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

• borgel 7y ago
  Approximately related, I find the NumWorks calculator [1] absolutely enthralling. It has a fairly beefy modern ARM Cortex M4 processor which runs an attractive GUI written in Python. And yes, you can write and run Python on the device. The hardware is very well described [2] in human terms and electrical schematics are available. Software is totally open source and the device can be easily reflashed. I'm not sure what I'd use it for, but I've had one on my birthday list for a while. There's a web simulator [3] online if you want to play with the OS. [1] https://www.numworks.com/ https://www.numworks.com/ [2] https://hackaday.com/2018/05/18/open-source-calculator-teaches-us-about-quality-documentation/ https://hackaday.com/2018/05/18/open-source-calculator-teach... (full disclosure, I wrote this) [3] https://www.numworks.com/simulator/ https://www.numworks.com/simulator/
  • frostburg 7y ago
    It's nice but as far as I know it doesn't have a real CAS despite its processing power.
    • Robotbeat 7y ago
      The TI-89 series' CAS is really impressive, particularly since it was released over 20 years ago with automatic equation formatting and a powerful unit subsystem. The price of this is worth it for the software alone.
      • frostburg 7y ago
        Yeah, it's basically the one from the TI-92 from 1995. I have a TI-89ti, but the contemporary HP 50g was better in some ways.
      • scottlocklin 7y ago
        It was/is amazing, and was actually released 31 years ago! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_(computer_algebra_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_(computer_algebra_syste... I used it as a DOS program well up into the late 90s on my HP200lx... One of the badass things about it, afaik, hasn't been reproduced in any CAS: the quasi-ncurses looking menu made it easy to use on limited hardware and you didn't have to waste time looking things up. I occasionally consider buying one of the TI calculators just to fool around with it again.
      • alanbernstein 7y ago
        It's still my favorite CAS for unit conversions, simple equation solving, checking integrals and derivatives. Part of that is surely the muscle memory of the buttons from using it daily for 6 years, most of that before I even had a phone. Now I have an emulator with a ti89 ROM on my phone. Best offline calculator app available.
    • exhilaration 7y ago
      If anyone, like myself, was wondering what a CAS is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_algebra_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_algebra_system
    • jointpdf 7y ago
      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 tutorial videos, practice and diagnostic problems) would be really powerful. In fact I became temporarily obsessed with the idea of creating this sort of calculator >10 years ago when taking multivariate calculus and struggling to visualize or understand the problems. Yes, you could always use a computer/tablet/phone, but as someone who struggles with ADD, there is a lot to be said for using a constrained learning tool, so that the versatile (read: distracting) devices can be put out of sight during dedicated study time.
      • Avamander 7y ago
        I seriously hope someone puts all these tools together in a single package that doesn't force you to get distracted with programming, I don't want to really do more than for example enter "y=x^2" and press "Graph", advanced features can left for later. Kinda like how I don't find a phone a calculator but know it can do so, the default isn't calculating numbers.
      • mhh__ 7y ago
        Potentially, although a cortex-m4 might not be able to run it quickly or at all (Linux?)
      • colejohnson66 7y ago
        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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_(software)
    • anchpop 7y ago
      What does this prevent it from doing? Would it be useful at a Calc 1-2 level?
  • yarrel 7y ago
    It's a great project, but it isn't Open Source (and definitely isn't Free Software) due to the NonCommercial restriction on its license. Creative Commons recommend against using their licenses, including NC-SA, for software - https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-comm...
    • borgel 7y ago
      Yes, this came up before as well. It was a fine distinction that I wasn't aware of.
    • kragen 7y ago
      Thanks for pointing this out. This is a fundamental and major distinction that can easily be missed—the noncommercial use restriction means that it's tied to this vendor and the people who want to spend their nights and weekends enhancing the vendor's profitability. It makes it really difficult to form a community.
  • deleted 7y ago
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• brewdad 7y ago
  So long as TI (and other) graphing calculators are the only approved calculators for the SAT and ACT tests, they will continue to sell. For students with college aspirations, purchasing one is mandatory.
  • souprock 7y ago
    Fortunately, that isn't the case. For the SAT, you may use "All scientific calculators" and "All four-function calculators (not recommended)".
• 5trokerac3 7y ago
  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.
  • gnulinux 7y ago
    When I was taking my AP finals, the school I'll attend them in gave me a list of models they will accept. My school does NOT have AP system, so I had to take it in a different school (which is the only school supports it in my country), thus I had 0 leverage. I didn't have one of the calculators they allow (some other Casio model), I called them and they told me I'll be rejected to take the exam. I had to buy another calculator just to take the final. Even though it's almost 100% same as the calculator I had. Miserable.
    • bby 7y ago
      damn bro
    • fwip 7y ago
      That sucks. In my experience, kids who didn't have them were offered loaners for the duration of the test.
      • gnulinux 7y ago
        They told me that's a possibility but (1) I didn't wanna be stuck with a foreign/sucky calculator in my Calculus BC test since it has parts that require you to use a calculator and (2) they said there is no guarantee, so I didn't wanna take my chances (what if I'm late and they're out of all extra calculators)
  • smolder 7y ago
    The textbook racket is bigger in dollars and just as exploitative. Follett bought a company I worked for. One of their first actions was to shut down the business of making high quality, affordable alternative teaching content and tools, greatly inconveniencing the professors who had been bold enough to use the product.
• advisedwang 7y ago
  This article suggests the basis for the price is a result of lobbying to make calculators manadatory for certain tests. This rings true to me - even TI's comparison page (https://education.ti.com/en/product-resources/graphing-course-comparison https://education.ti.com/en/product-resources/graphing-cours...) has a section on test requirements but not on actual product features! However the argument for why this might collapse seems to be that technological change - touchscreens, phones, tablets, apps etc - means that institutions will be more willing to break from TI's grip. I don't believe this is likely. From the point of view of those institutions, saving student's money isn't a high priority. They are more likely to care about how a single use-device makes cheating hard. Not to mention the fact that despite the article's love of convergence, physical calculators are genuinely much easier to use for calculating than a touch screen device.
• jedberg 7y ago
  This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily added. As long as that is the case, they will win, because the test companies don't want to deal with people having internet access and notes. Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break out of, maybe things will change. But until then, they're going to require devices without internet and note taking. Edit: Since everyone is replying "you can store notes!", yes, you can, but most test proctors know about the programs and make you clear your memory before a test.
  • soperj 7y ago
    TI-83's had a restore function, where you could just restore all deleted programs. Not that we had to use them... to quote my gr.12 math teacher - "You're not allowed to have programs on your graphing calculator, but they're not going to check, so you might as well." He wouldn't allow us to use the graphing calculator for his exams though, only the final.
  • eurleif 7y ago
    > no ability to store notes What? It can run custom programs. Of course it can store notes.
    • jedberg 7y ago
      That's why I said "easily". Yeah you can store programs, but they're really hard to write, and most test proctors know how to clear the memory on a TI calculator, which they require you to do before a test.
      • melq 7y ago
        Anecdotal, and I have been out of school for 5 years or so, but I never once had a teacher or proctor clear the memory on my calculator. Also, storing notes on a TI calc is trivial, you don't need any programming knowledge to do so.
• adrianpike 7y ago
  Timely thing - I actually dusted off my TI-89 over the weekend doing taxes. There was something about a focused tool with a physical number that I was really desiring. I have fond memories of tapping around on it in high school. Turns out it sucks, and I wound up just buying one of the $5 solar basic calculators and was way happier. I can't wait for this monopoly to get blown up.
  • mindcrime 7y ago
    Opposite story here... I still use my TI-89 (or my even older TI-86) from time to time, even when sitting in front of a PC that has R, Maxima, Gnuplot, Axiom, Sage, etc. installed. There is something about the format of those old TI calculators that I find oddly appealing for whatever reason. That said, when I don't have a hand-held calculator handy, I usually just fire up bc or R when I need to do some quick calculations.
    • fireattack 7y ago
      What is bc?
      • mindcrime 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bc_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bc_(programming_language)
      • zosterops 7y ago
        An arbitrary precision calculator language. It can be used as a scripting language or from an interactive shell. It is part of POSIX so you are running Linux you probably have it installed.
      • jumelles 7y ago
        If you're using bc for the first time, be aware that you almost certainly want to run bc -l -- otherwise no decimals will be displayed and you'll get whole number answers to everything. The -l flag changes that behavior to instead use 20 decimal points.
• RustyBucket 7y ago
  I am genuinely impressed how capitalism can solve a problem that never existed before they started solving it and then forcing that particular and often quite expensive solution on you. Never needed calculator until advanced statistics where calculations became monotonous and no longer instructive. Before that, actually, use of calculators was explicitly banned both in school and uni.
• roland35 7y ago
  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 square-z for a fun tetris-like game
  • fwip 7y ago
    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.
    • WorldMaker 7y ago
      In High School, I recall that I built a random maze generator in TI-BASIC, added a really basic movable sprite, and slowly added some very simple/dumb RPG mechanics to push it towards becoming a terrible roguelike. (One of those lost HS projects it would be fun to revisit but the code was lost when the calculator itself suffered a factory resetting memory/power glitch due to a static electricity discharge event in some College move or another.)
    • apple4ever 7y ago
      That's what I did! I fell in love with the Z80.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • cpwright 7y ago
    I agree that they are super durable. My kids are now using the same calculator that I used in high school in the late 90s.
  • alxmdev 7y ago
    Graphing calculators weren't part of any math classes I took, but my first experience with programming was TI-BASIC on a used TI-86. Programming a PC wasn't really an option, but the small calculator felt personal and a lot less intimidating. It had an obvious place to start from and included all the software you needed! Of course I mostly used it to play games other people wrote, so much that I eventually had to get an 89 for the better TI-BASIC, TIGCC and all the software people made with it. I wish I learned about the GP32 sooner.
• Phillipharryt 7y ago
  Interesting that the TI-84 is mentioned so much. I am pretty sure this article is making a big deal out of nothing. I think this is a case of journalists reading "graphing calculator" and assuming the 84 is being used. SAT's allow CAS calculators, the Inspire is a pretty impressive specialist calculator and makes algebraic expressions incredibly easy. Any sensible student should be taking one into the exam or they're just putting themselves at a disadvantage. I can't speak for what calculator students ARE buying, but they are allowed to buy and use far better ones, the 84 might be overpriced but just don't buy it. You wouldn't care if the Apple II is currently overpriced, no one should be using one, so it shouldn't be a big deal that the 84 is overpriced, just move on.
  • derekp7 7y ago
    If what you are saying is true, then there is no way that TI would be able to maintain a $100+ price point on a $25 calculator. So that itself is evidence that the TI-84 is a requirement in many student situations. Even if something else can be used on exams, if you don't have the calculator that the text books are written to, or that the teacher knows how to teach against, you are at a major disadvantage.
    • Phillipharryt 7y ago
      You can't use the pricing as evidence it's necessary. It's possible it's both unnecessary and overpriced. All that matters is TI deems it to be a profitable price-point. They might be selling to mostly misinformed or confused buyers.
• ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Back in the Android 2.0 days, a guy had a set of TI emulators which, when loaded with the ROM downloadable directly off of TI's website, perfectly replicated several well-known TI calculator models. Think the one I used got shut down, but there's a number of newer ones: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89Emu https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89... I already owned a TI calculator at the time, it was just nice not to carry it around. TI probably would still make good money selling an official version.
  • snrji 7y ago
    For studying it would be fine, but for taking exams no way the instructors can let you in with your phone.
    • ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      I know this is a crazy thought: But why should every student need to buy their own calculator for testing? In a given class period, what, 10% of a school's population is in a math class? The school should be providing adequate calculators for test-taking, but of course, that would cut TI's income by a factor of 10. (It's worth noting that "an X for every student" mentality really only is beneficial to whoever is selling X.)
• jordache 7y ago
  HP 48g FTW! Seriously considered it's IR data sharing capabilities with other classmates... imagine beaming messages across the room!
  • cbm-vic-20 7y ago
    This is the correct answer. I'm still sore over someone stealing my HP-48G near the end of my last year of university. Though I'm looking forward to getting a SwissMicros HP-16 clone for my embedded projects... https://www.swissmicros.com/ https://www.swissmicros.com/
  • takk309 7y ago
    I had an HP 48g for some time and I loved the feeling of the buttons. It did take a long while to get used to the reverse polish notation. Sadly that calculator died on me. I still use an app on my phone as the go to calculator.
  • daotoad 7y ago
    I had an HP28c ( https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp28c.htm https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp28c.htm ) that saw me through high-school calculus and undergraduate work. In it's day, it was a revolutionary product. I never got to play with the data sharing stuff, since none of my classmates had such an expensive or geeky piece of kit (I got mine used, but it was still expensive).
  • sliken 7y ago
    Heh, and keep imagining after you get one. The range is extremely poor, even an inch is tough. It's so limited there's an arrow on the calculator so you now EXACTLY how to align the calculators for a transmission. No way a reflection is going to work.
• arthurcolle 7y ago
  I picked up the relatively new HP Prime in the last 6 months and the ability to do 3D graphics with a touchscreen is amazing and really gives a great appreciative for the underlying functions you are plotting. Would have loved to have something like this in my advanced math classes. So much better than the pretty terrible TI series by comparison.
  • arthurcolle 7y ago
    * appreciative => appreciation, if a mod/@dang can edit and then delete this comment. I hate typos. Thanks.
• droithomme 7y ago
  Casio makes several graphing calculators that are cheaper and faster than the TIs. $70 gets you the top color one that can run Python programs and is test compliant - it has a flashing test mode that disables all user memory. But the $35 b&w one works just as well for tests. So low income parents can get a good graphing calculator that does it all for around 1/4 the price of the recommended TIs. Students fear Casio because the button pressing procedures are slightly different than TI and TI also has cleverly captured the textbook market, with TI specific instructions only found in many courses, textbooks, and teacher materials. Below $35, there's $15 Casio models that can do numerical integration, solve equations, and find roots, enabling students to do most all things required for say AP Calculus exams easily, and the couple of questions that involve looking at the graph can usually be done by interpreting the critical points. One can get a 5 on the AP Calculus with a $15 calculator, though a couple questions will be slower and that might lose a few points, but not many because there's only a few questions like that. Most calculator required questions on various tests don't need the graphing capability at all even though a graphic calculator is recommended for the test. Serious bad-asses can also take calculator required tests with no calculator and attempt to still get the highest score, and some manage to do this. College Board requires you to sign a waiver when you do this since the test center will normally lend you some random calculator and wish you the best.
  • zelos 7y ago
    Casio was the standard graphing calculator over here in the U.K. back when I did A levels in the 90s.
  • ars 7y ago
    The Casio fx-115ES PLUS is one of the best (non graphing) and is only $16.
    • droithomme 7y ago
      Yes, that's the specific model I was thinking of and which I use most often these days. It's really great for its price range. Only feature I miss on it is being able to do simple macro programming which I had in a $12 compact Casio scientific from around 1988 that was my favorite calculator.
• sct202 7y ago
  How is there not a giant 2nd hand marketplace of TI graphing calculators for super cheap? Like after 30 years of basically producing a functionally identical product that few people need after college, there should be cheap used graphing calculators everywhere.
  • joezydeco 7y ago
    There is. I bought my son's TI-84 on eBay for 1/3 of the retail price. There are plenty in desk drawers of graduated kids, but they're also pretty beat up. In particular, the display seems to be built very cheaply and prone to damage.
    • Invictus0 7y ago
      That hasn't been my experience. I've had my TI-84 for 9 years and that thing took quite a beating. Still works perfectly today: can't say that for all the phones I've had in that time.
      • joezydeco 7y ago
        While trying to select one out of the multitudes on eBay, a significant number had this "smudge" on the LCD. And they all look similar: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fyQAAOSwzahdiVGQ/s-l1600.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fyQAAOSwzahdiVGQ/s-l1600.jpg
    • analog31 7y ago
      Same here. My son's first one got lost / stolen, so we just got a used one from eBay.
  • ChickeNES 7y ago
    Agreed, I've picked up 83's and 84's for less than $10, and have seen many more at pawn shops and thrift stores
    • reilly3000 7y ago
• qubex 7y ago
  I am ambivalent about using either MathWorks on my iPad or iPhone and my HP Prime. As far as I’m concerned, to be a valid competitor for my attention the solution must have a Computer Algebra System (CAS). Something that can merely manipulate numbers through various forms of arithmetic is far short of what should actually be expected.
  • naikrovek 7y ago
    The HP Prime has CAS. Maybe you need to update your firmware or something.
• JohnBooty 7y ago
  It's a shame we've standardized on something so ancient and limited, but we'll be losing something when we give up on the standardization we've achieved. At least if we accept that basic graphing capability is crucial to high school and undergrad maths. I'm picturing a high school math teacher trying to support 20-30 kids running 20-30 different BYOD'd devices... multiplied by 5-6 periods of teaching per day. Even if one app becomes dominant, teachers will still need to keep up with updates. We can complain that teachers are technology-resistant at times, but have you ever spoken to a teacher? They're typically quite overworked already. Generally they take a lot of work home with them. The thought of adding anything additional to their workload should really give us pause. I would hope some sort of de facto standardized replacement emerges. Like that free Desmos app mentioned in the article. That's not a perfect solution (students still need devices) but it certainly lowers the bar for entry. I'm sure a budget $50 (new) tablet would run it just fine. And there are plenty of older devices on the used market that can do it. Thing is, BYOD is still really problematic. Some students will have an advantage over others. And there's the non-trivial matter of making sure that students aren't accessing cellular data during tests. Ideally schools would purchase cheap tablets with no cellular modems and slap them into ruggedized cases. Then lend them to the kids or at least sell them to the kids at nominal cost.
  • derekp7 7y ago
    That's why standards shouldn't focus on the device and model number, but on minimum capabilities and user interface. So even if a given calculator supports various other functionality and advanced programmability, as long as you can switch it into a "standard UI" mode (which defines what various buttons do, the programming language, screen output, etc) then there shouldn't be a problem For test taking, you can even add boot verification -- you can run whatever you want on it, but to get the green "Verified" light to come on it would have to boot into a signed image.
    • JohnBooty 7y ago
      As other commenters have pointed out, it's as much about limiting the capabilities of these devices as it is about anything else. Teachers don't want students to have unlimited power to solve equations, etc. They want students to do some of these things manually, for learning purposes. You don't necessarily want your students using whatever top-of-the-line devices/software that can make some of the coursework utterly trivial. Is this solvable in software? Sure! Students could run tablets running approved calculator software, and teachers could disable/enable features at-will at test time. This would of course rely upon students running some sort of verified software/hardware combo. Has anybody solved this particular challenge yet? Not to my knowledge. I think they may need to think about this, if they want to unseat the TI (a worthy goal)
• iguy 7y ago
  I'm surprised these are allowed in exams at all. Can someone who wrote such exams tell me what sort of questions were asked for which graphing was useful? Clearly there would be no point in asking many curve-sketching questions. In teaching, I can see the utility of sometimes being able to ask the computer. But ideally not a cheap computer from the 90s. And of sometimes being forced to do without. But in exams, where standardization matters, why not restrict to basic 4-function calculators?
  • noer 7y ago
    I may be misremembering, but I want to say I was allowed to have a calculator (a TI-83 Plus) when I took the SAT & ACT in 2003.
• jabl 7y ago
  Is there (non TI funded) research showing that graphing calculators are actually helpful in high school level math education? I'm somewhat sceptical. I had a ti-85 in high school, but in university graphing calculators were verboten (basic scientific calculators were allowed). And I don't think they would have been useful, even if they would have been allowed. My university experience sort of mirrors my "real world" experience as well. If I need something non-trivial, I have access to a computer with python/R/Julia/Matlab/octave/mathematica/take-your-pick that blows those graphing calculators out of the water. If not, a plain scientific calculator is good enough. I've literally never thought "if I only had my trusty ti-85".
  • magicalhippo 7y ago
    I had the same at uni, no calculator allowed at any of the non-stat classes. You had to memorize the table or rules for a few special sine/cosine values, but that was it. Then my gf had to take some extra math classes for a program she wanted to take, and I got to help her as she had been weak at math in high-school. At just about every problem she got all confused looking at her graphing calculator, and I'd ask "why are you looking at that thing for?" "Well, I'm trying to find the button to compute the answer". After a little while like that I simply took her calculator away. Took a couple of weeks but she finally got an understanding of the math. In the end it turned out she is actually quite good at math, and passed the courses with high marks.
  • willis936 7y ago
    It’s a UI like any other. After many years of work on my TI-84, it’s still the fastest way for me to perform arithmetic and medium complexity evaluations. Anything heftier and I go to wolfram, matlab, or pen and paper.
• japhyr 7y ago
  I've been a math and science teacher for the last 25 years. I have always told students they could use whatever device worked for them, and I have alway been very clear that the only reason TI calculators are so prevalent is because the test-taking companies require them. The only time I have encouraged their use is for students who are going to take a test that requires them, and even then they should only use them enough to know how they work. There are much better tools for learning and exploring many areas of mathematics. For students who don't have a specific device they wanted to use, I steered most of them over the past few years to https://www.desmos.com/calculator https://www.desmos.com/calculator.
  • UncleSlacky 7y ago
    GeoGebra is quite widely used (at least in France, AFAIK): https://www.geogebra.org/ https://www.geogebra.org/
    • read_if_gay_ 7y ago
      Same in Germany and Austria in my experience. Probably a European thing?
  • computator 7y ago
    I never heard of Desmos until now; it looks like an outstanding educational tool with pages and pages of exercises, demos, and aids for teaching math. But I can't fathom how they make money. Their "about" page lists 29 high-qualification employees, and they're located in a high-cost city (San Francisco). If the loaded cost of each employee is $150K, they'd have to make $4.3 million a year just to pay salaries and overhead. I can't find a single item on their website that has a price listed: everything is free! They don't even have ads. They talk about partnerships and such, but I can't figure out how they charge money and what they charge for. Public schools are stingy when it comes to learning aids; teaching math is not in the same category like spending for a football stadium. There are 56 million elementary, middle, and high schools in the U.S.[1]. If they charged $1 per student in some partnership deal, they have to sign up at least 7% of the entire U.S. student body just to meet payroll and overhead. Don't get me wrong, their software looks absolutely wonderful, but I don't understand the business case. [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372#PK12_enrollment https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372#PK12_enroll...
• mnm1 7y ago
  I had a Casio graphing calculator in the 90s and while it was ridiculed and I was made fun of sometimes by other students, it did the job just fine. If the school requires a certain brand, they should pay for it themselves or stop being such entitled assholes. Many students and their parents don't have $100 to throw away unnecessary. Especially now that there is undoubtedly free software to do the same thing and much more. I inherited the calculator from my big sister and my parents were barely able to afford it. Schools need to take into account the feasibility of their requirements when making such ludicrous demands. Or pay for it themselves. Period. Playing into this stupid monopoly was ridiculous in the 90s. It's frankly just a lesson in the stupidity of administrators and teachers today.
• localhost 7y ago
  Seems like there are many options available that improve the accessibility of the TI-89 (and as a parent of a middle and a high-schooler I’ve been frustrated by this as much as the next parent): - You can go to eBay - Here’s a used listing at $29 [1] - You can go to Alibaba and purchase what is likely a knock-off at $20-$50 for a minimum order of 100 units (perhaps an arbitrage opportunity for an enterprising student? :) [2] I also came across an interesting article that calls into question the ability of TI to copyright the keyboard layout which cites Lotus v. Borland and Oracle v. Google decisions [3] [1] https://www.ebay.com/p/1800843141?thm=3000 https://www.ebay.com/p/1800843141?thm=3000 [2] https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/ti-89-calculator.html?searchweb=Y& https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/ti-89-calculator.html?searc... [3] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnxeqb/one-reason-why-youre-still-paying-120-for-a-ti-89-calculator-copyright https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnxeqb/one-reason-why-you...
• deckar01 7y ago
  > was first released in 2004 for around $120 ... still sells for nearly the same price [$102.99]... One analyst placed the cost to produce a TI-84 Plus at around $15-20, meaning TI sells it for a profit margin of nearly 50% — far above the electronics industry’s average margin of 6.7%. Wouldn't that be a 81% - 85% margin? (gross profit / revenue) Edit: I finally got through the paywalled article they were quoting. It says "over 50%". Retail distributors take a margin, so that is probably where the uncertainty is coming from.
  • melq 7y ago
    I was wondering the same. Also annoyed that an article about math/calculators called 120 and ~103 'nearly the same'... thats ~16% less!
• bsznjyewgd 7y ago
  I feel really out of the loop here. I went through a pretty standard curriculum in the 2000s and have never owned or used a graphing calculator (aside from the few times the teacher demonstrated our school's TI-83s in class in high school). What are they used for? [And while I used a bog standard scientific calculator regularly in science/stats classes, I'm pretty sure my calculus classes disallowed calculators and only stuck to magic numbers that were easy to manually calculate with. It might even be plausible to go through a whole math curriculum without a calculator apart from whatever stats/applied classes you're required to take.]
  • kmbriedis 7y ago
    Same here. I have taken many Calculus and Algebra classes, SAT Math level 2 and have no clue why these graphing calculators are necessarily...
  • monocasa 7y ago
    > I'm pretty sure my calculus classes disallowed calculators and only stuck to magic numbers that were easy to manually calculate with That's the key. There's two schools of thought that have their pros and cons. 1) using magic number means no calculator, but students can get by searching for clean answers and might not truly understand the topic. 2) using real world examples grounds the curriculum in reality so there isn't a gap applying it, and you're not used to the cleanliness in the future, but might be a bit opaque in the short term. Both sides have pretty good arguments why they do better than the other teaching a number sense to students about the various transformations.
    • afiori 7y ago
      I have a strong bias towards the first school, the point being that opaque calculation are simply harder to reason about. I also agree that handling complex computations is a relevant skill, but then what you need to learn is the mental book keeping of where you are and what you need to do that you need to learn. The only case where calculators are truly useful is in sciences, where numbers are just a tool to scientific insight. (moreover in math if you need trigonometric tables chances are that you are going to learn better math by keeping symbolic answers)
• hnruss 7y ago
  I learned programming on a TI 83+ while ignoring math lectures in high school. I grew up to become a full-time software developer, so IMO that $100 calculator was money well spent. I also learned some stuff about math and graphs on the TI 83+, but I haven't used much of that knowledge in my work.
• takk309 7y ago
  I still have and use my TI-84+ that I purchased when I started college. As a professional I use it here and there but rarely for anything that actually needs more than a basic scientific calculator. During college (civil engineering) I used many of the more powerful functions like matrix math stuff. In high school, I don't think I used a graphing calculator once. Just doesn't seem necessary to teach geometry and algebra 2 in my mind.
  • DickingAround 7y ago
    Yea, I loved by TI91 (I think that was it's designation); very durable, long battery life, a real work horse. I still have it. Don't remember how to to anything on it. The thing is, a full computer, python notebook, and keyboard are quite an advancement over that even. I get that $100 is high, but it's in the range of other BS like always-new textbooks. My only regret about these calculators is that they really are old tech now. In almost any industry or research we don't use calculators almost even, we always use full laptops. Kids should train on the best tech we use in the field, that's the laptop.
• K2h 7y ago
  HP-41C (non graphing) was used on the space shuttle. I thought it was inline as a failsafe in case of the loss of one or part of the main computers but I can't find that from a quick search. here((1) is a quick article on the HP-41C used at NASA (1) https://www.hpmuseum.net/pdf/KeyNotes_1981_Jan_Vol5No1_17pages_OCR.pdf https://www.hpmuseum.net/pdf/KeyNotes_1981_Jan_Vol5No1_17pag...
• melq 7y ago
  As a reformed math major (that is, I've forgotten all my schooling), I think its worth debating whether or not there is even any value in having middle school / high school students use these calculators in the first place, let alone requiring them. In my hastily formed opinion, I think students might be better off learning without them. What does the average 7th grader need a CAS for?
  • vkou 7y ago
    Nothing. There's not a single operation that you learn between grades 7 and 12 that requires anything more than a scientific, non-graphic calculator to perform.
    • Avamander 7y ago
      Indeed, however a non-graphing calculator and a non-graphing calculator have differences, I personally would not want to live without calculation history and enter-calculation-then-calculate system (instead of the one where every symbol you press instantly applies it to the number you have on screen, I have no clue how these two are officially called). Point being that we'd end up with a certain list of allowed calculators even if they're not graphing because they're simply not the same and some are much faster and nicer to use.
      • afiori 7y ago
        A friend of mine had a old reverse polish notation calculator at home. I would like a resurgence of them :)
    • RandallBrown 7y ago
      You don't think graphing equations is an important function for any math done by kids in grades 7-12?
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • 7y ago
• __sy__ 7y ago
  Former math TA* here. What if the pb isn't the $100 barebone calculator but the way/medium by which math is currently instructed in the U.S.? To this day, we're still teaching math with pen & paper, and require students to memorize concepts like how to differentiate functions of the form 1/x, x^2...etc. To test proficiency, well we give pen & paper tests and forbid most notes, but we still provide you a calculator because it'd be almost dumb not to. But given the prior rules about no notes, the calculator that doesn't have fancy note storage & programming wins, even if it costs $100. But my recollection as a student is that math didn't entirely click until I started playing with Excel and later with Jupyter notebooks. Honestly, nothing quite like coding along a spam filter from scratch to really understand the basic principles at play behind Bayes' theorem. In summary, I didn't love math in the pen&paper contest, but absolutely loved it when applied using a computer and some visualizations...etc. Based on my TA'ing experience, I am willing to bet most kids feel the same way. Mathematicians have long moved away from using abacus; maybe it's time our education does too. Context: Former college TA for linear-algebra/vector-calculus/differential-equations.
  • lopmotr 7y ago
    > differentiate functions of the form 1/x, x^2...etc. To test proficiency, well we give pen & paper tests and forbid most notes, Maybe it's a US thing, but that sounds horrible. When I was a teacher, we usually allowed notes and always gave them the differentiation formulas as well as every other formula they might need. Why are you guys getting them to memorize a bunch of specific facts that they'll forget after the exam? You don't learn math by reciting formulas to yourself the way you might learn vocabulary in a foreign language. I'm not even sure you learn languages very well that way either.
    • __sy__ 7y ago
      I completely agree. By the way, I'm not convinced it's just a U.S. thing. I went to high-school in France for 1.5 years. I also have some exposure to Japanese high-school math. In both contexts, rot memorization of derivation techniques was at play.
    • SamReidHughes 7y ago
• mark-r 7y ago
  Get used to it, kids. Wait until you see the price tags on those required college textbooks.
  • dheera 7y ago
    Buy the international editions, buy used from graduating seniors who are trying to get rid of their stuff ASAP, or buy the ebook versions. Oppenheim and Wilsky's Signals and Systems is $100+ in stores in the US, <$30 on eBay, $5 for Kindle.
• lopmotr 7y ago
  I used to be a math teacher, but somehow I don't know what the use of a graphing calculator is. Why do students need them compared to a basic scientific calculator? In one school system I taught in, you didn't even need any calculator at all for physics because we graded them entirely on their working and explanation. They didn't need to produce numerical answers. A calculus course I taught effectively didn't need calculators either, although they were allowed, but pretty much no use.
• mongol 7y ago
  There used to be so many cool gadgets with lots of buttons. Now there are almost no buttons. I miss the tactile feedback.
• vincent-toups 7y ago
  I had an HP48 throughout high school, college and grad school and I still look down on the TI people.
  • cbm-vic-20 7y ago
    I think that was actually a bullet point on the side of the box. Features: * ... * IR/Serial Port * Look down on TI peons. * Removable Storage * ...
• manav 7y ago
  I still have fond memories of my TI-89 because it could do symbolic manipulation. Eventually it got banned in our classes.
• zosterops 7y ago
  The article mentioned that: > In its annual reports, TI wraps calculator revenue into a larger category (“Other”), which includes additional products. Since 2014, this category has seen a 35% decline, from $2.2B to $1.4B. But didn't mention the fact that "Other" accounts for only 3% of TI's revenue. http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor_relations/annual_reports.html http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor_relations/annual_report...
• callesgg 7y ago
  Why would you ever use a calculator except for tests in school where you are not allowed to have equipment that can do all the stuff that a modern device allows you to do..
• bitxbit 7y ago
  I wouldn’t even mind the monopoly if they sold them at a reasonable margin which I imagine is something close to $20. More importantly, we need to change the curriculum to allow students to use softwares such as Mathematica.
• inamberclad 7y ago
  The good thing about the Ti-83 and 84 is that they're nearly standard. Want to know how to do x? Someone nearby will know.
• packetpirate 7y ago
  These teachers need to know about WolframAlpha...
• DanTheManPR 7y ago
  I've used the same TI-89 since I started my engineering coursework in 2004. It's a very useful piece of everyday kit for those of us who need to do basic algebra and calculus on a day to day basis. In particular, I find it indespensible when just doing desktop brain work with pencil and paper. I'm sure using a smartphone would probably work just as well, but I like buttons. What bums me out is that there hasn't been any attempt to release a version that slims down the whole package, without revamping much of the actual capabilities of the device.
• tfolbrecht 7y ago
  My question is how has the second hand market not killed it already?
  • steve_adams_86 7y ago
    I once helped a girlfriend move and while going through her stuff to organize it, found 3 different scientific calculators that all cost over $100 that she had no intention of keeping. She wasn't an idiot, she acquired them over years of post secondary education and has several degrees - I think people just don't give a damn about them once they're done with them. They disappear into drawers, then another is needed for another course, so they go get another. Then one day they move, realize they have 3, and promptly forget an hour later after stuffing them into an odds and ends box that'll sit in a closet for another 5 or 10 years.
• 4gotunameagain 7y ago
  > The company established partnerships with big textbook companies that integrated TI-specific exercises (complete with screenshots of buttons) into classroom curricula. It sought approval for standardized test use from administrators like the College Board. And every time a competing tech innovation came along, it lobbied to maintain its perch atop the parabola. Absolutely disgusting
  • bsder 7y ago
    And absolutely killed the absolute best engineering calculator to ever exist--the HP48SX. I still use all my HP calculators from the 80's and early 90's. It's all about the keyboard. I can enter enormous streams of numbers and operators and never miss.
    • Ishmaeli 7y ago
      RPN FTW.
    • yitchelle 7y ago
      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 product.
      • bsder 7y ago
        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.
        • yitchelle 7y ago
          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.
• KoftaBob 7y ago
  The $100 calculator era has long been a racket and blatant collusion between test taking companies (College Board, ACT, etc) and Texas Instruments. Same goes for universities forcing students to buy the latest edition of textbooks, despite the new version having very few differences.
• seanalltogether 7y ago
  This article reminds me of that famous video of Steve Jobs talking about how sales & marketing guys take over a tech company and engineering gets pushed out. TI has no monetary incentive to make these calculators better, the only way for them to make more money is to aggressively sell to schools and lobby for more favorable legislation around their product.
• netmonk 7y ago
  droid48 or any hp vintage calculators available on ebay are doing the same job, first solution for free on android devices second for some bucks
• netmonk 7y ago
  All thoses peoples talking about TI or Casio as real calculators, while real fun was hp48. TI or Casio were real piece of shit, Reverse polish is the true path. Many of my generation (+40) learnt assembly, language machine and coding with this model (not even talking about hp41C or hp28S for the oldest of us). Long live to Saturn, and sysinternal. I often buy refurbished one on ebay or other site, i actually own 6 hp48s, i hope it will be enough for my offspring.
• kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  > it wasn’t until 1990, when Texas Instruments released the TI-81, that graphing calculators really began to hit the mainstream. Casio FX-7000G was well established before TI came onto the scene.
• natrik 7y ago
  In regards to the rest of the posts stating its because of lack of functionality rather than functionality, why not design and write tests (math tests specifically) so that no calculator is required. Core Calculus, Stats, etc. concepts are testable without exact numerical precision. Substitute variables if needed, or have end results allowable in non reduced formats.
  • takeda 7y ago
    I guess the only thing good in it is that parents (and maybe even grandparents?) can pass them on to younger generation like a family heirloom, and child won't even get anything outdated.
• madhadron 7y ago
  Good riddance. There's no reason to have a graphing calculator in high school math. A four function to speed up arithmetic? A scientific so you don't have to use tables to look up values of trig functions? Fine. A graphing calculator for calculus? If you need it, you missed the point of calculus. Plus there's no reason tests can't be set up so you don't need a calculator at all, which makes the whole discussion really simple.
• filmgirlcw 7y ago
  Man, I used to cheat on so many tests with my TI-89. I had a TI-86 and then the 89 came out and I convinced my mom I needed it for AP Calculus in 11th grade, but really I just wanted to play better games and have an easier way to cheat on my Physics exams. Edited to add: I’m of the opinion every teen deserves to go through the process of programming hacks to hide their cheat sheets on their calculators. It’s a right of passage.
• ChuckMcM 7y ago
  One of the things I picked up was a Numworks calculator (https://www.numworks.com/ https://www.numworks.com/) which makes the technical specs available. I've written my own firmware to play around with calculator UIs for fun. They don't do a particularly good job with buttons though, and a nicer screen would be a bonus. All in all though, a calculator you program in python is pretty cool.
• gautamcgoel 7y ago
  Somewhat unrelated: I really enjoyed this recent NYT article about how schoolkids in Japan master arithmetic by learning how to use an abacus: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/world/asia/japan-abacus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/world/asia/japan-abacus.h...
• westurner 7y ago
  For $100, you can buy a Pinebook with an 11" or 14" screen, a multitouch trackpad, gigabytes of storage, WiFi, a keyboard without a numpad, and an ARM processor. On this machine, you can create reproducible analyses with JupyterLab; do arithmetic with Python; work with multidimensional arrays with NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, xarray, Dask; do machine learning with Statsmodels, Scikit-learn, Dask-ML, TPOT; create books of these notebooks (containing code and notes (in Markdown, which easily transformed to HTML) and LaTeX equations) with jupyter-book, nbsphinx, git + BinderHub; store the revision history of your discoveries; publish what you've discovered and learned to public or private git repositories; and complete graded exercises with nbgrader. But the task is to prepare for a world of mental arithmetic, no validation, no tests, no reference materials, and no search engines; and CAS (Computer Algebra Systems) systems like SymPy and Sage are not allowed. On this machine, you can run write code, write papers, build spreadsheets and/or Jupyter notebooks, run physical simulations, explore the stars, and play games and watch videos. Videos like: Khan Academy videos and exercises that you can watch and do, with validation, until you've achieved mastery and move on to the next task on your todo.txt list. But the task is to preserve your creativity and natural curiosity despite the compulsory education system's demands for quality control and allocative efficiency; in an environment where drama and popularity are the solutions to relatedness and acceptance needs. I have three of these $100 calculators in my toolbox. It's been so long since I've powered them on that I'm concerned that the rechargeable AAA batteries are leaking battery acid. For $100, you can buy an ARM notebook and install conda and conda-forge packages and build sweet visualizations to collaborate with colleagues on (with Seaborn (matplotlib), HoloViews, Altair, Plotly) "You must buy a $100 calculator that only runs BASIC and ASM, and only use it for arithmetic so that we can measure you." Hand tools are fun, but please don't waste any more of my compulsory time.
  • reilly3000 7y ago
    I would LOVE to live in a world where Jupyter notebooks are the defacto standard for post-primary education. It would take some vision and leadership to bring about that sort of change, but would far better prepare kids for the world they will be running one day.
• gowld 7y ago
  You can already get a graphing calculator on your phone today. Desmos is interesting but their business model isn't going to fix the costs of anything, as many commenters have noted. At best, Desmos is pushing the costs from students to the book-buying taxpayers. Schools can solve that problem more simply by just buying the caclulators themselves. A TI-89 calculator last for 20 years, $5/yr/student, no big deal, despite costing more than it should.
• m3kw9 7y ago
  Not when an exam requires you to use a TI calc, no phones allowed
• sanj 7y ago
  My son is working on an Eagle Scout project collecting unused calculators so kids don’t have to buy them. Drop me a line if you’re interested in donating.
• del_operator 7y ago
  Takes me back to the days of my HP 50g.
• selimthegrim 7y ago
  I'm sure they're still botching quotients with cube roots because 'kids only need the principal one'
• j45 7y ago
  I still have my ti-85 and the serial link cable I built for it.
• nwallin 7y ago
  Bedridges law of headlines: If the answer to a question posed in the headline of a news article is either "yes" or "no", the answer is "no". (paraphrased) I think the problem here is that this is ultimately left up to individual teachers, and 15% of them will take the easy way out and say "you can only use the ti-84. Not the Casio equivalent, not the HP equivalent, the ti-84”. Word goes around to not bother with the 1/3 price alternatives because you have to pay for the ti markup eventually anyway. Better to pay $150 up front than pay $50 now and $150 later. I would like to see, for instance, the State of California sitting down and establishing three levels of accredited calculator: 1. Scientific calculators. Roughly equivalent to the ti-36. 2. Graphing calculator. Roughly equivalent and compatible with the ti-84. 3. Symbolic calculator. Full symbolic computation is acceptable, but notably lacking wireless connectivity. Require that publicly funded education systems choose a calculator level for all their classes. No ad hoc individual teachers fucking the system for everybody. That being said, playing dumb is a really good option. I went back to school in my 30s, and my military service taught me the value of begging forgiveness instead of asking permission. I was an objectively good student, (sat in front, paid attention, asked questions, responded to teacher prompts) and had both a 90s ti-84 and ti's latest and greatest CAS calculator. Only got called on it once, and got away with it, because I knew exactly how to navigate "just following orders, sir". Honestly, the military is a great way of learning the important stuff a middle class upbringing breaks us of.
  • duxup 7y ago
    At my first good job, it took me a good year to figure out that my boss's policy about telling the truth and about how they don't point fingers was all about doing what it took to get the job done outside the rules....and then if you were honest about what you did nobody really cared as long as your story made sense in some way and effectively nothing bad would happen.
  • kyancey 7y ago
    As a teacher, just having some kids using a TI-84 and some using a TI-89 is a headache. If I don't have a consistent set, I constantly have to stop and give two sets of instructions to account for minor UI differences. There's no way I could deal with everyone having different ones.
• fulldecent2 7y ago
  Everyone uses Desmos now.
• wolco 7y ago
  Am I the only one who never used a calculator? It felt like learning the formula on paper cemented the knowledge.
• shp0ngle 7y ago
  This is a baffling article. It starts with description of the current monopoly and how is it caused, which is fine. And then it pivots to "but this app is changing everything." I don't think an app will change anything, there are existing apps that are sufficient. The only reason TI has the monopoly is because it is not internet connected, another calculator app will not change anything.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• ridaj 7y ago
  Substitutes are not so easy to find. After using an app on my phone, and then my desktop computer, to try and do homework that included lots of numerical calculations, I quickly reverted to the hard-keys of my calculator with which I was working faster and more accurately. I've personally found the key layout of the calculator to be a lot more efficient than a desktop computer's, and the touchscreens to be flexible but error-prone.
• ppmanik 7y ago
  I don't understand what kind of numeric calculations are needed by math students. I completed my graduate and PhD math studies without use of any calculator. I only needed a scientific calculator for Physics problems and even there I had made use of a Casio fx-991MS which cost me $10 .
• Zardoz84 7y ago
  meanwhile on Europe (at least Spain), it's forbidden to use programmable calculators on exams. Casio semi-programable calculators (aka, no memory to store functions or programs when is poweroff) are very popular. Also, I never saw a exam or exercise that required to use a calculator (with the exception of some no trivial sin/cos values) Everything can be made with paper and a pencil.
• Zardoz84 7y ago
  why no body are doing cheaper clones of the TI-84 ? You will need to write the firmware from scratch to avoid any legal problem.
• goatinaboat 7y ago
  I 100% guarantee an old-fashioned calculator beats a smartphone full of apps, games and social media for actual studying. And I further guarantee that everyone knows this.
• VLM 7y ago
  The article author doesn't seem to have kids. I do. The elementary kids leverage Alexa for arithmetic and spelling. This is why their spelling is awful and they complain about the math teacher forcing them to "show their work". Alexa ruins spelling education but not arithmetic, as long as the teacher isn't lazy about requiring explanations and multiple lines of proof of doing it by hand. The teens use wolfram alpha to learn how to do algebra, and graph, so given the answer, they use their crappy calculator which hasn't changed since I was in HS to get the same result as wolfram provided, so they can pass tests. Another oddity that indicates the journalist has no kids, is making it an amazing invention in 2011 that a Yale guy is the first human to ever notice income inequality, which is comedic to read. Both in the 90s and today, classrooms always have a basket of calculators for either forgetful or poor kids to use. Also the school library. Of course a borrowed calc will not have special notes hidden in them... Much like cursive, nobody uses calculators after school. Even the last few genx I know have given up on balancing checkbooks using calculators. Actually the only people I know who still balance checkbooks the old fashioned way are boomer and older and they're literally dying out. With everything paid online, I only have maybe one or two checks per month to "balance" and that doesn't require a protocol and algorithm to "balance".
• hatsunearu 7y ago
  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)
  • hatsunearu 7y ago
    Desmos seems pretty nice. https://www.desmos.com/calculator 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.
• scohesc 7y ago
  You know, this could all be solved if TI would lower the cost of their calculators, and make them easier for schools to buy them and maintain them as opposed to students having to shell out $120 for a glorified Z80 processor.
• turk73 7y ago
  As the parent of a 9th grader taking Alegbra 2, I can tell you that I was a little surprised that I had to buy a TI graphing calculator nearly identical to the TI-81 (?) I had in the late '80s/early '90s. My old blue one died at some point long ago, but it got me through a lot of courses. I later fell in love with an HP 48X during college which I still have and recently demonstrated how it works to my daughter. We still bought her the TI for school because it makes sense the way every soldier having the same rifle makes sense. TI had smart marketing and sales teams. The article is a hit piece that isn't well deserved because while yes, they did corner their market, they also did a ton of outreach to schools and teachers and that is badly needed when school districts struggle so hard to deal with technology on tight budgets. The retro tech doesn't bother me at all, it is actually welcome. Math hasn't changed. If the approach works, keep using it! I'm not so sure about the lobbying aspect of it, but all corporations lobby on their own behalf. It's a tried and true method of maximizing profits.
• Shorel 7y ago
  They can upgrade the technology to a much bigger screen, like the one in an e-reader, for a smaller profit but much better value for students. If they don't change their hardware, at some instant in the future the inflexion point could even bankrupt them.