Odd bug with 'solve'

[jonmoore]

I agree with many of your points, but I grew up with the UNIX terminal so the command line comes naturally. It's what I love about Raspberry Pi's, it brings kids closer to the 'metal' - ie the command line.

It's a real pity that the https://www.computerbasedmath.org/ programme is a shallow attempt by the 'Brothers Wolfram' to sell more Mathematica licences into the education sector, as some of its aims have a lot of merit.

But, and this is really important, learning math shouldn't be something that requires knowledge of computer science. Kids aged 12-14 have enough on their plate moving from arithmetic to the math of symbol manipulation, without having to learn the syntax of Maple/Mathematica/XCAS etc. The reason Maple succeeds with younger students over other CAS alternatives is because of its 2d mathematical interaction model that doesn't require them to learn the underlying Maple syntax. By the time these students are 16 and beyond and when they hopefully have an innate intuition for symbolic math, it's at that point that learning the underlying syntax comes to the fore.

I'll speak plainly here as I think this is really important. It's no secret that HP hasn't been particularly successful in promoting the Prime in the (age) 11-16 education segment. In the UK market, they begin to have some cut-through with the 16-19 segment (mainly IB students), and have reasonable success with university students that still see a calculator as being relevant to their studies.

I'm not from an educational background professionally, but I owned a design agency specialising in digital media and ended up doing lots of production work for the education sector over the years. I sold the agency to a larger network in 2008 and work mainly as a consultant these days. And some of that work remains in the education sector. The general view on the HP Prime with my education sector clients is that it's fantastic hardware let down by an operating system that's not fit for their purposes.

Back when HP were marketing the HP-50g against the TI-89 (and earlier CAS models), the 50g was the clear winner with both end-users and educators. The same hasn't been the case with the HP Prime. Here in the UK, the biggest reseller of calculators to the education sector is Oxford Educational. Their summer 2021 catalogue (which I've linked to below) doesn't even feature the HP Prime (even though they stock it). It leads with the Casio Classwiz calculators, then the Casio CG50 and its low-cost mono twin (the fx-9860G-III), and finally, at the back of an 18-page catalogue, comes the TI calculators. But even here it's only the TI-Nspire CX II-T that's listed alongside the TI-84 Plus and the TI-84 Plus CE-T Python Edition. Educationalists here in the UK neither recommend CAS calculators to their students nor do they purchase them in bulk. I personally think this is a narrow minded approach but that's the truth of the situation. I don't know the mainland European education sector as well as the UK sector, but I've been informed that the situation is mirrored in many countries.

When TI started using a Mathematica like notebook interaction model on their calculators, it was underpowered and cumbersome but technology has caught up with their initial vision and the CX II is just as responsive as the Prime. Going forward I seriously think that HP should consider a document model for any possible Prime replacement (but one that can be easily disabled by those who don't need it). Hopefully, attitudes will have advanced enough that that won't have to offer a CAS free model. But by marketing a calculator that can successfully be seen as a good solution for students aged 11-19 and beyond, we all gain; as HP will hopefully still be in the business of selling calculators.

https://www.studentcalculators.co.uk/pdf...20Full.pdf