Odd bug with 'solve'

[jonmoore]

I believe the confusion is compounded by the fact that there's a symbolic 'i' on the calculator keyboard accessed via Shift + 2.

Much as I prefer the HP Prime over the TI Nsprire CX CAS II, I am also of the belief that the Nspire is a superior calculator for pre-university students aged 14-16. Part of the reason I believe that the NSpire is superior for that age group is that over the years TI has done a lot of work to adapt Derive specifically for calculator use. So it has minimal 'lurking' desktop keywords, functions and workflows.

Whilst I applaud and agree with the majority of the design decisions utilised in XCAS/Giac, I think they often muddy the water as part of general use on the HP Prime. If something isn't documented in the extensive Prime PDF manual, it shouldn't exist in the OS. I'm sure it's easier for HP to integrate XCAS as is, but it would be better if it were properly adapted, with no hidden keywords and commands.

This is another of the reasons that I want to access KhiCAS on the HP Prime (and delivered with all the performance benefits of a HP equivalent to 'ndless)'. The XCAS design decisions make total sense in that context.

To digress a little, I've found with our kids that I'm able to use the document modes of the Nspire to provide them with extra Algebra drills to help cement their curriculum. The great thing about the document mode is that they can easily show their 'by hand' methodology whilst checking their work with the CAS.

For our eldest (currently doing A-Levels), and who goes to university next year, it's the HP Prime and an A3 whiteboard all the way. That's a far faster way to help with the higher-level math problems encountered at that age. Having to traverse a document mode here gets in the way.

Funnily enough, I really don't see the Nspire and the Prime as direct competitors much as their perceived that way. But I'm not sure how long HP can continue to create high-end calculators if they're only catering to 'university' students, who in many cases, will be using Matlab, Mathematica, Maple etc on their laptops/tablets. Unfortunately, the pre-university market is governed more by what functionality is left out than that, that's put in, hence the dominance of Casio here in the UK. And I'm not sure HP has always been that successful when creating sub-prime models (the 39 and 40g's are a good example of this).