3 ms·
With current technology, 4 AA batteries should be able to power a calculator for an entire educational career from 6th to 12th grade, maybe more. Edit: in term
by callalex 3y ago
With current technology, 4 AA batteries should be able to power a calculator for an entire educational career from 6th to 12th grade, maybe more.
Edit: in terms of performance, the buttons and LCD are very unresponsive, you can type faster than they display. When making any kinds of graphs with more than 2 functions, the drawing happens in the order of 5-10 seconds, modern hardware could do that in micro-to-milliseconds and get the CPU back to sleep to save battery. Anything involving regressions of inputted tables can take 10s of seconds, which again feels clunky and eats battery.
- gnicholas 3y agoNo doubt. But is it a big deal to have to swap batteries once every couple years? I think the bigger waste is that these things still cost so much. I cannot believe that the TI-85 I used over 20 years ago is $70 on Amazon.
- callalex 3y agoI agree, I think my point got bogged down in the details. Declaring scantron dead because the SAT is planning to go digital soon is so clearly out of touch nonsense on its face given how slowly technology is adopted in this space.
- gnicholas 3y agoI dunno, my elementary school kids have never done a multiple choice test on paper. It does require that the schools have enough computers, but these days most schools seem to.
- jstarfish 3y agoI always liked the sluggishness. It made me think every operation through before I did it, so I couldn't just bruteforce results through guesswork. And the graph-drawing process was hypnotic. For some models, you couldn't even cancel drawing once it started so you really had to validate your own inputs. Everything about it forced an abundance of caution and efficiency...two qualities overlooked by so many "engineers" rushing through everything they do today.