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Ti-84 Evo

education.ti.com

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Re: Ti-84 Evo

#51

Post by V99 »

moffkalast wrote: post #9

Genuine question, who uses these in practice? In my experience, calculators beyond the basic were always banned in high school and college, cause everyone's so afraid people might store something into them, and afterwards it's just matlab and python. It's not like laptops aren't a thing that everyone has on hand.

These have been standard equipment (that you buy, or the school loans out) in middle-class US high school math since the 90's (and gone basically unchanged since then). The math books even have content tailored to particular models so that you'll have to buy them instead of alternatives from other vendors.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#52

Post by badc0ffee »

vvpan wrote: post #38

We had to buy those calculators for highschool and it was a waste of money, felt like somebody must be paying somebody off to have thousands of students buy a device that they will certainly never have to use (and is of little educational value).

30 years ago, we had the option of the TI-82 Or (83?) and the 85. A bunch of the kids with the 85 were playing Tetris and some were writing little programs. I got the cheaper 82/83, and I don't actually remember using it for anything, even once, even though I did the IB track (stats, trig, algebra, calculus, etc).

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#53

Post by esafak »

It's a shame that maths in American schools is equated with calculation. All you need to be a mathematician is a calculator!

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#54

Post by wslh »

Looking at the price of this and other calculators, I wonder if there's a market for "dumb calculators" analogous to dumb terminals: a device with the calculator form factor, keyboard, and display, but where the actual computation happens on a paired computer/phone or a cloud endpoint over WiFi/Bluetooth.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#55

Post by cristoperb »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #11

What calculators are you guys using that aren't in academia anymore and don't need the "exam approved" limitations? Or are we all just using software on our computers now. That would be sad. (I've had a Casio fx-991EX on my desk for a few years, that replaced a broken Casio fx-991ES. Though designed for academia, its operation is burned into my brain at this point.)

I still use my TI-89 from high school, but I'm interested to find if there are any open hardware/firmware calculator projects with basic engineering tools and a CAS.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#56

Post by jgord »

vvpan wrote: post #38

We had to buy those calculators for highschool and it was a waste of money, felt like somebody must be paying somebody off to have thousands of students buy a device that they will certainly never have to use (and is of little educational value).

concur .. better to have a 40-buck fx82 for daily math and use Desmos for graphing, than fork out 250 to 300 for a super-duper calc they wont use.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#57

Post by max51 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #11

What calculators are you guys using that aren't in academia anymore and don't need the "exam approved" limitations? Or are we all just using software on our computers now. That would be sad. (I've had a Casio fx-991EX on my desk for a few years, that replaced a broken Casio fx-991ES. Though designed for academia, its operation is burned into my brain at this point.)

I use a TI nspire CX CAS.

honestly, I think it makes no sense to spend more than 30$ on a calculator if it can't do symbolic math.

The way you input things like division, integrals, matrix, etc. on newer calculators like the nspire is far superior than the older calculators (eg. ti-84, ti-89, etc.). They look like how you write them on a blackboard instead of relying on purely parentheses or "," and ";" to separate parameters. It's like going from Excel to Mathcad

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#58

Post by jhatemyjob »

ezfe wrote: post #42
vvpan wrote: post #38

We had to buy those calculators for highschool and it was a waste of money, felt like somebody must be paying somebody off to have thousands of students buy a device that they will certainly never have to use (and is of little educational value).

I used mine constantly in highschool (10 years ago).

Same. But I agree with the parent, I always got the vibe it was a giant racket between public schools and TI. Writing code for it was probably cool back in the 80s-90s but it's so dated now.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#59

Post by andyfilms1 »

retired wrote: post #12
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #2

$160 at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Texas-Instruments-TI84-TI-Calculator/... Not as bad as I would've expected. Also, apparently it includes a very simple Python environment? https://education.ti.com/en/product-resources/eguides/eguide...

For a $10 BoM and maybe a year of R&D I would say that $160 is bad.

Their engineers are still trying to figure out how to make backlit keys. Just give them another two decades, I'm sure they'll crack it.

Re: Ti-84 Evo

#60

Post by aaronbrethorst »

LeCompteSftware wrote: post #49
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A TI-83 was about $100 in the year 2000, and it doesn't look like it's that much cheaper today. I would've expected Texas Instruments to try gouging their very captive market.

But you can't divorce that from computing technology in general. A TI-83 used a z80 in 2000 and was priced at 1990's z80 rates, it was already gouging even back then! Now 26 years later the TI-84 uses an ez80 (or something something similar), which was introduced in 2001. TI has always gouged their captive market. It is just increasingly ridiculous when those students also have smartphones. FWIW I think these graphin…

Shrug. The SAT and ACT don't let you use an iPhone on their exams. $160 is what the market will bear. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it just is, and perhaps there's a market for a much cheaper competitor to beat TI here.
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