Survey posted 2000-11-12 22:03 by Andy Selle.

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My parents bought me my 83
I got my 89 for free for making the national finals of a math competition

Hence, I chose other since my 89 is my primary calc.

MathCounts was it? I got a 92 from them three years ago but I heard they started giving out 89's instead afterwards. I don't use my 92 much though, because it's a bit bulky to carry around in my backpack and you can't use it on tests. For that reason I got an 89. Plus, the 89's screen is crisper.

I saved up for a few months to get my 86 and my parents bought me my 80(not a typo, it is next to worthless compared to my 86) because it was required for seventh grade.

Is digging deep into savings not a common option then?

That's exactly how I paid for my awesome 89... After my parents got me an ATM card for my trip to france i kept the card and finally have access to my savings... :)

one midnight i was wondering aimlessly for no apparent reason along a dark and dreary New Orleans street at 2:00 pm. I was on my way to my dear aunt sally's house. As I was wondering i could help but hearing unbelivbly sharp pitched, loud, cries, from a near by man 10 miles away, from these cries i could tell that he was 29 years of age, was the only child, had only 2 brothers, and 3 sisters, never married, son and daughter both 35 years of age, and doesnt and never did have any grandparents (he was travling to his grandfathers house.) When I heard these cries I started running. I knew I had to save him before the dark, dreary, runny, rich, magnificent, gorgous, buitiful monster got to him. In a few seconds I had made up a lot of time, I was now 35 miles from him, then a few more seconds i 29 miles from him...... anyways I tripped on something, before i had time to look what it was, the fairy calculator bunny, popped up in front of me and said, "Hey mister foo foo, i dont like your attitude pickin up the field mice and boppin' them on the head. I will give you 1 more chance." So she gave me a new, shiny, dripping, cold, icy TI-86.
Well thats how i got mine, so of course i had to put got a full time job.
LOL

And I'm the one taking the Prozac.

Very interesting how he was 29 years of age, and his son and daughter are 35 years old. Add time travel to your story. :)

Look, there's a pig flying!!!

I worked my butt off for an odd twenty some hours at $6.50 an hour. I bought my TI-89 at staples, and now I am looking for a 92+ to have fun with. My TI-85 happens to be my brother's who is now living in Scotland for a year. But I didn't steal it, he just didn't need it.

Note that the TI92 and the TI89 are exactly the same. I was convinced to buy a 92+, but I own a TI89 and the only differences are the keyboard, the screen, and the free geometry programs. After a lot of thinking I left the Idea of buying the 92 and I bought a Psion Revo at a good price(199U$S amazon.com :-), and I'm keeping my Ti89. It's depending the use you give, I recomend you to keep your TI89 as your baby, but it's just my opinion... what about videogames, maybe you're interested in a sega dreamcast or a N64. Maybe in a palm pilot, or a good bike. Just giving ideas...that made me think better to me in that kind of moment. :-)

My 83 was given to me by one of my mom's coworkers who no longer need it.

I bought the 86 with some of the excess money from my scholarships.

As for the 89, I'll have to plead the Fifth.

The fifth OPTION? Dont worry, its not "wrong".

A few years ago my parents bought me an 83. Then I gave it to my brother and my parents bought me an 86. Then they bought me a 92+ for programming. Now they are (kind of) buying me a Linux Handheld PC. I have to pay for it so that my mom thinks that I bought it. Then my dad will give me the money back.

Any programmers out there might want to check out the Linux handheld. It resembles a Palm Pilot. Go to www.agendacomputing.com

-Sean

Man, you got a cool dad... my dad's a complete dickhead =(

Your dad has a lot of faith on you, just keep doing your efforts :-) you programmed cool games, like super mario quest. With that talent you'll make history someday!! just keep working.

WOW!! that's seems better than a Palm Pilot! I just bought a Psion revo and I'm still waiting it's arrival, so I can't say many things of it. But that linux handheld is interesting, mmm. My dad needs an organizer, tell me if you get one to know the results. I actually have an old PC with linux installed, and It's a good OS, but it finished with my patience... everything is ok, but installing a program is not like doing double click and following instructions... and Linux netscape sucks so much... Well, the speed of my old PC doesn't help at all(amd 5x86 133Mhz, 32Mb).
However, I could open more than 10 diferent big apps and linux did never crashed!! when I do that kind of testing under windows98, It just crash, as usual... :-(

I sold my fancy Windows CE HPC to buy a HP 200LX. It runs DOS 5.0. DOS rules! I hate Windows. :-). My opinion probably isn't shared by most people.

I was interested in that machine a long time ago, but I think it lacks of connectivity(for internet). The Psion Revo has a good multitasking system that really rocks! OK, it lacks of software, but I found everything I want. During my research I found many interesting games for psion, 2 of them : a very well done 3D game and simcity!

Actually my AP Computer Science teacher is a big fan of Dos. Everyone in the class (all 5 of us) wants to learn Visual C++, but our school uses Borland C++ to make Dos programs. I guess it's because there won't be a question like "Write a clipped sprite routine" on the AP exam :). I'm probably the only one taking the exam, and I wouldn't mind learning non-AP material. I could go on about how stupid the APCS exam is, but I won't do that now.

This doesn't really have anything to do with how I own my calculator, but has anyone else noticed that a great deal of TI-Basic 83+ games are being put in the Assembly 83+ (ion) archive.

I accidentally once forgot to mark the category for a TI-89 BASIC program that I was adding to the archive and they put it in TI-89 Assembly Misc! I emailed them to say that it was BASIC but they never fixed its location.

I must join the conversation... I got my TI-83 Plus from my parents. I said I needed one at school and after I got them convinced that I really needed one (and after dad found a place where it was cheap), I got it. And now Iīm happy :) People here are talking about calcīs beeing stolen. I donīt know if thereīs been such cases in my school but I still keep my eyes on the calc though my friends told me Iīm paranoid... While reading the messages sent here I noticed that youīre allowed to use TI-89 but not TI-92 at exams. Is that true? In my school and in the hole country (Finland) we canīt use TI-89 (not mentioned 92) at high school. Thatīs why we usually have 85 or 86 and I got the best, 83+. I also read about buying calcīs after calcīs. Youīre lucky, here TI-83+ costs about 100$ and it was cheap! And guess what they charge from GraphLink, 35 dollars! Anyway, have a nice schoolweek.

I got my TI-89 from my parents. I won a 92 from a math competition earlier but because I couldn't use it on AP exams I needed another calculator and when I researched the calculators the 89 seemed to provide a significant advantage over the others, as it in fact does (half a dozen people in my AP Calculus class last year bought 89's after already getting other calcs because it was so much more useful). I was actually leaning towards the 86 earlier but that's because I didn't realize how many more features the 89 has, such as pretty print, calculus functions, and its CAS. Countless times I have heard people at my school say that you can't you 89's on tests such as AP exams and the SATs but that is just based on their assumptions as you actually can. The reason they allow the 89 and not the 92 on AP exams and SATs and other exams is that they are worried students will copy the problems into their calculators and distribute them. I find that a bit illogical, though, because using alpha lock you can still type pretty quickly on the 89 (not that I had much extra time during the AP exams). They banned the 89 at the *local* math team meets for my school because it has a CAS but that is the only place I have ever heard of it being banned. As for the price of the 83+, I think that's pretty consistant with the price in the US (although not completely sure). Graph Links seem to be cheaper here, though, as I got my Graph Link (the Black one; the Gray ones were much more expensive and I don't have a Macintosh) for $20 last year and now Target is clearing out their national inventories of them for $4!

mmm, my cable is grey and I use tigraphlink for windows under a windows machine... It is more expensive than the black one? I though it was cheaper.

Yeah, much more expensive. At TI's website it is currently $55 and the black link is $20. You can also get the black links for around $4 at most Targets (they are on clearance).

I know for a fact that the TI-89 is NOT allowed on the ACT, and IS allowed on the SAT. I would assume it is allowed on AP tests, cause they are administered by the same people as the SAT (I think).

Now then, I got my first TI, an 81 as a hand-me down from my older sister when I was in 6th grade. Then she took it back to use in college (don't ask me why she didn't just buy a new one, the 81 is so old). So I got a 89 out of savings from working on computers part time. That was September '98, my 7th grade year. Last year I made it to MathCounts National Finals, and got a TI-89 (a HW1, although HW2s had been out quite a while though). Seeing how I already have one, my brother has become the proud co-owner of a MathCounts marked 89! If he ever stops using it, I WILL reposess and make some money off it (or maybe have a games 89 and a math 89!)

Ahh yes, the MathCounts mark. I unfortunately have one no longer. The TI-92 they gave me was defective so I sent it back to TI for repair and they gave me another, refurbished one, with a different case. On a separate note, it's kind of funny that they gave out HW1's instead of HW2's, given the fact that TI is giving them directly to MathCounts.

If you want a user-friendly calc that's easy to program, then yes, the 83+ is the best. Otherwise go with the 86. The TI-89 is allowed on almost everything in the U. S. except for the ACT test, due to it's CAS. The 92+ is banned on all standardized tests because of it's QWERTY keyboard, which makes the college board consider it a computer. And nobody steals calcs at my school because the school keeps track of serial numbers on the calcs, and I don't exactly live in a high-crime town.