Why do French communities seem always a bit ahead in the sector of modern calcs?

[pier4r]

(09-15-2017 08:24 PM)Adriweb Wrote:  France also has a history of having pretty good people in the fields of math and computer science, so I guess this reflects that as well

That's true, (well according to some prizes at least). Nevertheless what does a community is a mass of people, not a good but limited elite. Therefore, somehow, there should be some societal reward to play around with calculators to have more early adopters in France rather than other places.

The point of exams allowing full CAS devices could be a reason. Since in US, for what I know, they are banned and the ti 84 is still pretty strong (see cemetech).