TI or HP?
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TI or HP?
Thanks to Ivan Bertolotti for finally providing us some reasoned,
experience-based analysis with regard to the comparative advantages
of the TI-92 and the HP48GX, instead of just the unfounded
expressions of opinion that waste so much space on this forum.
One has to respect the analysis reported and the ultimate conclusion
reached in this case. However:
> I conclude saying that the 92 certainly is a good tool for high school
> and college, if used to actually learn mathematics and not as a
> 'homework-cruncher', but the 48 is better suited for the other
> applications a calculator may have.
It is perhaps going too far to reach such a general conclusion on the
basis of the evidence presented. While some of the points made
(for example about not being able to hold the the TI-92 in one hand)
are obviously considerations to be weighed by every user, others
(such as the competetiveness of pencil and paper for performing
simple-to-medium-level algebraic computations) probably do not hold
for every user. The programming language included on the TI-92,
for example, is already several levels of abstraction and power above
the languages provided on the TI-8x series, and it takes a high-level
user indeed to seriously bump into its limitations.
I would think that a large part of the market for "super-calculators"
like the two being discussed is in fact students at the high-school and
college level, and that the aptness of a calculator for this purpose is
really a prime concern for many readers on this service. The years
we spend in school are years of fast learning, and we _should_ be
expecting to move through levels of technology that we will later,
in a challenging job situation, find less than perfectly satisfactory.
The fact that the TI-92 fails to fully compete in a technical job situation
with the HP-48GX or with Mathematica running on a larger computer
does not deter me from recommending it to my students, because I
know that by the time they finish school they will have moved up to
larger needs -- and the technology will have changed, anyway. I am
old enough to have used a slide rule in college and on the job for a
decade or so afterward before the first scientific calculators appeared.
Can anyone on this list imagine still seeing either the TI-92 or the
HP48GX as state of the art (or even practical to use)10 or 15 years
from now?
On a final point, though, I will have to agree about the usefulness
of the Cabri geometry feature built into the TI-92. Sort of like
getting a dog to walk on its hind legs -- it can be done, but not well.
I love geometry, and jumped on this feature of the TI-92 like a dog
(the same dog?) on a bone, but then I got a copy of Cabri II for my
Mac, and this is now the only way I use it with students. Just no
substitute for the convenience of a mouse and color and all that...
Well, you win some and you lose some. As a trial marketing item,
put out there to see what works and what needs to be added to or
improved in a next version, I think the TI-92 has succeeded pretty
well. I think I have already gotten the value of my purchase price
from my 92, and will be willing to buy something new when it comes
out. I'll even watch to see what HP might come up with next.. :-)}
RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623
>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<
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