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I never understand the American fascination with programmable calculators. To me they sound like a racket by calculator manufacturers and education authorities

I never understand the American fascination with programmable calculators. To me they sound like a racket by calculator manufacturers and education authorities to mandate an unnecessary and expensive device on to students. In many other countries students get through high school and even many undergraduate courses (like CS for example) without needing any calculator at all. Perhaps this is due to the greater focus on analytical problem solving than numerical solutions which is perhaps done in the US? (Reposting this as a direct comment, after posting as a reply a comment below.)

searchableguy 5y ago
Which country are you from/talking about?
divbzero 5y ago
Is the US really the only country where programmable calculators are used heavily in high school math classes?
- eliasson 5y ago
  No, these calculators were fairly popular in Sweden as well (at least during the late 90s).
- pjmlp 5y ago
  In Portugal we used them as well, but we don't suffer from a TI monopoly on the education system. Anyone is free to pick whatever they wanted, so we had a mix of Casio, TI and HP calculators. The Casio Basic tablets were the most famous ones, FX-850P. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_FX-850P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_FX-850P I eventually had the follow up model FX-880P, after using FX-4500P during high school. https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-4500P/Casio%20FX-4500P.html https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-4500P/C... https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-880P/Casio%20FX-880P.html https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-880P/Ca...
toast0 5y ago
Sure, they're a racket. But they're also a handy tool. You can plug in a bunch of arithmetic, and it just does it, but you can easily edit and redo. They can graph some functions, and do some of the brute force stuff (like newton's method etc), so you can concentrate on the thinking. If you spend the class time writing a program to solve the homework, instead of doing the homework, you've practiced a life skill and probably understand the material pretty well. If you get the 68k based calculators (ti-92 and ti-89), they've got a symbolic algebra system and can do a lot of cool stuff, although giving that to a high schooler may not be the best choice.
ecpottinger 5y ago
Question: And when did these students start writing real programs that people used? Here in Canada and I assume the USA there were teenage kids writing useful code that made money for them.
soylentnewsorg 5y ago
the graphing calculators are differentiated exactly by being able to do analytical solutions. they run the equivalent of derive, mathematica, and wolfram alpha. you're paying for the software, and similar software for your pc costs more. in many other countries, they are simply unavailable. in the real world, if you have a bunch of differential equations, you want to not spend time solving them for the hundredth time and work on the actual physics problem. to give you an example with a non-graphing calculator you seem to confuse the TIs with: why need a calculator for numerical solutions, in your 12th year of school. let's take the multiplication of three 7 digit numbers, and multiply it out by hand. oh, you've done it a thousand times already and it's not bringing value? nah, you should be multiplying them out - the 1001st time will somehow still help you learn. I know how to take a derivative. I can look up the template it fits into, plug in my equation, and 5 minutes later I got it. This teaches me nothing after the first hundred times. And no, that derivative is not a number. We have limited time. We want to spend it on learning new analytical problem solving. Not doing repetitive busywork. >like CS for example if you are going to compare it, the apt comparison would be a CS degree taught for 4 years only in assembly. Here in the real world, we use tools to not do useless tasks.
blt 5y ago
I once read an article about how access to computing power caused the math cultures of the USA and USSR to diverge after WW2. For example Bellman's dynamic programming vs. Pontryagin's principle for trajectory optimization. Markov Chain Monte Carlo was developed in the USA too. Graphing calculators kind of fit.
mauvehaus 5y ago
Count me along the people who got started programming because there's a button right there telling you it's possible to make the machine do your bidding. I don't know why everybody else who isn't a programmer gave a shit, but if you had a modicum of curiosity about that button did, the manual came with it and the button was right there. Bear in mind that Windows 95 was all but ending most people's exposure to DOS, and even if that wasn't the case, it's not like DOS displayed a banner on startup reading "why don't you type qbasic and see what happens?". It was a lot less immediately obvious that you could program a computer and that there were tools to do so included. And the paper manual didn't exactly cover how to use qbasic.
- musicale 5y ago
  > Count me along the people who got started programming because there's a button right there telling you it's possible to make the machine do your bidding. This exactly. Every web browser has JavaScript, but there's no button to press to bring up a tab with a simple, easy to use JavaScript programming environment (e.g. a canvas, console, code editor, demo programs) with a link to beginner-friendly tutorials and documentation. The button + tab would be easy to make, though tutorials/documentation would be a lot more work.
dboreham 5y ago
Hmm. I am a) old and b) came from another country and c) now have kids in the US school/college system. This doesn't ring true for me. I've never heard of _programmable_ calculators being required or used in US education. _Graphing_ calculators, yes. Perhaps all graphing calculators are also programmable these days? Anyway, never once came across a case where programming was used. In my high school in the 1970s we needed and used calculators. The previous generation of students used slide rules. In my university career in the 1980s we used graphing calculators. I'm not sure if they were required, but we had them and used them. No programming, although storing various formulae required to be memorized for exams as programs in the calculator was handy (statute of limitations has expired...). There is a kind of racket. Perhaps it's "regulatory capture" in action. Schools will often mandate a specific calculator model. So will exam boards. So if the student sits an SAT or AP exam, they are restricted to a specific calculator model. I assume the reason for this is to save teachers from having to understand every different calculator model, and also to prevent cheating in exams. E.g. although today nobody needs a physical calculator because smart phones have great calculator apps, the exam people don't want students bringing smart phones into the exam room. Calculator vendors (TI primarily) have taken advantage of this regulatory situation by increasing the price of the "approved" calculators. However, for my kids, their teachers said that they could use any calculator that had the necessary functions, regardless of the supposed rule that only one model is allowed.

searchableguy 5y ago

Which country are you from/talking about?

divbzero 5y ago

Is the US really the only country where programmable calculators are used heavily in high school math classes?

eliasson 5y ago
No, these calculators were fairly popular in Sweden as well (at least during the late 90s).
pjmlp 5y ago
In Portugal we used them as well, but we don't suffer from a TI monopoly on the education system. Anyone is free to pick whatever they wanted, so we had a mix of Casio, TI and HP calculators. The Casio Basic tablets were the most famous ones, FX-850P. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_FX-850P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_FX-850P I eventually had the follow up model FX-880P, after using FX-4500P during high school. https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-4500P/Casio%20FX-4500P.html https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-4500P/C... https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-880P/Casio%20FX-880P.html https://www.casio-calculator.com/Museum/Pages/FFF/FX-880P/Ca...

toast0 5y ago

Sure, they're a racket. But they're also a handy tool. You can plug in a bunch of arithmetic, and it just does it, but you can easily edit and redo. They can graph some functions, and do some of the brute force stuff (like newton's method etc), so you can concentrate on the thinking. If you spend the class time writing a program to solve the homework, instead of doing the homework, you've practiced a life skill and probably understand the material pretty well. If you get the 68k based calculators (ti-92 and ti-89), they've got a symbolic algebra system and can do a lot of cool stuff, although giving that to a high schooler may not be the best choice.

ecpottinger 5y ago

Question: And when did these students start writing real programs that people used? Here in Canada and I assume the USA there were teenage kids writing useful code that made money for them.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago

the graphing calculators are differentiated exactly by being able to do analytical solutions. they run the equivalent of derive, mathematica, and wolfram alpha. you're paying for the software, and similar software for your pc costs more. in many other countries, they are simply unavailable. in the real world, if you have a bunch of differential equations, you want to not spend time solving them for the hundredth time and work on the actual physics problem. to give you an example with a non-graphing calculator you seem to confuse the TIs with: why need a calculator for numerical solutions, in your 12th year of school. let's take the multiplication of three 7 digit numbers, and multiply it out by hand. oh, you've done it a thousand times already and it's not bringing value? nah, you should be multiplying them out - the 1001st time will somehow still help you learn. I know how to take a derivative. I can look up the template it fits into, plug in my equation, and 5 minutes later I got it. This teaches me nothing after the first hundred times. And no, that derivative is not a number. We have limited time. We want to spend it on learning new analytical problem solving. Not doing repetitive busywork. >like CS for example if you are going to compare it, the apt comparison would be a CS degree taught for 4 years only in assembly. Here in the real world, we use tools to not do useless tasks.

blt 5y ago

I once read an article about how access to computing power caused the math cultures of the USA and USSR to diverge after WW2. For example Bellman's dynamic programming vs. Pontryagin's principle for trajectory optimization. Markov Chain Monte Carlo was developed in the USA too. Graphing calculators kind of fit.

mauvehaus 5y ago

Count me along the people who got started programming because there's a button right there telling you it's possible to make the machine do your bidding. I don't know why everybody else who isn't a programmer gave a shit, but if you had a modicum of curiosity about that button did, the manual came with it and the button was right there. Bear in mind that Windows 95 was all but ending most people's exposure to DOS, and even if that wasn't the case, it's not like DOS displayed a banner on startup reading "why don't you type qbasic and see what happens?". It was a lot less immediately obvious that you could program a computer and that there were tools to do so included. And the paper manual didn't exactly cover how to use qbasic.

musicale 5y ago
> Count me along the people who got started programming because there's a button right there telling you it's possible to make the machine do your bidding. This exactly. Every web browser has JavaScript, but there's no button to press to bring up a tab with a simple, easy to use JavaScript programming environment (e.g. a canvas, console, code editor, demo programs) with a link to beginner-friendly tutorials and documentation. The button + tab would be easy to make, though tutorials/documentation would be a lot more work.

dboreham 5y ago

Hmm. I am a) old and b) came from another country and c) now have kids in the US school/college system. This doesn't ring true for me. I've never heard of _programmable_ calculators being required or used in US education. _Graphing_ calculators, yes. Perhaps all graphing calculators are also programmable these days? Anyway, never once came across a case where programming was used. In my high school in the 1970s we needed and used calculators. The previous generation of students used slide rules. In my university career in the 1980s we used graphing calculators. I'm not sure if they were required, but we had them and used them. No programming, although storing various formulae required to be memorized for exams as programs in the calculator was handy (statute of limitations has expired...). There is a kind of racket. Perhaps it's "regulatory capture" in action. Schools will often mandate a specific calculator model. So will exam boards. So if the student sits an SAT or AP exam, they are restricted to a specific calculator model. I assume the reason for this is to save teachers from having to understand every different calculator model, and also to prevent cheating in exams. E.g. although today nobody needs a physical calculator because smart phones have great calculator apps, the exam people don't want students bringing smart phones into the exam room. Calculator vendors (TI primarily) have taken advantage of this regulatory situation by increasing the price of the "approved" calculators. However, for my kids, their teachers said that they could use any calculator that had the necessary functions, regardless of the supposed rule that only one model is allowed.