Re: TI or HP?

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Re: TI or HP?

RWW Taylor wrote:
>
>
> [...]
>  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?
>

Thanks to you for providing us with another very important point
of view. Even if I spent more than twenty years in school as a student,
I only rarely have been on the other side of the teacher's desk.

Therefore, I realize that my conclusions were with no
doubt influenced by my own, limited, experience.

I'm sorry if my words sounded like 'the TI-92 is useless, the HP48 is
great - period'; I read similar statements too often on this service
and I definitely don't like them.

Having read your thoughtful comments, I agree with you that, for
high-school and college students, the 92 is better suited than the 48
because the former better satisfies their particular needs. These are
very important needs, and calculator vendors must with no doubt be
aware of them.

With regard to the future state of the art, I agree with you that
in ten years both the 48 and the 92 will no longer be in active use.
However I think that both will leave a landmark; for the 92, in my
opinion, it will be the first serious attempt to implement symbolic
manipulation capabilities in a handheld device, and to make them
easy to use.

My only concern is to rest assured that these powerful tools will be
used to help students to learn, instead of merely assist them doing
their homework and tests, as I see in italian schools.


> 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..  :-)}

I will do the same and sincerely hope that both brands will look at
the other's products and be able to take the better ideas of both.

With my best wishes,
        Ivan

--
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Ivan Cibrario Bertolotti                | Phone: +39-11-3919246
 Television Study Center of the National | Fax:   +39-11-341882
 Research Council, Turin (Italy)         | Email: cibrario@cstv.to.cnr.it
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