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  • Hacker News
  • I was introduced to the 83 Plus and it was simply the most mindblowing device at the time. We were given a sheet to share with our parents on why it was an important device to own/borrow. Me and several friends would trade apps through the TI-Link cable, and we would play games, write software for it and there was even a popularity rank in school about whose program was installed on more calculators.

    For a lot of people it introduced them to TI-Basic which was quite capable, and for others you could get into Assembly which allowed for more powerful applications. There were 2 parts of the memory, BASIC programs were in regular memory that could be easily erased, and another part which was Flash Apps.

    I later upgraded to the 89 which had a better CPU, screen resolution and processing power and it was phenomenal in helping me understand every single math class, including EE/EECS. It made me sad to see them banned in exams, because having a 83+/89/any calculator was in no way helpful in any of the exams I took, but it was more of a "control the students" thing in college. The Math department determined that because they couldn't prove that people were not using the internet/portable PC's in their calculators, that they could not guarantee the fairness of it all.

    Weird argument to make knowing that a 20 year old student was engineering a full internet capable PC into a calculator at the time would have been the envy of the world (and every engineering program).

    This all depends on the quality of education and not simply handing out problems that require rote memorization of the methods to solve an equation and instead derive or figure out the equation yourself after understanding the problem after which you're free to use the calculator to "plug and chug".

    by aggregator-ios
  • Nostalgia aside... these things aren't really that great and are overpriced for what they are. TI sustains itself on basically extorting high schools and colleges to use that.. because most of the teachers just used these.

    I'm not sure such a device really improved any understanding of the underlying mathematics that I was taught. In fact, in more advanced mathematics these machines can't even keep up.

    by j_m_b
  • > Built to be a reliable learning tool, not a distraction

    15 year old me in math class programming my loaned TI-82: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

    by guizzy
  • Jokes on you, you learned to program.
    by IIAOPSW
  • In high school I had the TI-89 Titanium. Like everyone here, I got into programming it using some USB adapter I could attach to my iMac G5 and the TI Connect app[0].

    One day, vexed by something, I vented my frustration by composing a profanity-laced rant into the Feedback window of the TI Connect app. (I don't recall the proximate cause, but I remember complaining that the product itself, which is still $110 today, is a total ripoff.)

    I was certainly surprised when the (sole?) TI Connect developer responded by e-mail taking umbrage at my complaints.

    0: https://education.ti.com/en/products/computer-software/ti-co...

    by rgovostes
  • I just put up with TiLP which I somehow figured out how to build on macOS. I think I still have cruft from that attempt on my machine years later somewhere
    by saagarjha
  • I'm surprised to see "Approved for Exams" featured so prominently, as handheld calculators for lots of standardized exams are being phased out.

    All of the exams listed are either already offered in a computerized format or in a transition phase, with the PSAT, SAT, APs, and ACT all already offering Desmos in their testing apps.

    I love handheld calculators, but, especially in a time-sensitive environment, it's hard to beat a large screen and full keyboard.

    by scarecrw
  • TIL Desmos. Thanks for the interesting info, seems super cool!
    by jmalicki
  • I am from an xUSSR country. And started school shortly after the dissolution. Not only calculators were forbidden in exams, they were forbidden in classes. So calculators in school seems so strange to me.
    by TiredOfLife
  • for context

    tests like SAT, ACT, and some AP exams are using Desmos, yes

    however:

    - this means you have to fiddle with a popover window and can't always see the full problem (especially when the reference sheet is also online)

    - you have less muscle memory and often take longer

    - harder to multitask (you use paper anyways, and the paper to calculator friction is lower than the paper to trackpad friction

    - trackpads on school computers are usually worse, which compounds the problem

    - some specific functions just don't exist

    essentially using Desmos is like using a physical mouse/trackpad, while using your calculator is like using VIM motions and keyboard shortcuts with a concave split keyboard. it's technically more intuitive and can help in certain scenarios, but it's useful to have both.

    this sounds trivial, but it's not, especially on tests where you have about or less than a minute per question

    ideally you have both a handheld calculator and Desmos though

    by bluebands
  • "Approved for Exams" make more sense when you take into account the history of the Ti family of calculators.

    Why are they still able to sell what is effectively a 30 year old computer for as much or more today than when it came out? Because they managed to get the family informally standardized as "The calculator every teacher in America understands well enough to manage students who use it. Therefore pretty much everything else that could be as or more advanced is effect banned."

    It was an amazing piece of kit when it first came out. No doubt you could make something 100x better and 10x cheaper today if someone really tried. But, they would fail commercially because you can't design-in 30 years of legacy in the US school system.

    by corysama
  • Ti really needs to stop with the artificial product differentiation. There's no reason 15 years after the Nspire CX CAS came out that everyone of their calculators can't do CAS.
    by Yossarrian22
  • Honest question: Why do we need physical graphing calculators anymore? Can't this just be a phone app?

    That screen resolution for one is horrible for 2026.

    by dheera
  • Heck, you could do a decent amount with the CAS back in the TI-89.
    by alfalfasprout
  • It doesn't help students learn if the tool does everything for them. This isn't a tool for professionals.
    by loeg
  • I don't think it's been about costs or CPU for at least 20 years, but isn't it more that for kids to learn to do math, it's better not to have CAS always at hand? So that's why there are some in the lineup without it.
    by xp84
  • The reason is exam requirements - some professional certifications don’t allow CAS calculators and have other restrictions.
    by NetMageSCW
  • Advanced calculators are in an unusual space with external constraints on it. Some of the features or differentiation they add serves the constraint of "if you don't, we won't let students use it in the classroom".

    When a calculator is used in a classroom, there's a concern about people using the calculator to replace the skill that's being taught. So, for instance, there's space for a calculator with no CAS, for a class that's trying to teach you to do algebra. That is in some ways easier than "don't use this function of the calculator".

    by JoshTriplett
  • CAS capabilities are prohibited in the SAT: https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/sat/what-to-bring-do/calcu...
    by sosborn
  • Summary of the comments in here:

    * I used the programming functionality of the calculator to get around the rules

    * I didn't care much for the math, but my TI calculator was my first programming experience and it's what got me to love programming

    My experience is similar. We were allowed to use our TI-85s in class, but we had to go up to the teacher before the test and show him that we were running a factory reset, to prove we had nothing programmed in it to cheat.

    My buddy and I had made a two player blackjack game and didn't want to have to retype it after every test. So instead we made a program that mimicked the factory reset process. You would run the program before walking up tot he front.

    The only indication something was different was the three little dots in the corner indicating a programming was running, but we just covered that with our thumbs.

    Ironically we never used it to cheat, only to not erase our game that we programmed!

    by jedberg
  • I wonder how many of us had the exact same experience (down to those damn three little dots!)
    by fudged71
  • My experience is not much different then what you listed, except I discussed programming with my math teacher. She said as long as I was the one who programmed it, and that I didn’t share the program with anyone else, the I could use it.

    Looking back on that experience, I’m very grateful to her, but she also probably didn’t realize I was programming it to also show the individual ‘steps’ to get the solution instead of just the solution.

    by move-on-by
  • Our study hall in Junior High would wipe your calculator as you signed in to ensure you weren't playing games, god forbid. I would claim not to have my calculator, and often not do my math homework in study hall just to avoid getting my calculator wiped.
    by donatj
  • Show me a highschool math problem you can't do on a $12 Casio scientific like the classic FX-300MS https://www.usaofficemachines.com/csofx300ms-fx-300ms-scient...

    There's even knockoffs of it for $1: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809744184708.html

    I picked one up when the 99 cent store was shutting down. It works fine.

    Look what you can get for $20: https://www.casio.com/intl/scientific-calculators/product.FX...

    TI is like the Intuit of the education world. I want to love them but this is ridiculous - a N4120 celeron laptop is the same price as this new calculator - it might be a garbage laptop but it's doing a heck of a lot more for your $160 than this calculator is.

    by kristopolous
  • I'm personally a fan of the ti-30xs. Still cheap and a good number of features for looking at data
    by jedimastert
  • Most of those are counterfeit knockoffs and the buttons are unreliable. It's safer to buy an older, pre-VPAM variant of the 300 or 991 models.
    by kevin_thibedeau
  • > Show me a highschool math problem you can't do on a $12 Casio scientific like the classic FX-300MS

    There isn't one.

    The TI-83 is just a $160 tax on every high school student. There is precisely zero use in a graphing calculator before university.

    If you ever need a plot of literally any function you'd be plotting in high school, you should be able to do a very quick, very rough approximation by hand. If you can't, you haven't learned the material.

    by vkou
  • The contrived ones where they make you graph stuff, but that’s about it.
    by rogerrogerr
  • International Baccalaureate math has some stats questions that require a calculator that can do stats questions. Not really possible by hand in exam conditions!
    by varun_ch
  • If you count basic calculus as high school level, TI89's can do symbolic integration. They're usually banned on tests for that exact reason tho.
    by pverheggen