Re: A89: Re: Re: Re: Re: Grayscale troubles

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Re: A89: Re: Re: Re: Re: Grayscale troubles


> TI's main (and only) market for these calculators is the educational
market.
> They sell their calculators to teachers and school decision makers, THEY
DON'T
> SELL CALCULATORS TO STUDENTS.  They sell the teachers on them, and the
teachers
> then specify them.  For each teacher who knows how to teach with a TI
> calculator, TI has a dedicated sale of 80 - 500 calculators/year.

While that is true, the answer here is much simpler than that:  TI has no
reason to write grayscale routines when they don't officially support using
grayscale on the calc, so why would they write routines to do so?

> If TI openly provides an easy way to use grayscale, many teachers will
turn to
> another calulator, or not teach with one at all.  Therefore it is not in
their
> best interest (financially) to do so.

Ha!  Give me a break, that's a REDICULOUS assumption.  Teachers would do no
such thing.  Games will exist on any sufficiently advanced device, and if
students choose to play them then it is the fault of our poor educational
system, and for the teachers to deal with.  And teachers are never going to
be sufficiently roused so as to encourage students to use inferior
calculators (unless you can name a superior one at the high school level),
especially with something that has real uses other than games.  Not to
mention how intertwined TI calcs are with most every high school math
curriculum. . .

> The fact that TI can sell the TI-89 for as little as it does is only
becaus eof
> the volume they sell these things in.  Were they to allow game programming
(ie,
> grayscale) then their market would drop so much that they wouldn't be
worth
> their time to build them.

That, too, is a wrong and poorly backed statement.  TI isn't selling the 89
for "so little" - it costs them a mere fraction of the cost to build these
things.  Compare them to, say, the gameboy color (which is actually sold at
a loss, but not a large one).  TI is making a great deal of profit on these
things because they make hardware and software that fit into a niche and
supply the demand.

    -Scott
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