What Your Old Graphing Calculator Says About Technology

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-your-old-graphing-calculator-says-about-technology/244028/#.TlUaOxId6Os.hackernews

by JamesLowell • 15 years ago

59 71 15 years ago

theatlantic.com

pnathan2• 15 years ago

I don't think there's much competition, either. HP appears to have bowed out of the graphing calculator market years ago. (though a Google turns them up?)

Also, for high-end math wizardry, it's very easy to simply not use a calculator: Maxima [1] obseleted my calculator for tasks that weren't tests

I suspect as smartphones get cheaper and finish their takeover, the calculator firmware will get loaded into an in-app emulator and there they will live.

http://maxima.sourceforge.net/

carterschonwald• 15 years ago

The HP graphing calculators are still alive and kicking. the HP 50g is honestly a far more awesome tool than the TIs (and for those few who care, allows RPN entry too). (it also has a pretty outstanding distribution of reviews on amazon)

Yes portable ipod touches and the like are moving to partially supplant these tools, but there are a lot of use cases where a calculator with dedicated physical button and a far better battery life than any apple gadget, while still fitting in your pocket and being a general purpose CAS, is quite a nice baseline.

mturmon• 15 years ago

And, at the lower end, HP also has a presence.

The HP 32SII (discontinued, now $139 on ebay; originally sold for less than half that price) and the HP 35S (redesigned version of the 33 which was the ugly successor to the 32SII) are non-graphing RPN machines that are very good for quick calculations. (My first and favorite HP, the 41, is much older than these, but it's too expensive to have one laying around everywhere I might need one.)

Even if I'm in front of a computer, typing in to a console window, it's faster to turn on the calculator than to enter bc, python, or matlab and type in the calculation. And with RPN you get to see the intermediate results so you know you're not forgetting something.

pnathan2• 15 years ago

I found the HP 49g+ to stand out far above the TI-89.

gcv• 15 years ago

I loved the HP48 series in high school and college, and m48+ brings it to my iPhone. For the rare times I feel the need for something more powerful than the calculator built into Spotlight, and something less powerful than Clojure, I reach for it.

Never go into the HP50 series, though it does look nice. Probably would have started using it if I were still in school.

Yhippa• 15 years ago

RPN FTW! I was never able to lend my calculator out because it took too long to explain how it works.

I got (and still have) a copy of the Advanced Programmer's Manual for the HP 48G. Great environment for someone to learn programming while you're bored at school.

kelvie• 15 years ago

I didn't know people reimplemented these for phones.. I just grabbed Droid48 for my Android tablet, and will probably be trying it later.

Thanks for the heads up!

zokier2• 15 years ago

There is also AlmostTI for those rare N900 owners, http://fms.komkon.org/ATI85/

hmm.. there is a link to an Android port.. installing now.

Sauce1971• 15 years ago

Still use my HP 48sx daily ... A bit hard to turn on, but I really can't justify buying a new to calculate css pixels ...

joev• 15 years ago

TI calculators were toys for children. Real Engineers use HP!

Lots of good memories with my HP-48G, until it got stolen just before I graduated.

ddelony• 15 years ago

Real Engineers use Curtas!

jmount• 15 years ago

Standardized tests also help maintain a niche for Standardized calculators.

camiller2• 15 years ago

I kinda boggles my mind that they allow calculators on the SAT now. Some googling indicates that they are still prohibited on the GMAT.

mkuhn• 15 years ago

I can confirm that. No calculators on the GMAT (at least when I took it 2 years ago).

alirov• 15 years ago

Calculators haven't been allowed on the GRE either but with the new one (it either started this month or next month), they are offering an on-screen calculator built into the test.

yaks_hairbrush• 15 years ago

Yup. You could make a decent argument that a graphing calculator has been marginalized into a $70+ aid for high school exams and standardized tests. That's the one thing that computers/phones can't encroach on.

jal278• 15 years ago

Other people must be thinking this as well, but it seems likely/obvious that the graphing calculator will go extinct, replaced by an app on a touchscreen device (not an emulated ti-82, but a better more intuitive graphing calc). Sounds like a pretty promising start-up. That the TI-82 is still $70 is unbelievable.

lukeschlather• 15 years ago

Show me a $70 smartphone that can run for months on a single charge, looks fine without a backlight, and has instant response time, and I'll use it to replace my TI-83.

Maybe. I'm not sure I want my calculator showing an alert about what my friends are doing tonight when I'm trying to focus.

stdbrouw• 15 years ago

Actually, I started working on something like this last week, as a pet project to keep me busy. In essence, what you need is a basic programming language that's geared a little bit more towards mathematics (so you can do little things like 2log(n) instead of 2 * log(n) and actually use π as a constant instead of something like Math.PI), a REPL and a way to graph functions. That's feature equivalence, and that's easy.

The cool part is when you start thinking about how to innovate on top of that. Then you can add things like:

* the ability to display and remember the results of a whole range of calculations on a single screen instead of always having to write stuff down or bring back old calculations, e.g. http://stuff.stdout.be/graphcalc.png (think iPad app)

* the ability for teachers to follow along on their own screen as you're doing calculations, to help out, maybe even allow teachers to take over control (remotely) to show stuff

* save calculations and make little reports, which could serve as homework

* slowly learn general-purpose programming along the way, simply by having the thing based off a language like CoffeeScript instead of Texas Instruments' own half-assed TI-BASIC.

* extensions for physics and chemistry, so it's not just about math

I don't know if it'd really make sense as a startup (tablets are still too expensive and the nice thing about graphing calculators is that they're small and people can't browse the internet on them) but the whole "let's try to reinvent some ancient technology using modern tools" thing is pretty fun.

If anybody else is looking for a weekend hack project, I'd gladly open-source what I have thus far.

dgallagher• 15 years ago

Frankly if you replicate the TI-83's layout in a GUI, and emulate its OS, and sell it for $10 on the App Store, you'd make millions. Any student carrying around an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad would gladly pay that, rather than $100 for a new bulky TI-83, and use that in school instead. Makes their lives simpler by only having a single device.

Replicating the interface is key. From my experience, most teachers were horribly confused if someone brought in a TI-89 or, forbid, a TI-92. Why? Different UI that they don't know. You can't teach students how to use their calculator unless you know how to use it yourself.

After, you can add in all sorts of extra features like you mentioned. But "A TI-83 that runs on iOS" is probably the first feature that people will pay for.

It does bring up the issue of students cheating on tests, using their iOS "calculators", but last time I checked it's not too hard to hide notes on your TI-83 either...

It's an idea I've had for an iOS app for a while, but don't have the time to dedicate to it (working on something else).

zokier2• 15 years ago

You cannot use general purpose device like tablet/smartphone in tests. I think more realistic market would be a integrated teaching and exam environment for desktop computers (yeah, those things still exist), with necessary math functionality built-in, but intentionally limited enough for educational purposes.

edit: I feel this is bit relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...

abyssknight• 15 years ago

I still have my TI-83+ from my highschool days. Honestly, I couldn't survive without it. When I have to do hard core matrix algebra or graphing, and I need to be in front of my book, I can't use the PC or tablet -- it just doesn't fit in the zone. The physical nature of the calculator, the portability, and tactile feedback are all necessary.

Also, the TI-83+ takes a beating. ;)

bluekeybox• 15 years ago

The title should really be: "What Your Old Graphing Calculator Says About Our Education System."

TravisLS2• 15 years ago

Indeed. Conrad Wolfram has a great Ted talk on this very subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...

dxbydt2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the link. I just finished listening to the talk in its entirety. I would love to know what you thought about the actual content of the talk ( ie. not the presentation skills...Conrad Wolfram is charismatic and his analogies are compelling ). I personally think he has completely missed the whole point of math, why does one do math, math education, and problem solving using math.

camiller2• 15 years ago

I'll repost the comment I left on the article:

I used a TI-66 as an undergrad (Purdue - Computer Technology), but I graduated from college(the first time) in 1988. Was great that I could program in frequently used equations. Later as an MBA student I picked up an HP 19Bii Business Consultant Calculator for all the financial functionality.

They let you use a calculator on the SAT now? That is my "You kids get off my lawn" moment of the story.

Oh, and https://www.xkcd.com/768/

sliverstorm5• 15 years ago

They let you use a calculator on the SAT now?

Indeed. It seems like more and more, math classes are teaching students how to use a graphing calculator to avoid solving problems.

I used a scientific calculator all through high school and college. I don't remember if I got to use it on the SAT.

khafra• 15 years ago

Ideally, wouldn't math classes teach students how to solve the parts of problems that computers aren't as good at? I mean, I'm happy that I can use memorized multiplication tables to make my quick estimates of various quantities accurate to two orders of magnitude instead of one, but that's about all they're good for. Anything more, and I pull out my phone or head over to wolframalpha. And I'd much rather have spent those years of brute-force arithmetic practice advancing to higher, more interesting math.

scott_s• 15 years ago

They let you use a calculator on the SAT now?

Yes, because they are more interested in your understanding of math, not your ability to perform arithmetic. In my math and physics classes in college and high school, I typically only picked up my calculator once I had solved the problem. My real answer was an expression with variables in it, but to check my work with the back of the book, I had to plug numbers into the expression I derived.

anigbrowl• 15 years ago

Meanwhile, over in Europe: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/

Geogebra is open source and funded with EU grants. They're about to launch version 4, I think, but I don't care because v5 has been in stable beta for the last 6 months.

pyramid• 15 years ago

If it's paid by my taxes they better remove that GPL license out of it.

Tax money = public domain

papaf• 15 years ago

I don't understand your logic. The GPL ensures that the software is free for you, your children and their children to modify as they please.

Goladus• 15 years ago

All I would change about my graphing calculator is speed and perhaps a brighter, higher-resolution screen.

vvpan• 15 years ago

While I am geeky, I always felt that the graphing calculators did not contribute much to my math classes. And neither were they a significant gateway into technology - few people went beyond the simplest functionality.

sliverstorm5• 15 years ago

That's because graphing calculators are, as best I understand it, really a tool for post-undergraduate level math.

Of course, anymore if you're doing anything that requires the full muscle of a graphing calculator, you're using Mathematica or MATLAB instead.

libraryatnight• 15 years ago

I used my TI-83 for quasi-cheating (it was loaded with extra info and formulas in notes) and playing mario or tetris. It served me well.

ChuckMcM2• 15 years ago

People find it amazing that an analog oscilloscope from 1985 sells for $200 on the used market. Or that a milling machine from 1965 sells for $1,200. Tools, certainly solid tools, derive their value from their ability to meet the need, and once silicon density intersected with the needs of high school math they reached 'equilibrium.' From that point on, a solid calculator has an intrinsic value. What is more its pretty clear that the value is higher than the cost of manufacturing it, so building solid calculators is nearly always going to have some 'profit' associated with it.

Personally the TI-92+ was the pinnacle, it was basically a Sun-2 workstation with Macsyma installed in a handheld unit. I've still got mine :-)

sliverstorm5• 15 years ago

The reason an analog 'scope from 1985 can fetch $200 is a combination of things, and you're forgetting at least two:

1) A quality scope is expensive to make. Those 'scopes, expensive as they may seem, are priced at a fraction of the cost to make one; it is not just their utility, but also the cost of making on that keeps their value above $5.

2) Modern, new quality 'scopes cost thousands of dollars, so $200 seems cheap in comparison.

ChuckMcM2• 15 years ago

True, both of these. Although the recent move to 'USB' type scopes has some people wondering if maybe moving all the 'display/ux' bits to a laptop warrants the price reduction.

I was trying to explain the difference between the Tektronix probe frontend (expensive american brand) and the Rigol (cheap chinese brand) scopes to a hobbyist and they couldn't really appreciate the flat frequency response from DC to the scope's rated frequency of the Tek front end, whereas there was a little more than 1dB dropoff in the frequency response on the Rigol as it approaches its rated frequency.

(Oh and the Tek actually 'works' to nearly double its rated frequency and the Rigol certainly does not do that)

I worry though that 'good enough' will make it hard to find quality test gear going forward.

blackguardx2• 15 years ago

Amazed at being expensive or cheap? With oscilloscopes and milling machines, the old adage goes, "they don't make them like they used to."

To get better performance that some of those old 'scopes would cost thousands of dollars today. Not everyone needs color graphics. Give me a green line and I'll be fine.

pointyhat2• 15 years ago

+1. I've got a 50mhz DT telequipment d83 which is older than me and built like a battleship with no integrated circuits at all. It is bomb proof, feature packed and still as good as new!

veyron• 15 years ago

You couldn't use TI-92 on APs or other exams though :/ TI-89 for me :)

qaexl3• 15 years ago

Want to see a non-incremental innovation for multi-touch calculators?

A friend of a friend wrote this: http://mathtouchapp.com/ (He doesn't know I'm linking it here).

The app throws away the calculator metaphor and starts from scratch. Instead, the author uses the back-of-a-napkin as the metaphor.

You start with a blank page and add systems of equations. You can visually link variables together. You can insert values along with its unit of measurement and numeric precision. You can feed results to graphs.

At $10, this is cheaper than getting the Nspire if you already have an iOS device. But of course, you can't use it when taking the SAT. And it would be cool if you can export it to Wolfram's computational data format and trade formula libraries.

You need to actually understand the math instead of just punching the buttons. Then again, isn't that what Sal Khan's videos are for?

mvzink• 15 years ago

That's really cool! Non-incremental innovation indeed. Thanks for the link! Has this been submitted to HN proper?

qaexl3• 15 years ago

I don't remember. I'm not very good at writing posts that get a lot of upvotes. You are more then welcomed to try -- this app can get all the marketing help it gets.

mechanical_fish• 15 years ago

I'm trying to decide if I want to try this.

I'm suspicious that I won't find it useful. Pencils and paper are awfully nice. I bet that even a trained user of this software can't write an equation faster than I can.

Sometimes it is nice to be able to typeset equations, or feed them into Matlab or Mathematica, and I guess this might help with that. But I don't own Matlab or Mathematica anymore.

And, yes, the paper requires you to know that m is a mass with units of kilograms and q is a charge with units of coulombs, and that the m in one equation is the same as the m in another. But if you can't keep track of that yourself I'm not sure why you're bothering to write down equations.

giffo• 15 years ago

That is brilliant. If I had an iPhone, I would have math touch.

qaexl3• 15 years ago

I got it for my iPod Touch. From working with it, I'd like to use it on the iPad.

rlpb• 15 years ago

This reminds me of Mathcad. Very nice!

jpadkins• 15 years ago

I think it says more about the state of high school math. technology meets the needs of the market, and this market hasn't changed much in 10 years.

brudgers• 15 years ago

That's nothing. The HP12C is thirty years old and still lists for $70.

In other words, it was cutting edge in 1981 along with the original IBM PC.

[http://www.amazon.com/HP-12c-Financial-Calculator-12C/dp/B00...]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-10C_series#HP-12C]

eluberoff• 15 years ago

Repost of my comment on the atlantic article:

The fault lies with the college board. A useful standardized test would either: * not require a calculator at all, testing understanding instead of computation or * allow access to real world tools-- including free ones like http://wolframalpha.com and http://desmos.com/calculator (full disclosure-- I helped build the latter)

How much time is wasted teaching the unnecessary skills of how to use an antiquated, expensive device merely because tests require it? We should be teaching our students which resources are available, which to use in which situations, and how to plug in the gaps between them

juiceandjuice• 15 years ago

I haven't changed the batteries in 8 months. I can do math on my TI-89 Titanium without even looking at it, that's not possible with any tablet. Real buttons are worth the extra money. Depending on the complexity of the problem, there's many I'd rather use a calculator than even Maple or Mathematica, both of which would be an absolute nightmare to do on my iPhone. Also, you can still program it, which isn't available on anything iOS related unless you used javascript somehow (Fucking up the semi-empirical mass formula in Nuclear Physics was practically a pastime on my homework before I wrote a small basic program). Furthermore, no teacher/professor in their right mind is going to let anyone use a device capable of wireless communications on a test.

pkamb• 15 years ago

+1 for real buttons.

hxa7241• 15 years ago

There is a feedback aspect that this article does not seem to get.

> After all, the material hasn't changed (much), so if the calculators were good enough for us 10 or 15 years ago, they are still good enough to solve the math problems.

Technology changes the material: it changes what you think you need or want. You could almost say dialup internet was fine for viewing text web-pages -- why does it need to be faster? Broadband enabled web video -- which in turn spurred the need for broadband.

The calculator example looks a bit like a phone. If you took a phone from 2000 and one from 2007, they would look pretty similar. It is still a phone, is it not? We do not need something more, do we? And then the iPhone appeared.

> Here's the thing. Some technologies don't change all that quickly because we don't need them to. . . . Look at cars or power plants

Crikey! If you wanted to hit on two of the things we do most need to change, and have for decades, it might well be just those.

The whole article disturbs me a bit, actually, because it seems dangerously full of the anti/un-creative mindset. You will never invent anything if you just look at what you have and think of justifications for why everything is pretty much fine. You create by finding faults and imagining what you do not have. Look at those two calculator pics, and think of them as representing some part of the web now and in 2021. Scary? Well that is what it will be unless you get irritated and make some weird unexpected new stuff!

Jun8• 15 years ago

Excellent point! Commonly told anecdote, lady sees Faraday's inventions and asks "What is it good for", he answers "What good is a newborn baby!" (I just found out that this didn't exactly happen this way, see http://www.jstor.org/pss/986790, but you get the point). Some tech advances are pushed by necessity, some just happen (or may be pushed by some other necessity) and create the question or need that they then answer.

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

I miss my old Ti-89. it really was the best graphics calculator I ever used.

pwg• 15 years ago

Come back to teenagedom in 1985. You listened to the FM radio, because CD's hadn't been invented yet. You made calls on a landline, and yes, it was called "the phone". You didn't have a beeper. You didn't have "the internet" (it had been invented, but you had not heard of it yet). Instead, you had local dial up BBS's on a 1200 bps modem (if you were very lucky) or on a 300 bps modem (typical). You most likely had an Atari 2600 as your "game system" (that is, if you had a "game system" at all). And your calculator of choice was the HP-15C.

Well, maybe most didn't have a HP-15C, but that was the calculator I had. Still have it actually, and it still works as well today as it did then.

DerekL• 15 years ago

You're a bit off about CD's. They weren't popular yet, but they did exist. They first went on sale in the US in 1983, and 4% of albums sold in 1985 were on CD.

For portable music in 1985, there were also cassette tapes.

curt• 15 years ago

Have a 14 year old TI-89, that I still use to this day. It's small, simple, quick, and have all the functions and symbols I use under the custom menu. Amazing their haven't been any screen and function improvements (built in programs).

modeless• 15 years ago

It says "Get a powerful oligopoly to essentially require your product and say goodbye to competition! Cut R&D and cruise down easy street."

What Your Old Graphing Calculator Says About Technology

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