9 ms·
The Beautiful TI-108
- patrickg_zill 10y agoMust. not. search on eBay.
- subway 10y agoeBay? They're only $9 on Amazon..
- darkstar999 10y ago$5-8. I think you'll be fine.
- protomyth 10y agoIts nice, but for a programmer I loved the http://datamath.org/Sci/Modern/TI-34.htm http://datamath.org/Sci/Modern/TI-34.htm which was also solar powered and has lasted quite a long time since its still with me from my high school days.
- mrbill 10y agoI loved my TI-34 as well, recently bought one off eBay for old times sake.
- mauvehaus 10y agoIf you're looking for an upgrade and/or do low-level stuff, the TI-36X Solar handles binary, hexadecimal, and octal quite nicely (though you do start running out of digits if you're trying to convert big numbers to binary). It also has a number of logic functions that you may or may not find useful. Lately, I've been delighted by the equally competent fraction input/display system. I've been doing a lot of woodworking in US customary units, and the 36X beats the pants off of any other calculator I've owned[0]. Truly, it's a well thought-out little tool. So much so that when the display on mine pooped out, I went on eBay and found another one for 10 USD shipped. [0] If somebody wants to recommend a dedicated builder's calculator that handles fractional inches handily, I'm all ears, but I haven't owned one to this point. Calculating board-feet would be a nice plus.
- protomyth 10y agoI'll ask for sure but I remember the folks in the vocational program (finish carpentry) using one they bought at Home Depot.
- vvanders 10y agoOh man, I didn't know that existed and now I want one.
- protomyth 10y agoSaved me a heck of a lot of time in assembler class with the decimal -> hex -> oct -> binary conversions and direct hexadecimal entry. [edit: forgot about entering fractions directly - pretty good for a solar powered calculator]
- vvanders 10y agoYeah, only downside is that with 64-bit numbers these days things could get a bit painful to enter. All we need is someone to add bluetooth and let you send your clipboard over to it :).
- vvanders 10y agoI couldn't resist, just grabbed one off of ebay for $16, curse you for posting it!
- EvanAnderson 10y agoI love my TI-34. I still prefer to use it over an on-screen calculator when I'm doing reverse engineering or assembler programming. I got mine in 92 or 93 and it's still going strong.
- billforsternz 10y agoHow do you clear the memory? You'd think a fourth memory key is needed. Maybe you turn it off and on. Or maybe you go MRC then M-. I think if I was designing this I'd sacrifice the notoriously unnecessary and confusing % key.
- protomyth 10y agoHit the On key a couple of times. There is no real off unless you hold your finger on the solar panels. It says On / C for a button to awaken it.
- dfox 10y agoYou press MRC twice.
- khedoros1 10y agoFirst press of "MRC" recalls the memory value. Second press, immediately following the first, clears the memory.
- bambax 10y ago> What are the top dogs you’ve met? What are the best streets in your town? Who are the worst people you love? What are the ten best instructional videos in your discipline? What are the worst colors? What are the five best musical instruments? top best worst best worst best: what's with all this obsession with ranking?? I don't love many people but it would be impossible for me to rank them from "best" to "worst". I don't even know what it would mean to rank musical instruments. According to what criteria? If the best instrument is the piano, or the clarinet, can you have an orchestra of 100 pianos? Or 100 clarinets? And colors...? Ok maybe it's a joke and I don't get it. The problem with ranking from "worst" to "best" is it's uni-dimensional; as you add more axes it makes less and less sense. It takes a very narrow mind to even ask such a question.
- mikestew 10y agowhat's with all this obsession with ranking?? It said so right in the article: you learn what you care about. Best musical instrument? Easy, mandolin. Maybe the violin. Both are tuned in fifths, so scale and chord patterns are transferable up and down, and across the fretboard/fingerboard. Far better than that bastardized tuning of the guitar. Play a melody, play rhythm (on the mandolin) if you have to, though not as good a choice as a guitar. And don't get me started on all the keys of a piano. But that's what I care about in a musical instrument, mainly because I play one. YMMV, and it likely will if you don't play anything.
- bambax 10y agoYou're answering the question "what instruments do you like to play the most", which is different from "what are the 'best' instruments". The last question implies some kind of absolute value system, not just your own personal taste (even if you're the one making the ranking).
- chomp 10y agoI think you're thinking about this too hard. It's a subjective question, and will be colored by your experience.
- throwaway7645 10y agoThe HP-15c scientific calculator is a work of pure genius, beauty, and art along with its user manual. My dad has used his daily since ~1986 and demand was high enough to do a re-run in 2012 to make a few thousand more units at over $100 a pop. It uses RPN and can do matrices, calculus, statistics, and run programs. It is small, lightweight, excellent buttons, and the batteries last years. Engineers love them. No graphing, but it is amazing. TI is popular now, but at one point, only HP could be used for real math.
- iamacynic 10y agoit blew my mind that you can buy an hp-15c at best buy still. it's on the shelf sort of by the cameras. and before you start: when i feel like blowing 400 bucks on a time wasting and useless game console, you bet your ass i'm going to get shafted up close and personal whenever it tickles my fancy, i.e. at 8pm on a tuesday.
- throwaway7645 10y agoDidn't know they still had the 15c at Best Buy as that was a very limited run (yes I blew $100). Are you sure you didnt see the 12c? The 12c looks similar and is still stupidly popular in finance/accounting (it has a lot of pre-built business functions).
- iamacynic 10y agoi think you're right, it was the 12c.
- GenWintergreen 10y agoYup, quite a few of us still use a HP-12c. I have one at my work desk and personal desk; what an absolute beauty of a device.
- recursive 10y agoWhat?? When you feel like buying a game console, you're going to shafted at 8pm on a Tuesday? I don't understand that comment at all.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoI prefer the TI-92, the last of the 'big' calculators.
- busterarm 10y agoI wrote so much code on that damned thing that I didn't get schoolwork done. Was very sad when a classmate stole it from me.
- nightski 10y agoI still have my TI-89 from high school. It wasn't quite the TI-92, but I could still use it on most of the exams which the 92 was banned from. Love that calculator.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoA teardown of the components and why it's so reliable might be interesting.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kens 10y agoA teardown wouldn't be too interesting; it looks like the calculator is basically just one chip inside: http://www.datamath.org/BASIC/LCD_Modern/JPEG_TI-108.htm http://www.datamath.org/BASIC/LCD_Modern/JPEG_TI-108.htm Of course, it might be interesting to look inside the chip...
- nickpsecurity 10y agoNow you're thinking what I'm thinking. :) Although, I was interested in the PCB, too, since I figured it might be extra simple. That's a way to reduce cost and improve reliability vs overcomplicated components used in many modern designs. Really, really simple indeed.
- kalleboo 10y agoEven a modern "advanced" calculator like this 2-line model[^] is just a blob chip and keypad matrix. Calculators are all extremely simple until you get to the graphing ones that have external RAM or even flash memory. [^] http://datamath.org/Sci/Modern/JPEG_TI-30X-IIS_SWH2016.htm http://datamath.org/Sci/Modern/JPEG_TI-30X-IIS_SWH2016.htm
- cannam 10y agoA charming article. A Texas Instruments calculator (scientific, non-programmable) was practically my best friend at school in the 1980s, though I don't even know what model it was now. I'm not sure how to find out, as it seems that most model numbers were reused in a long series of different cases. I've always associated American brands with terrible ergonomics, but TI calculators had unusually pleasing buttons and layout. [Edit: Ah, uh, OK -- a few more minutes searching and I find "This calculator was developed and produced in Japan... A big advantage of the Toshiba design was the smooth and flawless keyboard." This is definitely the one, a TI-30SLR mkII: http://datamath.org/Sci/Modern/TI-30SLR_2.htm http://datamath.org/Sci/Modern/TI-30SLR_2.htm. Oh well. But it was much nicer to use than Casios of the time and the pleasant form carried over to the Galaxy series.]
- fotbr 10y agoI just found my old TI-86, TI-89, and HP-48G+ calculators. All of which were great, when I needed them. What I want to find is my old TI-30X Solar. Basic, bulletproof, and does everything I want a calculator to do without getting in it's own way. Anything more complicated than what it will do I'm likely to use other tools anyway.
- wickawic 10y agothe T-30s' two-line display is just so perfect. You can always see your last result as you are punching in your next calculation.
- techwizrd 10y agoI love my TI-84 SE and my TI-89. So much so, in fact, that I have a TI-89 on my phone. I always get fascinated looks when I pull it out and type out a complicated expression.
- agumonkey 10y agoI often use HP 48 emulators too, with great joy.
- agumonkey 10y agoOh god the cute nostalgia. Shape, buttons, plastic, colors. I sniped a Canon KS 100 desk calculator at a battery recycle bin, solar, with large buttons too. Couldn't resist. http://imgur.com/a/6wWUO http://imgur.com/a/6wWUO ps: I also found full on desk calculator (powered, with printout) from Triump-Adler.. funny. pps: HP RPN forever (twice) dup dup add
- sushid 10y agoThe author thinks the uglier design is lamentable, but it might have actually been done on purpose to discourage (accidental) theft, similar to how bowling shoes are hideous for the same reason. When I was in school, we used the TI-84s in classes. The classroom versions we had were these ugly yellow ones that were very easy to notice and very easy to distinguish from the regular gray/black ones.
- Yhippa 10y agoI loved programming so much in high school that I would routinely hack in TI-BASIC on these things as much as I could. It was an excellent language to cut your teeth on.
- derwiki 10y agoTI-BASIC and z80 assembly (TI-86) helped me get my programming fix during the day in high school since we had no programming classes.
- matt_kantor 10y agoSounds similar to my experience. My first exposure to programming was automating repetitive homework assignments and building simple games on the TI-83 Plus. Typing code using calculator buttons was pretty tedious.
- jkaptur 10y agoI first learned how to program by reading - nearly cover to cover - the TI-83 instruction manual. Fantastic.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- trey-jones 10y agoThis is a great piece of writing. I will seek to emulate.
- Yhippa 10y agoInverting the display of "5318008" on your seven-segment display was a rite of passage as a teenage boy in America in the 80's.
- Jun8 10y agoFor examples in other languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator_spelling#Other_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator_spelling#Other_lang...
- na85 10y agoWe used to routinely describe our school with 37047734. Then I got my HP graphing calculator in university and lesser (non-RPN) calculators have now been ruined for me.
- 18nleung 10y agoHow coincidental — I wrote a visual analysis of the TI-84 just a few weeks ago for my AP English class: https://nathanapenglish.blogspot.com/2017/02/tow-20-ti-84-visual.html https://nathanapenglish.blogspot.com/2017/02/tow-20-ti-84-vi...