
Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end? - prostoalex
https://thehustle.co/graphing-calculators-expensive/
======
jedberg
This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no
internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily
added.

As long as that is the case, they will win, because the test companies don't
want to deal with people having internet access and notes.

Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone
into a single app only that you couldn't easily break out of, maybe things
will change.

But until then, they're going to require devices without internet and note
taking.

Edit: Since everyone is replying "you can store notes!", yes, you can, but
most test proctors know about the programs and make you clear your memory
before a test.

~~~
jmcphers
You can easily store notes on a TI calculator. I had a TI-85 in college, and
was occasionally guilty of writing TI-BASIC programs to make tests easier (for
example, I had one which computed Euler's method).

~~~
jedberg
Most test proctors make you clear your memory before a test in high school. In
college they don't care as much because they are used to making "open book
tests".

~~~
bsamuels
The trick with those is you can make a TI-BASIC program that will make it look
like you cleared the memory - fake empty "programs" list and all. There were a
few tiny details you couldn't replicate like the highlighting animation, but
they never noticed when I did it.

~~~
jedberg
I in fact did this in high school. But now that the current high school
teachers are people my age who actually grew up using the calculators, they
are wise to that ploy. :)

~~~
JohnBooty
I went to high school in the early 90s, at the dawn of graphing calculators
but before teachers were wise to the "notes" trick.

One time before a calc test I dropped my graphing calculator. The battery door
popped off and the batteries popped out. The unit was otherwise unharmed...
but my cheat sheet in the notes app was gone!

I nearly crapped my pants.

Luckily though... as most cheaters know... to make a decent cheat sheet you
actually have to comprehend the material first. Half the time you wind up not
even using your cheat sheet. Luckily for me that was the case. I still did
well on the test.

~~~
mmcgaha
I am a little older than you, so my cheat sheets were on paper. There was
definitely something about miniaturizing notes that reinforced learning. I
made dozens of cheat sheets but never had to use one.

~~~
JohnBooty
Yeah, the vast majority of mine were on paper!

    
    
        There was definitely something about miniaturizing notes that reinforced learning
    

We have to comprehend a thing in order to summarize it, right? The more
compact the summary, the more comprehension required. =)

------
borgel
Approximately related, I find the NumWorks calculator [1] absolutely
enthralling. It has a fairly beefy modern ARM Cortex M4 processor which runs
an attractive GUI written in Python. And yes, you can write and run Python on
the device. The hardware is very well described [2] in human terms and
electrical schematics are available. Software is totally open source and the
device can be easily reflashed. I'm not sure what I'd use it for, but I've had
one on my birthday list for a while.

There's a web simulator [3] online if you want to play with the OS.

[1] [https://www.numworks.com/](https://www.numworks.com/)

[2] [https://hackaday.com/2018/05/18/open-source-calculator-
teach...](https://hackaday.com/2018/05/18/open-source-calculator-teaches-us-
about-quality-documentation/) (full disclosure, I wrote this)

[3] [https://www.numworks.com/simulator/](https://www.numworks.com/simulator/)

~~~
frostburg
It's nice but as far as I know it doesn't have a real CAS despite its
processing power.

~~~
Robotbeat
The TI-89 series' CAS is really impressive, particularly since it was released
over 20 years ago with automatic equation formatting and a powerful unit
subsystem.

The price of this is worth it for the software alone.

~~~
scottlocklin
It was/is amazing, and was actually released 31 years ago!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_(computer_algebra_syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_\(computer_algebra_system\))

I used it as a DOS program well up into the late 90s on my HP200lx... One of
the badass things about it, afaik, hasn't been reproduced in any CAS: the
quasi-ncurses looking menu made it easy to use on limited hardware and you
didn't have to waste time looking things up. I occasionally consider buying
one of the TI calculators just to fool around with it again.

------
5trokerac3
TI calculators are the biggest technology racket in education. The fact alone
that most schools won't allow the use of Casio equivalents deserves an anti-
trust investigation. There are programs that even dictate which TI _model_ is
accepted.

~~~
jerf
"There are programs that even dictate which TI _model_ is accepted."

At this point in 2019, with such cheap computation, the school calculator
lines are being sold as much on what they don't do as what they do.

Around 1994 or 1995, I had an HP-48G calculator, a real scientific
programmable calculator meant for engineers and scientists, where the rest of
the class had the TI line of school calculators. The HP-48G could do most of
the integration problems we had, symbolically. IIRC, there were a few high
school integration problems it couldn't do, but it did a pretty good job. And
it was a bottom-of-the-line, stuck on an embedded system computer algebra
system even at the time. It only goes up from there.

You don't want the students to be rolling into the SATs with computer algebra
systems that can solve all the problems on the exam. This is also why they
can't, for instance, bring in an Android system running the TI in emulation;
it's not about doing what the TI calculator can do, it's about _not_ being
able to reach Wolfram Alpha.

The model restrictions are about the test authors being sure they know what's
up.

(On the plus side, if you want to teach students how to use computers well,
leave them a loophole where they can bring in their android phones, install a
linux app, run Sage[1] from within that, and figure out how to use it to solve
their high school calculus problems. You _will_ learn something students, one
way or another!)

[1]:
[http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/reference/calculus/sage/symb...](http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/reference/calculus/sage/symbolic/integration/integral.html)

~~~
singron
I used a TI-89 (which has a CAS) on the AP Calculus exam. I maybe used it to
double check an answer, but I don't remember it being more useful than a TI-83
on that exam. You can only use calculators on part of the exam. On the
calculator portion, I remember formulating each problem to be the hard part
and the actual differentiation/integration was straightforward.

The SAT math is so rudimentary that it's difficult to use a calculator beyond
its basic arithmetic functionality (unless it's been changed since I took it).
I bet most people would get similar scores with and without calculators.

In college, calculators were never allowed in exams. They just constructed
each exam problem so that you didn't need to perform arithmetic with large
numbers. It does make it seem like exams were written to sell calculators...

~~~
fossuser
I find the 89 to be a huge leap over the 83 entirely because of the screen UX.

On the 89 it would draw the actual fractions and show exponents in superscript
rather than only using parenthesis. You could also scroll up to previous
entries and bring them back to the editor (or get previous answers).

The mistakes you avoid from not having to count parenthesis and being able to
easily access previously typed equations was really helpful.

~~~
asdff
The 84 did that too

------
jabl
Is there (non TI funded) research showing that graphing calculators are
actually helpful in high school level math education? I'm somewhat sceptical.

I had a ti-85 in high school, but in university graphing calculators were
verboten (basic scientific calculators were allowed). And I don't think they
would have been useful, even if they would have been allowed.

My university experience sort of mirrors my "real world" experience as well.
If I need something non-trivial, I have access to a computer with
python/R/Julia/Matlab/octave/mathematica/take-your-pick that blows those
graphing calculators out of the water. If not, a plain scientific calculator
is good enough. I've literally never thought "if I only had my trusty ti-85".

~~~
magicalhippo
I had the same at uni, no calculator allowed at any of the non-stat classes.
You had to memorize the table or rules for a few special sine/cosine values,
but that was it.

Then my gf had to take some extra math classes for a program she wanted to
take, and I got to help her as she had been weak at math in high-school.

At just about every problem she got all confused looking at her graphing
calculator, and I'd ask "why are you looking at that thing for?"

"Well, I'm trying to find the button to compute the answer".

After a little while like that I simply took her calculator away. Took a
couple of weeks but she finally got an understanding of the math. In the end
it turned out she is actually quite good at math, and passed the courses with
high marks.

------
4gotunameagain
> The company established partnerships with big textbook companies that
> integrated TI-specific exercises (complete with screenshots of buttons) into
> classroom curricula. It sought approval for standardized test use from
> administrators like the College Board. And every time a competing tech
> innovation came along, it lobbied to maintain its perch atop the parabola.

Absolutely disgusting

~~~
bsder
And absolutely killed the absolute best engineering calculator to ever exist--
the HP48SX.

I _still_ use all my HP calculators from the 80's and early 90's.

It's all about the keyboard. I can enter enormous streams of numbers and
operators and _never miss_.

~~~
yitchelle
I worked for the HP calculator back in the early 90s. It was the first
generation HP calculator that is looking to using new keyboard technology. The
amount engineering effort to keep the tactile feedback was significant. It had
to be just the right amount of click as well as the amount of pressure needed
to make the contact.

The tactile feedback on the HP calculators is one of the those things that
defined that product.

~~~
bsder
If you don't mind my asking: what was the "old" generation technology?

It seems like with modern manufacturing we ought to be able to replicate that.

~~~
yitchelle
To be honest, it has been too long ago for me to remember the details Sorry.
From what I can recall, The "old" technology needed to be updated as the
manufacturing methods were too costly.

~~~
bsder
> The "old" technology needed to be updated as the manufacturing methods were
> too costly.

Sure, costly for a volume manufacturer. However, for low volume, boutique
manufacturing, you can tolerate a whole lot of "non-optimal" methods that may
actually be easier to manufacture even if not cheaper.

~~~
yitchelle
I don't think that HP would see themselves as boutique manufacturer of
calculators. :-)

~~~
bsder
I mean for a hacker/maker to clone. HP is clearly not going to bring back an
HP 48SX.

------
advisedwang
This article suggests the basis for the price is a result of lobbying to make
calculators manadatory for certain tests. This rings true to me - even TI's
comparison page ([https://education.ti.com/en/product-resources/graphing-
cours...](https://education.ti.com/en/product-resources/graphing-course-
comparison)) has a section on test requirements but not on actual product
features!

However the argument for why this might collapse seems to be that
technological change - touchscreens, phones, tablets, apps etc - means that
institutions will be more willing to break from TI's grip. I don't believe
this is likely. From the point of view of those institutions, saving student's
money isn't a high priority. They are more likely to care about how a single
use-device makes cheating hard. Not to mention the fact that despite the
article's love of convergence, physical calculators are genuinely much easier
to use for calculating than a touch screen device.

------
japhyr
I've been a math and science teacher for the last 25 years. I have always told
students they could use whatever device worked for them, and I have alway been
very clear that the only reason TI calculators are so prevalent is because the
test-taking companies require them.

The only time I have encouraged their use is for students who are going to
take a test that requires them, and even then they should only use them enough
to know how they work. There are much better tools for learning and exploring
many areas of mathematics.

For students who don't have a specific device they wanted to use, I steered
most of them over the past few years to
[https://www.desmos.com/calculator](https://www.desmos.com/calculator).

~~~
computator
I never heard of Desmos until now; it looks like an outstanding educational
tool with pages and pages of exercises, demos, and aids for teaching math.

But I can't fathom how they make money. Their "about" page lists 29 high-
qualification employees, and they're located in a high-cost city (San
Francisco). If the loaded cost of each employee is $150K, they'd have to make
$4.3 million a year just to pay salaries and overhead.

I can't find a single item on their website that has a price listed:
everything is free! They don't even have ads. They talk about partnerships and
such, but I can't figure out how they charge money and what they charge for.

Public schools are stingy when it comes to learning aids; teaching math is not
in the same category like spending for a football stadium. There are 56
million elementary, middle, and high schools in the U.S.[1]. If they charged
$1 per student in some partnership deal, they have to sign up at least 7% of
the entire U.S. student body just to meet payroll and overhead. Don't get me
wrong, their software looks absolutely wonderful, but I don't understand the
business case.

[1]
[https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372#PK12_enroll...](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372#PK12_enrollment)

~~~
bchanudet
Their business model is actually described in the article:

> “Our business model is the exact opposite of TI’s,” says Luberoff: “Their
> model has always been to give [tech] away for free to textbook companies and
> force families to buy it at a premium price; our model is to give [tech]
> away for free to students, and charge textbook companies to integrate it.”

It must have been a challenge to convince textbook companies to pay for
something they always got free with TI, but I suppose the network effect had a
big role there, and also printing a QR code to an already-prepared graph on
desmos must be easier than writing a complete set of instructions to get the
same graph on your calculator, even if you limit yourself to one model.

------
adrianpike
Timely thing - I actually dusted off my TI-89 over the weekend doing taxes.
There was something about a focused tool with a physical number that I was
really desiring. I have fond memories of tapping around on it in high school.

Turns out it sucks, and I wound up just buying one of the $5 solar basic
calculators and was way happier. I can't wait for this monopoly to get blown
up.

~~~
mindcrime
Opposite story here... I still use my TI-89 (or my even older TI-86) from time
to time, even when sitting in front of a PC that has R, Maxima, Gnuplot,
Axiom, Sage, etc. installed. There is something about the format of those old
TI calculators that I find oddly appealing for whatever reason.

That said, when I don't have a hand-held calculator handy, I usually just fire
up bc or R when I need to do some quick calculations.

~~~
fireattack
What is bc?

~~~
jumelles
If you're using bc for the first time, be aware that you almost certainly want
to run bc -l -- otherwise no decimals will be displayed and you'll get whole
number answers to everything.

The -l flag changes that behavior to instead use 20 decimal points.

------
roland35
I am not a fan of the lobbying side of this story, but I do think that the TI
graphing calculators are good products. They are very durable and easy to use.
I fondly remember programming a multiplayer poker game in TI-BASIC on a road
trip complete with a CPU player! I also would browse TIcalc.org to look for
new games and utilities.

I later bought a TI-89 Titanium which opened up the gaming possibilities!
Check out square-z for a fun tetris-like game

~~~
fwip
Very cool :) My road-trip project was Connect-4.

A couple of my more ambitious friends got into Z80 assembly, which was super
helpful for them down the road.

~~~
apple4ever
That's what I did! I fell in love with the Z80.

------
melq
As a reformed math major (that is, I've forgotten all my schooling), I think
its worth debating whether or not there is even any value in having middle
school / high school students use these calculators in the first place, let
alone requiring them. In my hastily formed opinion, I think students might be
better off learning without them. What does the average 7th grader need a CAS
for?

~~~
vkou
Nothing. There's not a single operation that you learn between grades 7 and 12
that requires anything more than a scientific, non-graphic calculator to
perform.

~~~
RandallBrown
You don't think graphing equations is an important function for any math done
by kids in grades 7-12?

~~~
vkou
I think that knowing how to graph y = x^2 + x is a far more important skill
than knowing how to punch it into a graphing calculator.

"Oh, it's a parabola... Plus a slanted line. It's going to look like a
parabola for large, and small values of x, but it's going to have an odd
behaviour around the origin, where x^2 ~=~ |x|. If I compute the approximate
values of y, when x = -3, -2, -1, -0.75, -0.5, -0.25, 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 2
and 3, it's going to give me a great approximation of what the graph looks
like."

Those values are, to a rough approximation, 6, 2, 0, -0.2, -0.25, -0.2, 0,
0.3, 0.75, 1.3, 2, 6, and 12.

Given that 'connect the dots' is part of the kindergarten curriculum, I don't
think that connecting those data points should be that much of a challenge for
the average grade 8 student.

Now, compare that to the 'skillset' of plugging the formula into a TI-83...

~~~
saagarjha
> Oh, it's a parabola... Plus a slanted line.

> If I compute the approximate values of y, when x = -3, -2, -1, -0.75, -0.5,
> -0.25, 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 2 and 3, it's going to give me a great
> approximation of what the graph looks like.

FWIW, this was almost completely useless to me in visualizing the parabola. If
I was doing this by hand, it's easy to find the roots and glance at the
leading coefficient to figure out what it'll look like.

------
droithomme
Casio makes several graphing calculators that are cheaper and faster than the
TIs. $70 gets you the top color one that can run Python programs and is test
compliant - it has a flashing test mode that disables all user memory. But the
$35 b&w one works just as well for tests. So low income parents can get a good
graphing calculator that does it all for around 1/4 the price of the
recommended TIs.

Students fear Casio because the button pressing procedures are slightly
different than TI and TI also has cleverly captured the textbook market, with
TI specific instructions only found in many courses, textbooks, and teacher
materials.

Below $35, there's $15 Casio models that can do numerical integration, solve
equations, and find roots, enabling students to do most all things required
for say AP Calculus exams easily, and the couple of questions that involve
looking at the graph can usually be done by interpreting the critical points.
One can get a 5 on the AP Calculus with a $15 calculator, though a couple
questions will be slower and that might lose a few points, but not many
because there's only a few questions like that. Most calculator required
questions on various tests don't need the graphing capability at all even
though a graphic calculator is recommended for the test.

Serious bad-asses can also take calculator required tests with no calculator
and attempt to still get the highest score, and some manage to do this.
College Board requires you to sign a waiver when you do this since the test
center will normally lend you some random calculator and wish you the best.

~~~
bllguo
i wont claim to be a serious badass, but taking these exams without a
calculator is very doable when you consider how the questions are scored. I
forgot my calculator for ap phys C and just left all my answers in symbolic
form without numerically evaluating them. If your steps are correct you get
the vast majority of the credit regardless

~~~
droithomme
> i wont claim to be a serious badass

AP Physics C without a calculator qualifies you!

Some of the most fun teachers had open-book open-note any-calculator tests for
various technical subjects, but the questions were carefully designed so that
if you stopped to rifle through a book or notes or pull out the calculator,
you would run out of time. Everything was set up to be symbolically done
faster if you knew your stuff. In addition many students hearing open-book
open-note simply don't bother to study and thus blow the test that way despite
having too many resources available to distract them during the test.

------
sct202
How is there not a giant 2nd hand marketplace of TI graphing calculators for
super cheap? Like after 30 years of basically producing a functionally
identical product that few people need after college, there should be cheap
used graphing calculators everywhere.

~~~
joezydeco
There is. I bought my son's TI-84 on eBay for 1/3 of the retail price.

There are plenty in desk drawers of graduated kids, but they're also pretty
beat up. In particular, the display seems to be built very cheaply and prone
to damage.

~~~
Invictus0
That hasn't been my experience. I've had my TI-84 for 9 years and that thing
took quite a beating. Still works perfectly today: can't say that for all the
phones I've had in that time.

~~~
joezydeco
While trying to select one out of the multitudes on eBay, a significant number
had this "smudge" on the LCD. And they all look similar:

[https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fyQAAOSwzahdiVGQ/s-l1600.jpg](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fyQAAOSwzahdiVGQ/s-l1600.jpg)

------
bsznjyewgd
I feel really out of the loop here. I went through a pretty standard
curriculum in the 2000s and have never owned or used a graphing calculator
(aside from the few times the teacher demonstrated our school's TI-83s in
class in high school). What are they used for?

[And while I used a bog standard scientific calculator regularly in
science/stats classes, I'm pretty sure my calculus classes disallowed
calculators and only stuck to magic numbers that were easy to manually
calculate with. It might even be plausible to go through a whole math
curriculum without a calculator apart from whatever stats/applied classes
you're required to take.]

~~~
monocasa
> I'm pretty sure my calculus classes disallowed calculators and only stuck to
> magic numbers that were easy to manually calculate with

That's the key. There's two schools of thought that have their pros and cons.
1) using magic number means no calculator, but students can get by searching
for clean answers and might not truly understand the topic. 2) using real
world examples grounds the curriculum in reality so there isn't a gap applying
it, and you're not used to the cleanliness in the future, but might be a bit
opaque in the short term.

Both sides have pretty good arguments why they do better than the other
teaching a number sense to students about the various transformations.

~~~
afiori
I have a strong bias towards the first school, the point being that opaque
calculation are simply harder to reason about.

I also agree that handling complex computations is a relevant skill, but then
what you need to learn is the mental book keeping of where you are and what
you need to do that you need to learn.

The only case where calculators are truly useful is in sciences, where numbers
are just a tool to scientific insight.

(moreover in math if you need trigonometric tables chances are that you are
going to learn better math by keeping symbolic answers)

------
nwallin
Bedridges law of headlines: If the answer to a question posed in the headline
of a news article is either "yes" or "no", the answer is "no". (paraphrased)

I think the problem here is that this is ultimately left up to individual
teachers, and 15% of them will take the easy way out and say "you can only use
the ti-84. Not the Casio equivalent, not the HP equivalent, the ti-84”. Word
goes around to not bother with the 1/3 price alternatives because you have to
pay for the ti markup eventually anyway. Better to pay $150 up front than pay
$50 now and $150 later.

I would like to see, for instance, the State of California sitting down and
establishing three levels of accredited calculator:

1\. Scientific calculators. Roughly equivalent to the ti-36.

2\. Graphing calculator. Roughly equivalent and compatible with the ti-84.

3\. Symbolic calculator. Full symbolic computation is acceptable, but notably
lacking wireless connectivity.

Require that publicly funded education systems choose a calculator level for
all their classes. No ad hoc individual teachers fucking the system for
everybody.

That being said, playing dumb is a really good option. I went back to school
in my 30s, and my military service taught me the value of begging forgiveness
instead of asking permission. I was an objectively good student, (sat in
front, paid attention, asked questions, responded to teacher prompts) and had
both a 90s ti-84 and ti's latest and greatest CAS calculator. Only got called
on it once, and got away with it, because I knew exactly how to navigate "just
following orders, sir".

Honestly, the military is a great way of learning the important stuff a middle
class upbringing breaks us of.

~~~
kyancey
As a teacher, just having some kids using a TI-84 and some using a TI-89 is a
headache. If I don't have a consistent set, I constantly have to stop and give
two sets of instructions to account for minor UI differences. There's no way I
could deal with everyone having different ones.

~~~
ericst
In school when we got introduced to calculator, the teacher told us that he
was not here to teach it to us. Only maybe guide us, we had a few lessons of
us sitting down with the manual and having to learn (mostly by ourselves, but
he would also help) how to use the calculator we chose. After that, it was to
each its own, he wouldn't give any explanations...

This is IMHO fair, he was anyway teaching us math, not using a calculator.

------
westurner
For $100, you can buy a Pinebook with an 11" or 14" screen, a multitouch
trackpad, gigabytes of storage, WiFi, a keyboard without a numpad, and an ARM
processor.

On this machine, you can create reproducible analyses with JupyterLab; do
arithmetic with Python; work with multidimensional arrays with NumPy, SciPy,
Pandas, xarray, Dask; do machine learning with Statsmodels, Scikit-learn,
Dask-ML, TPOT; create books of these notebooks (containing code and notes (in
Markdown, which easily transformed to HTML) and LaTeX equations) with jupyter-
book, nbsphinx, git + BinderHub; store the revision history of your
discoveries; publish what you've discovered and learned to public or private
git repositories; and complete graded exercises with nbgrader.

But the task is to prepare for a world of mental arithmetic, no validation, no
tests, no reference materials, and no search engines; and CAS (Computer
Algebra Systems) systems like SymPy and Sage are not allowed.

On this machine, you can run write code, write papers, build spreadsheets
and/or Jupyter notebooks, run physical simulations, explore the stars, and
play games and watch videos. Videos like: Khan Academy videos and exercises
that you can watch and do, with validation, until you've achieved mastery and
move on to the next task on your todo.txt list.

But the task is to preserve your creativity and natural curiosity despite the
compulsory education system's demands for quality control and allocative
efficiency; in an environment where drama and popularity are the solutions to
relatedness and acceptance needs.

I have three of these $100 calculators in my toolbox. It's been so long since
I've powered them on that I'm concerned that the rechargeable AAA batteries
are leaking battery acid.

For $100, you can buy an ARM notebook and install conda and conda-forge
packages and build sweet visualizations to collaborate with colleagues on
(with Seaborn (matplotlib), HoloViews, Altair, Plotly)

"You must buy a $100 calculator that only runs BASIC and ASM, and only use it
for arithmetic so that we can measure you."

Hand tools are fun, but please don't waste any more of my compulsory time.

~~~
reilly3000
I would LOVE to live in a world where Jupyter notebooks are the defacto
standard for post-primary education. It would take some vision and leadership
to bring about that sort of change, but would far better prepare kids for the
world they will be running one day.

------
ocdtrekkie
Back in the Android 2.0 days, a guy had a set of TI emulators which, when
loaded with the ROM downloadable directly off of TI's website, perfectly
replicated several well-known TI calculator models. Think the one I used got
shut down, but there's a number of newer ones:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89Emu)

I already owned a TI calculator at the time, it was just nice not to carry it
around. TI probably would still make good money selling an official version.

~~~
snrji
For studying it would be fine, but for taking exams no way the instructors can
let you in with your phone.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I know this is a crazy thought: But why should every student need to buy their
own calculator for testing? In a given class period, what, 10% of a school's
population is in a math class? The school should be providing adequate
calculators for test-taking, but of course, that would cut TI's income by a
factor of 10.

(It's worth noting that "an X for every student" mentality really only is
beneficial to whoever is selling X.)

------
jordache
HP 48g FTW!

Seriously considered it's IR data sharing capabilities with other
classmates... imagine beaming messages across the room!

~~~
daotoad
I had an HP28c (
[https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp28c.htm](https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp28c.htm) )
that saw me through high-school calculus and undergraduate work. In it's day,
it was a revolutionary product.

I never got to play with the data sharing stuff, since none of my classmates
had such an expensive or geeky piece of kit (I got mine used, but it was still
expensive).

------
DanTheManPR
I've used the same TI-89 since I started my engineering coursework in 2004.
It's a very useful piece of everyday kit for those of us who need to do basic
algebra and calculus on a day to day basis. In particular, I find it
indespensible when just doing desktop brain work with pencil and paper. I'm
sure using a smartphone would probably work just as well, but I like buttons.

What bums me out is that there hasn't been any attempt to release a version
that slims down the whole package, without revamping much of the actual
capabilities of the device.

------
deckar01
> was first released in 2004 for around $120 ... still sells for nearly the
> same price [$102.99]... One analyst placed the cost to produce a TI-84 Plus
> at around $15-20, meaning TI sells it for a profit margin of nearly 50% —
> far above the electronics industry’s average margin of 6.7%.

Wouldn't that be a 81% - 85% margin? (gross profit / revenue)

Edit: I finally got through the paywalled article they were quoting. It says
"over 50%". Retail distributors take a margin, so that is probably where the
uncertainty is coming from.

~~~
melq
I was wondering the same. Also annoyed that an article about math/calculators
called 120 and ~103 'nearly the same'... thats ~16% less!

------
JohnBooty
It's a shame we've standardized on something so ancient and limited, but we'll
be losing something when we give up on the standardization we've achieved. At
least if we accept that basic graphing capability is crucial to high school
and undergrad maths.

I'm picturing a high school math teacher trying to support 20-30 kids running
20-30 different BYOD'd devices... multiplied by 5-6 periods of teaching per
day. Even if one app becomes dominant, teachers will still need to keep up
with updates.

We can complain that teachers are technology-resistant at times, but have you
ever spoken to a teacher? They're typically quite overworked already.
Generally they take a lot of work home with them. The thought of adding
anything additional to their workload should really give us pause.

I would hope some sort of de facto standardized replacement emerges. Like that
free Desmos app mentioned in the article. That's not a perfect solution
(students still need devices) but it certainly lowers the bar for entry. I'm
sure a budget $50 (new) tablet would run it just fine. And there are plenty of
older devices on the used market that can do it.

Thing is, BYOD is still really problematic. Some students will have an
advantage over others. And there's the non-trivial matter of making sure that
students aren't accessing cellular data during tests.

 _Ideally_ schools would purchase cheap tablets with no cellular modems and
slap them into ruggedized cases. Then lend them to the kids or at least sell
them to the kids at nominal cost.

~~~
LukeShu
_> I'm picturing a high school math teacher trying to support 20-30 kids
running 20-30 different BYOD'd devices_

I don't get this fear of BYOD. It should be fine to say "these are the devices
I'll support, if you'd rather use something else, that's fine, but I won't be
able to help you."

(In testing situations, I do understand the fear of BYOD for devices that
might provide too many capabilities.)

When I was in high school, my teachers had no problem saying

\- Here is a list of the devices that are allowed on the standardized test. If
you're planning on taking the test, I advise that you use one of these for the
duration of the course, so that you will be comfortable with the device you
use on the test.

\- Here is is a list of the devices that I am familiar with, and can support.
I advise that you use one of these devices, so that if you have trouble with
it, I can help you. You are free to use a different device if you like, but if
you have trouble with it, finding the solution is your own responsibility.

~~~
JohnBooty

        Here is is a list of the devices that I am familiar 
        with, and can support. I advise that you use one of 
        these devices, so that if you have trouble with it, 
        I can help you. You are free to use a different 
        device if you like, but if you have trouble with it, 
        finding the solution is your own responsibility.
    

This is utterly reasonable, but here's the problem: a lot of kids have utterly
unreasonable circumstances.

Please think of the least-advantaged kids when we think of things like this.

A lot of kids don't even have parents that are willing or able to help with
their education at all.

There are a lot of parents who can hardly _feed_ their kids.

Let's recognize our privilege here. There are a lot of parents who don't have
an ability to buy something from a list of approved devices. They can't order
things online, because they don't have credit cards or they can't safely have
packages left on their doorsteps. They may be long bus rides away from
someplace they can buy one of these blessed devices.

And yeah, a lot of parents _will_ jump through whatever hoops necessary to get
their kids the $100 or $50 thing they need for math class.

What's the plan for those who don't?

------
filmgirlcw
Man, I used to cheat on so many tests with my TI-89. I had a TI-86 and then
the 89 came out and I convinced my mom I needed it for AP Calculus in 11th
grade, but really I just wanted to play better games and have an easier way to
cheat on my Physics exams.

Edited to add: I’m of the opinion every teen deserves to go through the
process of programming hacks to hide their cheat sheets on their calculators.
It’s a right of passage.

------
arthurcolle
I picked up the relatively new HP Prime in the last 6 months and the ability
to do 3D graphics with a touchscreen is amazing and really gives a great
appreciative for the underlying functions you are plotting. Would have loved
to have something like this in my advanced math classes.

So much better than the pretty terrible TI series by comparison.

~~~
arthurcolle
* appreciative => appreciation, if a mod/@dang can edit and then delete this comment. I hate typos. Thanks.

------
mnm1
I had a Casio graphing calculator in the 90s and while it was ridiculed and I
was made fun of sometimes by other students, it did the job just fine. If the
school requires a certain brand, they should pay for it themselves or stop
being such entitled assholes. Many students and their parents don't have $100
to throw away unnecessary. Especially now that there is undoubtedly free
software to do the same thing and much more. I inherited the calculator from
my big sister and my parents were barely able to afford it. Schools need to
take into account the feasibility of their requirements when making such
ludicrous demands. Or pay for it themselves. Period. Playing into this stupid
monopoly was ridiculous in the 90s. It's frankly just a lesson in the
stupidity of administrators and teachers today.

------
VLM
The article author doesn't seem to have kids. I do. The elementary kids
leverage Alexa for arithmetic and spelling. This is why their spelling is
awful and they complain about the math teacher forcing them to "show their
work". Alexa ruins spelling education but not arithmetic, as long as the
teacher isn't lazy about requiring explanations and multiple lines of proof of
doing it by hand. The teens use wolfram alpha to learn how to do algebra, and
graph, so given the answer, they use their crappy calculator which hasn't
changed since I was in HS to get the same result as wolfram provided, so they
can pass tests.

Another oddity that indicates the journalist has no kids, is making it an
amazing invention in 2011 that a Yale guy is the first human to ever notice
income inequality, which is comedic to read. Both in the 90s and today,
classrooms always have a basket of calculators for either forgetful or poor
kids to use. Also the school library. Of course a borrowed calc will not have
special notes hidden in them...

Much like cursive, nobody uses calculators after school. Even the last few
genx I know have given up on balancing checkbooks using calculators. Actually
the only people I know who still balance checkbooks the old fashioned way are
boomer and older and they're literally dying out. With everything paid online,
I only have maybe one or two checks per month to "balance" and that doesn't
require a protocol and algorithm to "balance".

------
bitxbit
I wouldn’t even mind the monopoly if they sold them at a reasonable margin
which I imagine is something close to $20.

More importantly, we need to change the curriculum to allow students to use
softwares such as Mathematica.

------
brewdad
So long as TI (and other) graphing calculators are the only approved
calculators for the SAT and ACT tests, they will continue to sell. For
students with college aspirations, purchasing one is mandatory.

~~~
souprock
Fortunately, that isn't the case.

For the SAT, you may use "All scientific calculators" and "All four-function
calculators (not recommended)".

------
lopmotr
I used to be a math teacher, but somehow I don't know what the use of a
graphing calculator is. Why do students need them compared to a basic
scientific calculator? In one school system I taught in, you didn't even need
any calculator at all for physics because we graded them entirely on their
working and explanation. They didn't need to produce numerical answers. A
calculus course I taught effectively didn't need calculators either, although
they were allowed, but pretty much no use.

------
ChuckMcM
One of the things I picked up was a Numworks calculator
([https://www.numworks.com/](https://www.numworks.com/)) which makes the
technical specs available. I've written my own firmware to play around with
calculator UIs for fun.

They don't do a particularly good job with buttons though, and a nicer screen
would be a bonus. All in all though, a calculator you program in python is
pretty cool.

------
madhadron
Good riddance. There's no reason to have a graphing calculator in high school
math. A four function to speed up arithmetic? A scientific so you don't have
to use tables to look up values of trig functions? Fine. A graphing calculator
for calculus? If you need it, you missed the point of calculus.

Plus there's no reason tests can't be set up so you don't need a calculator at
all, which makes the whole discussion really simple.

------
localhost
Seems like there are many options available that improve the accessibility of
the TI-89 (and as a parent of a middle and a high-schooler I’ve been
frustrated by this as much as the next parent):

\- You can go to eBay - Here’s a used listing at $29 [1]

\- You can go to Alibaba and purchase what is likely a knock-off at $20-$50
for a minimum order of 100 units (perhaps an arbitrage opportunity for an
enterprising student? :) [2]

I also came across an interesting article that calls into question the ability
of TI to copyright the keyboard layout which cites Lotus v. Borland and Oracle
v. Google decisions [3]

[1]
[https://www.ebay.com/p/1800843141?thm=3000](https://www.ebay.com/p/1800843141?thm=3000)

[2]
[https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/ti-89-calculator.html?searc...](https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/ti-89-calculator.html?searchweb=Y&)

[3] [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnxeqb/one-reason-why-
you...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnxeqb/one-reason-why-youre-still-
paying-120-for-a-ti-89-calculator-copyright)

------
hatsunearu
Yeah no, please tell me when they figure out a good calculator software that
can replace my TI-nspire CX CAS.

It has a pretty powerful symbolic math engine that is pretty insanely powerful
and it might as well be considered cheating. Difficulty of integrals is
limited by how fast I can type it in my calculator.

But the problem is the keyboard sucks ass (because stupid SAT requirements)
and programming it is also hard. I want something that is free or pretty cheap
(I can see myself paying 50 bucks for this) that has a nice symbolic +
numerical math engine (fuck you SymPy you suck ass) and has textbook-style
symbolic math entry (so integrals look like long S's and not Integral[]).

I think MathCAD comes close but its symbolic math is a little suboptimal.

It's fucked up when the best thing that matches these requirements is the
official emulator for TI-nspire cx cas that you get a license for when you buy
the calculator.

I might make my own but making a full math engine sounds like a huge project
(considering SymPy is nothing short of a disgrace)

~~~
hatsunearu
Desmos seems pretty nice.
[https://www.desmos.com/calculator](https://www.desmos.com/calculator)

Things like this has already existed for a very long time though. Like Grapher
in Mac OS.

When will some galaxy brain disrupt the market for high end math software like
Mathematica and others?

It's 2019 and I should not be doing integrals and symbolic manipulation on
paper. At least outside of school.

------
qubex
I am ambivalent about using either _MathWorks_ on my iPad or iPhone and my _HP
Prime_. As far as I’m concerned, to be a valid competitor for my attention the
solution _must_ have a Computer Algebra System (CAS). Something that can
merely manipulate numbers through various forms of arithmetic is far short of
what should actually be expected.

~~~
naikrovek
The HP Prime has CAS. Maybe you need to update your firmware or something.

------
ppmanik
I don't understand what kind of numeric calculations are needed by math
students. I completed my graduate and PhD math studies without use of any
calculator. I only needed a scientific calculator for Physics problems and
even there I had made use of a Casio fx-991MS which cost me $10 .

------
Phillipharryt
Interesting that the TI-84 is mentioned so much. I am pretty sure this article
is making a big deal out of nothing. I think this is a case of journalists
reading "graphing calculator" and assuming the 84 is being used. SAT's allow
CAS calculators, the Inspire is a pretty impressive specialist calculator and
makes algebraic expressions incredibly easy. Any sensible student should be
taking one into the exam or they're just putting themselves at a disadvantage.
I can't speak for what calculator students ARE buying, but they are allowed to
buy and use far better ones, the 84 might be overpriced but just don't buy it.
You wouldn't care if the Apple II is currently overpriced, no one should be
using one, so it shouldn't be a big deal that the 84 is overpriced, just move
on.

~~~
derekp7
If what you are saying is true, then there is no way that TI would be able to
maintain a $100+ price point on a $25 calculator. So that itself is evidence
that the TI-84 is a requirement in many student situations. Even if something
else can be used on exams, if you don't have the calculator that the text
books are written to, or that the teacher knows how to teach against, you are
at a major disadvantage.

~~~
Phillipharryt
You can't use the pricing as evidence it's necessary. It's possible it's both
unnecessary and overpriced. All that matters is TI deems it to be a profitable
price-point. They might be selling to mostly misinformed or confused buyers.

------
scohesc
You know, this could all be solved if TI would lower the cost of their
calculators, and make them easier for schools to buy them and maintain them as
opposed to students having to shell out $120 for a glorified Z80 processor.

------
tfolbrecht
My question is how has the second hand market not killed it already?

~~~
steve_adams_86
I once helped a girlfriend move and while going through her stuff to organize
it, found 3 different scientific calculators that all cost over $100 that she
had no intention of keeping. She wasn't an idiot, she acquired them over years
of post secondary education and has several degrees - I think people just
don't give a damn about them once they're done with them. They disappear into
drawers, then another is needed for another course, so they go get another.
Then one day they move, realize they have 3, and promptly forget an hour later
after stuffing them into an odds and ends box that'll sit in a closet for
another 5 or 10 years.

------
zosterops
The article mentioned that:

> In its annual reports, TI wraps calculator revenue into a larger category
> (“Other”), which includes additional products. Since 2014, this category has
> seen a 35% decline, from $2.2B to $1.4B.

But didn't mention the fact that "Other" accounts for only 3% of TI's revenue.

[http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor_relations/annual_report...](http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/investor_relations/annual_reports.html)

------
iguy
I'm surprised these are allowed in exams at all. Can someone who wrote such
exams tell me what sort of questions were asked for which graphing was useful?
Clearly there would be no point in asking many curve-sketching questions.

In teaching, I can see the utility of sometimes being able to ask the
computer. But ideally not a cheap computer from the 90s. And of sometimes
being forced to do without. But in exams, where standardization matters, why
not restrict to basic 4-function calculators?

~~~
noer
I may be misremembering, but I want to say I was allowed to have a calculator
(a TI-83 Plus) when I took the SAT & ACT in 2003.

------
netmonk
All thoses peoples talking about TI or Casio as real calculators, while real
fun was hp48. TI or Casio were real piece of shit, Reverse polish is the true
path. Many of my generation (+40) learnt assembly, language machine and coding
with this model (not even talking about hp41C or hp28S for the oldest of us).
Long live to Saturn, and sysinternal. I often buy refurbished one on ebay or
other site, i actually own 6 hp48s, i hope it will be enough for my offspring.

------
ridaj
Substitutes are not so easy to find. After using an app on my phone, and then
my desktop computer, to try and do homework that included lots of numerical
calculations, I quickly reverted to the hard-keys of my calculator with which
I was working faster and more accurately. I've personally found the key layout
of the calculator to be a lot more efficient than a desktop computer's, and
the touchscreens to be flexible but error-prone.

------
gowld
You can already get a graphing calculator on your phone today. Desmos is
interesting but their business model isn't going to fix the costs of anything,
as many commenters have noted.

At best, Desmos is pushing the costs from students to the book-buying
taxpayers. Schools can solve that problem more simply by just buying the
caclulators themselves. A TI-89 calculator last for 20 years, $5/yr/student,
no big deal, despite costing more than it should.

------
takk309
I still have and use my TI-84+ that I purchased when I started college. As a
professional I use it here and there but rarely for anything that actually
needs more than a basic scientific calculator. During college (civil
engineering) I used many of the more powerful functions like matrix math
stuff. In high school, I don't think I used a graphing calculator once. Just
doesn't seem necessary to teach geometry and algebra 2 in my mind.

~~~
DickingAround
Yea, I loved by TI91 (I think that was it's designation); very durable, long
battery life, a real work horse. I still have it. Don't remember how to to
anything on it. The thing is, a full computer, python notebook, and keyboard
are quite an advancement over that even. I get that $100 is high, but it's in
the range of other BS like always-new textbooks. My only regret about these
calculators is that they really are old tech now. In almost any industry or
research we don't use calculators almost even, we always use full laptops.
Kids should train on the best tech we use in the field, that's the laptop.

------
K2h
HP-41C (non graphing) was used on the space shuttle. I thought it was inline
as a failsafe in case of the loss of one or part of the main computers but I
can't find that from a quick search. here((1) is a quick article on the HP-41C
used at NASA

(1)
[https://www.hpmuseum.net/pdf/KeyNotes_1981_Jan_Vol5No1_17pag...](https://www.hpmuseum.net/pdf/KeyNotes_1981_Jan_Vol5No1_17pages_OCR.pdf)

------
Zardoz84
meanwhile on Europe (at least Spain), it's forbidden to use programmable
calculators on exams. Casio semi-programable calculators (aka, no memory to
store functions or programs when is poweroff) are very popular. Also, I never
saw a exam or exercise that required to use a calculator (with the exception
of some no trivial sin/cos values) Everything can be made with paper and a
pencil.

------
gautamcgoel
Somewhat unrelated: I really enjoyed this recent NYT article about how
schoolkids in Japan master arithmetic by learning how to use an abacus:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/world/asia/japan-
abacus.h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/world/asia/japan-abacus.html)

------
shp0ngle
This is a baffling article.

It starts with description of the current monopoly and how is it caused, which
is fine. And then it pivots to "but this app is changing everything."

I don't think an app will change anything, there are existing apps that are
sufficient. The only reason TI has the monopoly is because it is not internet
connected, another calculator app will not change anything.

------
sanj
My son is working on an Eagle Scout project collecting unused calculators so
kids don’t have to buy them.

Drop me a line if you’re interested in donating.

------
natrik
In regards to the rest of the posts stating its because of lack of
functionality rather than functionality, why not design and write tests (math
tests specifically) so that no calculator is required. Core Calculus, Stats,
etc. concepts are testable without exact numerical precision. Substitute
variables if needed, or have end results allowable in non reduced formats.

~~~
takeda
I guess the only thing good in it is that parents (and maybe even
grandparents?) can pass them on to younger generation like a family heirloom,
and child won't even get anything outdated.

------
seanalltogether
This article reminds me of that famous video of Steve Jobs talking about how
sales & marketing guys take over a tech company and engineering gets pushed
out. TI has no monetary incentive to make these calculators better, the only
way for them to make more money is to aggressively sell to schools and lobby
for more favorable legislation around their product.

------
Shorel
They can upgrade the technology to a much bigger screen, like the one in an
e-reader, for a smaller profit but much better value for students.

If they don't change their hardware, at some instant in the future the
inflexion point could even bankrupt them.

------
hnruss
I learned programming on a TI 83+ while ignoring math lectures in high school.
I grew up to become a full-time software developer, so IMO that $100
calculator was money well spent.

I also learned some stuff about math and graphs on the TI 83+, but I haven't
used much of that knowledge in my work.

------
KoftaBob
The $100 calculator era has long been a racket and blatant collusion between
test taking companies (College Board, ACT, etc) and Texas Instruments.

Same goes for universities forcing students to buy the latest edition of
textbooks, despite the new version having very few differences.

------
kevin_thibedeau
> it wasn’t until 1990, when Texas Instruments released the TI-81, that
> graphing calculators really began to hit the mainstream.

Casio FX-7000G was well established before TI came onto the scene.

------
goatinaboat
I 100% guarantee an old-fashioned calculator beats a smartphone full of apps,
games and social media for actual studying. And I further guarantee that
everyone knows this.

------
callesgg
Why would you ever use a calculator except for tests in school where you are
not allowed to have equipment that can do all the stuff that a modern device
allows you to do..

------
packetpirate
These teachers need to know about WolframAlpha...

------
inamberclad
The good thing about the Ti-83 and 84 is that they're nearly standard. Want to
know how to do x? Someone nearby will know.

------
selimthegrim
I'm sure they're still botching quotients with cube roots because 'kids only
need the principal one'

------
manav
I still have fond memories of my TI-89 because it could do symbolic
manipulation. Eventually it got banned in our classes.

------
mongol
There used to be so many cool gadgets with lots of buttons. Now there are
almost no buttons. I miss the tactile feedback.

------
wolco
Am I the only one who never used a calculator? It felt like learning the
formula on paper cemented the knowledge.

------
vincent-toups
I had an HP48 throughout high school, college and grad school and I still look
down on the TI people.

~~~
cbm-vic-20
I think that was actually a bullet point on the side of the box.

    
    
        Features:
        * ...
        * IR/Serial Port
        * Look down on TI peons.
        * Removable Storage
        * ...

------
mark-r
Get used to it, kids. Wait until you see the price tags on those required
college textbooks.

~~~
dheera
Buy the international editions, buy used from graduating seniors who are
trying to get rid of their stuff ASAP, or buy the ebook versions.

Oppenheim and Wilsky's Signals and Systems is $100+ in stores in the US, <$30
on eBay, $5 for Kindle.

------
m3kw9
Not when an exam requires you to use a TI calc, no phones allowed

------
j45
I still have my ti-85 and the serial link cable I built for it.

------
netmonk
droid48 or any hp vintage calculators available on ebay are doing the same
job, first solution for free on android devices second for some bucks

------
Zardoz84
why no body are doing cheaper clones of the TI-84 ? You will need to write the
firmware from scratch to avoid any legal problem.

------
del_operator
Takes me back to the days of my HP 50g.

------
fulldecent2
Everyone uses Desmos now.

------
RustyBucket
I am genuinely impressed how capitalism can solve a problem that never existed
before they started solving it and then forcing that particular and often
quite expensive solution on you. Never needed calculator until advanced
statistics where calculations became monotonous and no longer instructive.
Before that, actually, use of calculators was explicitly banned both in school
and uni.

------
__sy__
Former math TA* here. What if the pb isn't the $100 barebone calculator but
the way/medium by which math is currently instructed in the U.S.?

To this day, we're still teaching math with pen & paper, and require students
to memorize concepts like how to differentiate functions of the form 1/x,
x^2...etc. To test proficiency, well we give pen & paper tests and forbid most
notes, but we still provide you a calculator because it'd be almost dumb not
to. But given the prior rules about no notes, the calculator that doesn't have
fancy note storage & programming wins, even if it costs $100.

But my recollection as a student is that math didn't entirely click until I
started playing with Excel and later with Jupyter notebooks. Honestly, nothing
quite like coding along a spam filter from scratch to really understand the
basic principles at play behind Bayes' theorem.

In summary, I didn't love math in the pen&paper contest, but absolutely loved
it when applied using a computer and some visualizations...etc. Based on my
TA'ing experience, I am willing to bet most kids feel the same way.
Mathematicians have long moved away from using abacus; maybe it's time our
education does too.

Context: Former college TA for linear-algebra/vector-calculus/differential-
equations.

~~~
lopmotr
> differentiate functions of the form 1/x, x^2...etc. To test proficiency,
> well we give pen & paper tests and forbid most notes,

Maybe it's a US thing, but that sounds horrible. When I was a teacher, we
usually allowed notes and always gave them the differentiation formulas as
well as every other formula they might need. Why are you guys getting them to
memorize a bunch of specific facts that they'll forget after the exam? You
don't learn math by reciting formulas to yourself the way you might learn
vocabulary in a foreign language. I'm not even sure you learn languages very
well that way either.

~~~
__sy__
I completely agree. By the way, I'm not convinced it's just a U.S. thing. I
went to high-school in France for 1.5 years. I also have some exposure to
Japanese high-school math. In both contexts, rot memorization of derivation
techniques was at play.

