This is actaully something I hope to demonstrate with the TI-89. I trying to recruit 68K programmers (so far, only two ;) to write a simple replacement ROM for the 89 that includes built-in PutSprite, greyscale, word-wrap, etc. Simply something to demonstrate how powerful these devices could be. As for the difference between the 'Tiny PCs' and educational calcs could be something as simple as a 32-bit external access port for memory, keyboard, or color screen. The educators can then make a simple rule like 'No calculators with device ports on exams.' and there would be very little 'blurring of the line.'

I like your comments. :-D Perhaps have a standard device port(s) on the new TI-xx, but disallow anything to be connected IN it when the test begins?

I think that the idea for low-cost "PCs" in the
form of a graphing calculator is beneficial
to the students/workers that require the use of
such calculators. I mean, less than $200 US for
a low-end "PC" with excellent power in mathematical computations and graphing functions is an excellent idea. Now we just need Pentium II
versions of the TI-92 =)

Chicane found a 486DX2/66 that can fit inside his 86. Now all he needs is a new ROM. <j/k>

NO NO You want to get a G4 in that thing. Then it would be sweet!

Never mind getting a G4. Get Linux. Most software applications are free and downloadable. If you know C++, you can reprogram them to suit your needs. GO LINUX!!!

You made a good point about what we can do now with these calculators, but only in terms of gaming. I did like to play games during my math class, but only when I had nothing else to do. You never really mentioned the types of math applications people could program, since it it a calculator after all.

Did I say anything about gaming? *goes and checks his article again* I mentioned the Game Boy. Don't think all I think about is games. In fact, I don't usually play games. On my TI-85, three years ago I made the excellent program (in Basic) called QUAD. It told you everything and more about determinants of quadratic equations and such. Two years ago, I made the excellent program called TRI. This solved (using trig) any triangle that had enough information in it. Last year (and I still have this program) I made "NUTON" which performed three variants of Newton's method for my Calculus I class. Now I have a 92, and Calculus II. :-D TI-BASIC is very powerful for math applications. But I was speaking in a "universal computation" sense. A Pentium II computer can do, can compute, anything, it can be used for anything. With very few restrictions. The TI line of calcs is so far a good step toward that.

Zealots :)
Seriously, the TI calcs cannot be expanded to the level required for use as personal computing devices. They WILL get bigger and better, but in the end, they'll still be calculators. A QWERTY keypad will eliminate part of the usefulness of the 8x series calculators.
A more likely candidate would be the PDA market. We need to merge the two together in the middle. The Palm III, which IMHO is the best PDA ever made, has graphing calculator software already available. This is the ideal input system.
An onscreen keypad would retain compatibility, and handwriting recognition might even become acceptable for input at some point. After all, we're only programming the ROM to recognize numbers, right? :)
The rest can be done afterwards, and I'm pretty sure that this is the better approach. Cheaper PDAs, not more expensive calculators.

</RANT>
Yes, but what *good* IS a PDA anyways? All you can really do with it is take notes. Gosh, the good old pencil (mechanical, preferably :-D) can do that. You can't ask a PDA to help you with your partial differential equations. You can't ask it to plot a fractal. You can't ask it to (say) play games. (These are just piddly things, really. Desktop computers can do much more.) PDAs are very limited, and thus, I believe, will never succeed in being the truly low end of computing.
</RANT>
Aw, geez. Does my custom </RANT> count as an HTML tag?
*chuckle*

Wow, I guess PDA's were a lot different back in '98. Well now as you all know, there are Palm Pilots and theit counterparts (IBM, Handspring) and Pocket PC's running Windows CE.
I posted a post up some ways on PDA's but in brief I said that you can do anything you can do on a palm pilot that you can do on a graphing calculator and more. PDA's can do almost anything a desktop can do. Sure they arn't as fast, but I bet they are faster than calculators.
My Palm m100 can graph fractals, heck I even wrote the program!

Have you ever seen a TI 86 calculate plotting points on a graph. IT'S SUPER FAST. I used my friend's TI-86 for Pre Calc, but I've ALWAYS had my I-85. It has a conversion function (2nd + 5) that has so much practical application, I've run two major business with it, stored phone numbers / names / order info, kept track of my gas mileage, and even converted acres of land into "drive .2 miles ahead"-type driving directions. I'd be lost without it. I can't stand palm pilots. They change all the time and use a lot of batteries. They're kind of pidly and pathetic. If PDAs controlled televisions, home lighting and security, acted as cell phones, handled excel docs and open beer cans, then I'd buy one!

hey i thought the idea of another link port possibly a serial port would be use ful we did all this with one link port imagine what we could do with 2 basicaly evryone can have their calcs all connected at the same time imagine the games and the chat rooms

Imagine the battery drain. Someone would have to make an adapter kit (which would look pretty stupid).

Chat rooms? CHAT ROOMS? Why would you ever need a chat room for TI calculators? If you're using the link, then chances are you are in the same room, unless you have some sort of super-long link cable (which I have never heard of but could possibly exist. But my point is that you would never need to have a on-calc chat room. Geez.

A super long cable would have too much impedence. You have to remember that the currents the port is working with is already small, and if the cable was too long, you'd have too much signal loss to get any actual data through.

It should be possible to add some kind of custom hardware to the link-cable that amplifies the signal (using it's own power supply).

Extending link cables is possible. I have done it.
And chat rooms? Why, you newbie. Chat rooms are a novelty. If your teacher will let you string up the room, then they'll let you TALK. At least the 1-on-1 link cable is inconspicuous. :-D
And geez, my article wasn't entitled "The Future Of Gaming". It was about a much broader thing, computing.

aww shut up already it was 3 in the morning when i wrote that i dont think well in the morning espesialy that early anyways my teachers let us do almost anything (lucky arnt i) we have bout 25 trailers (school is being rebuilt) and the teacher can barely c the back of the trailer so if 5 people are hooked up back there he cant c it also not 1 calc would be powering the cabel 5 or 6 would so it wouldnt be as much of a drain

I have long thought of a homemade r/f device as a solution to communicating with TIs when a visible cable can lead to trouble, or where cable length is a constraint. This is not that I tried to trade answers on a test with a cable running between desks and got caught, just playing multiplayer games in class:).

Let's settle the question of a multi'calc chat on TIs with 6 letters: QWERTY

When computers were first making their steps from room-size to desk size, the possibility of the personal computer arose. The big computer companies laughed at the idea and continued developing computers for the five-in-the-world purposes. This stunted the development of today's computer by a few years. When IBM finally picked up the ball, they made a very large amount of money off of this silly idea and are profiting to this day. TI may have just stumbled upon another step in that direction. Computers made the jump from a single room to half of the desks in the world. Is it that far fetched that everyone might be wearing a TI in 20 years?

You know, I do like the sound of that. However, If computers ever get that small, I want a flexible color panel built into my wrist. Normally, I just displays the time, date, temperature, altitude, longitude, and latitude, but when you tap it (did I mention that it's a touch-screen?) in opens up into a wrist-top computer. It can recharge it's batteries from your movements (like those auto-winding watches), so it never runs down, and the chips and memory can be scattered in low-use areas of your body (like the common-sense area of my brain). If we've discovered how neurons work by then, we can even hook it directly into our nervous system and control it with our thoughts. And, of, course, it would have an ultra-fast subcellular modem so that we can connect to the internet at 8 megabits/second while we're driving to work in our null-grav cars.

Well, get working on it, TI!

You and your puny imagination. you might as well have a flexible lcd display put on your forehead and...j/k

I think your idea is not feasible. the fact is that there is a limit to smallness of computers with modern day interdaces, and all these cybersuits and everything of the like is science fiction. People will always need a watch on their wrist, a palmtop in their pocket, a laptop in their briefcase, and a PC on their desk.

Unless.....I'm all up for the day when I get a chip implanted in my brain that not only will make me smarter in my normal actions, but one that will enable me use a true virtual reality gui. and games, man, the games!

Don't be so sure about that. Afterall the history of computers has shown that they become ever smaller and smaller. Additionally, they already have wearable PC's. Quite ironically, IBM has developed them. The prototypes anyway. The idea actually came from divers. It used to be that when a person did some diving they needed waterproof manual devices (pencil + paper equivalent). Later, what they developed, inspired IBM, and others to create, what TI implements. Namely, multiple shift keys. The diver thus is able to carry a keyboard with all functions, that can be operated with one hand. The window generally is a mono-lens that comes rather close to the eye. Not very likely eh? Desktops are toast dude, Laptops, maybe not, but I am never going to be so foolish as to say never. Afterall, Computers will never get smaller than 1500 lbs right?

There is a new fabric that has been created that can conduct electricity that is still in testing, and with our current level of nanotech, is it so hard to beleive that someday the insole of our shoe could do exacly the same thing as our current desktop PC? Bluetooth could be used to communicate with user interface devices. Your clothes could be your computer! With the laser projection that is currently in testing phases, glasses could become computer projection screens. Your shirt could have your processor stiched in it. Your pants could store vast amounts of memory. I don't think it is fair to say that computers have any sort of limit to size.

I wholeheartedly agree with your comments, Mr. Aardvark. And besides, I already wear a TI. It fts in a (relatively large) pocket, at least the 85. Wearing a 92 will be....um....problematic. But not overly annoying.
I appreciate your analogy to IBM - that's what I was thinking of when I wrote the article. :-D

It seems that everyone has this thing about IBM
building the home computer market. The last time
I took a computer class, we learned about the
Commodore 64, the TRS-80's, and the Atari series
as building the home computer market. All IBM did
was build a (now very limited) platform, and
release it to the public. IBM helped secure a
standard to build upon, but did not create the
home market. AFAIK the IBM compat.s began to
invade the home after many people began to use
them at work. This is also why many use a TI
calculator. One of the main facts is that
Commodore Inc. built many of the early portable
calculators. Because TI became a standard, and
that Commodore began investing in the largest
selling computer of all time (the 64) they have
pulled out of that market (and gone bankrupt.)

We must see who is really who and what they have
really done before we pass judgement on who was
first and best. IBM expected (and hoped) the PC
would fail, that is why a multi-national corp.
decided that the plans for some podunk engineers
computer could be released. That is also why they
inlcuded a CP/M knock-off as the OS. They never
felt that it would really compete with the other
competition of the day. They wanted a cheap
machine to make an interim while they designed
something better. Their machine was made of off
the shelf parts and had nothing of real innovation
in it's design.

TI's series has some innovation, thanks to it's
users. It is because of us that the devices have
succeeded, just as why the IBM did as well. They
may not have been the best when they started,
may not be the best now, but have had a little
T.L.C. inbetween.

This is why TI and IBM's have succeeded.

You have to remember that the main feature of the original IBM was compatibility. While the other computers of the time were popular and adequate, they were simply inferior to a system with compatibility between models. That is why IBM enjoyed immense initial popularity, and the effect snowballed.

--Bill Barksdale

Like I said, IBM provided an open platform. With an open platform designed for maximum compatability, you are limited in how far you can stretch one system. At the time, the IBM's limits were not seen as such, but time has shown their faults. With each successive genreation of PC we step farther from these limits, but will continue to be held back by them in the name of compatability. If we can help design an open platform for out little TI's, we can hel them grow past the super-calc limits they are at now. They have already surpassed all limits seen by handheld calculators in the 70/80's, and can be brought along past the 90's as well.

I have two Radio Shack TRS-80's!!!
And if IBM hoped that the PC's would fail, why did they make them?

Why did Ford make a Mustang witha 4cyl engine?

Why did the Dodge Daytona turn from a 60's muscle car into an 80's joke of a sports car?

They each did it to satisfy a need. That need is characterized by the consumers want for a name on their product. The companies realized they could sell weak versions of their old classics, though they knew their market base was limited. IBM built PC/XT/AT's to satisfy the home users need for an "IBM" home computer. IBM knew that their big systems would continue to sell (like 8cyl 'Stangs) while those who had less cash could still get IBM products. Everyone had access to the presige of saying "I have an X brand of X." But now, if you have a Mustang, it had better be c'75 or before. If you have an IBM it had better be an AS/400. If not, you are put on the backburner of presige.

Apple ][ was the first widely marketed desktop.