Calculating education

I finished my midterm over the weekend and have been busily completing tasks since then (thank you PB4!) but unfortunately, I'm pretty worn out. For some odd reason, I'm having a bit of an obsession with calculators lately, probably I got forceably reacquainted with my HP 49G+ during the midterm. It's a good calculator but it's got some pretty major flaws like keypresses not registering (bad HP!)

Ah...calculators! I can remember when I got my first calculator. It was one of those old seven-segment LED things with the red numbers. Being just a very bored child at the time, I amused myself by trying to figure out how many words I could spell using it, with the display turned upside down. Fast forward quite a few years and I'm in secondary school with my very first scientific calculator, a Casio. I took good care of it because my parents told me it was the only one I'll ever get from them since it was so expensive. The trend amongst my friends at the time was to wrap the whole calculator in heavy-duty Saran wrap-like substance so as to keep it maintenance free. Heaven forbid that the super-expensive display be forever marred by cloth-wipeable fingerprints!

You know, it took me over a decade to figure out that wrapping it in Saran wrap was incredibly anal-retentive for a kid. Then it took me another decade beyond that to be able to laugh about it.

At any rate, my HP 49G+ cost me quite a bit of time during this last midterm because a bunch of keypresses didn't register. Yes, I know about the KEYTIME fix - I'm already at 500. This is a serious flaw insofar as I'm concerned for a calculator: bad input = bad output. I can't really afford another calculator right now, so the HP 49G+ will have to do for a while. Just out of curiosity, I took a look at what's out there.

HP put out the HP 50G, which is essentially my calculator with a better keyboard. If my calculator broke today and if I had no time to research my options, that's what I would get because I'm a RPN gal. TI has the TI-89 Titanium which looks pretty nifty too.

I understand HP doesn't support their calculators very well. It's not a core business for them so they outsource it. It's too bad. I like HP calculators but their build quality is very poor IMHO - case in point: the little plastic flashing that surrounds my HP 49G+ cracked and fell apart for no good reason during my midterm. I reached for my calculator, heard a soft crack and suddenly there's jaggedy plastic sticking out. There's been no significant advances in decades - I mean, come on: the HP 50G is more like a bugfix for the HP 49G+ than an actual new calculator. Insofar as I'm concerned, my HP 49G+ was a dud. HPs are also very hard to find in Canada - they're mostly sold by university bookstores.

TI has a strong background in education and supports their products quite well. They seem to really work with the teachers and curriculum. They're easy to find - just go to a local Radio Shack (now The Source by Circuit City) or Staples and they sell TIs. Having said that, their latest offering (TI-Nspire) apparently has very little programmable capability. If that is the direction that TI is going, I'm sticking with HP.

I've been with HP for a long time but we're parting ways for my next calculator. I won't spend money on a poorly supported product. Furthermore, TI has won the hearts and minds of students because of their long relationship with the educators; if you graduated recently, chances are excellent you own a TI. This means that my kids will be using TIs, so I might as well get familiar with them.

Well, once my HP 49G+ breaks or when I finally have money again, whichever comes later.