Two Slashes

Just be glad this isn’t my pre-planned iPhone rant…that’s for another day.

As a geek of many interests, I find it useful to keep track of all matter of electronic devices, at least to some extent. Being a student, especially one inclined to seeing things for more than what they are, I take quite a bit of interest in TI’s graphing calculators. I’ve developed a little for them, and I’ve been using them for several years now.

For the most part, I’ve been happy, or at least satisfied with what TI’s put out. They get the job done, they’re expandable, I can develop for them (quickly, I might add), and they aren’t really much of a nuisance.

However, when I heard about TI’s new Nspire series of calculators recently, I had to question some of TI’s decisions about what went into the calculator.  I know the device isn’t new…but it’s new enough to me that it still warranted further investigation.  So here goes:

• First and foremost, why start with two models of the unit? I understand that you want to be accepted as a calculator of choice for tests like the ACT (actually, it’s not so much of a want as a requirement, because who’s going to purchase a banned calculator), but there’s nowhere near the need to confuse consumers…it’s like Microsoft and their fun with seven versions of Vista.  What’s next?  Nspire More?  Nspire Much More?
• Why would you allow one version the privilege of having a “replaceable” keypad (shown below), but not the other? If the one non-CAS model can instantly go into “84 mode”, I think it would be trivial to support this keypad on the CAS version…just disable the advanced features the CAS provides because they wouldn’t be accessible on the 84. With plenty of storage for an operating system, it seems obnoxious to me that this wouldn’t even be a consideration.
• While we’re on the subject of keypads, what idiot decided that rather than use TI’s norm of the Alpha-button, they should steer away from it and instead make minuscule keys for the alphabet, some logic operators, and some of the more important buttons…and make a weird almost-diamond-shaped key for all the other functions (again, shown here). Not only does that not make any usability sense, but it’s laid out in a really awkward configuration. I have small fingers, so I wouldn’t have much of a problem typing on that personally, if it made any form of sense. I can get a pretty decent WPM on an 83+…and that’s WITH having to press Alpha for every keypress (no Alpha-lock). And to put the icing on top, it looks like the whole thing was designed for Fisher-Price. Let’s not even get started about what’s supposedly the “84 Keypad”.
• The non-CAS version of the calculator also includes a “testing” light. What is a “testing” light, you ask? Simple…when certain parts of the calculator are disabled by an instructor for use during a test, there’s a little light that blinks to let the teacher know the functions still ARE disabled. Now, I get distracted easily, as do thousands of other students, so a little blinking light is the last thing I need drawing my focus away from my test and back onto my calculator. (Now, admittedly, I haven’t actually played with one of these things, and I can’t say for certain that it’s even that much of a bother…but just because the calculator you’re using isn’t blinking where you can see it doesn’t mean another student’s isn’t going to bother you.) And there’s another problem: who’s to say some knowledgeable student doesn’t just wire up a timer and switch to pulse an LED? After all, I’ve seen people add in backlights, 3.5mm headphone jacks (for game audio), fans, and all sorts of miscellany to a TI-83. If people are that willing to carve up a lesser calculator to “improve it”, imagine the possibilities for this thing.  Can I just ask whether teachers actually requested there be a blinking nuisance for tests?
• There’s no real application support. Wait a second, let me repeat that. THERE’S NO REAL APPLICATION SUPPORT. Now, I’m getting a little ahead of myself…but the only way either model supports applications or programs is through its emulated TI-84 mode, with the 84 keypad installed. Now, explain to me why TI would be so kind as to NOT include this? When I was in high school, my teachers didn’t really frown on the program support the 83’s and 84’s have. Some of them wouldn’t be too happy if you took advantage of them and typed up notes into the calculator, but others would actually embrace the idea to the point of ensuring the students had their (*poorly-written*) programs. In chemistry for example, one teacher was well-known for writing programs for the students to use in class, on homework, and on tests. Now tell me, if a forsaken teacher is embracing the functionality you add to a product, doesn’t it mean that means more than just games or cheating on a test?
• What’s with the design? I swear, one of the designers must have either come from GM, or been working on his car a lot in the time leading up to the implementation of this design, because the thing looks like a kiddie-ized version of the Tech 2.  Where do I connect to the OBD port in my car?
• Let alone design…let’s talk about specs. Talk about waste when you realize that there’s 32 MB of Flash ROM and 32 MB of RAM…explain to me what part of that is necessary when you can’t even develop apps to put on it? Oh…hold on just a second, I think I’m getting an idea…it’s called it’s necessary because the dingbats did away with the backup battery, instead prompting the device to reload its own OS every time you wear the suckers down.  And by the way…why are they wasting 16-shade grayscale LCDs on this?  Why not swap them into another offspring of the 83 that can actually make use of them?
• Finally, what’s with the name?  People know you as the company that labels their calculators with numbers in such a way that you can tell which ones are better just by if x is greater than y.  So why dump that in favor of something that attempts to sound cool and lame and makes me want to gouge my ears out every time I hear it?  Frankly, I’m surprised that for all TI’s attempts at not sounding clichéd, they didn’t just keep the ‘I’ and call it the ‘iNspired’.  At least then we’d have the confidence that the jolly folks developing calculators took English alongside math.

Alright, maybe I’m just nitpicking because I have nothing better to do.  But despite TI’s pushing this as the “revolutionary way for educators to teach their students”, perhaps the only thing it’s revolutionizing is how disappointed I am.