HP vs TI

[maxh]

Do you prefer a nice proper calculator that has a stack, or a calculator made of cheap flimsy plastic that doesn't even use RPN?

[hotaru]

an hp48 emulator on modern hardware is better than either of those.

[sonickrahnic]

I used the TI-83 in high school and found it was quite awesome. I have never actually used an HP calculator so I cannot really comment. I found that the TI-83 and its ilk are easy to use and most of all, easy to program on. The TI implementation of Basic was incredibly easy to use and the reason I failed high school math was that I spent my time programming instead of learning. Also, I got in a LOT of trouble for writing programs that figured out math problems. Not a big feat, I know, but when the kid with the lowest mark in the class who pays attention the least suddenly starts acing assignments, its either the internet, or some deft programming, made possible by the built in programming environment on the curriculum-intensive graphing calculator.


EDIT: Also, before I read this and did a quick search, I had no idea what RPN is. But that is to be expected. I am not really that strong in math.

[shieldforyoureyes]

I don't mind RPN in programming languages, but I prefer an algebraic calculator.

Had a TI-55 when I was growing up.

[calc0000]

I mainly use RPN on my TI-89 Titanium.

Chew on that.

[zipybug14]

I had a TI-84 SE for a while, until it died, and then I switched to an hp 50g. RPN took some getting used to, but I have found it to be worth it. Another thing I like about the HP over the TI is that TI calculators rely on lots of external programs for advanced functionality, but HP calculators tend to include almost everything you could ever use, plus some. The main advantage is that as you add external hooks to your calculator's system, it can become unstable, with programs interfering with each other.

[sysiphus]

Got to be HP. I love my 49G+, and covet my grandfather's 15C.

With that said, I do have to take issue with the descriptors in the original post--the 49G+ is made of rather cheap plastic--certainly no better than the TI-83+ sitting in my drawer (awful thing required in high school).

[hintss]

my dad is hp, I use casio

[Emu*]

There's an app for this?

[hintss]

comparing my casio with some kids TI (which cost 3 times as much) was fun. practically the same features.

[Blackhawk5367]

TI-89 Titanium
Has saved me on so many Calculus tests
And it annoys my brother that he can't figure it our

[Sc4Freak]

TI-89 Titanium 4 lyf.

They just need to quadruple the screen resolution and put a 100x faster CPU in it, and it'd be the best calculator in the world.

[GenericPseudonym]

TI-89 Titanium 4 lyf.

They just need to quadruple the screen resolution and put a 100x faster CPU in it, and it'd be the best calculator in the world.

What if you just install the Wolfram Alpha app on a phone? It's infinitely more sexy than a calculator. http://products.wolframalpha.com/mobile/
(I guess you kinda have to buy an iphone/android though, but it's probably worth it.)

[Amnesiasoft]

They just need to quadruple the screen resolution and put a 100x faster CPU in it, and it'd be the best calculator in the world.

And then proceed to have a horrible battery life.

But yeah, TI-89 Titanium for life!

[archeleus]

TI-89 for life.

Love the calculator even when when I have the Wolfram|Alpha app (buy now if you don't have it, totally worth it). Yes, I bought it right after the price dropped from their ridiculous value.

EDIT: Ah oh, I hated Polish notation in Scheme as it is, why would I even want to figure out RPN?

[enk]

Casio (fx-9750G PLUS). I learned to program on this cutie. White and green, not dark like your mainstream calculators. But today I only use it to interface with my datalogger once in a blue moon.

[oracle989]

Would you guys recommend the 50G over a TI-89?

[archeleus]

Would you guys recommend the 50G over a TI-89?

No.

[whatshisfoot]

I have and love a TI 89 titanium, but I've been looking into rpn since I got droid48 on my phone.
I've also heard you can use TIGCC and HPGCC to cross compile to both the 89 and 50g.
Also, is RPL any good?

EDIT:

Also, I got in a LOT of trouble for writing programs that figured out math problems. Not a big feat, I know, but when the kid with the lowest mark in the class who pays attention the least suddenly starts acing assignments, its either the internet, or some deft programming, made possible by the built in programming environment on the curriculum-intensive graphing calculator.

I write functions for this stuff. I don't think it's cheating if I wrote it, although if I could write this stuff in C, with TIGCC, I would write more, as TI basic makes me sad.

[JoeZ]

TI-89 for life.

Love the calculator even when when I have the Wolfram|Alpha app (buy now if you don't have it, totally worth it). Yes, I bought it right after the price dropped from their ridiculous value.

EDIT: Ah oh, I hated Polish notation in Scheme as it is, why would I even want to figure out RPN?

It's alright, but it needs internet to work, which can suck for iPod Touch users. I can usually get by on PocketCAS lite, which is a free version of PocketCAS Pro, which is itself (if I remember correctly) a mobile version of the old but ever dependable UNIX software Maxima.

If it's not enough, I'll always fall back on either Grapher (OSX's default graphing calculator), WXMaxima (A free open-source symbolic calculator), or my TI-84 Plus.

[Mapar]

TI cuz it's fun to make them cringe in Z80-asm.

No really, the OS is really susceptible to "poking too hard".

[phider2]

Personally, I love my HP calculators. I got a 50g my sophomore year of high school, and later picked up a boxed 48GX at goodwill for $15. I always use RPN, it took a while to get used to (helped by me running an RPN program on my TI-86 before I made the switch) but it was worth it. RPN makes a lot of things more convenient, not to mention on a TI entering large equations can become much like debugging lisp after a while :/. However, I borrowed an 89 for a while my junior year and it was pretty nice, too. It was less powerful overall, but the whole interface is a bit more polished and easy to use.

[archeleus]

borrowed an 89 for a while my junior year and it was pretty nice, too. It was less powerful overall

What? No. Unless you really really want RPN.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

I used my Ti-83+ primarily for Super Mario, then the right arrow broke and I got the 84 silver to store more levels of Mario

[GenericAnimeBoy]

Depends on what I'm using the calculator for.
For a numerical calculator, one of HP's RPN calcs is an awesome thing to behold in the hands of a fluent user.
For my computer algebra crutch, TI-89 baby.

Actually, I've heard that HP's graphing calculators are way better (by which I mean they put actual processors in them instead of whatever the anemic crap is that TI uses. Seriously, why does it take ten minutes to graph anything more complicated than y=x^2?), but I'm used to TI menus and syntax and the learning curve on these advanced calculators is hella steep, and I'm lazy. Oh well. If I need something more powerful, the netbook from which I'm writing this post has octave.

[phider2]

borrowed an 89 for a while my junior year and it was pretty nice, too. It was less powerful overall

What? No. Unless you really really want RPN.

If nothing else the processor itself is a hell of a lot more powerful (motorola 68k vs. ARM). Though in normal use this doesn't matter a whole lot, since the HP is emulating a Saturn and is underclocked, using utilities to clock the processor at its original 203MHz temporarily makes it absolutely a beast. Also, you can compile programs in C which will run natively on the ARM processor, which is ridiculously fast for a calculator. Unfortunately, I can't make much of an argument for functionality right now, since I haven't used an 89 in a few years (and when I did I was taking precalc, so not a ton to do there with the CAS).

And yeah, I really like RPN.

[exilus]

I bought a TI Nspire CX CAS for +/-200$ last month and i really don't think any hp model can beat this... Same basic functionalities as the Voyage 200 but smaller, better, with a much faster cpu that you can't even compare to ti-89/50g, color screen, Li-Ion battery and a bunch of other feature. They also made sure you don't need to use/understand RPN or any other complex language, but I guess you would have to try it to understand how they managed that.


There is at least 15 version of the nspire, so you have to be very carefull not to buy the wrong one. some of them are really bad and not worth buying


I use a cheap casio when i don't need algebra/graph

[maxh]

They also made sure you don't need to use/understand RPN or any other complex language

But... RPN isn't complex. It's just different. It's actually conceptually simpler than infix, and (at least for me) just plain easier to use.

[Anonymously Famous]

Neither. I prefer a Casio.

[GenericAnimeBoy]

Neither. I prefer a Casio.

INFIDEL! (Hey, this *is* religious wars, after all... )

[Anonymously Famous]

My old Casio graphing calculator worked just as well as the TIs in my calculus class, with the trivial bonus feature that it could display graphs in 3 different colors.

[exotica]

HP RPN is stack based, which means you can write functions that operate on the last n entries on the stack (last n results), without monkeying around with up arrow to select prior results to insert them into an expression you're building, and without assigning every intermediate result to a variable.

<boring calculation> right side: 2.5536
<boring calculation> right side: 3.5*e
<boring calc> right side: 34*Pi
You want to do some calculations with those three values. Let's say (3.5e)^2.5536/(34*Pi).
[ROTdown] [swap] [x^y] [swap] [/] (typically rotate and swap are mapped to softkeys)

probably the most efficient way to do it on a stock TI is
<boring calc1> -> sto X
<boring calc2> -> sto Y
<boring calc3> -> sto Z
X^Y/Z

That works, except then you have to store all intermediate results and good luck keeping track of variable names if you have more than a few. If you don't save as variables, you're in up arrow hell selecting each prior result: [up arrow * 3, enter] ^ [up arrow * 5, enter] / [up arrow, enter] [enter]. And it gets worse as calculations get more complicated.

tl;dr: trying to manipulate a bunch of different past results on a TI, without having them stored as variables already, is a PITA. On a stack-based rpn calculator like the HP48/49/50, it's a breeze.

Disclosure: I started out in algebra 1 with a TI 81, then an 83, then switched to an HP48gx and never went back. My HP48 died a while back (screen damage) and I wasn't using a calculator anymore so I didn't replace it, but I'm about to get a new one... probably an HP50g unless the RPN hacks for the TI84+se/TI89ti are any good. Or I might just rely on the hp48 emulator and ti 82-86 emulators for android.

Broader perspective:

My experience with calculators in school was that they're of far more use for science/engineering than for pure math classes. There's very little in real math you need a calculator for; any examples or tests could be designed to have numbers that are easy to work out by hand. Therefore, in math classes, either they're artificially designed to teach calculator skills (in which case the class probably targets TI skills and you need a TI), or you're not getting nearly as much use out of a calculator as science/engineering students would, who are constantly using a calculator or computer in at least half of their classes. In an ideal world, I think math classes should be using computers where necessary, rather than using calculators. Would you rather aid learning of functions, graphs and matrices on a slow device with a tiny grayscale screen, or using Mathematica/Octave/R/etc.?

I don't know where HP went wrong in failing to win educational mindshare. Maybe it's because they weren't really trying, while TI put a lot of effort in the 90's into marketing and classroom usability -- for instance, my geometry teacher beta tested the TI92 for geometry the year before I took the class. TI's (gimmicky) lab data collection interface, I suppose, got science teachers hot and bothered. HP probably knew that professional engineers and financial professionals liked their HP rpn calcs the way they were, and so they saw no reason to compete with TI in the classroom.

HP's built-in (I think it was built in?) units library, attaching units to values, and automatic dimensional analysis during computation made doing scientific computations *fun*. And before I get the typical "learn how to do it yourself!" flames, I was perfectly capable of doing it myself; the point is that with your calculator keeping track of units, you can see every step of the way whether you might have gone wrong, because the units will start looking wrong if you know what you're trying to do.

So here we are in 2011, TI calculators don't have built-in RPN, the TI 8x series don't have built-in dimensional analysis, and they're weaker in a few other mostly science/engineering areas as well. Why? Because TI's been too busy locking down their firmwares and spending too much effort trying to turn calculators into computers. If I had no computer and I wanted to do 3d graphing, an nspire would be a no-brainer. Otherwise, though? I don't see the point.

[Meem1029]

I just want to point out that the TI-89 indeed does have dimensional analysis built in. I won't deny that it takes some finding to be able to use it well, but it is there.

[GenericAnimeBoy]

I don't know where HP went wrong in failing to win educational mindshare. Maybe it's because they weren't really trying, while TI put a lot of effort in the 90's into marketing and classroom usability -- for instance, my geometry teacher beta tested the TI92 for geometry the year before I took the class.

My guess would have to be that HP wouldn't pare down their calculators' capabilities to comply with standardized testing guidelines. Features like IR communications and a CAS are great for general purpose usability but not allowed on the ACT, SAT, and many state standardized tests.

[maxh]

I don't know where HP went wrong in failing to win educational mindshare. Maybe it's because they weren't really trying, while TI put a lot of effort in the 90's into marketing and classroom usability -- for instance, my geometry teacher beta tested the TI92 for geometry the year before I took the class.

My guess would have to be that HP wouldn't pare down their calculators' capabilities to comply with standardized testing guidelines. Features like IR communications and a CAS are great for general purpose usability but not allowed on the ACT, SAT, and many state standardized tests.

State standardised testing (that I've seen) doesn't even allow scientific calculators. One borrows a calculator that was sent to the school with the other testing material. On the ACT and SAT, however, HP calculators are allowed. One of them officially required that the IR window be covered with masking tape, but that is not always actually done.

[GenericAnimeBoy]

On the ACT and SAT, however, HP calculators are allowed.

Oh. Well, that's changed since I was in High School then. #iamsoold

[spokes64]

RPN is fantastic. However, if for whatever reason, you want to enter an expression algebraically on the HP 50g, there are three different ways to do so:
1. As an algebraic object within the RPN stack.
2. Using the equation writer environment.
3. Switch to Algebraic mode.

So you see, the 50g runs circles around the TI 89 at it's own game (that being algebraic entry). The only reason most people buy a TI is because they just don't know any better.

[Byrel]

I typically use an HP50 for complex work, but for most simple stuff I use a Casio. I can't figure out why someone would use a TI over a Casio these days. For everything I do, you get much better bang-for-your-buck that way. But I would far rather program in RPL than either the Casio programming I've done or TI-basic. And it is improbable that I will ever not need some programming capability in a calculator. Of course, my ideal is a calculator that runs MatLAB...

[Servant-of_Christ]

TI-92 FTW