a graphing calculator, so I bought a TI 36X Pro, an advanced scientific calculator. It has excellent 'UI', tons of functionality, and the buttons feel great to type on (though after a long time the…

The 36X Pro is my surprise modern favorite of the non-graphing 'cheap' sci calcs I use. The keys really do feel good to use. (I still consider my HP 48SX My Precious, though. Yay RPN and all that.)

Thanks to this thread I bought TI-36X Pro myself. While I don't have constant needs to calculate thing, I was looking for a good calculator that I can keep in my bag. This seems to be a perfect calculator for that purpose, price and feature wise.

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

#460

Post by apple4ever »

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.

That's what I did! I fell in love with the Z80.
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