Dan Johnson wrote:

> HP 48GX
>
> 1. I can play Beethoven on the built in speaker

I hardly see how you can get decent quality music on a calculator. "Beep beep beep
boooooop, beep beep beep boooooop, beep beep beep boop beep beep beep boop beep beep
beep
boop" (that was Beethoven's 5th BTW ;).


> 2. I can use the infrared port to shoot messages across the room to a friend, or
> control my tv

Okay, that's cool.


> 3. Can display gray scale images like the one I have of Claudia Shiffer

Built-in? The TIs have plenty of user-created grayscale programs.


> 4. Unit conversions.  You can tag every number you enter with the unit it was
measured
> in.  Then instantly convert to the desired unit after the calculations are complete.
> I bet NASA wouldn't have lost the Mars probe due to incorrect units if they had used
> this system.  ALL of my classmates in physics class were jealous that I finished in
> one quarter the time.

I'm not sure what you mean "instantly convert", but TIs have unit conversion. In the
89
it's as simple as typing "48_kg>_lbs".


> 5.  Equation library.  Forget one of those formulas you need all the time.  No
> problem, almost everything you would ever need is there, just look it up.  Also has
> constants.

That would be helpful, though on the 89 it's pretty easy to get most of them. eg
"Solve(a*x^2+b*x+c=0,x)" and it'll give you quadratic formula. It has built-in trig
identities.


> 6. Durability.  I knew several people who had to have their TI fixed because they
> dropped it on the floor.  My calculator is incredibly durable.  I was usually at the
> bottom of my bag under 30 pounds of books.  I demonstrate this by pounding it
against
> hard surfaces.

I've dropped my TI-89 a few times. But every time it freaks me out. I don't trust it
to
take that abuse.


> 7. Easy file transfers.  The hp understands .txt files, so it is easy to type notes
on
> your computer and send them through the wire to your calculator.  Easier actually
than
> trying to type on a TI-92 keyboard.  I think the rule about no qwerty keyboards for
> tests is stupid.  Also you don't need any special software to transfer files.  I can
> do it with any terminal program I have ever tried.

The 89 has a text editor, and it's easy enough to type it on the computer using the
graphlink software. They are stored on the calc as plain ascii, but there's no direct
compatability with .txt I think. Oh well, use graphlink, cut-n-paste from Notepad.
Easy
enough.


> 8. RPN is addictive, and fast.  There are many places where the notation hp uses
save
> so much time.  For example you can write a list, and perform the same computation
with
> every value in the list simultaneously.

I don't know about the time it takes to type stuff in, but the TI can do operations on
lists very easily.


> 9.  Works like a computer.  File system is very familiar.  I knew many people who
> actually replaced the OS on their TI's

TI-89 has directories and custom file types. But no sub-directories. You access them
with
a backslash too.


> TI
>
> 1.  Very fast data transfer.  Transferring a one kilobyte file between to hp
> calculators will take a minute.  Between to TI calculators the rate is over 32
> kilobytes a second.  Now that's a lot better than my internet connection ( I want
> broadband).  This shouldn't be too surprising considering that they make modem
chips.

Calc to calc, but not graphlink. Unless you build your own. (Theirs is 9600.)


> 2. Speed.  The new TI calculators are 10 MHz.  My Hp is only 4 Mhz.  They will smoke
> it any day.

>;) :p mwuhahaha


> 3. Easy to use.  They do not use RPN, and many things are only accessible from
menus.
> For me this is not a positive.  It took me half a day to learn to use my calculator,
> and it was worth it.  It took me longer to learn POV-Ray and it has been worth it.

The 89 has many many keyboard shortcuts. You can even get any greek letter by pressing
diamond-left parenthese-letter in aplha mode. It has four function keys, alpha, shift
(which works as on a computer, and it has cut-copy-paste features), diamond and 2nd,
and
pressing diamond-EE gives you the diamond keyboard map. As for menus there is a new
system
with menus along the top (like in Windows), with F1-F8 keys to acces them and every
element has a number shortcut, you can customize them too. Compared to the old TIs it
has
a very very nice OS.


> Things I want in my future calculator.
>
> 1.  More power.  Faster processor more memory.

Don't we all. :) As for mem, even some of the current calcs use more than the
processor
can address, so they page it. Why don't they make one with like a Pentium I? Too hot?
They'd be cheap and they'd fit.


> 2.  More better symbolic math.  They should simply call the people at wolfram
> research.

"More better"? The 89 has pretty good symbolic math, I don't know what they could add.
For
example:
0^-3 is undef but 0^-2 is inifinity. (think asymptote) Everything is automatically
simplified as far as it can possibly be, and if you have it written a different way
you
can just enter one expression equal to the other and it says true or false. Does
complex
solutions too.


> 3.  Should play mp3's and have a headphone jack.

;)


> 4.  Color display capable of displaying millions of colors.

Yes!


> 5.  Good games should be in rom, like sonic the hedgehog.

I dunno, teachers would get awfully suspicious.


> 6.  Built in Remote program

To control your TV and stuff? ha!


> 7.  Fast standardized data interface.  USB maybe.

TI's calc-to-calc is pretty fast. You can't have a transfer faster than your other
compnents anyway.


> 8.  C compiler
> 9.  POV-Ray

You could have those easily now if it weren't for the fact they would take all your
mem.

--
David Fontaine  <dav### [at] faricynet>  ICQ 55354965
My raytracing gallery:  http://davidf.faricy.net/

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