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Calculators - Page 3

post #31 of 107
6/9/09 at 10:48pm
I used a TI-83 plus through high school (required calculator for upper level high school math classes). In college I used the 83 a little but I mostly use the TI-89 now.
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post #32 of 107
6/9/09 at 10:54pm
I've owned quite a few over the years, both TI and HP, but all I have left are an HP48G and an HP49G+. I'd love to sell the G+, but no one's buying due to a combination of the 50G being out and college/HS kids all being TI addicts.
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post #33 of 107
6/9/09 at 11:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by linuxworks View Post
OT but I was overhearing a friend talk to his daughter; she tells him that she NEEDS this graphing calc for school. 'everyone in the class has to have one'.

really?

not in my day! I'm mid 40's and calcs were, at best, tolerated in school and never REQUIRED.

what the heck is happening, that calcs are REQUIRED (?).

this can't be good. I hate to be the 'get off my lawn' guy (lol) but this is not a good sign.

and, what about the poorer kids in school who can't afford $40 for a calc?

I worry that we don't tech THINKING anymore; but mostly just button pressin'.
I dated a woman who had three kids. They claimed they needed a graphing calculator because they can't graph any equations without a graphing calculator. That drove me nuts to hear. The most complex equations they were solving were for circles and parabolas. I offerd to go in and teach the class how to graph minus the graphing calculator. My offer wasn't taken up.
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post #34 of 107
6/9/09 at 11:32pm
TI-89 here. Old school black.

Quote:
Originally Posted by linuxworks View Post
not in my day! I'm mid 40's and calcs were, at best, tolerated in school and never REQUIRED.

what the heck is happening, that calcs are REQUIRED (?).

and, what about the poorer kids in school who can't afford $40 for a calc?

I worry that we don't tech THINKING anymore; but mostly just button pressin'.
Some classes allow calculators, some don't. You still have to know what you're doing. The calculator won't save you. The classes that don't allow calcs obviously focus more on the mathematics where as in the other courses, taking too much time with the math would detract from the rest of the material.

My calc 4 professor though is famous for allowing anything you want in class and on tests. Bring a calculator, bring a laptop, mathematica, whatever you want. They can't solve the problems so you'd just be wasting your time. That was my first non-A letter grade. The kids with an A still only got like 50 out of 100 on the final. It was brutal.
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post #35 of 107
6/10/09 at 12:23am
ti-89 is a requirement for all engineers. I have never used a calculator in a math class but I have used one in every single engineering class.
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post #36 of 107
6/10/09 at 12:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by intoflatlines View Post
I used a TI-83 plus through high school (required calculator for upper level high school math classes). In college I used the 83 a little but I mostly use the TI-89 now.
for some reason i looked in a box and found that i had 2 of each of those =x dunno why i needed so many lol
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post #37 of 107
6/10/09 at 1:54am
92s are pretty sweet, our calc room has 3 of them as spares for people who need to borrow one, my speed at typing equations goes down on them as I look for buttons :P

As for the concerns about the "requirement" for calculators. In my calc class it sort of went this way.

Part of test was fairly easy (nothing with huge fractions or ugly decimals) questions that required you to know how to graph rect/para/polar by hand and integrate by hand among other things, anything that could be done by hand basically without making kids cry

The second half of test was calculator and this was where your calculator couldn't even adequately derive said function and instead did a trapezoid rule to adequate precision for such things as arc lengths, volumes and surface areas of revolved solids and the work needed to empty tanks.

In essence if you depended on your calculator for homework you would not do well on his tests.
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post #38 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:14am
I have a TI Nspire CAS. I've compared its speed to the TI-89 and it's about 20x faster at summations. It doesn't have native 3D graphing but I found a program that makes creative use of spreadsheets and scatter plots to get the job done.

I also have an 84 but I haven't used it for over a year.
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post #39 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by will33184 View Post
for some reason i looked in a box and found that i had 2 of each of those =x dunno why i needed so many lol
you should put one up on the FS!
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post #40 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:27am
I used the TI-83 plus (which died), TI-86 (which was very slow), then the TI-84 silver in high school.

I upgraded to the TI-89 Titanium in college. For college math and Engineering, accept no substitutes.
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post #41 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:29am
I probably need a 89 for college... But I love my 83+ way too much... It has served me well for 5 years.
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post #42 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:35am
I use my TI-89 and TI-BAII+ on a daily basis


mods... i once put a sticker on my old TI-82...
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post #43 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:37am
I considered doing a backlight mod on my 83+ before, lol.
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post #44 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nonchalance View Post
I probably need a 89 for college... But I love my 83+ way too much... It has served me well for 5 years.
I thought that about my 84 (I resisted getting the 89 until my sophomore year), but you will be floored by how much more powerful the 89 is.
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post #45 of 107
6/10/09 at 2:42am
I use a Ti-89 Titanium like some others. Dayum, I loved that thing; chewed through calculus, physics, and chemistry. I still can recall the first integral I checked: e^3x I know simple, but I was in love.
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