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KozmoNaut posted:They're awesome because they give better video output than the home console. They are often gutted for their PPU's because of this though.  They output RGB natively, I think, albeit with a different color palette.
XYZ has a new favorite as of 01:21 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 01:18
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Neito posted:Man, I miss playing terrible calculator games. Anyone remember DrugWar? I mostly remember all the kids with tons of calculator games being totally hosed during our IB math exams, where the invigilators walked around and made everyone reset their memory. If you had a fully-loaded TI-84 Silver that took longer than the exam duration  And not to prolong penischat but you guys do realize that in the US boys were generally expected to swim nude in gym class until like the 70s, right IIRC there was even a national health initiative that involved taking full-nude profile photographs of elementary kids in the 50s--the US gov't was pretty freaked out by the general low quality of rural draftees going into WWII and decided that pigeon chest was a national health emergency HookedOnChthonics has a new favorite as of 23:43 on Nov 15, 2016 |
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Nov 15, 2016 23:05
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HookedOnChthonics posted:I mostly remember all the kids with tons of calculator games being totally hosed during our IB math exams, where the invigilators walked around and made everyone reset their memory. If you had a fully-loaded TI-84 Silver that took longer than the exam duration Use a program that fakes the “memory cleared” screen.
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Nov 16, 2016 04:48
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Platystemon posted:Use a program that fakes the “memory cleared” screen. My teacher would reset it herself for important exams, no real getting around that one.
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Nov 16, 2016 23:10
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Jyrraeth posted:My teacher would reset it herself for important exams, no real getting around that one. Fake the menus as well.
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Nov 17, 2016 09:56
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Platystemon posted:Fake the menus as well. Run the complete OS in a virtual machine.
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Nov 17, 2016 13:52
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My geometry teacher would just go around with her teacher edition calculator and a cable and remote wipe everyone's calculators. Though if you could write a program that would intercept that signal and and fake everything, that would be kickin rad.
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Nov 17, 2016 17:46
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Man, all that time I was using my calculator for math like a nerd 
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Nov 17, 2016 18:04
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Cojawfee posted:My geometry teacher would just go around with her teacher edition calculator and a cable and remote wipe everyone's calculators. Though if you could write a program that would intercept that signal and and fake everything, that would be kickin rad. You could intercept the signal in hardware, if necessary. But why half‐rear end it? Hollow out the calculator, replace with smartphone.
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Nov 17, 2016 23:26
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Platystemon posted:You could intercept the signal in hardware, if necessary. That wasn't a thing that existed.
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Nov 18, 2016 00:03
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Most people used TI calculators in high school, if anything, so teachers knew how to reset them. Those of us nerds with HPs were immune. HP48G for life, GX if possible.
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Nov 18, 2016 00:13
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Cojawfee posted:My geometry teacher would just go around with her teacher edition calculator and a cable and remote wipe everyone's calculators. Though if you could write a program that would intercept that signal and and fake everything, that would be kickin rad. I'm 99% sure there was an app on ticalc.org designed to mimic the reset process.
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Nov 18, 2016 00:15
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SLOSifl posted:Most people used TI calculators in high school, if anything, so teachers knew how to reset them. Those of us nerds with HPs were immune. HP48G for life, GX if possible. At our school you couldn't use anything except TI calculators on tests. If you had an HP, too bad
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Nov 18, 2016 00:24
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SLOSifl posted:Most people used TI calculators in high school, if anything, so teachers knew how to reset them. Those of us nerds with HPs were immune. HP48G for life, GX if possible. Your math teach was kind of a chump for letting you use one of those at all imo.
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Nov 18, 2016 00:27
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Sylabus for any class requiring a calculator in high school was always "TI-83 only".
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Nov 18, 2016 00:29
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Mak0rz posted:Your math teach was kind of a chump for letting you use one of those at all imo.
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Nov 18, 2016 00:30
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So you were forced to use programmable calculators and then not allowed to use those features? My school just had the cheapest possible Casio calculators, except for like two weeks of trig where we had 2 good calculators the class had to share.
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Nov 18, 2016 01:20
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The TI‐84 series still uses the Z80 processor, which turned forty years old this year. The date of its introduction is closer to the start of the Second World War than to the present day.
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Nov 18, 2016 01:31
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Platystemon posted:The TI‐84 series still uses the Z80 processor, which turned forty years old this year. Hey, lay off the Z80! It's a reliable little chip that comes in a huge variety of forms and is very well understood, factors that make it one of the most popular chips ever. No reason not to use it if it works for what you're making. Of course, being that it is everywhere and super cheap and it's attached to a relatively simple circuit, Texas Instruments really shouldn't be able to get away with charging $100 loving dollars for their dumb calculators. The Z80 itself is maybe $5 and probably a big part of the cost of the unit.
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Nov 18, 2016 06:33
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It would be hilarious if Texas Instruments is just a big shell propped up by calculator sales. You could make a claim that the 100 dollars goes towards the software running on the Z80 but is that seriously still worth 100 dollars after all these years? It's all a big racket where they can set whatever price they want because every school forces you to use the TI calculator.
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Nov 18, 2016 06:53
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Charles Get-Out posted:The Z80 itself is maybe $5 and probably a big part of the cost of the unit. TI didn’t roll the Z80 into a SoC decades ago?  Cojawfee posted:It would be hilarious if Texas Instruments is just a big shell propped up by calculator sales. You could make a claim that the 100 dollars goes towards the software running on the Z80 but is that seriously still worth 100 dollars after all these years? It's all a big racket where they can set whatever price they want because every school forces you to use the TI calculator. It’s worth $100 to the people who have the luxury of being able to make that decision. $100 is nothing compared to the time it would take to learn the ins‐and‐outs of competitor’s device. It’s not worth $100 to someone at the poverty line, but people at the poverty line don’t have positions on school boards. Platystemon has a new favorite as of 06:59 on Nov 18, 2016 |
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Nov 18, 2016 06:55
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Platystemon posted:TI didn’t roll the Z80 into a SoC decades ago? That would probably cost about 5 dollars in R&D and that would cut into their 1000% margin.
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Nov 18, 2016 06:56
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Somehow I got away with using a TI-89 all through highschool and junior college. Looked enough like a TI-83 and my teachers never bothered to look any closer. Sucked having to always have the manual on hand at all times in order to translate the teachers directions for the 83 to the 89 though.
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Nov 18, 2016 07:24
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Cojawfee posted:It would be hilarious if Texas Instruments is just a big shell propped up by calculator sales. You could make a claim that the 100 dollars goes towards the software running on the Z80 but is that seriously still worth 100 dollars after all these years? It's all a big racket where they can set whatever price they want because every school forces you to use the TI calculator.
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Nov 18, 2016 07:27
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Cojawfee posted:It would be hilarious if Texas Instruments is just a big shell propped up by calculator sales.  I don't actually know where they make their money, but they also make CPUs and DSPs which are popular in embedded applications.
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Nov 18, 2016 09:25
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The calculator business is a small portion of their revenue. It’s listed under “Other” in their financial reports, said section constituting 5% of the total. It’s wildly profitable, though. “Other” as a whole manages 30%. 
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Nov 18, 2016 09:37
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Doesn't TI also own the patent on DLP? That's got to be a chunk, in addition to DoD contracts.
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Nov 18, 2016 10:25
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Speaking of retro calculators, here's some watch porn for all y'all courtesy of Techmoan who keeps showcasing the most amazing stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGQrsSEaZkI
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Nov 18, 2016 12:09
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Casimir Radon posted:Texas Instruments was the majority backer of a lobbying group that cemented the calculator's place in the classroom. Now they're an industry standard and can't be dislodged. Maybe this is addressed in the video, but how are there not a billion Chinese clones that work every bit as well and sell for  a pallet?
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Nov 18, 2016 13:33
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I assume the logic inside the calculator only works with said specialised chip, I imagine said chip is hard to clone I think there are emulators for TI calculators tho,but no clue how accurate those are
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Nov 18, 2016 14:53
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Buttcoin purse posted:
DLPs for video projectors too. e:fb.
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Nov 18, 2016 14:59
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Jack-Off Lantern posted:I assume the logic inside the calculator only works with said specialised chip, I imagine said chip is hard to clone The Chinese can't get ahold of some Z80 chips? I'm sure there are TI clones in China.
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Nov 18, 2016 16:37
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My high school math teachers made us learn how to do everything by hand before we were allowed access to the graphing calculators. On the bright side, I've never dropped more than $15 on a calculator because the most I've ever needed was a scientific calculator.
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Nov 18, 2016 17:59
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Cojawfee posted:The Chinese can't get ahold of some Z80 chips? I'm sure there are TI clones in China. This is kind of puzzling because Z80s are still being produced and many, many different and cheap clones have been made. It's definitely not highly specialized or difficult to reproduce its functions in other ways. I'm guessing something about the market placement, distro rights, or software copyright freezes out competition in the school market. Edit for cool fact: According to the TI assembly manual, the TI-89 runs on a 68000. The 68k and the Z80 pretty much ran every micro made for a significant period during the 80s. Also likely part of why TI-89s are very different from lower-number calcs. Nancy has a new favorite as of 18:29 on Nov 18, 2016 |
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Nov 18, 2016 18:20
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Unless the Chinese made really close looking clones than they probably wouldn't pass inspection. As I mentioned earlier most classes specify the type of calculator you're allowed to have, and the general requirement is a TI-Something.
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Nov 18, 2016 18:41
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Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I used to be a big TI graphing calculator sperg. I learned all I could about them despite not being able to do anything useful because I was stuck with a hand me down TI-83. Everyone asked why my calculator was broken because the TI-83 has a slanted screen whereas the 83+ has the flat screen and flash ROM. Everyone was able to play awesome games on their calculators and I was stuck making cool roller coaster graphs. Then I finally got an 83+ and was able to do things with. I never got an 89 though. At least I wasn't like those kids that were stuck with a TI-82 or earlier. Or the kid who unfortunately had a TI-85 or 86 and no one knew how to use it including him.
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Nov 18, 2016 18:43
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Platystemon posted:TI didn’t roll the Z80 into a SoC decades ago? I did some digging and it looks like the TI-83 replaced the Z80&TI chip combo with an SoC solution in 2002. So a decade and a half Fortunately, discrete Z80s are still everywhere so the brave little cpu marches on.
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Nov 18, 2016 18:49
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Wasn't the original Game Boy powered by a Z80?
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Nov 18, 2016 19:56
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Cojawfee posted:Or the kid who unfortunately had a TI-85 or 86 and no one knew how to use it including him. I was that kid, except I did know how to use it, having read the manual (which included source code for generating a Sierpinski triangle, so cool). The -86's menus were infinitely superior to the -83. I later bought an HP-48, which was even better and was probably where TI stole the TI-86's menus from. Later got an HP-50 which had like a 200Mhz ARM chip and an SD card slot
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Nov 18, 2016 20:09
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Pham Nuwen posted:I was that kid, except I did know how to use it, having read the manual (which included source code for generating a Sierpinski triangle, so cool). The -86's menus were infinitely superior to the -83. I later bought an HP-48, which was even better and was probably where TI stole the TI-86's menus from. The HP 48 was the last model with decent keys. I wanted to like the HP-50 but the keys are garbage. (HP-48GX with mem expansion here)
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Nov 18, 2016 20:17
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