Video: TI-58 / PC-100

[BobVA]

Appealing or appalling? Comment below! :-)

[Dave Britten]

I've got a TI-59 (with working card reader) and a PC-100 and it's a really nice setup, actually more powerful than the HP-97. Though arguably not as elegant! I'm still trying to track down an Electrical Engineering module...

[Kees Bouw]

Very bad video, don't watch it. He clearly has no knowledge of the subject and shows no respect at all for vintage equipment. He is just messing around. Awful.

[rprosperi]

(12-26-2021 12:55 AM)Kees Bouw Wrote:  Very bad video, don't watch it. He clearly has no knowledge of the subject and shows no respect at all for vintage equipment. He is just messing around. Awful.

Sorry Kees, but I took a look...

And I regret it. Your summary is quite concise and correct, not at all my style.

And it's frustrating that he will be paid for the poor experience we had. Not only should YT retain its down-vote feature, but there should be a viewer option to deny ad revenue for each particular viewing.

[Garth Wilson]

(12-25-2021 11:27 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  I've got a TI-59 (with working card reader) and a PC-100 and it's a really nice setup, actually more powerful than the HP-97. Though arguably not as elegant! I'm still trying to track down an Electrical Engineering module...

I might be convinced to part with my own TI-58/59 EE module, but I keep thinking I ought to round up the whole set of TI-58c and 59, cards, modules, books, and printer, and eBay it. Although TI was not nearly as professional as HP, a nice thing about the modules' manuals is that they explained things better, rather than just assuming you knew the insides of functions well enough to teach them and you just needed to know how to use the calculator as a tool to speed up what you were already expert at.

(12-26-2021 12:55 AM)Kees Bouw Wrote:  Very bad video, don't watch it. He clearly has no knowledge of the subject and shows no respect at all for vintage equipment. He is just messing around. Awful.

Yeah, I was not amused by his rough treatment and the poor way he spoke of something which at the time was an excellent tool.

[Steve Simpkin]

(12-26-2021 03:55 AM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  

(12-25-2021 11:27 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  I've got a TI-59 (with working card reader) and a PC-100 and it's a really nice setup, actually more powerful than the HP-97. Though arguably not as elegant! I'm still trying to track down an Electrical Engineering module...

I might be convinced to part with my own TI-58/59 EE module, but I keep thinking I ought to round up the whole set of TI-58c and 59, cards, modules, books, and printer, and eBay it. Although TI was not nearly as professional as HP, a nice thing about the modules' manuals is that they explained things better, rather than just assuming you knew the insides of functions well enough to teach them and you just needed to know how to use the calculator as a tool to speed up what you were already expert at.

That reminds me of something Dr. William Kahan said in an oral history he gave in 2005.

“But there was a Hewlett-Packard policy which said, “We are professionals, and we sell to professionals. We tell them what the device does, and they figure out how to use it. We’re not writing tutorial material in our manuals.” And I tried to explain, “Look—this time you’ve got to put some tutorial material in the manuals. You really must. Otherwise, folks are going to fool themselves.” Well, the managers wouldn’t do it, but I had persuaded Barkin, and I can’t remember the name of the other guy. It’s probably in there somewhere. There were two guys who were writing the manuals, and I persuaded them. I think persuasion is the wrong word. This was a case of subversion. I subverted them and got them to do something that their managers had told them not to do. The manual writers listened to my arguments and decided that I was right, and their managers were wrong. And that’s a dangerous decision, you know. You can get fired for that. They wrote the two extra chapters into the manual, which said something about the solve key and something about the integrate key, and a little bit to warn you. And I had written up some more stuff, which ultimately got into the Hewlett-Packard Journal. And the managers were outraged. They had said explicitly, “Don’t do that.” And now their guys had done it. And they said, “Take it out.” And they were told, remember, “If we take it out, it’ll delay the appearance to market.” You’ve heard that story before. That was it. The managers had just been blackmailed by time-to­market, so they left it in. Then afterwards, they did a survey, and they discovered that the customers loved this stuff. In fact, the customers would often say they had bought the calculator because they’d been told that there was advice in the manual about these problems, which was advice they actually needed not only for the calculator but also when they solved similar problems on the big machines. And so when I came up with these articles, they were perfectly happy to print them in the Hewlett­Packard Journal. I was told by the editors some years later that they had had more requests for reprints of these articles than for all their others put together. ”

[Dave Britten]

(12-26-2021 07:24 AM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  That reminds me of something Dr. William Kahan said in an oral history he gave in 2005.

Very interesting! I'm assuming this was in reference to either the 34C or 15C?

TI had a number of excellent "Sourcebooks" and whatnot explaining different problems and how to solve them. Pretty much all of them are worth a casual read, particularly the "Sourcebook for Programmable Calculators" if you've got a 58 or 59. (A couple of large programs require a 59.) There was also the rather nice "TI-34 Computer Math Book" aimed at students.

[BobVA]

(12-26-2021 12:55 AM)Kees Bouw Wrote:  Very bad video, don't watch it. He clearly has no knowledge of the subject and shows no respect at all for vintage equipment. He is just messing around. Awful.

I hear you, but I had a different experience. I went from cringing at the beginning to pleased at the end. It turned the corner with me when he said "of course it still works". :-)

Certainly a "messing about" style, I'll grant you, but if you look past that it was evident to me he took the time to research it, even learning enough about the machine to load up the buffer in the printer with an ASCII string, which seemed like a pretty arcane task.

But I apologize if I offended anyone. I've been following that channel for years and perhaps overstepped. I'll delete the original post if I can, or the link if not.

[Steve Simpkin]

(12-26-2021 02:06 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  

(12-26-2021 07:24 AM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  That reminds me of something Dr. William Kahan said in an oral history he gave in 2005.

Very interesting! I'm assuming this was in reference to either the 34C or 15C?

TI had a number of excellent "Sourcebooks" and whatnot explaining different problems and how to solve them. Pretty much all of them are worth a casual read, particularly the "Sourcebook for Programmable Calculators" if you've got a 58 or 59. (A couple of large programs require a 59.) There was also the rather nice "TI-34 Computer Math Book" aimed at students.

Yes, the HP-34C.
http://history.siam.org/oralhistories/kahan.htm

http://history.siam.org/pdfs2/Kahan_final.pdf

[rprosperi]

(12-26-2021 05:32 PM)BobVA Wrote:  ...But I apologize if I offended anyone. I've been following that channel for years and perhaps overstepped. I'll delete the original post if I can, or the link if not.

There is absolutely nothing at all to apologize for, and especially not for sharing a video which is very germane to this groups interests. While not to my taste, or Kees', or maybe even 10 other readers definitely does not mean it doesn't belong here, it doesn't even mean lots or most people wont like seeing it, these are simply personal opinions.

I say put it back, and let viewers decide if they like it or not.

For HP (or TI, etc.) vintage calculators, his 'style' is in my mind not appropriate (for my taste), however it may very well be so for other topics, types of technology, etc. I plan to check out some of his other videos, as it's impossible to judge such a thing based on a single video experience.

Sorry if you took my comments as criticism of merely posting that here, that was certainly not my intent; I was only commenting on the reviewers style as it pertain to this (obviously somewhat sacred) topic.

[BobVA]

(12-26-2021 08:05 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  ...I say put it back, and let viewers decide if they like it or not.

...I plan to check out some of his other videos, as it's impossible to judge such a thing based on a single video experience.

Done! Please disregard the premature Halon dump. :-)

Ben has been doing his informal "hacks" channel for the past couple of years and I love it, but I can see where that may be an acquired taste.

If you want to check out his back catalog of something more serious, try the Element 14 / "Ben Heck Show" video below of him reverse-engineering the hardware interface of a weird, wide-screen LCD panel, then developing FPGA code to drive it.

[Ren]

I have mixed feelings about the video, I quit about 10 minutes in.
His songs/singing were a distraction, and he was pretty rough on the calc.
(but that's okay, it is JUST a TI) B^)
j/k I have a couple of scientific TI's also, I just don't mention them.

I did like his occasionally mimics of Dave Jones EEVblog videos!

[Jlouis]

(12-26-2021 12:55 AM)Kees Bouw Wrote:  Very bad video, don't watch it.

I agree.

It is not a HP.

It's the dark side