TI-57’s 50 Steps.

[Matt Agajanian]

Hi all.

It seems to me that 50 steps on an AOS programmable seems quite limiting. I’ve seen some sample programs in a book called Programmable Calculators which covered the 57 and HP-33E/C. I’m not sure of the extent of its implementation, but I remember seeing fully merged keystrokes like STO 5 and I think the conditionals were merged with its transfer step merged with it.

Yes, yes, the 58/59 were much roomier for programming, so why not get a 58/58C instead.

Although, since a 100 step/10 register program was possible, case in point, the 56, why didn’t TI give the 57 the same capacity of the 56? Combined with fully merged keystrokes, that could have been a nice entry level calc.

[Steve Simpkin]

I suspect the answer is cost and marketing.

Look at the internals of the SR-56 ($180 in 1976):
http://www.datamath.org/Sci/WEDGE/JPEG_S...t%20boards

And the TI-58 ($130 in 1977):
http://www.datamath.org/Sci/WEDGE/JPEG_ti-58c.htm#TI-58

Vs the much cheaper TI-57 ($80 in 1977):
http://www.datamath.org/Sci/MAJESTIC/JPE....htm#TI-57

While it might have been possible to squeeze another 50 steps of program memory into the single chip that makes up the TI-57, it may have cut into the sales of the higher priced TI-58 or SR-56 (which the TI-57 replaced). The TI-57 had the same amount of memory as the HP-25 and competed very nicely price-wise with it when the TI-57 was introduced in 1977. There was no marketing reason to incorporate more memory.

[Matt Agajanian]

Yeah. I see your point. Besides, at the 160/40 partition in the 58/58C, an impressive improvement and opportunity for more extensive programming flexibility.

[Steve Simpkin]

(11-07-2021 05:56 PM)Matt Agajanian Wrote:  Yeah. I see your point. Besides, at the 160/40 partition in the 58/58C, an impressive improvement and opportunity for more extensive programming flexibility.

Yes the TI-58/59 were an impressive improvement over the programmable models of the time. In my opinion I don’t think HP had anything comparable until the HP-41C was introduced 2 years later in 1979, at a much higher price point.

I bought my HP-25 in June 1977, just a few weeks after the TI-59/58 were introduced. The street price of the TI-58 was likely very close to what I paid for the HP-25 at the time ($116). If I had known about the TI-58 at the time and it’s greatly increased memory/functionality over the HP-25, it is quite possible I may have bought it instead. I am glad I did not as I became a total RPN convert and have gone on to own many great HP models over the years.

[badaze]

The 50 steps of the TI 57 are worth the 100 of the TI SR 56.

[Gene]

I disagree that the 50 steps of the TI-57 are equal to the 100 of the SR-56.

Consider:

The SR-56 had 10 data memories, usable at all times.

The TI-57 started with 8, but (quote from rskey.org): "these are liberally used by many of the calculator's built-in functions. For instance, the t-register was mapped to register 7, precluding the simultaneous use of both; registers 6 and 5 were used for pending operations when evaluating complex expressions."

Plus, TI's merged steps on the 57 do not always add up to 100 unmerged either. Sure, if you have a lot of INV SUM R2 steps then yes, merged will help. One step vs. 3. But in most cases, average keystrokes per function are less than 2.

That plus the lower memory register availability sink the cheaper made TI-57 to me.

However :-) the TI-57 ** can ** be put into a Constant Memory mode. See it here:

http://rskey.org/gene/calcgene/57c.htm

My 2 cents! Worth that much.
Gene

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(11-07-2021 09:59 PM)Gene Wrote:  However :-) the TI-57 ** can ** be put into a Constant Memory mode. See it here:

http://rskey.org/gene/calcgene/57c.htm

Fascinating! I always wonder how peole find out about these things: GTO, 2nd, 48, R/S, INV, STO, 3, +/-, +/- is certainly not a sequence of keystrokes that can be found out through trial and error.

Regards
Max

[Gene]

It was reported in the TI PPC Notes a long time ago.

TI had their ** own ** Joe Horn who came up with all sorts of things too. :-)

[Marc van Lemmen]

Hi,

The TI-57 will always be special to me, at the time ( 1978 ) the TI-57 was the only programmable calculator I could afford. It didn't matter to me it only had 50 (merged) steps. The other machines ( TI-58, HP-65, HP-25 ) were out of my reach.
Despite its limitations I learned a lot about programming on it, and it was a nice steps towards a real computer, an Elf-II with 256 Bytes of memory .

Regards, Marc.

[badaze]

(11-13-2021 12:45 PM)Marc van Lemmen Wrote:  Hi,

The TI-57 will always be special to me, at the time ( 1978 ) the TI-57 was the only programmable calculator I could afford. It didn't matter to me it only had 50 (merged) steps. The other machines ( TI-58, HP-65, HP-25 ) were out of my reach.
Despite its limitations I learned a lot about programming on it, and it was a nice steps towards a real computer, an Elf-II with 256 Bytes of memory .

Regards, Marc.

Same story.

[Tugdual]

The Ti 57 was my high school calculator. It was a very good platform to learn programming and the 50 steps were challenging. 3 years later had the final exam and the battery was half dead and several keys were bouncing. Can’t believe how naive I was today I would attend with a spare calculator. The year after I had a 15C that I found absolutely fascinating. I think I haven’t changed the battery cells for 10 years (unlike the reedition on which you change every 6 months maximum).