What's the deal with graphing calculators?

[skryche]

Why are graphing calcuators practically the same as they were eleven years ago? They even cost about the same!

160 KB of RAM? Incredible. The smallest iPod shuffle has 3200 times as much space.

There's a conspiracy here. Students should be up in arms.

Comments

[ex_londonso]

you make a really good point.

there's more to this than meets the eye.

[shoukinkasegi]

No great development in the last 10 or even 20 years (30 even), in Mathematics, is probably why. Even though M is everywhere and in everything.

Cost - Uni, college or technical school, it's best to make friends with Public Safety (or the equivalent) and get an in on the Lost & Found trove. There's your calculator right there, free to own. In general (wherever you are) it's good practice to befriend Public Safety and IT.

[skryche]

Uh, hello? Where's my Fermat's Last Theorem button? It was only in 1994 that that got nailed down.

Seriously, though -- graphs at a higher resolution or CHEAPER is, I don't think, too much to ask.

350 years, something something.

[shoukinkasegi]

The material I was reading is rather dated. Oops.

I've only hung out with Maths geeks infrequently - and those I chilled out with belong to the Form Follows Function school. Actually... they didn't give 2 bits about Form. As long as "the Maths is pure", and then they started getting dreamy-eyed.

Might've been the beer too.

[yerguyses]

OMG! I have the same issue! My graphing calculator cost $90 in 1996 and ten years later nearly the same calc costs the same amount! Hello! Earth calling Texas Instruments! Stop ripping off students and get with the program. It's the biggest ripoff since textbook companies come out with a new edition every year by changing 3 pages and the cover art and forcing you to buy it. Grr.

[skryche]

What's really terrible is that another company could make equivalent calculators for, like, $20 probably. But because it would use a different interface, teachers couldn't use all their old instructions. Criminale!

[ipsenaut]

They can't be improved upon because the games available for them are severely limited right now, but with a little more memory and sharper graphics, I'd be playing SMB3 all through pre-calc.