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I've never used a TI-85 or 86. From what I remember, we were told that an 83 or 89 had some particular feature that the 86 lacked (apparently some statistics fu

I've never used a TI-85 or 86. From what I remember, we were told that an 83 or 89 had some particular feature that the 86 lacked (apparently some statistics functions, or something?) People are more likely to recommend based on what they know, and with school recommendations being what they've been, more people know the 83/84. I was envious of my friend's 89, but my parents wouldn't pay the higher cost.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
> People are more likely to recommend based on what they know True, but very sad. I am given to understand, from an HN thread months ago, that the state of the art in school graphing calculators now is the HP Prime. But that never even gets mentioned in recommendations, because no one's ever heard of it. (And there's very little incentive to learn what to recommend, because the only value of a graphing calculator is that it's permitted on standardized tests -- the HP Prime is $165; the HP Prime software for your Android phone is $10.) > I was envious of my friend's 89, but my parents wouldn't pay the higher cost. Also sad. I read the manual for my TI-85 cover to cover; it taught me about polar coordinates and euclidean vectors before my school covered them. For a child interested in math, these calculators can be wonderful.