6 ms·

TI is pretty clearly just coasting on being the one mandated by a lot of schools; there's no way you can justify them still costing like $100 and having the sam

TI is pretty clearly just coasting on being the one mandated by a lot of schools; there's no way you can justify them still costing like $100 and having the same capabilities as when I was in high school.

tititititi 5y ago
Your comment is like the XKCD from a decade ago that says the same thing, except not funny or original https://xkcd.com/768/ https://xkcd.com/768/
krallja 5y ago
The new ones have rechargeable batteries, color screens, USB, and Python. So, only a decade out of date.
- imbuhuo 5y ago
  TI still use really outdated hardware (some ARM9 thing) on their high-end nSpire models. With the same price even HP Prime G2 has way better hardware (NXP iMX6ULL, Cortex-A7, 256MB DDR3, USB EHCI OTG) and wide software spectrum (no Secure Boot enforced.) I've put full scale Linux and Windows ARM (arm32 IoT) on that platform.
  - Thetawaves 5y ago
    Fun Fact: New Arm 9 chips are still coming out to this day. They are the highest performing Arm chips that feature generic external bus interfaces.
crazygringo 5y ago
I searched for graphing calculator apps on iOS the other day and found a ton that simply attempt to recreate the TI-84, e.g. [1]. So anyone with high school kids: are they still buying $100 physical calculators? Or are they just using free/cheap apps? [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/graphing-calculator-x84/id1247828717 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/graphing-calculator-x84/id1247...
- aquova 5y ago
  I'm a few years out of high school, but during my time anything other than physical calculators were explicitly banned due to the potential for kids to be accessing the internet during exams. I even had a friend who won one of TI's higher end calculators at a math competition, only for him to be banned to use it during exams because of its higher capabilities. Perhaps things have changed in the post-Covid world.
  - tyre 5y ago
    In my high school physics and math classes, we were allowed to run any programs that we programmed ourselves. This was on Ti-84s so BASIC not Python. Given the context, it made a lot of sense.
    - robohoe 5y ago
      Yeah about the same here. I wrote some programs to handle quadratic formulas. Impressed the Algebra teacher who then let me take AP Computer Science so I can learn to program in Java...which I promptly forgot after graduating HS.
    - codetrotter 5y ago
      When I was in HS, at the exams we were expected to use our TI-84+ calculators, but we were not allowed to have any programs of our own, so they made us clear the programs before they handed out the problems.
      - feteru 5y ago
        Which you could work around by archiving and then unarchiving the programs. I remember having to do a soft factory reset for one class before exams, rather than just clearing programs. At least they took the policy to its logical extension
- brarsanmol 5y ago
  Just graduated secondary school in April. Just as a someone said in a reply below, anything other than a physical calculator is still banned during assessments. There are tools like Desmos, GeoGebra, etc... that may be used by the instructor and students during lessons though. Although it's strange, there is no explicit rule provided by our Mathematics faculty that bans higher functioning calculators I've only seen one person carrying one.
fomine3 5y ago
Oppositely here in Japan (where Casio locates), high school students usually don't use calculators on math/physics classes.
- tempodox 5y ago
  That's interesting and somewhat surprising to me. Do they use slide rules and/or function value tables printed on paper?
  - ithinkso 5y ago
    Not sure about Japan but in Poland the variables in problems are either symbolic and you solve it symbolically, or if they are given as values then they are usually chosen just right to not make arithmetic much of a bother (that actually results in a fun 'sanity check' that if you start getting something waaay crazier than 'normal' you double check if you didn't screw something up somewhere along the way or if there is a better way to solve it). But everyone is taught to only substitute variables for values at the very, very end so calculators are not needed at all. At some point in education there is no point in testing arithmetic skills over and over again, the problems and the methods of finding out solutions to them are what matters
    - willyt 5y ago
      Exactly, same in the UK. So a typical first question in the maths exam we take at age 14/15 might be ‘Factorise the quadratic x²+5x+6’. No calculator needed.
    - fomine3 5y ago
      Almost same as Japan. If we need calculation (like for some physics exam), we use column method on paper.
    - tempodox 5y ago
      That makes sense. If you used a calculator's computer algebra system (CAS) for the symbolic manipulation, it would certainly count as cheating.

tititititi 5y ago

Your comment is like the XKCD from a decade ago that says the same thing, except not funny or original https://xkcd.com/768/ https://xkcd.com/768/

krallja 5y ago

The new ones have rechargeable batteries, color screens, USB, and Python. So, only a decade out of date.

imbuhuo 5y ago
TI still use really outdated hardware (some ARM9 thing) on their high-end nSpire models. With the same price even HP Prime G2 has way better hardware (NXP iMX6ULL, Cortex-A7, 256MB DDR3, USB EHCI OTG) and wide software spectrum (no Secure Boot enforced.) I've put full scale Linux and Windows ARM (arm32 IoT) on that platform.
- Thetawaves 5y ago
  Fun Fact: New Arm 9 chips are still coming out to this day. They are the highest performing Arm chips that feature generic external bus interfaces.

crazygringo 5y ago

I searched for graphing calculator apps on iOS the other day and found a ton that simply attempt to recreate the TI-84, e.g. [1]. So anyone with high school kids: are they still buying $100 physical calculators? Or are they just using free/cheap apps? [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/graphing-calculator-x84/id1247828717 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/graphing-calculator-x84/id1247...

aquova 5y ago
I'm a few years out of high school, but during my time anything other than physical calculators were explicitly banned due to the potential for kids to be accessing the internet during exams. I even had a friend who won one of TI's higher end calculators at a math competition, only for him to be banned to use it during exams because of its higher capabilities. Perhaps things have changed in the post-Covid world.
- tyre 5y ago
  In my high school physics and math classes, we were allowed to run any programs that we programmed ourselves. This was on Ti-84s so BASIC not Python. Given the context, it made a lot of sense.
  - robohoe 5y ago
    Yeah about the same here. I wrote some programs to handle quadratic formulas. Impressed the Algebra teacher who then let me take AP Computer Science so I can learn to program in Java...which I promptly forgot after graduating HS.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    When I was in HS, at the exams we were expected to use our TI-84+ calculators, but we were not allowed to have any programs of our own, so they made us clear the programs before they handed out the problems.
    - feteru 5y ago
      Which you could work around by archiving and then unarchiving the programs. I remember having to do a soft factory reset for one class before exams, rather than just clearing programs. At least they took the policy to its logical extension
brarsanmol 5y ago
Just graduated secondary school in April. Just as a someone said in a reply below, anything other than a physical calculator is still banned during assessments. There are tools like Desmos, GeoGebra, etc... that may be used by the instructor and students during lessons though. Although it's strange, there is no explicit rule provided by our Mathematics faculty that bans higher functioning calculators I've only seen one person carrying one.

fomine3 5y ago

Oppositely here in Japan (where Casio locates), high school students usually don't use calculators on math/physics classes.

tempodox 5y ago
That's interesting and somewhat surprising to me. Do they use slide rules and/or function value tables printed on paper?
- ithinkso 5y ago
  Not sure about Japan but in Poland the variables in problems are either symbolic and you solve it symbolically, or if they are given as values then they are usually chosen just right to not make arithmetic much of a bother (that actually results in a fun 'sanity check' that if you start getting something waaay crazier than 'normal' you double check if you didn't screw something up somewhere along the way or if there is a better way to solve it). But everyone is taught to only substitute variables for values at the very, very end so calculators are not needed at all. At some point in education there is no point in testing arithmetic skills over and over again, the problems and the methods of finding out solutions to them are what matters
  - willyt 5y ago
    Exactly, same in the UK. So a typical first question in the maths exam we take at age 14/15 might be ‘Factorise the quadratic x²+5x+6’. No calculator needed.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Almost same as Japan. If we need calculation (like for some physics exam), we use column method on paper.
  - tempodox 5y ago
    That makes sense. If you used a calculator's computer algebra system (CAS) for the symbolic manipulation, it would certainly count as cheating.