Big news from Casio at September NCTM

[Matt Agajanian]

Hi all.

An e-mail from Casio in my mailbox says that Casio will be unveiling new calculators for Summer 2025 at the September 25-28 NCTM in Chicago.

[critor]

Yes, they're going the present the new fx-CG100, the successor to the fx-CG50 from 2017.

Expected to be available early 2025.

Are you going to attend ?

[chromos]

The longer I look at the keyboard layout, the more I have to appreciate the logical and clear layout of HP Prime keyboard.

[toml_12953]

(08-06-2024 09:04 AM)critor Wrote:  Yes, they're going the present the new fx-CG100, the successor to the fx-CG50 from 2017.

Expected to be available early 2025.

What a step backward! No add-ins, less memory than the 50. Why would anyone want it?

[RPNerd]

(08-06-2024 04:29 PM)chromos Wrote:  The longer I look at the keyboard layout, the more I have to appreciate the logical and clear layout of HP Prime keyboard.

Does it come with a microscope to read the microscopic print on those microscopic keys?

[Jase]

Question. When this new CG-100 rolls out, does that mean I should be able to snag some CG-50s at a nice discount?
That's how I got my 48GX so cheap - waited until the 50 came out. But that was another lifetime ago. Does it still work that way??

[Eddie W. Shore]

I would not doubt it, Jase.

[ijabbott]

So no more soft key labels?

[toml_12953]

(08-07-2024 03:05 PM)Jase Wrote:  Question. When this new CG-100 rolls out, does that mean I should be able to snag some CG-50s at a nice discount?
That's how I got my 48GX so cheap - waited until the 50 came out. But that was another lifetime ago. Does it still work that way??

If I didn't already have a GC-50, I would grab some more. In fact, I may get one as a backup.

[thenozone]

It looks like continuing big bold steps in the wrong direction, perhaps HP marketing of yore have been consulted

[Matt Agajanian]

I’m thinking that all these backward leaps are due to the requirements & limitations as requested from teachers and educational institutions placing limitations and suitable features list for calculators.

[toml_12953]

(08-13-2024 12:23 AM)Matt Agajanian Wrote:  I’m thinking that all these backward leaps are due to the requirements & limitations as requested from teachers and educational institutions placing limitations and suitable features list for calculators.

You're probably right. Engineering takes a backseat to marketing every time.

[Eddie W. Shore]

I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly only the French version, GraphMath+, has the reduced memory while the fx-CG100 has more storage capacity.

[HPCarnace]

The most unfortunate thing is that Casio seems not to provide support for installing third-party add-ons (such as khiCAS). Thanks to users, there is an unofficial SDK for CG50. Apart from that you cannot edit a program file on the PC when connecting the Casio CG50/9750GIII because it is handled only as a USB flash drive. Casio lacks a lot of development in the aspect of the PC file editor. They couldn't handle Casio Basic, as they weren't able to give the programs more variables than the old A-Z and theta. Bad code indentation in Basic and that's why they gave up and in the new calculators it seems that they only hope to work with Python. We will have to wait 10 years and see if they finally evolve with variable names, data entry structures (like Dialog.. EndDlog, ToolBar..EndTBar on the Voyage200/TI89) in Basic. The programs are what make these calculators great, but I think Casio still thinks that "programming" for the end user is putting formulas in the form of a short program.

[RPNerd]

(08-15-2024 12:36 AM)HPCarnace Wrote:  I think Casio still thinks that "programming" for the end user is putting formulas in the form of a short program.

That's probably not far from the truth.

Don't forget that Casio is marketing to students, not to professionals. The programming needs of a student are pretty limited and in many cases, programmable machines aren't even allowed in exams, so Casio is not going to put a lot of work and effort into something that's barely going to be used.

It's not like students are in a professional environment where certain aspects of the workflow can benefit from some level of automation. This was the whole raison d'être of HP-IL: taking readings automatically and processing/storing/printing those readings and analyses thereof.

[carey]

(08-15-2024 05:32 AM)RPNerd Wrote:  

(08-15-2024 12:36 AM)HPCarnace Wrote:  I think Casio still thinks that "programming" for the end user is putting formulas in the form of a short program.

That's probably not far from the truth.

Don't forget that Casio is marketing to students, not to professionals. The programming needs of a student are pretty limited and in many cases, programmable machines aren't even allowed in exams, so Casio is not going to put a lot of work and effort into something that's barely going to be used.

It's not like students are in a professional environment where certain aspects of the workflow can benefit from some level of automation.

All true comments, but they tend to view Casio's ClassWiz series features more from the perspective of limitation. There are two ways these "limitations" can be viewed as enhancements. First, many tasks that previously required programming are built-in. For example, there's reduced need to program a root-finder if the calculator includes a root-finder. Second, some common programming tasks (e.g., loops) can sometimes be performed using built-in mathematical operators, e.g., summation. For instance, the common programming example of summing square roots of the first N integers can be solved using summation (with a nice visual summation symbol) rather than writing a 7-line program to automate the task. The inclusion of composite functions f(x) and g(x) in the ClassWiz series also permit some mathematical solutions to problems that previously would have required programming.

This seems to be part of an intentional transition from calculator specific methods and programming to using standard (and transferrable) mathematical methods and conventions (not surprisingly, the Classwiz CG100 is debuting at NCTM). As with most debates on this forum, issues boil down to a calculator's intended customer base, and the intended customer base for Classwiz series calculators are students, not engineers. Interestingly however, as mentioned above, a few tasks previously requiring lamented lost features can still be performed, albeit differently.

[Ren]

Just curious,
what does the black box / blank box key's purpose?

This is coming from a guy who 20+ years ago bought a Casio graphing calculator for $10 but ended up giving it away because the bin/oct/dec/hex conversions did not seem "intuitive".

Edit: added last line

[lrdheat]

I wonder if the 100 will use, internally, numbers down to between 10^-17 and 10^-21, depending on the problem, much as the fx-991CW does. So far, the CASIO’s cannot integrate many problems that have an undefined point in the domain, even though the integral value exists. The work around is moving away from the undefined point by 10^-17 or 10^-16 in the case of the fx-991CW, 10^-12 for the fx-CG50, the 9750giii. Also wonder if complex mode will be more complete, will support trigonometric and exponential functions…

[Steve Simpkin]

I just hope that they don't change the operation of the x10ˣ exponent entry key like they did with the other CW models. This t operates differently than almost any other scientific calculator made in the past 50 years.
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-19...#pid184744

[lrdheat]

I would like for an update to the CASIO Classpad 400/500 come out with a much faster processor and more capable CAS.