I think the "millenium awards" should have a section for HARDWARE. I personally would really want to have InfraRed capabilities for my TI calcs. There doesn't seem to be much momentum in this. Sami Khawam's IRLink design winning the "millenium award" would sure generate some interest. Who wouldn't want to be able to control their TV, VCR, CD/DVD player, camcorder, etc. with their calc?! You can also transfer small files! There's even multi-calc chat with whiteboard! and the sky's the limit for playing pranks at school during boring history films on the classroom TV/VCR.

Having a universal remote capability for my TI-89 would be sweet (considering as I have 3 TVs, 2 CD players, 2 VCRs and 1 DVD player I'd like to control with one remote). Also I love the idea of turning the TV to ESPN in the middle of class - I'm going to find out the brand of TV we have at our school (there's one mounted in every classroom) and go get a small programmable remote! ;D
Happy milineum!
[Purposely Misspelled]

yes... And there are very few ways of having different models of TI-calcs interact with each other. But I believe IR-CHAT on ANY ti-platform will be able to communicate with others. Therefore, it would be nice to be able to chat with people across the room who have a TI-85, or TI-82, or TI-89.

Games should be written to support the IR-link.

And someone could probably have the calc transfer files to the PC's IR PORT.. nearly ALL modern motherboards support IR ports nowadays.

Now for all of you who thinks that the third millenium is yet to come, let me explain:
Those people whose math education was ended with the last ring of the school bell think
that the count in math starts from 1. All other people know that the count in math
starts from 0, and decimal sistem is not 1,2,3,..10 but 0,1,2,...8,9. I think the problem is the
way they teach a child to count. They put sticks in front of him and start to count: one, two, three, and so on. Its just hard to explain to a child that there is No first stick infront of him, because its equal to zero. This causes the problem with defining the end of millennium.
People who get used to count sticks, forget that a year is not a children's "stick", but it has a length equal to one year (365 days). Since we started to count years from zero, then 2 thousand periods of the length of one year ended at midnight from 1999 to 2000.
If you are 30 years old, you already lived for 30 full years and started the fourth dozen.
Count the segments between numbers, its 10 of them:
0 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6 -- 7 -- 8 -- 9 -- 10
Same with years (2 thousand periods):
0 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 --......-- 1998 -- 1999 -- 2000

I hope its clear for you now.

However, the system of A.D. to B.C. was invented by a Roman Monk who had no concept of zero, because he had not yet been introduced to the Arabic numberal system (Roman numberals are I, II, III, IV, V, etc. while Arabic numerals are 0, 1, 2... 10, 11, etc.) Because he did not have the concept of zero, his numbering went ...2 BC, 1 BC, 1 AD, 2 AD... This is why the new millennium begins in 2001. Don't believe me? What century were the 1900s? The 20th century, because we did not start at the "Zero Century".

--Rob Hornick

>What century were the 1900s? The 20th century, because we did not start at the
"Zero Century".

Ok, now 2000s are, and its the 21st century, so what? 1900 was the first year of 20th century.
Monk? What monk? We count years from the birth of Jesus Christ who was born at zero point of the first millennium, and midnignt from 1999 to 2000 is the last point of second millennium. Any other questions? :-)

You're a complete retard. I'm sorry to come to this, but it has to be said. Correction, we are not yet in the 21st century. That comes at the same time as the next millennium, century, score, decade, year, whatever. 2001. Romans invented the traditional calendar we use. However, since they had no concept of zero, they went from 1BC to 1AD. Hence, the first millennium started on a 1 and ended on a zero. Yay. It's the year 2000. It ends on a zero. Hence, it's not the new millennium, it's not the 21st century, it's just the end of the second millennium. Perhaps you'd like to look over the website first before trying to prove your stupidity to the world.

My only other question is, "Why is it so hard to understand these things?!?!?"

~ferich

If I do something that spans ten days, am I going to call the first day "day zero" because no days have gone by yet? No, I'll call it "day one" because it's the natural counting order. No one I've ever seen starts counting anything with zero. If I counted my fingers, calling my left pinky 0 and working to my left, I'd find out that I only have 9 fingers, surprise surprise.

Wrapping it up: Let's say Jesus was born on January 1 of the first year of the AD period. The first year would be 1 AD, because that was the first year -- not the "zeroth" year -- he was on the Earth. Years are counted just like fingers and beads; starting with one and working your way from there.

lol, throw away your calculator man, I suggest you don't need it seeing how good you count fingers :)
Don't read next few lines until you learn to count.

0 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6 -- 7 -- 8 -- 9 -- 10
^
Jesus was born

>Let's say Jesus was born on January 1 of the first >year of the AD period. The first year would be 1 AD, >because that was the first year -- not the "zeroth" >year -- he was on the Earth.

You're like that monk - you don't have an idea of zero too, lol. When you were born, that was your 1st year of living, but how old were you? Thats right, 0 years old. And when were you 1 year old? Right, exactly one year after you were born. And you will be 10 years old when you live throught your 10th year, which is between 9 and 10. Same with Jesus - he would be 2000 at the end of 1999, if they counted his age in usual way. Why is it so hard to understand?

(I admit - real millennium starts Jan 1, 2001 - I didn't know about the monk, etc.)

if Jesus was born on the first of January, 1 a.d., then he would be:

1-year-old on Jan 1, 2 a.d. (one year from his birth)
2-years-old on Jan 1, 3 a.d.
50 years old on Jan 1, 51 a.d.
100 years old on Jan 1, 101 a.d. (beginning of 2nd century)
1,000 years old on Jan 1, 1001 a.d. (New Millennium)
2,000 years old on Jan 1, 2001 a.d. (New Millennium)

Well, Jesus was actually born in 6 B.C.

You slipped - a dozen is 12. He'd be 37 when he starts his "fourth dozen".