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pier4r · (This post was last modified: 09-21-2018 01:35 PM by pier4r.)

Even in a HP based forum, I think the topic is ok.

I have a ti89 that some 10 years ago was kindly given it to me by a university colleague that saw me tinkering with the 50g, and said "I don't use this anymore, do you want to have it?". That impressed me a lot. Sometimes people can do acts that are, wow.

Therefore, since it was a gift, I tried to use it every now an then. Now let's be honest, as calculator it is way powerful than a scientific calculator. Although my sharp el506w is super easy to use and the ti89 requires a bit more clicking around.

For entry level programming it is not that bad too. To me what is missing is the USB power source. For this the 50g is unbeatable in my heart.

Anyway what is really amazing is the effort that the community produced to create software for the TI devices.
The calculator can already provide a lot of joy helping solving math problems, but the amount of quite polished additional programs is amazing. Especially games.

Now, as I would expect from everyone visiting this forum related to "old but gold" tech, I appreciate devices like a gameboy. The gameboy (and similar devices) is one of the great technological solution that mankind produced to solve a problem, namely providing a mobile platform to execute not that trivial algorithms(games).

My brother had a gameboy, but if I had one I would try to buy those games that ensure that I will continue to use the gameboy over time. For instance buying evergreen challenging games like pacman, tetris, chess and the like. Not games that once they are completed, there is not much to do.

Back to the TI community. Over the years people put so much effort on the system (and still do, see cemetech forums), that practically one can use the ti89 as a powerful calculator (and that is already golden) or even as a sort of gameboy. All the major challenging evergreen titles are covered with polished programs. There is chess (the wonderful tichess), there is pacman, there is tetris and much more. Most of them ported in assembler.

That of course wouldn't be possible without the calculator community. The device can be as powerful as one wishes but if people do not develop solutions for it, one has the basic functions (that admittedly are still plenty).

I see that the 48 series had similar efforts in terms of breadth of topics covered. From applications, to libraries, to games, etc....

The 50g has some amazing solutions developed for it (multistopwatch, list libraries, hpgcc, newrpl, etc..) but mostly the most polished solutions focus on serious stuff (and that's great) rather than leisure or other usages.

Dave Britten · 09-21-2018, 02:57 PM

(09-21-2018 01:26 PM)pier4r Wrote: Even in a HP based forum, I think the topic is ok.

Of course! I am an equal-opportunity nerd.

The 89 and Voyage 200 are really great for programming, but oh my goodness is the 89 awful for day-to-day calculation. Cramming the 92 UI - which was designed around a large screen, full QWERTY keyboard, and many things being buried in menus - onto a calculator-style keypad with a small screen was an awful decision. But you can write pretty polished applications without too much effort, and it has a decent CAS.

I really wish the 86 had stuck around. They borrowed (okay, stole) 48S/G-style soft menus, enhanced the original 81/82 TI-BASIC with 8-character variable names and labels, lifted the limitation on number of list variables, matrices, "Y=" functions, etc. It's a very flexible system, with built in assembly capability, and even some hooks in the OS that let you install programs that hook the parser, add new functions/tokens that can be used in programs, and so on.

Maximilian Hohmann · (This post was last modified: 09-21-2018 04:59 PM by Maximilian Hohmann.)

Hello!

(09-21-2018 01:26 PM)pier4r Wrote: That of course wouldn't be possible without the calculator community.

Yes, of course! However every such program I downloaded and tried on one of the Ti calculators in my collection sooner or later crashed the calculator. Badly enough that the batteries and memory batteries needed to be taken out over night in order to bring it back to life. I am pretty sure that there are plenty of stable programs to be discovered out there but I gave up looking for them in the haystack. That reminds me a bit of the "shareware" craze in the early 1990ies where one could spend entire weeks trying out sharewares from magazine CDs (fast enough internet to download them was not yet available for mere mortals like me) only to find out that 95% of them were either total crap or totally unstable.

Greetings
Max

NB: And anyway, I am a hardware person. As much as I don't like calculators emulated on other devices I don't like video games emulated on calculators... If I wanted to play Tetris on a Game Boy (I really don't!) I would get myself a Game Boy on eBay.

pier4r · 09-21-2018, 05:08 PM

The point is that tetris, pacman or the like are not emulated. Are ported to the calculator. And the work is quite well done.
I mean already writing an emulator is a lot of effort, but porting the game is even more amazing. Example: http://tict.ticalc.org/projects.html#ref_latest

And yes, as in every non so small open community you have a lot of half finished results. It is a matter of interest to pick the right one. Of course if one has no interest, it makes also no sense, if one wants to use the device, it makes sense.
It also helps not to check every possible program, but focusing oneself on few picks (to discover good versions of 3-4 popular programs it doesn't take much).

In the 1990 there was no largely developed internet with high speeds, so people were interested to try this or that as they had little alternatives.

Jlouis · (This post was last modified: 09-21-2018 10:25 PM by Jlouis.)

I hate the ti 89, but love the Voyage 200, same calculator in different body, but a huge difference in using.

See this post

http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-4169.html

Cheers

pier4r · (This post was last modified: 09-21-2018 06:38 PM by pier4r.)

you just remember me that I have to check ebay classified (Germany). Impressive the popularity of the TI. I wonder how many ended up in the bin (because people didn't appreciate), if there are still so many on ebay. It is full with prices from 10€ to 200€.

And thanks for the link!

Eddie W. Shore · 09-22-2018, 10:28 PM

I agree with you, pier4r. I don't really visit it as much, but the community has really been expansive (my favorite sites of TI calcs are Datamath, Cemetech, and ticalc.org).

I agree on the TI-89 vs. the Voyage 200, the TI-89 screen is small.

I wish the TI-85/86 stayed around, but to be honest, the TI-84 Plus CE is my favorite of the TI calcs. I prefer the 84 Plus CE to the nSpire CX.

ijabbott · 09-23-2018, 08:55 AM

(09-22-2018 10:28 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote: I agree on the TI-89 vs. the Voyage 200, the TI-89 screen is small.

I wish the TI-85/86 stayed around, but to be honest, the TI-84 Plus CE is my favorite of the TI calcs. I prefer the 84 Plus CE to the nSpire CX.

I'd really like something like a TI-89 Plus CE. Smile

pier4r · 09-23-2018, 12:54 PM

(09-22-2018 10:28 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote: I wish the TI-85/86 stayed around, but to be honest, the TI-84 Plus CE is my favorite of the TI calcs. I prefer the 84 Plus CE to the nSpire CX.

Could you elaborate on this?

Sukiari · 09-25-2018, 06:59 AM

If HPs we’re still found in schools they too would have emulators and so on, but sadly TI colludes with all the textbook companies and sends reps to every single school to bribe the teachers. Ironically HP was the company which provided the initial thrusts to get graphing calculators into schools in the US.

There is deep wisdom hidden in this tale.

Jlouis · 09-26-2018, 01:32 AM

(09-22-2018 10:28 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote: I agree on the TI-89 vs. the Voyage 200, the TI-89 screen is small.

Not only the screen, the qwerty keyboard, 3 ENTER key, etc, makes a BIG difference in usability.

IMHO, the TI 89 is a nightmare.

I wish there were a HP50G with a qwerty keyboard.

Cheers

JL

Zaphod · 09-26-2018, 08:49 PM

I just ordered a Ti89 Titanium from amazon ... warehouse deal for less than £50 ?!

I'm not sure they know what they have sometimes .... it was listed as a Ti89, but the picture clearly shows a titanium. (besides the non-titanium has been gone for 14 years)

Yes I should have got a Voyage200 I hear you say, but I've already got a couple of those Big Grin

and this has always interested me.

We shall see what actually turns up......

ijabbott · 09-26-2018, 09:26 PM

(09-26-2018 08:49 PM)Zaphod Wrote: I just ordered a Ti89 Titanium from amazon ... warehouse deal for less than £50 ?!

I'm not sure they know what they have sometimes .... it was listed as a Ti89, but the picture clearly shows a titanium. (besides the non-titanium has been gone for 14 years)

Yes I should have got a Voyage200 I hear you say, but I've already got a couple of those and this has always interested me.

We shall see what actually turns up......

That's a good find. You'll need to replace the SR44 (357/303/EPX76 or equivalent) silver-oxide memory backup battery as it will have died by now. I actually found it a bit of a pain to change the battery; it's not as easy as it looks in the manual - a lot of pushing and shoving to get the new battery in!

I got one from an eBay seller a few weeks ago for £60 "new" in packaging. The AA batteries included in the packaging had leaked, leaving a fine coating of dead battery powder all over the inside of the packaging. That was easily removed from the calculator, and the only long term effect was that the bottom edge of the user guide book was slightly stained. Fortunately, the silver-oxide button cells are not prone to leakage like the cheaper alkaline versions.

Csaba Tizedes · 09-29-2018, 04:46 PM

(09-22-2018 10:28 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote: TI-89 vs. Voyage 200

Can you post here a pic a 15C or 48xx side by side with a Voyage AND a TI89?!
I cannot imagine the dimensions of these units.
Thanks!

pier4r · 09-29-2018, 05:25 PM

Got a ti 200 today (15 €, likely third hand. Nice that funtioning things gets passed around when they are not used).

First impression: I love the form factor. I wish every high end calculator would be that way. It feels way less clumsy than hp50g, 9860g from casio, ti89 as one has a mini keyboard (and I love mini keyboards).

It is also 1.5 times the size of the other calculators so maybe this is also a thing that stopped the producers to make such large calculators.

Zaphod · (This post was last modified: 10-02-2018 11:01 AM by Zaphod.)

(09-26-2018 08:49 PM)Zaphod Wrote: I just ordered a Ti89 Titanium from amazon ... warehouse deal for less than £50 ?!

I'm not sure they know what they have sometimes .... it was listed as a Ti89, but the picture clearly shows a titanium. (besides the non-titanium has been gone for 14 years)

Yes I should have got a Voyage200 I hear you say, but I've already got a couple of those and this has always interested me.

We shall see what actually turns up......

'like new' - wasn't
'comes in original packaging' - didn't

They can pick it up tomorrow - timewasters - grrrr

As a side note: I think I'll stick with the Voyage200 machines

Chris Dreher · (This post was last modified: 10-03-2018 04:30 PM by Chris Dreher.)

I owned a TI-81 back in the day, as did my entire advanced math classes in high school. It was a terrible device.

It had no way to exchange data or backup programs. To get software in, you HAD to type it in. To backup software, you had to manually write it down on paper.

Worse was the poorly designed battery panel. It was made out of a softer, flexible plastic that was prone to popping off if dropped. If the calculator was turned on when this happened, the memory was wiped (so back to painstakingly re-entering your handwritten code from paper... again). When someone knocked theirs off their desk onto the linoleum floor, odds were 1/3 that escaped batteries were rolling on the floor. You could hear other folks groan with empathy since it had happened to them, too.

I never used a TI calculator after that but my understanding is that these issues were solved in later models. I purchased an HP-48SX and cards with my paper route money and never looked back.

compsystems · 10-03-2018, 04:38 PM

Until recently the (tiedit) program editor for the ti68k series was developed
http://pengels.bplaced.net/index.php/tiedit

Some enthusiast to develop a similar program editor for the hp prime =)

toml_12953 · 10-08-2018, 08:57 PM

(09-26-2018 08:49 PM)Zaphod Wrote: I just ordered a Ti89 Titanium from amazon ... warehouse deal for less than £50 ?!

I'm not sure they know what they have sometimes .... it was listed as a Ti89, but the picture clearly shows a titanium. (besides the non-titanium has been gone for 14 years)

Yes I should have got a Voyage200 I hear you say, but I've already got a couple of those and this has always interested me.

We shall see what actually turns up......

The Titaniium is a TI-89. it's called TI-89 Titanium. There are not too many differences between the straight 89 and the Titanium. The seller was OK in calling it a TI-89.