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Show me a highschool math problem you can't do on a $12 Casio scientific like the classic FX-300MS https://www.usaofficemachines.com/csofx300ms-fx-300ms-scienti

Show me a highschool math problem you can't do on a $12 Casio scientific like the classic FX-300MS https://www.usaofficemachines.com/csofx300ms-fx-300ms-scientific-calculator-10-digit-lcd-by-casio-inc.html https://www.usaofficemachines.com/csofx300ms-fx-300ms-scient... There's even knockoffs of it for $1: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809744184708.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809744184708.html I picked one up when the 99 cent store was shutting down. It works fine. Look what you can get for $20: https://www.casio.com/intl/scientific-calculators/product.FX-350CW/ https://www.casio.com/intl/scientific-calculators/product.FX... TI is like the Intuit of the education world. I want to love them but this is ridiculous - a N4120 celeron laptop is the same price as this new calculator - it might be a garbage laptop but it's doing a heck of a lot more for your $160 than this calculator is.

rogerrogerr 5mo ago
The contrived ones where they make you graph stuff, but that’s about it.
- vkou 5mo ago
  There is no graphing problem that you'll be asked to solve before university that can't be plotted to a 'good enough for high school' level by hand in seconds. Four data points is sufficient to give you a 'good enough' shape and position of a second-degree polynomial. Five or six for a third-degree one. (And you barely see them, and don't learn how to algebraically solve for their roots in high school anyways, because the cubic factoring formula is a pig.) If you can't tell what a function's plotted shape is going to be at a glance, you haven't learned the material to the degree expected of an attentive child.
  - NewsaHackO 5mo ago
    This is nonsense. Kids are not expected to look at polynomial equations and be able to deduce the shape of the graph without a graphing calculator. Besides, it is expected that a student can use a graphing calculator to be able to numerically solve for a root of arbitrary polynomial equation.
    - vkou 5mo ago
      > This is nonsense. Kids are not expected to look at polynomial equations and be able to deduce the shape of the graph without a graphing calculator It is not nonsense. I'll draft an example. Any second degree polynomial is a parabola that is either pointing up (positive a term), or down (negative a term). That term is an indication of how curved it is. -b/2a is the X coordinate of the parabola's inflection point. Plug that value into the equation and it'll give you the Y coordinate. You now know the inflection point of the parabola, you know which way it points, and how steep it is, and exactly where the polynomial's roots should live (and whether or not it has any real ones!). If you remember what the squares of 0.5, 1, and 2 are, you can now connect the dots on a 'pretty good' plot. This took yuo longer to read than it takes to do. --- Similar transformations can be applied to sine waves, root functions, exponentials, logarithms, and reciprocals. If you can't do this, or don't understand how to do this, you have not learned and understood the material. If all you've learnt is how to plug the formula into a magic $160 box to look at the pretty picture, and how to ask it to solve for roots, you and your teachers have wasted your time. The point of all this isn't looking at plots, the point is understanding how you can manipulate these equations, and what these manipulations do to them. This should all be drilled to the point of being intuitive. Anything so complicated that basic algebraic manipulations won't get you the rough shape in seconds of work... Is more complicated than a high schooler is taught to solve.
  - vscode-rest 5mo ago
    Life is not all about solving problems, high school life even less so. Personally, I found great enjoyment in coming up with more and more involved plots in the Polar and Parametric modes, where yes I would predict what a graph would look like and then go over to see it. And then go back and iterate. Etc. Until I was painting pictures with functions and had a far greater understanding of the domain than I’d wager anyone who thinks graphing calculations are for finding roots of polynomials could imagine.
    - vkou 5mo ago
      You can enjoy that as much as you want without the curriculum mandating or all-but-mandating that every student buy a $160 toy.
varun_ch 5mo ago
International Baccalaureate math has some stats questions that require a calculator that can do stats questions. Not really possible by hand in exam conditions!
- kristopolous 5mo ago
  The basic $12 Casio scientific has stats like mean, standard deviation, regression... Stats is a huge field, we're talking highschool level. I think it probably covers it
  - varun_ch 5mo ago
    Oh that’s neat! Probably should’ve checked your link. Not sure what the advantage of the Ti-84 would be for highschool math, but the UX on NumWorks calculators is completely a game changer, especially with stats and graphing questions. Maybe everything is possible on the Casio, but it’s so much clearer on the NumWorks (especially for eg. Physics questions, where you might want to retrieve values you calculated earlier with full precision, etc). Genuinely felt like a cheat code when I was in highschool. I showed mine to my teacher and they swapped the whole’s schools standard calculators from the Ti-84 CE to the NumWorks, which is cheaper too.
    - kristopolous 5mo ago
      I mean sure. Unlimited precision calculation I don't think is the proper domain of the cheap desk calculator. I mean what do these do? I think like 10 digits worth? If you're actually doing something requiring over 10 digits of accuracy and you can reliably hit that you probably have a $10 million lab... So honestly what are we talking about here...If it's pure mathematics this is a bad tool for that as well.
      - varun_ch 5mo ago
        oh of course. But I meant being able to select a result or equation from 10 minutes ago in the calculator history without re-typing it!
balls187 5mo ago
Generating a QR code to see the graph online is kind of cool, but also kinda dumb too. I mean, these days kids have smartphones, what's the point of a graphing calculator?
- kristopolous 5mo ago
  I'm with you. Some open source app is all they need. However to answer your question: phone rules in classrooms vary enormously and the dedicated calculator is faster to interface when you're drilling problems in a homework setting I finished highschool in the (gasp) 20th century so the modern classroom is certainly something I've had to learn
- linsomniac 5mo ago
  >kids have smartphones, what's the point of a graphing calculator? Many tests will not allow you to use a smartphone. My son couldn't even use the school issued chromebook on his PSAT, he had to get a loaner Windows laptop or use an approved hard calculator.
- ndriscoll 5mo ago
  Ironically builtin smartphone calculators are really bad, and one of the best ones you can download might be Graph 89 (a TI-89 emulator). Rant/Aside: Smartphones (or at least Android) are just generally really bad at being... smart, especially out of the box. No dictionary? No thesaurus? To say nothing of built-in encyclopedia (e.g. Wikipedia). Calculator worse than the $1 scientific ones? It's astounding how obvious it is that they're meant to dumb people down and just sell you crap when you look at the complete absence of basic functionality anyone from 50+ years ago might expect them to have.
jhallenworld 5mo ago
My favorite cheap Casio is fx-115ES Plus 2nd Edition, $17 https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-115ESPLS2-Advanced-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B086Z79HXS https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-115ESPLS2-Advanced-Scientifi... Includes GCD and LCM, some of the newer ones don't have them. If you want graphing, there is the newish fx-CG100 has a nice display, but they removed Casio basic, it now only has micro Python (way too awkward to type on a tiny keypad): https://www.amazon.com/Casio-ClassWiz%C2%AE-Calculator-Functions-Programming/dp/B0FF5Y75DW https://www.amazon.com/Casio-ClassWiz%C2%AE-Calculator-Funct... The older ones that still have basic: https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-9750GIII-Graphing-Calculator-fx-9750GIII-WE/dp/B086Z7Q7G7 https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-9750GIII-Graphing-Calculator... BTW, here is a review I made of many calculators, measuring keyboard efficiency: (HP-15c still the best) https://github.com/jhallen/calculator/wiki https://github.com/jhallen/calculator/wiki
- quag 5mo ago
  I agree with you on the Casio fx-115ES Plus 2nd Edition. I picked one up two years ago for $11.41. It naturally writes out equations, has a backspace and is generally excellent. I still love my HP RPN calculators, but the fx-115ES works nicely for anyone who isn't using RPN or sympy.
  - saagarjha 5mo ago
    Also a +1 for this calculator, it's really the best scientific calculator you can buy and a steal at the price it sells at.
quacker 5mo ago
Well, the TI-83/84 are called a graphing calculators for a reason: you can plot equations and datasets with them and look at them right there[1]. Looking at graphs is huge for learning, or at least it was for me, and school isn't just about plugging things in and getting an answer (or shouldn't be, at least). Doesn't mean it's not overpriced, but that's one reason and you can get a used TI-83/84 for like $30 or less. They pretty much never break. ----- 1. Okay, the Casio can QR-code-link you to a graph, but if I have internet/smartphone there are better graphing tools anyway, like Desmos.
- kristopolous 5mo ago
  casio can do graphs on device for under $40 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Casio-FX-9750Glll-Graphing-Calculator-for-High-School-and-College-Black/278296845 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Casio-FX-9750Glll-Graphing-Calcul... The reason you can get used ti's for $30 is because that's how much they're actually worth. You can get a catiga if you really want for like $17: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809054964211.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809054964211.html ... or you can go with TI for $160 ...
- nullsanity 5mo ago
  [dead]
- hypercube33 5mo ago
  I mean a laptop running windows can use the old power toy calculator or something like speed crunch to do graphing and I'm sure Linux has countless others, with Chromebooks probably having more for free online as well, I can only assume.
  - sethops1 5mo ago
    A graphing calculator is a fraction of the cost, has no security updates, is standardized, isn't connected to the internet, ... There is value in a thing that does one thing well.
pverheggen 5mo ago
If you count basic calculus as high school level, TI89's can do symbolic integration. They're usually banned on tests for that exact reason tho.
- globular-toast 5mo ago
  Can it do anything non-trivial? The algorithms for symbolic integration are extensive. My Casio could do numeric differentiation and integration. I used this to double check my answers in my exams. In fact, it still can as I still own and use it to this day.
  - saagarjha 5mo ago
    It's quite good for what it is. Of course it will lose to Mathematica but I used mine heavily throughout physics to derive things symbolically.
- threethirtytwo 5mo ago
  The TI-89's have the same shell as the TI-83. I took the shell off the 83 and put it on the 89 as well as replacing some of the buttons. I used this on tests that banned the TI-89.
vkou 5mo ago
> Show me a highschool math problem you can't do on a $12 Casio scientific like the classic FX-300MS There isn't one. The TI-83 is just a $160 tax on every high school student. There is precisely zero use in a graphing calculator before university. If you ever need a plot of literally any function you'd be plotting in high school, you should be able to do a very quick, very rough approximation by hand. If you can't, you haven't learned the material.
- SoftTalker 5mo ago
  Graduated high school in 1984, I don't think graphing calculators existed then but if they did nobody had them. Standard "scientific" calculators were what I used for all my high school and university math.
kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
Most of those are counterfeit knockoffs and the buttons are unreliable. It's safer to buy an older, pre-VPAM variant of the 300 or 991 models.
- saagarjha 5mo ago
  You can turn off VPAM though, why would you not want it?
jedimastert 5mo ago
I'm personally a fan of the ti-30xs. Still cheap and a good number of features for looking at data

rogerrogerr 5mo ago

The contrived ones where they make you graph stuff, but that’s about it.

vkou 5mo ago
There is no graphing problem that you'll be asked to solve before university that can't be plotted to a 'good enough for high school' level by hand in seconds. Four data points is sufficient to give you a 'good enough' shape and position of a second-degree polynomial. Five or six for a third-degree one. (And you barely see them, and don't learn how to algebraically solve for their roots in high school anyways, because the cubic factoring formula is a pig.) If you can't tell what a function's plotted shape is going to be at a glance, you haven't learned the material to the degree expected of an attentive child.
- NewsaHackO 5mo ago
  This is nonsense. Kids are not expected to look at polynomial equations and be able to deduce the shape of the graph without a graphing calculator. Besides, it is expected that a student can use a graphing calculator to be able to numerically solve for a root of arbitrary polynomial equation.
  - vkou 5mo ago
    > This is nonsense. Kids are not expected to look at polynomial equations and be able to deduce the shape of the graph without a graphing calculator It is not nonsense. I'll draft an example. Any second degree polynomial is a parabola that is either pointing up (positive a term), or down (negative a term). That term is an indication of how curved it is. -b/2a is the X coordinate of the parabola's inflection point. Plug that value into the equation and it'll give you the Y coordinate. You now know the inflection point of the parabola, you know which way it points, and how steep it is, and exactly where the polynomial's roots should live (and whether or not it has any real ones!). If you remember what the squares of 0.5, 1, and 2 are, you can now connect the dots on a 'pretty good' plot. This took yuo longer to read than it takes to do. --- Similar transformations can be applied to sine waves, root functions, exponentials, logarithms, and reciprocals. If you can't do this, or don't understand how to do this, you have not learned and understood the material. If all you've learnt is how to plug the formula into a magic $160 box to look at the pretty picture, and how to ask it to solve for roots, you and your teachers have wasted your time. The point of all this isn't looking at plots, the point is understanding how you can manipulate these equations, and what these manipulations do to them. This should all be drilled to the point of being intuitive. Anything so complicated that basic algebraic manipulations won't get you the rough shape in seconds of work... Is more complicated than a high schooler is taught to solve.
- vscode-rest 5mo ago
  Life is not all about solving problems, high school life even less so. Personally, I found great enjoyment in coming up with more and more involved plots in the Polar and Parametric modes, where yes I would predict what a graph would look like and then go over to see it. And then go back and iterate. Etc. Until I was painting pictures with functions and had a far greater understanding of the domain than I’d wager anyone who thinks graphing calculations are for finding roots of polynomials could imagine.
  - vkou 5mo ago
    You can enjoy that as much as you want without the curriculum mandating or all-but-mandating that every student buy a $160 toy.

varun_ch 5mo ago

International Baccalaureate math has some stats questions that require a calculator that can do stats questions. Not really possible by hand in exam conditions!

kristopolous 5mo ago
The basic $12 Casio scientific has stats like mean, standard deviation, regression... Stats is a huge field, we're talking highschool level. I think it probably covers it
- varun_ch 5mo ago
  Oh that’s neat! Probably should’ve checked your link. Not sure what the advantage of the Ti-84 would be for highschool math, but the UX on NumWorks calculators is completely a game changer, especially with stats and graphing questions. Maybe everything is possible on the Casio, but it’s so much clearer on the NumWorks (especially for eg. Physics questions, where you might want to retrieve values you calculated earlier with full precision, etc). Genuinely felt like a cheat code when I was in highschool. I showed mine to my teacher and they swapped the whole’s schools standard calculators from the Ti-84 CE to the NumWorks, which is cheaper too.
  - kristopolous 5mo ago
    I mean sure. Unlimited precision calculation I don't think is the proper domain of the cheap desk calculator. I mean what do these do? I think like 10 digits worth? If you're actually doing something requiring over 10 digits of accuracy and you can reliably hit that you probably have a $10 million lab... So honestly what are we talking about here...If it's pure mathematics this is a bad tool for that as well.
    - varun_ch 5mo ago
      oh of course. But I meant being able to select a result or equation from 10 minutes ago in the calculator history without re-typing it!

balls187 5mo ago

Generating a QR code to see the graph online is kind of cool, but also kinda dumb too. I mean, these days kids have smartphones, what's the point of a graphing calculator?

kristopolous 5mo ago
I'm with you. Some open source app is all they need. However to answer your question: phone rules in classrooms vary enormously and the dedicated calculator is faster to interface when you're drilling problems in a homework setting I finished highschool in the (gasp) 20th century so the modern classroom is certainly something I've had to learn
linsomniac 5mo ago
>kids have smartphones, what's the point of a graphing calculator? Many tests will not allow you to use a smartphone. My son couldn't even use the school issued chromebook on his PSAT, he had to get a loaner Windows laptop or use an approved hard calculator.
ndriscoll 5mo ago
Ironically builtin smartphone calculators are really bad, and one of the best ones you can download might be Graph 89 (a TI-89 emulator). Rant/Aside: Smartphones (or at least Android) are just generally really bad at being... smart, especially out of the box. No dictionary? No thesaurus? To say nothing of built-in encyclopedia (e.g. Wikipedia). Calculator worse than the $1 scientific ones? It's astounding how obvious it is that they're meant to dumb people down and just sell you crap when you look at the complete absence of basic functionality anyone from 50+ years ago might expect them to have.

jhallenworld 5mo ago

My favorite cheap Casio is fx-115ES Plus 2nd Edition, $17 https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-115ESPLS2-Advanced-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B086Z79HXS https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-115ESPLS2-Advanced-Scientifi... Includes GCD and LCM, some of the newer ones don't have them. If you want graphing, there is the newish fx-CG100 has a nice display, but they removed Casio basic, it now only has micro Python (way too awkward to type on a tiny keypad): https://www.amazon.com/Casio-ClassWiz%C2%AE-Calculator-Functions-Programming/dp/B0FF5Y75DW https://www.amazon.com/Casio-ClassWiz%C2%AE-Calculator-Funct... The older ones that still have basic: https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-9750GIII-Graphing-Calculator-fx-9750GIII-WE/dp/B086Z7Q7G7 https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-9750GIII-Graphing-Calculator... BTW, here is a review I made of many calculators, measuring keyboard efficiency: (HP-15c still the best) https://github.com/jhallen/calculator/wiki https://github.com/jhallen/calculator/wiki

quag 5mo ago
I agree with you on the Casio fx-115ES Plus 2nd Edition. I picked one up two years ago for $11.41. It naturally writes out equations, has a backspace and is generally excellent. I still love my HP RPN calculators, but the fx-115ES works nicely for anyone who isn't using RPN or sympy.
- saagarjha 5mo ago
  Also a +1 for this calculator, it's really the best scientific calculator you can buy and a steal at the price it sells at.

quacker 5mo ago

Well, the TI-83/84 are called a graphing calculators for a reason: you can plot equations and datasets with them and look at them right there[1]. Looking at graphs is huge for learning, or at least it was for me, and school isn't just about plugging things in and getting an answer (or shouldn't be, at least). Doesn't mean it's not overpriced, but that's one reason and you can get a used TI-83/84 for like $30 or less. They pretty much never break. ----- 1. Okay, the Casio can QR-code-link you to a graph, but if I have internet/smartphone there are better graphing tools anyway, like Desmos.

kristopolous 5mo ago
casio can do graphs on device for under $40 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Casio-FX-9750Glll-Graphing-Calculator-for-High-School-and-College-Black/278296845 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Casio-FX-9750Glll-Graphing-Calcul... The reason you can get used ti's for $30 is because that's how much they're actually worth. You can get a catiga if you really want for like $17: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809054964211.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809054964211.html ... or you can go with TI for $160 ...
nullsanity 5mo ago
[dead]
hypercube33 5mo ago
I mean a laptop running windows can use the old power toy calculator or something like speed crunch to do graphing and I'm sure Linux has countless others, with Chromebooks probably having more for free online as well, I can only assume.
- sethops1 5mo ago
  A graphing calculator is a fraction of the cost, has no security updates, is standardized, isn't connected to the internet, ... There is value in a thing that does one thing well.

pverheggen 5mo ago

If you count basic calculus as high school level, TI89's can do symbolic integration. They're usually banned on tests for that exact reason tho.

globular-toast 5mo ago
Can it do anything non-trivial? The algorithms for symbolic integration are extensive. My Casio could do numeric differentiation and integration. I used this to double check my answers in my exams. In fact, it still can as I still own and use it to this day.
- saagarjha 5mo ago
  It's quite good for what it is. Of course it will lose to Mathematica but I used mine heavily throughout physics to derive things symbolically.
threethirtytwo 5mo ago
The TI-89's have the same shell as the TI-83. I took the shell off the 83 and put it on the 89 as well as replacing some of the buttons. I used this on tests that banned the TI-89.

vkou 5mo ago

> Show me a highschool math problem you can't do on a $12 Casio scientific like the classic FX-300MS There isn't one. The TI-83 is just a $160 tax on every high school student. There is precisely zero use in a graphing calculator before university. If you ever need a plot of literally any function you'd be plotting in high school, you should be able to do a very quick, very rough approximation by hand. If you can't, you haven't learned the material.

SoftTalker 5mo ago
Graduated high school in 1984, I don't think graphing calculators existed then but if they did nobody had them. Standard "scientific" calculators were what I used for all my high school and university math.

kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago

Most of those are counterfeit knockoffs and the buttons are unreliable. It's safer to buy an older, pre-VPAM variant of the 300 or 991 models.

saagarjha 5mo ago
You can turn off VPAM though, why would you not want it?

jedimastert 5mo ago

I'm personally a fan of the ti-30xs. Still cheap and a good number of features for looking at data