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Re: A92: TI ANNOUNCES NEW CALC!!!!!


>nothing more than a pencil is _needed_ for all the math you'll ever do, but
>the point of the 92 is to lower  the time it takes you to do something.
>Unless the teacher rigs the questions so that all the computed values are
>nice and simple, the 92 helps alot.  I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't
>know the underlying principles of what's going on, but I sure as hell
>wouldn't want to do a de assignment without a 92.  There's several people
>in my class who aren't too fluent with a 92 (everyone is reqd to have one),
>but it's just agony watching them grind out stuff by hand, which can
>usually be accomplished in a couple lines of ti.  As long as you can still
>show how to do stuff if the teacher asks, then you'll be better off in the
>long run with a 92.


The way I look at it is this: Yeah, you can do everything in the world with
a pencil and paper.  Heck, all those dead Greek guys did it, but it took
them lifetimes to find things sometimes.  Now, you got things like sketchpad
that let High School students do the same thing.  You CAN cut down a tree
with a butter knife, yes, but it sure would take a heck of a lot longer than
a chain saw.  Point is, the calc just helps you do stuff faster by not
letting you sweat the details.  I mean, I would rather use something like a
calc that is accurate all the time than trusting my head, which isn't quite
as good.  I don't see calculators as anything bad, so long as you CAN do the
stuff on pencil and paper.  I mean, for someone like me who has enough
trouble getting a multiplication table down (never have, never will), its
great.  I do 3 dimensional graphics programming in my spare time.  I'd like
to see someone do experimantal matrice transforms that I do on my calc by
hand, and not spend all day doing it.   As for using em on the SAT, all the
better.  Just means you don't have to go back and check your arethmetic as
closely.  I mean, if you don't know how to do something, its not like the
calc is gonna whisper it in your ear or something.. :)

Just my $0.02
MikeM