zlacker

>>lewisf+(OP)
As far as I can tell the TI graphing calculators are riding entirely off of mind share/familiarity, both among students and teachers, and teaching materials, which reinforces the former. Specifically textbooks and teacher training all use TI graphing calculators. Presumably tests are therefore made with the capabilities of a TI graphing calculator in mind.

CollegeBoard actually has a wide range of calculators it allows for the SAT (https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-tes...), but very few test takers take advantage of this.

TI graphing calculators are based on sufficiently old hardware that it is probably faster to emulate a TI calculator on something with the power of a Raspberry Pi. Indeed an open source third party emulator already exists (https://github.com/CE-Programming/CEmu). Does anyone know what the legality of selling a calculator that is a dedicated emulator of a TI graphing calculator (not just an online one like Desmos, but a purpose-made physical calculator that does nothing else)? I'm curious why this hasn't already been done before.

EDIT: I mean a dedicated emulator that can do nothing else but be a graphing calculator, e.g. not something on a smartphone.

>>dwohni+Ic
I have two high school age sons. They attend the same school. I bought graphing calculators for both. One told me Casio was ok. The other said the school requires TI. Go figure..

Software emulations on smart phone are not permitted due to school rules about mobile device use in class. Also they aren't allowed for tests due to the potential for cheating. Of course you can cheat by storing extra info in a graphing calculator but they don't seem to have thought of that..

>>dboreh+Qk
I remember my math teacher used to come around and take everyone’s batteries out at the start of an exam to clear the RAM. Little did she know you can just save the notes in ROM that persists power cutoff.

>>notjes+pn
Well, I'm pretty sure the teachers don't actually understand 1/2 the functionality of most of these calculators even without the model variations.

Even the non CAS models can solve a lot of programs numerically which in my mind creates a lot of confusion about what people gain with simple programs.

Particularly as even without a built in root/etc finder, things like newton's method (or any numerical/recursive algo) can be used on the main calculation screen by using the previous result variable in equations and holding down the enter/repeat key until it converges or you get enough precision.

Most of them also have a constants list that includes pretty much every constant your going to use in science/engineering/etc school.

So I remember seeing some of my classmates programs for various classes and calculators (HP 84s/various other TIs), and I never remember wanting any of them because I knew how to solve the exact same problem with the built in functionality on my TI-85.