Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calculators => Topic started by: ztrumpet on July 01, 2010, 10:10:23 am
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Kindermoumounte brought to my attention an occurrence that happened in November 2008. He found this article on TI-Bank:
http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=830
Here's the original article: (in English)
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/27665822
Basically a 22 year old collage student ran into a mugger and after a brief exchange the mugger fired a shot at her from a distance of 4 feet. She apparently swung her purse at just the right moment to catch the .38 bullet with her friend's calculator, an umbrella, and a sunglasses case. Here's a pic of the obliterated calc:
(http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/081112-bulletinpurse3-hmed-5a.grid-6x2.jpg)
Isn't it incredible what a calc can do... ;D
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hehe incredible sure =D
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LOOOOOOOOOOL </spam>
Incredible... I.. Am... Baffled... Made my day once again!
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Wow. Just wow o.o
I still feel bad for that girl, though. I wouldn't want to be attacked by someone like this
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If her friend got made at her for damage to the calculator, that would absolutely stink
"I don't care if it saved your life, that cost me $100"
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If her friend got made at her for damage to the calculator, that would absolutely stink
The article says:
The friend who loaned Pittenger the calculator said she need not buy a replacement.
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If her friend got made at her for damage to the calculator, that would absolutely stink
The article says:
The friend who loaned Pittenger the calculator said she need not buy a replacement.
I missed that part. Good good :)
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Calculators, not just for math anymore. ;)
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Nor games/dev :P
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Poor calculator... :P
Interesting find, anyway. :)
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Calculators are surely powerful. :o
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TI calculators have to be made of some sort of plastic titanium. Mine has been thrown into a wall and dropped several times, but the only visible damage is a missing rubber stopper.
A bullet must be the only way to physically break them. :o
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Mine seems rather un-durable :( dropping it onto the carpet once gave me a Ram Clear x.x Good thing it never had to protect me from a bullet :O
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That's probably b/c the batteries came out :P
But yeah, they're pretty durable. I've dropped mine several times with the only damage being a small scratch on the case. (And that was from something else, IIRC)
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the durability is probably inconsistent (like everything they make :P) iv'e had a lot more trouble with my 84+se than my 83
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It's so funny when some one drops their calc and the batteries all go rolling away. XD Thank fully it hasn't happened to me.
But I must admit, of the 1,500+ 84+'s at my school, I have not seen any broken ones. Well I guess I've seen a few battery tabs missing.
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I've dropped my 83+ a few times before, but I don't think I damaged it.
Then again, my calc's link port did break, and I couldn't find a flaw in the soldering when I went and looked, so... maybe I did damage it.
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speaking of link ports...
i once took a knife to the link port on my 84+ because i wanted to be able to use the headphone converter i bought. it still works(including teh headphones =D), but i have to be very careful that i dont push the cord in too far
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My friend dropped is 84+se on a tile floor from about three-four feet off the ground. The result: His calc's screen cracked completely. It's basically a useless calc now. :(
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Yikes, does the hardware and link still work? Could be backup all his stuff (if he was a programmer)?
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Really? I've dropped my calc multiple times on our concrete garage, among other places(not on purpose of course) and it's never received any damage :o
That sucks though :/ Did he get another one?
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Yikes, does the hardware and link still work? Could be backup all his stuff (if he was a programmer)?
He could, but the LCD is messed up. He programmed, but not many things, and no were ever very good. =/
That sucks though :/ Did he get another one?
He borrows one from the school now. :)
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Ya, I saw this on ticalc.org a while ago. It's interesting.
About people's calculators damaging when you drop them, was the case on it at all? Or was it just the calculator that dropped?
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Mine normally drops w/case, but then again, it's normally on. (Front and back, though, not just one)
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1. I need a cloak of nspires, I hear they are the best ;D
2. Lets have a moment of scilence for that poor calc
3. I have dropped my TI-84+SE once, it is fine, only a few scratches on the case
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I have dropped my 89 and Nspire many times (for some reason, my 89 fell of my desk almost every day in Chemistry). The only damage that has ever happened is I put a minor crack in the slide cover of my Nspire.
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1. I need a cloak of nspires, I hear they are the best ;D
2. Lets have a moment of scilence for that poor calc
3. I have dropped my TI-84+SE once, it is fine, only a few scratches on the case
Cloak of Nspires? What is that?
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A cloak, covered with nspires, that will deflect all bullets
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Ah ok, gotcha haha. I think I'll stick with Dragon Skin (the bullet resistant vest/pattern/etc., not the mythical creature) :P
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Okay. But wouldn't that way, like a ton.
I have never broken my calc, but I did have a friend who dropped his on the floor, and the screen shattered completely. I think it has to do with how it falls. eg. what side it falls on.
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It also matters if the case is on it or not.
As for the weight, ya, but I'd rather deal with the weight than take a bullet to the chest or back :P
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Feh, I am way to careful, hearing all the horror stories of people breaking their calcs. And not caring
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I dropped mine without its case, but it was like a slip off of a chair onto carpet :/ It hit on the edge though so maybe that hade it worse. Oh well
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I dropped mine without its case, but it was like a slip off of a chair onto carpet :/ It hit on the edge though so maybe that hade it worse. Oh well
Ya, the no case might have done some and hitting the edge probably will because the shock is more focused on the edge.
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yeah, weird that it caused a ram reset tho o.O at least nothing bad was lost
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Ya, I don't even know why that would have happened unless it liked knocked a battery out and back in just right or something. Weird O.o
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but taking out a battery when its at the home screen doesn't cause a Ram clear normally o.O
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Hmmm, well I don't know then :P
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Haha its a mystery
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when quitting mid asm programs mine almost never RAM clears(is this something i should be worried about?)
oh, and i have a friend whose screen cracked while it was in his backpack in the case 0_o
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That is because he didnt have the case on, so something pressed against it and *crack*
:P
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Qazz, he said it was in the case :P
Shmibs, that is surprising. The only way it might not do this if the program is executing bcall(_getKey) (like how keys work on the homescreen, with 2nd and alpha not returning), or if you get lucky with the checksum (very unlikely)
Very interesting...
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It seems that one good thing TI did was to make the calcs durable.
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Its a conspiracy, they want you to buy more overpriced calculators o.O
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Well of course, then they can continue screwing people over and continue to get pleasure out of it :P
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There is a thread somewhere around here with a xkcd with a similar theme.
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Wow. That story is amazing. Talk about enabling interrupts.
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It seems that one good thing TI did was to make the calcs durable.
So true, except of course the TI-80 :P (Lot of people at school had those and when they felt on the floor, it didn't take much for the screen to break)
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It seems that one good thing TI did was to make the calcs durable.
So true, except of course the TI-80 :P (Lot of people at school had those and when they felt on the floor, it didn't take much for the screen to break)
But I would say that the TI-80 is TI's worst graphing calculator anyway, with it's small screen, simpler mathematics (I think- it was the middle school calculator, wasn't it?), lack of a link port, and assembly support.
By comparison, even the TI-81 is much better (especially now that it's been hacked for assembly).
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Yeah it was one of the worst, except in terms of RAM, it would be the 81. But yeah even the LCD is worse on the 80. So hard to see even at lv 9 contrast. It was replaced by the 73
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Yeah it was one of the worst, except in terms of RAM, it would be the 81. But yeah even the LCD is worse on the 80. So hard to see even at lv 9 contrast. It was replaced by the 73
Wow, how much RAM does the 81 have?
And how did TI pick these numbers? They don't seem to be in order :P
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2400 bytes of user RAM (8 KB RAM chip). I still managed to make an entire RPG (http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/146/146343.html) for it, though :P
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Yeah, the TI-80 was awful. It used the small font always (the screen was only 48*64, half the size of that on other calcs), so certain symbols, like *, took up more space than other characters. It also used a non-z80 processor. (Did we ever find out what processor it was, exactly?)
And nice on the RPG, DJ. I don't think I've said that yet ;D
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I've never "dropped" a Ti-84+ or Ti-84+ Silver Edition, but I feel like they can last longer than a Ti-83+ if both are dropped exactly the same way. I've always complained about the "bulkiness" of the Ti-84+, but I wonder if it would last under pressure.
Not to go off topic, but there was never a regular Ti-84, was there?
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Nope, just a TI-84+ and SE
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TI may suck at making OS's now but, they do make one durable calculator.
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yep. which tells you the programming part of the company sucks, and the manufacturing part is great.
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yep. which tells you the programming part of the company sucks, and the manufacturing part is great.
Well, the second part is only partly true. The LCDs have gotten worse and worse, and they removed all the extra RAM pages because of different RAM chips, so...
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Plus, considering that the Nspire is pretty thin
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Yeah, the TI-80 was awful. It used the small font always (the screen was only 48*64, half the size of that on other calcs), so certain symbols, like *, took up more space than other characters. It also used a non-z80 processor. (Did we ever find out what processor it was, exactly?)
And nice on the RPG, DJ. I don't think I've said that yet ;D
Strangely, by looking at the TI-80 ROMs I've dumped (3.0 & 4.0), it seems to be a 16-bits processor.
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@FinaleTI: Do you happen to know what those extra RAM pages were for? And did the user have access to them? And does the TI-83+ SE have those extra RAM pages?
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I don't know if the OS used them, but very notable programs like TI-Boy used them. And yes, I believe the TI-83+ SE has them.
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WIN.
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Unfortunately, from what I've heard, the TI-Nspire doesn't emulate those extra pages. Let's try not to get off topic though
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The extra RAM pages not being emulated by TI's 84+ emulator built in Nspires is one of its deficiencies, that e.g. calc84maniac's third-party TI-Z80 emulator would solve.
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Unfortunately, from what I've heard, the TI-Nspire doesn't emulate those extra pages. Let's try not to get off topic though
It does, actually. All of them.
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I dropped my nspire on a concrete sidewalk, and it hit right on the corner. Only damage was a chip in the corner.
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I've never "dropped" a Ti-84+ or Ti-84+ Silver Edition, but I feel like they can last longer than a Ti-83+ if both are dropped exactly the same way. I've always complained about the "bulkiness" of the Ti-84+, but I wonder if it would last under pressure.
Not to go off topic, but there was never a regular Ti-84, was there?
Kinda late, but I once dropped a TI-83 Plus and a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition from exactly the same height onto the same pavement (not on purpose, of course :P). Only the TI-83 Plus (mine) RAM cleared...
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Unfortunately, from what I've heard, the TI-Nspire doesn't emulate those extra pages. Let's try not to get off topic though
It does, actually. All of them.
It does, but it causes a crash when using TI-BOY none the less
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And nice on the RPG, DJ. I don't think I've said that yet ;D
lol thanks ^^
Unfortunately, from what I've heard, the TI-Nspire doesn't emulate those extra pages. Let's try not to get off topic though
It does, actually. All of them.
It does, but it causes a crash when using TI-BOY none the less
The crash is not due to the extra RAM pages, but due to undocumented z80 instructions usage