And yes, TI calculators have indeed been improving, apparently.
The TI-84 Plus is a graphing calculator made by Texas Instruments which was released in early 2004. There is no original TI-84, only the TI-84 Plus, the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition models, and the TI-84 Plus CE. The TI-84 Plus is an enhanced version of the TI-83 Plus. The key-by-key correspondence is relatively the same, but the TI-84 features improved hardware. The archive (ROM) is about 3 times as large, and the CPU is about 2.5 times as fast (over the TI-83 and TI-83 Plus)[citation needed]. A USB port and built-in clock functionality were also added. The USB port on the TI-84 Plus series is USB On-The-Go compliant, similar to the next generation TI-Nspire calculator, which supports connecting to USB based data collection devices and probes, and supports device to device transfers over USB rather than over the serial link port.
On my TI-83 plus, a fellow students and my calculator were matching rand(int) and it was amazing. Random wasn’t really random. I thought it’d be based on some sort of hidden internal clock.
You need to set the seed number.
True randomness is really really hard to do in software; bigger CPUs often have hardware random number generators that exploit some sort of quantum or otherwise non-determanistic phenomena, but in software the best you can do is pseudo-random. These are algorithms that generate a sequence of randomly distributed numbers, but in a deterministic way - from a given starting state, it will always generate the same sequence of numbers. Good algorithms are designed to make it hard to infer the starting state just by observing the sequence (if you can do that, you can run the algorithm in parallel and predict the next number), but that’s an active area of research.
At a guess, the calculator was programmed to initialise the random number generator from something that it is hard for the user to control (milliseconds since power on would be a good one) the first time you used it, but maybe TI got lazy and just initialised it to a constant value
Why did it have no GPS?
Because that would have eaten into their price gouging. In the age of the iPhone, Texas Instruments was able to charge upwards of $100 for a Zilog Z80 powered nothing machine because they’re quasi mandatory for high school and college students.
I bought my TI 36X Pro at $20.
I paid over $100 for my TI-84 in like 2012 almost 40 years after this basic ass hardware was created.
are there any applications for calculators anymore? I feel like since everything can be done on our phones or computers, what’s the point of a dedicated piece of hardware that’s generally inferior?
What do you mean generally inferior?
It has physical buttons, no distractions, and the batteries last forever compared to a phone.
Except when you put it in “exam mode” and the LED stays lit until the battery dies.
taking tests
I use a calculator at work, i could use the one in my phone. I like using my calculator though.
what’s the point of a dedicated piece of hardware that’s generally inferior?
Focus/concentration, kinda like how George R R Martin writes on an old DOS computer to eliminate distractions while writing (bad example for expediting work, I know). Still requires you to do a lot of the heavy lifting, which instills knowledge for the future.
There’s also an element of trust; schools generally trust Texas Instruments that their products do math correctly (you’d be surprised how many calculators don’t), the same cannot be said for MegaPower Graphing Calculator Pro (Ad-Free Premium) off of the Play Store.
I have an HP prime I use at home and work. I also have the app that is identical on my phone, but I am much faster with the physical buttons on the actual calculator. Before I had my HP prime I had a TI 84+ silver and a TI 84+ emulator on my phone with similar experiences.
What is your job?
A traveling calculator salesman.
Got an OG TI-83 when it first came out as an upgrade to my TI-82 circa 1997. Still use my 83 regularly.
Where’s my TI-86 plus?
So what you’re saying is that we’ve been dealing with shitty naming schemes in tech for decades?
[Sony has entered the chat]
They got it right with PlayStation. Sony’s other product lines should take notes
Ever try shopping for Sony earbuds? I feel like the model names are a riddle that the consumer needs to solve before they can buy.
wfxm100000mk4
Lol I’m pretty sure I have those headphones
I use these when I game on my Nintendo DS 3DS XL and have an adaptor to use a USB Type C 3.2 Gen 2x2 cable for easier connectivity.
Destroy TI’s walled garden!
If only you knew what they’ve been doing to the embedded devices lately…
thank you for reminding my to take out the dead batteries from my Ti-86 before they leak!
still have it next to my desk… since 1997 or so.
There is a website of a person who catalogs Texas Instruments calculators. You can wonder over to the graphing calculator section to see how many different graphing calculators they made along with a bit of information on each one.
