Survey posted 2009-01-01 15:46 by Michael.

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There is a missing option, I want to get a
Texas Instruments of Destruction calculator

Hmm, my trusty old 83 is not functioning all that well (the screen is barely readable anymore) and my 83+SE is completely dead (it won't turn on anymore, for no obvious reason, no idea why... :( ). So I was kinda thinking about maybe buying a new calc (84+SE, naturally :D ) in the not-too-distant future.
Then I got a message on a mailing list that somebody was selling his old 92+ for a mere 40 euro. So, no 84+ for me. :p

Can I change my vote to "240x128"...? (H)

For you 83, maybe see if new batteries would help.
83+SE, one cause might have been that the batteries fried/melted in the case. Or the back up battery may need to be replaced.
Or you might send both calculators to Texas Instruments for them to get fixed or to get replacements.
Any of these solutions would be less expensive than buying a new calculator.

Okay. I was not intending to get another calculator anytime soon, but when I was looking around at Best Buy, I actually saw an HP graphing calculator. I never expected to see HPs in any local stores (it's been ages since I last knew of any available locally), and I had read about the HPs for so long and have always wondered what they were like. So, needless to say, I grabbed it. :-)

That's pretty neat. Keep us posted on your journey to the Other Side.

I'm very impressed with what I've seen so far. Of course, it's quite a bit different from the TIs and takes some getting used to, but that's what I find fun about it—something totally new and different to learn after 15 or so years with the TIs. There are tons of cool little features all over the place (even a built-in font editor) that even the TI-89(t) lacks, and it really does seem to be geared for serious applications. The on-calc programming language especially doesn't appear to have all kinds of arbitrary limitations and performance problems to get in the way like TI-BASIC has a knack for doing. Of course, I've only been learning it for a couple of days now, so that's only my first impression.

The main thing that appears to be lacking is the included documentation. Even the 800-something-page manual on the CD-ROM doesn't seem to cover everything. But on the other hand, I found an additional 653-page PDF manual on the Web that's devoted to *just* RPL programming, and that's where I finally found a complete command reference. Now I just need a way to obtain these manuals in print for convenience. :-)

Another thing I've noticed about the documentation is that there are quite a number of minor typographical and grammar errors throughout. They're pretty minor, and the text is still quite understandable, but it seems a notch lower in quality than the TI manuals, which seem to have been proofread better.

(*This* is an excessively long post? Did the maximum post length get shortened or something?)

A lot of this appears to be due to the calculator's extreme depth and complexity. There is *a lot* built into this thing. Each key can have literally up to ten functions assigned to it (double that if you consider “user keys”, which allows you to redefine keys, even the entire keyboard if you wish!). Some keys even distinguish between whether a shift key is pressed and released before it is pressed or whether the same shift key is being held down when it is pressed. Needless to say, there *is* a learning curve here.

Despite all this, I won't be leaving my TI-89t too soon. After many years, I've accumulated a lot of personal information and customized programs that I wrote, and becoming experienced with the HP and converting everything over isn't going to happen overnight. But I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun!

I've had 1920x1200 for about 8 months....