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Comment by callalex | Hacker News Reader

We are still forcing students to use the same shitty Texas Instruments calculators with horrible screens, unacceptably convoluted interfaces, and criminally slow performance and power consumption due to these same standards bodies. Technology has been better than that for more than 20 years now. We’ve gotten to the point where current students can use the calculator their grandparent bought as a child. How will moving the SAT from a bubble sheet to a laptop change any of the real factors that contribute to this problem?

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I've never thought about the power consumption of TI calculators. I had an 85 and I recall changing the batteries occasionally, but not very often. I also didn't find the performance speed to be a hindrance during HS, including on the SATs.

What did you use your calculator for that it was noticeably too slow for? How often did you have to replace batteries? I get that there are newer technologies out there, and perhaps it would be a genius startup idea to make a device that's just like a TI, but using modern chips.

With current technology, 4 AA batteries should be able to power a calculator for an entire educational career from 6th to 12th grade, maybe more.

Edit: in terms of performance, the buttons and LCD are very unresponsive, you can type faster than they display. When making any kinds of graphs with more than 2 functions, the drawing happens in the order of 5-10 seconds, modern hardware could do that in micro-to-milliseconds and get the CPU back to sleep to save battery. Anything involving regressions of inputted tables can take 10s of seconds, which again feels clunky and eats battery.

No doubt. But is it a big deal to have to swap batteries once every couple years? I think the bigger waste is that these things still cost so much. I cannot believe that the TI-85 I used over 20 years ago is $70 on Amazon.

I agree, I think my point got bogged down in the details. Declaring scantron dead because the SAT is planning to go digital soon is so clearly out of touch nonsense on its face given how slowly technology is adopted in this space.

I dunno, my elementary school kids have never done a multiple choice test on paper. It does require that the schools have enough computers, but these days most schools seem to.

I always liked the sluggishness.

It made me think every operation through before I did it, so I couldn't just bruteforce results through guesswork. And the graph-drawing process was hypnotic.

For some models, you couldn't even cancel drawing once it started so you really had to validate your own inputs.

Everything about it forced an abundance of caution and efficiency...two qualities overlooked by so many "engineers" rushing through everything they do today.

I mean there are technologies that I think kids should learn that TI can’t even approach. Symbolic integration, for example.

But would a powerful calculator like that be allowed on the SAT?

Why shouldn’t it be?

Well, some TI's aren't even allowed on the SAT. I think the reasoning is that they can solve equations for you. They do allow other TI's that can do this, but only if you format the equation appropriately. If GP is envisioning an even more powerful calculator, then it certainly wouldn't be allowed.

I get that it wouldn’t be allowed on the extant SAT, I am saying the SAT should be redesigned to include higher level questions that allow the use of technology like symbolic manipulators

Have you seen the newer calculators? TI does still sell the older calculators but the newer ones have color screens at least. The interface is different (from my 2000s TI-83+ and TI-89) too.

Also, I would have appreciated the app/online version when I was in school. The iPad app looks really nice. I felt a bit of jealousy when I saw it lol. I know you mentioned College Board’s calculator rules and iPads obviously wouldn’t apply but you were also speaking about the calculators in general.

But are the calculators actually “shitty”? I have fond memories of my TI-83 and TI-89. They worked well. I don’t recall being annoyed by anything. But also I don’t tend to complain about things like this. Never have. For example, is a high schooler really complaining that much about battery consumption for their calculator? I don’t recall this at all in middle school or high school.

I can see though how the general student could benefit from something slightly better. I can also see how these calculators would feel outdated to a current high school student. I just don’t think they were or are that bad lol. But again, I’m not one to overexaggerate things in the first place lol.

It would have been lousy if the calculator just stopped working without notice. But my recollection is that you could tell when it was getting low on batteries because the display would get faint. Ah, the memories...

Yeah, those things had 9 levels of contrast. With a fresh set of batteries the display would be crisp and contrasty at “3” or something. Then slowly you needed more and more levels to feel normal. Before you know it you’re running at contrast “9” and contemplating your next score. Then you realize, “oh yeah, batteries are on their way out.”

As you snap the final AA place, you sign contentedly as you dial it back down to “3”.

Hmm. I’m not bragging at all but as someone who got a perfect score on the math section of the SAT (since scantron/bubble answers are being talked about) and enjoyed math a lot, I don’t recall this at all lol. Do you mind mentioning the year(s)? I said early 2000s in my first comment. The batteries lasted, at least for me. I recall having to replace them for sure. But it was never a big deal. And I’m speaking as a Black, lower middle class person growing up. It wasn’t that serious to me or the other people with similar backgrounds at my school(s). But still, I can understand why/how it would be serious to others (as I mentioned in my original comment).

I had a TI-81 in 1993, and upgraded to a TI-85 in 1996 I think. I didn't mean my comment to be an indictment of TI calculator battery life. My experience with them matches yours. They were great!

I do remember the ominous feeling every time I noticed the screen getting fainter, checking to see what contrast level I was currently at. But it wasn't actually that big of a deal.

I probably only needed to change them twice a year or something.

> I’m not bragging at all but as someone who got a perfect score on the math section of the SAT

This is very strange behavior for HN (especially because many HNers got 800 on their math SATs, I would imagine).

No. My goal was to provide evidence/an anecdote to back my thoughts/opinion about these calculators. I didn’t do any of the math competitions like AMC or olympiads or whatever like people on HN talk about on occasion. This would have probably sounded more appropriate: “As someone who did AMC and was really interested in math and used those calculators a lot, …”

But I couldn’t say that. So I came up with the closest thing I could have at 5AM after a night of partying. I did notice that it might sound a little douchey which is why I added the “I’m not bragging” part.

But thanks for assuming the worst! I believe that’s against HN’s guidelines. What I said is not much different from saying “As someone with X years of experience in Y engineering field, I think that…” People say things like that all of the time on HN, right? Many of us have similar X years of experience in Y engineering field. But we still say it.

> (especially because many HNers got 800 on their math SATs, I would imagine).

For sure.

I guess I was also shocked that people who have similar math backgrounds would be complaining the way you were about these calculators, again given my fondness for them. In my first comment, I did also mention that I don’t tend to exaggerate. So maybe that’s partially the disconnect here?

The other part was that I was pretty sure that you guys were talking about calculators from the 80s or 90s. I asked that question also but no one responded at that time. People just kept complaining about problems/issues with the calculators lol. (Someone finally replied and mentioned 1993!)

Sorry, but you guys were starting to turn this into some sort of Texas Instruments bashing circlejerk, which didn’t seem fair to the product.

Sidenote: HN isn’t all fun and games. Please don’t paint it as that. When I (and peers that I’ve spoken with) talk about HN, it’s usually characterized as a forum where really smart people like to bump heads. A place where people like to outsmart each other. A place where people nitpick article titles. You get the idea.

Your behavior correcting skills were needed during plenty of more appropriate times. For example, when someone with a username like “koreanguy” said that he wanted to personally kill Timnit Gebru if he could. No downvotes or flag after many refreshes. Want to know why? Because plenty of other men were leaving similar disgusting comments in that post. This is just one example out of many of “weird” behavior on this forum. How many times has the mod here left that “be nice and follow the guidelines” comment on charged articles? (Some) HN users love a good dogwhistle!

But my little SAT comment is deserving of a reprimand lol?

Hilarious to quote the guidelines at me. I wasn't "assuming the worst" — I was just pointing out that it's very odd to gratuitously mention your SAT scores. (I've been on HN for a decade and never seen anything like it; it looks like you're rather new, so might not have that background.) It doesn't prove how much or little you used your calculator. People who get 650 or 710 use their calculators too, perhaps even more! If you had said "I used my calculator a lot, though not at the level of math competitions," that would have been more enlightening. I appreciate your mentioning the 5 AM partying context, which definitely helps.

I, too, have been using HN for over a decade. I never add my email to the accounts for recovery lol.

> perhaps even more!

And that’s also part of the disconnect here. I don’t believe this to be true fully. Growing up, the people who performed the best were the ones that really delved into the features of the calculator. They also installed more games. Did programming. The ones that did more than what the teacher taught. They would be the ones to remember whether not there were “devastating?!?!” contrast or battery issues. That’s just my opinion and experience (which is also why I provided other relevant personal details for perspective).

I do understand your line of thinking though (e.g. people who perform the worst use the calculator more because it takes them longer to do homework). The question then becomes this. Who has the better, unbiased memory of how the calculator functions: the struggling student or the one who cultivated a fondness and really explored its capabilities?

I did mention that I used my calculator(s) a lot in the same sentence that you had an issue with at least lol

Also, I just searched for HN comments related to SAT. There are a few from high schoolers and adults. Not many. But enough to satisfy me lol!

It's also worth considering their competitors. My experience in the UK system was that TIs were a rarity and most people used graphing calculators from Casio (if they felt the need for an upgrade from a scientific calculator at all), which were cheaper, lighter, widely available in any good stationery section, and appeared more feature-rich (better screens with intuitive menus, built-in SD card slots, and probably better processors). In particular some TIs I saw lacked graphical equation display, which would be a deal breaker, exotically when our existing £15 scientific calculators had made it a basic feature

There was no requirement from the schools or exam board to use a particular brand. In theory you could do everything you needed with a basic scientific calc like the ubiquitous FX-83GT (and many people did), and the only real rule was "no computer algebra systems" (I believe the TI-89 was given as an example of a disallowed calculator). In fact the teachers were somewhat discouraging of graphing calculators at all, saying you can get one if you feel the graphs help you, but you shouldn't need anything more than what you had in GCSE

In the US, students were allowed to use the TI-89, but not the TI-9X, which. Had a QWERTY keyboard but was otherwise identical. The 89 could solve equations, but the 85 and 86 could do the same, if you inputted them in standard form (y = mx + b). It could also solve simultaneous equations, again if you standardized the formatting. This was definitely a useful feature, beyond what scientific calculators could do.

As I struggled about 6 years ago to work the TI graphing calculator that was necessary for my Calculus course, I found that there were alternatives. There are emulators that you can just install and run on Windows. Even crazier, I was sorely tempted to use those websites where you could just enter in a formula, and it would do the derivation or integration totally automatically. I mean, I knew I'd get answers that way, but not learn the process. It was one of the most difficult classes for me. I believe that the IT-related majors later abolished all of their Calculus requirements.

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