That Fail Calc.

That other day, Kiam and I drove over to the city Post Office to col­lect a much-awaited pack­age arriv­ing half-a-globe away from Canada. We were led by Post Office staff through a maze of mail sort­ing sta­tions, piles of parcels and what­not. At the cus­toms inspec­tion, Kiam pryed open our pack­age, reveal­ing three used TI-84 graph­i­cal calculators.

One of which, is mine:

Intro­duc­ing, the TI-84 series of graph­i­cal cal­cu­la­tors — the world’s most overrated.

It’s fat, ugly, slow, ancient, and expensive.

You see, we were told to get our­selves a graph­i­cal cal­cu­la­tor since the day we stepped into Swin­burne. But get­ting one could set us back about 600 bucks. And so we per­se­vered through­out two semes­ters of Math in Foun­da­tion using our faith­ful Casio fx-570MS from the days of SPM.

Every­time we’d find a way to solve dif­fer­ent Math prob­lems using the fx-570 (when it is thought that only the TI’s can solve them), we’d pride our­selves at how we man­age to save 600 bucks — yet again and again. I must say I’ve dis­cov­ered a lot about the abil­i­ties of the fx-570 more than I’ve ever knew in Form 5. Like I never knew it does matrices!

Of course, we all know it draws boo­bies rather well:

=D

Unfor­tu­nately, even the faith­ful fx-570 couldn’t hold up any­more in degree-level Math.

We had to get a cal­cu­la­tor that draws what the fx-570 couldn’t draw, other than boo­bies — graphs.

Thanks to Kiam, we man­aged to get used TI-84 Sil­ver Edi­tions for merely 450 bucks each rather than its orig­i­nal sub-RM700 price. And so we reluc­tantly joined the rest of the class tap­ping away on the TI-84.

There’s a rea­son why I never really liked the idea of get­ting a graph­i­cal cal­cu­la­tor such as the TI-83/84 series — the price just doesn’t jus­tify what we’re pay­ing for.

Other than its out­ra­geous pric­ing, the TI-83/84 series cal­cu­la­tors are down right dinosaurs in today’s age. They’re absolutely bulky and infe­rior to the say, iPhone — the real gad­get of today’s age.

Get what I mean? It’s so huge it feels awk­ward to hold it with a sin­gle palm.

I need not remind you of what the iPhone is capa­ble of, albeit being at a (much) smaller size. It’s a cell phone, mp3 player, inter­net browser, cam­era, video player, touch-screened, and another 1001 fea­tures with its sup­port for Apps — includ­ing, yes, graphing.

Heck, imag­ine graph­ing apps on the iPhone!

And the TI-83/84? It’s..a.. cal­cu­la­tor, and a uh, *fum­bles through the TI-84 guide­book*.. one that draws graphs. =\

Heck, it doesn’t even draw graphs well. Thanks to its 15Mhz proces­sor (psst, the one in the iPhone runs at 620Mhz), it draws graphs a painstak­ing pixel-by-pixel!

In all it’s fat glory.

I haven’t even gone into com­par­ing the tech­ni­cal specs of the two gad­gets which would leave you won­der­ing just what the engi­neers over at Texas Instru­ments are doing.

Okay I’m aware of the huge price dif­fer­ence between the two (~RM700 for a TI-84 Sil­ver vs. ~RM2500 for the iPhone 3G). I’m aware that it’s cruel to pitch the 2004 TI-84 against the 2007-released iPhone. I’m aware that few gad­gets out there do if ever, come close to rival­ing the iPhone in its features-to-size ratio.

I just wanted to point out that the TI-83/84 series cal­cu­la­tors could either be slim­mer given the lim­ited func­tions it per­forms. Or, it could have more fea­tures given it’s humongousity.

Oh well, I guess that’s enough bashing.

If there’s one thing I like about the TI-84, it’ll be this:

Woots! Block Dude rocks! =D

37 thoughts on “That Fail Calc.

  1. ember Post author

    @Rachelle, Whaaa? For a brand new one? Spank­ing new ones sell like >600 bucks (about 140USD) here! And that’s not even the Sil­ver Edition. =(

    @Saad, I read about it once on Black­Board! Guess I missed it. =

    @Kiam, Well what if it died? You gonna com­pen­sate me with your Stu­dio 17? XD

    Well Rachelle’s TI is a new one.. plus ship­ping charges like we did, it could only be around RM400 at most after conversion. =

  2. ember Post author

    @Josh, I know! Imag­ine how pretty those graphs would look like on the iPhone.

    @Luminoth, Yeah it does. I didn’t men­tion those func­tions (other than graph­ing) because those are expected of a sci­en­tific cal­cu­la­tor, to say the least. Sim­ple sci­en­tific calcs like the fx-570 would do the trick. It’s just that the TI’s pro­lly takes it a step fur­ther with bet­ter graph­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, etc.

    It does pro­gram­ming. But not so sure on the exten­sive part.

    Wow. RM375 for a brand new TI-83? And you’re sure its not a second-hand one? That price cer­tainly sounds like what you can get for a used TI-83 in my campus. =(

  3. Danny

    I am amazed to read such illog­i­cal and base­less com­par­i­son of gad­gets. RM2500 iPhone and TI-84Plus. The next we would here com­par­ing Kan­cil with the 5 Series of either Mer­cedes or BMW or even Rolls Royce or the Chilli Padi type of food served with that of Hilton etc.

    If you can spend RM2500 for an iPhone, or RM1300 for the Sony Eric­s­son or Nokia, can’t you spare a thought for the invest­ment for your pro­fes­sional career that will be part and par­cel of your rest of your life (which would be the next 40 years if your are unlucky to die at 60 and if you are lucky to stay pro­fes­sional that is).

    Shame on you in try­ing to save your­self the RM150 in buy­ing the 2nd hand unit; when you go and shout your­self and your friends at expan­sive restaurants!

    Per­haps you are born with a sil­ver spoon in your mouth, that’s why you can afford iPhone. What car are you dri­ving or you are dri­ven to the door of your Swin­burne class?

    Per­haps you should con­sider switch­ing your course to one which does not require graph­ing cal­cu­la­tor. But which course would there be these days which does not require one form of hi-tech gad­get or another?

    Count your bless­ing and count your­self lucky that you are intro­duced (and allow to use) the hi-tech tools to solve sim­u­lated engi­neer­ing prob­lems in your uni life. Try solv­ing 4×4 matri­ces or even 5×5 using your 570! Have you vis­ited http://www.ticalc.org?

    Think thrice before you open your mouth; before you make com­ment and comparison!

    Count your­self lucky that you have a chance to study ter­tiary edu­ca­tion!!! Because I didn’t…

  4. Johnny

    Ya… buy with garan­tee, always best advice.… i bought my from Cr. Chai of Dia­mond Tech­nolo­gies, uni got his con­tact num­ber (uni said, he was Lec­turer with Swin­burne before he becomes Coun­cilor). Very nice per­son, come to uni to take order and cash and deliver to me (to uni also) when it arrives. got prob­lem… call him… he also go to pick up and fix and sent back. peace of mind, no sweat. ^.^ Those who buy 2nd hand… pray your unit ok…

  5. ember Post author

    @Danny. Wow I’ve been wait­ing for some­one to dis­agree with me.. until you showed up.

    But.. *sigh* your argu­ment is an utter disappointment.

    First things first, did you even fin­ish read­ing my post? I *explic­itly* claimed in a dis­claimer above that it was indeed unfair pitch­ing those two together, com­par­ing them head to head. I know the price dif­fer­ence between the two. I know the iPhone came out after the TI-84.

    What I really wanted to point out is that the engi­neers at Texas Instru­ments could’ve done a bet­ter job at improv­ing the TI-84’s feature-to-size ratio. As in, as I’ve stated above, the TI-84 could’ve been slim­mer given the lim­ited fea­tures it per­forms, or it could have more fea­tures given it’s sheer size. Sim­ple as that, no more, no less.

    Your anal­ogy of my com­par­i­son isn’t accu­rate either. Com­par­ing a Kan­cil and a BMW would be akin to com­par­ing an Aba­cus and a TI-84. In which the for­mer is cheap, bare­bones but the does the job, whereas the lat­ter is an over­priced option that also does the job, though with a myr­iad of fea­tures (when in direct comparison).

    If I were to come up with an anal­ogy of my com­par­i­son of the TI-84 vs the iPhone, i’d com­pare — wait for it — apples and oranges.

    Why are we draw­ing up analo­gies anyway.

    You’re com­par­ing a vehi­cle and another vehi­cle. I wasn’t com­par­ing a cal­cu­la­tor and another cal­cu­la­tor. The two gad­gets are really in they’re dif­fer­ent worlds. One’s a cal­cu­la­tor, the other’s a smartphone.

    It is the low feature-to-size ratio of the TI-84 that com­pelled me to pitch it against the obvi­ous king of the high­est feature-to-size ratio of gad­gets — the iPhone.

    One more rea­son I chose the iPhone — though it would make a weak point in argu­ment, but I’d just point it out any­way — is just for the fun of writ­ing the post. Would you rather read some­thing with the hip and cool iPhone in it or would you read an utterly bor­ing tech­ni­cal com­par­i­son between two graph­i­cal calculators?

    It gets even inter­est­ing going fur­ther through your com­ments. Where on Earth did you get the idea that I actu­ally own an iPhone?

    Sorry to dis­ap­point you, but I don’t own one. I’m sorry if that obvi­ously doc­tored image of the TI FAIL — iPhone WIN photo led you to believe otherwise.

    I couldn’t afford the iPhone and wouldn’t get one even if I could. Why else do you think I’d save the 150 bucks for a 2nd-hand TI-84? Heck, if I could afford an iPhone why would even lament about the TI-84 being so costly?

    So don’t go around accus­ing me of show­ing my ass in expen­sive restau­rants with my friends because I don’t. And that state­ment of me being born with a sil­ver spoon in my mouth is totally uncalled for.

    I’m not totally ungrate­ful to being required to get a TI-84. I’m aware of its wide­spread usage and adop­tion, its pos­si­bil­i­ties in the engineering/business world. And I know ticalc.org allright.

    I never said its use­less. I never doubt its potential.

    Per­haps you need to see my rea­son­ing from look­ing at the TI-84 from a geek’s point of view. The feature-to-size ratio it has, the rather out­dated and ancient tech­nol­ogy and com­po­nents that pow­ers it, etc. Then you’ll see how the TI-84 fails to be slim­mer or more feature-ful.

    I do not get mad with peo­ple who are appar­ently “half tin full make the most noise”. But I’m really, really good when it comes to spot­ting one.

    Oh, AND, its ‘whine’, not ‘wind’.

    Happy real­is­ing how non­sen­si­cal your com­ments are.

  6. ember Post author

    @Serene, Oh you inno­cent fun-deprived lit­tle thing! I don’t know any­one who hasn’t drawn boobs in their fx-570s before! =P

    Sorry to hear you didn’t get those rented TI calcs from cam­pus too. =(

    @Johnny, Yes we were informed of a Mr. Chai that sup­plies TI’s to Swin­burne. But get­ting them from him is like the most costly option. We opted for cheaper 2nd-hand units instead.

    Like you said, we won’t be eli­gi­ble for war­ranty if any­thing goes wrong. That is well, some­thing we won’t be hop­ing for down the road.

  7. someone

    Well, I am a high school stu­dent, senior sci­ence III. Talk­ing about calculators.…..we are study­ing pure maths too and I am using Casio 570ES(around RM40+-), it has more func­tions com­pared to the 570MS, but the speed is%^&*.……I need 2 cal­cu­la­tors dur­ing exam.…
    As for graphs, we use com­puter software-Mathematica, and it is bril­liant (but you have to learn the com­mands first).…
    So far we still dont need a graph calc…but thanks for shar­ing, maybe i will need one in future.

  8. Patrick

    Remem­bered the days in the uni which I was required to use a TI-83 as well. Well, I man­aged to find a AUD50 Ti-83 sec­ond hand from Ebay and I am sure there are loads more. I actu­ally have one as well which I want to get rid off. Haven’t been using it for ages and just sit­ting inside the box doing nothing.

    One won­der­ful thing that this Ti-83 can do is to store data as well. There is many won­ders it does in exams, but the mem­ory sure can load many things. Funny part is, there is a spe­cial ver­sion of the Ti –83 firmware which a cheat pro­gram can be installed. When the mem­ory is cleared, (as in exams) it can be recov­ered in just press­ing 2 but­tons! (I think i still got that pro­gram some­where).. Very very use­ful dur­ing exams.. that’s for real.. best per­sonal expe­ri­ence in uni life!

  9. ember Post author

    That’s really cheap! Even after con­ver­sion to local rates. Actu­ally that explains the use­ful­ness of that cal­cu­la­tor after we grad­u­ate doesn’t it? I’ve heard plenty of sto­ries where TI-83/84s go obso­lete after university.

    I’ve actu­ally tried upload­ing games and suc­cess­fully stored Super Mario and a sim­ple Minesweeper game onto my TI-84. =P But wow, that mem­ory cheat pro­gram is god­send! Finals are like two weeks away and I should really try that! XD

    Thanks for the tip!

    1. ember Post author

      Ouch. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. Must be a pain to lose such an expen­sive cal­cu­la­tor such as the TI-84. =(

      Don’t worry about the delayed reply. Isn’t it irrel­e­vant as of yet, since I still use both cal­cu­la­tors and will still do at least for the next three years. You must be doing either engi­neer­ing or some­thing sim­i­lar to war­rant the use of a graph­i­cal calculator. =)

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