| Author | Comment |
korkow
Ultralisk
Posted: 16 Mar 2005
20:02 GMT
Total Posts: 465 | Why does TI hate the 85/86 series? It's my favorite yet their least! |
zkostik
Carrier
Posted: 16 Mar 2005
21:05 GMT
Total Posts: 2486 | They don't hate them but they do find them obsolete I guess because they're not upgradeable and possibly because they're not as popular at their 83/84 and 89 series. I do like 86 tho but that's how things are. TI still sells the 86 model so you shouldn't worry about it that much.
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Ray Kremer
Ultralisk
Posted: 17 Mar 2005
11:40 GMT
Total Posts: 310 | They're not so much obsolete as that they don't fit into the marketing strategy. The 83 family is for high school math up to and including first year calculus and the 89 family is for calculus and beyond. There's no real need to have the 86 as an intermediary in there. Now, of course people could use the 86 instead of something from the 83 family. My suspicion on this is that way back in the first days of TI graphing calculators, TI started promoting the 85 to school teachers and they generally whined that it was too complicated, prompting TI to rip out all the non-essential features and rename it the 82. Presumably the teachers were satisfied with the 82 and it all just grew from there as the 82 evolved into the 83+ and 84+. This, of course, left the poor 85/86 to be the proverbial red-headed stepchild. The irony being that essentially all the ripped-out features from the 85 to 82 transition were eventually remade for the 83 family as Flash Applications. http://www.technicalc.org/tifaq/?p3.htm#5.4
[Edited by Ray Kremer on 17-Mar-05 20:40] |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 17 Mar 2005
15:09 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | I personally think that the 86 is a way better buy than the 84+/SE since it is at the same price (or lower in the case of the SE) and it is a way better calculator with more RAM, better screen dimensions, and more advanced math functions, it is just harder to use for beginners. Most people are beginners and only use their calculator for some math and gaming and therefore wouldn't need or want an 86, so they buy an 83x series calc. Also, the new labels on the 84+/SE say "Better if TI-83+ is recommended/required for your high school", failing to mention that the 86 is a better get. Another thing might be that it is a touch old compared to the 83x series and has no Archive memory. |
Xero Xcape
Marine
Posted: 17 Mar 2005
15:12 GMT
Total Posts: 29 | I LOVE the 86 series... I think the 83/84 is more popular because of the requirements for schools... They say "83+ calculator" as opposed to "83+ or better calculator", well what can you do? (also it just might be the games... :lol_a: )
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BASIC flames are for n00bs, you don't want to be a n00b do you? | My other calc is a Porsche. |
PogoDaMonkey
Dragoon
Posted: 17 Mar 2005
17:18 GMT
Total Posts: 72 | Cant say a whole lot on the 86 topic, because im a Titanium user. I CAN say that it is the rockinest calc out there, if you can get Ghostbuster to work on the programs that arent compatible, and comes with great greyscale graphics, plus it is a calculator that can use C, an easier to program language than most. It's the type of calc that will last you through college, because of its large amount of Flash ROM and RAM, but it costs $150, so I cant mess this is, this is my calc for life. (until it becomes obsolete) |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
09:17 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | 86 has grayscale as well, I believe, and is only $109.99. By the way, I threw together a quick webpage last night after some research on a potential TI-87 here. |
Andy
Administrator
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
09:34 GMT
Total Posts: 939 | 2nd functions for LEFT and RIGHT should be BOL and EOL as on every TI graphing calculator already in existence.
Also, umm, why is your acolor="white" when your bgcolor="white" as well? Have to highlight the text to read the links... |
Ray Kremer
Ultralisk
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
10:42 GMT
Total Posts: 310 | I reject the notion that the 85/86 is harder to use than the 83 family. The commands common to both pretty much work exactly the same, and there are large numbers of students who come to calculator forums who can't figure out how to use the 83 either. I think the teachers early on got a misconception that more abilities equals harder to use and so they forced TI into making the 82 for them, and that's just not true.
And while it's true there's no Flash ROM, that's only because it's an older calculator. TI puts Flash ROM into all the calculators now, back then they didn't. Plus with the extra RAM compared to the 83, storage space isn't all that much of an issue.
Really it's a matter of using the same calculator the teacher uses because otherwise you wouldn't know which buttons to press. Any student willing and able to actually learn how the calculator works independently of what the teacher demonstrates should be buying the 86 instead of the 83 family. |
Xero Xcape
Marine
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
12:54 GMT
Total Posts: 29 | I used a TI-81 for 3 years while all they used where TI-30x
and when I got to highschool I used a TI-92+ :)
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BASIC flames are for n00bs, you don't want to be a n00b do you? | My other calc is a Porsche. |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
14:25 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | Oh ya, i forgot the BOL and EOL funcs, sorry. Also, what do you mean white on white? the bgcolor is black, the links are white, the text is yellow, and the tables are red. I don't know which links you're talking about, but that's not how i have them defined. |
Andy
Administrator
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
14:54 GMT
Total Posts: 939 | Nope, the bgcolor is white, not black. You must have done your HTML/CSS in a non-compliant manner. |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
21:00 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | What browser do you have? Works fine on mine (IE 6). Ha! I just bought a brand new TI-86 off Ebay for only $60.00. Now my calc count is up to 3, yay! |
Andy
Administrator
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
21:31 GMT
Total Posts: 939 | Opera 7.54. |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
21:46 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | Hmmm, might be your browser. |
allynfolksjr
Administrator
Posted: 18 Mar 2005
22:39 GMT
Total Posts: 1892 | Highly unlikely that opera is the problem. If anything opera is too compliant to the w3c standards. (See iframe and z-layer conflict as shown in the ad on calcgames.org). You're probably using a non standard tag in your code.
Edit: After viewing in opera 8.0b, ff 1.01 and IE 6, you are using a bunch of IE specific tags.
[Edited by allynfolksjr on 19-Mar-05 07:43] |
zkostik
Carrier
Posted: 19 Mar 2005
09:00 GMT
Total Posts: 2486 | Non necessarily IE specific tags but possibly slightly off standard. IE is very forgiving in that respect... Personally, I don't like Opera as I prefer FireFox above anything. I only use Opera on my cell phone as its the only decent browser there.
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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 |
korkow
Ultralisk
Posted: 19 Mar 2005
19:50 GMT
Total Posts: 465 | Ya, i got my 86 (that came with the manual AND Black Graphink serial cable) for a mere $55. I LOVE Ebay!!!! THe calc was even in perfect condition, not even a name.
Wow, I can't belive I enough addicted to calcs that Im at an Internet cafe in Hawaii (Maui actually) over spring break wrinting about a calculator all during spring break. |
BullFrog
Wraith
Posted: 19 Mar 2005
20:34 GMT
Total Posts: 623 | I like the 86 over the 83 because I don't have to stuff the memory full of programs to get functions I need. Finding a point of inflection on the 83 is pretty much impossible to the average user while it's just a simple push of the button and setting a few bounds on the 86.
Maybe I'm just biased, though. My math teacers for the past three years have favored the 85/86 family...
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"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds." -Franklin D. Roosevelt |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 19 Mar 2005
21:09 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | What would be an example of a "non-standard" tag? i bet that's the problem, though, because the referrence book I have for the CSS is outdated, way back to HTML 3.2. I'll tyr and fix that, though. |
allynfolksjr
Administrator
Posted: 19 Mar 2005
22:22 GMT
Total Posts: 1892 | Well, some attributes are not supported by all browsers, like I know flashing scrollbars are not on any other browser that I've seen. |
Andy
Administrator
Posted: 19 Mar 2005
23:57 GMT
Total Posts: 939 | Flashing... scrollbars....
What the HECK were they smoking when they decided to add that?!?!?!?!?!?!?! |
Lunchbox
Carrier
Posted: 20 Mar 2005
08:07 GMT
Total Posts: 2007 | Its a little javascript function, quite simple actually. |
