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Messages - calcforth
16
« on: December 05, 2010, 05:58:11 am »
About the price though: Here in the US, the Nspire is still more expensive than the 84+. Actually, they are about the same: Ti-nspire is $126.98 while TI-84+SE is $129.47. This is funny since objectively speaking Ti-nspire is more capable... but more cumbersome, too. I guess the task #1 for TI now is to make sure next generation of school books will feature TI-Nspire prominently - then it can raise the price again (look on "list price" on the same Amazon pages... you'll be suprised).
17
« on: December 01, 2010, 05:47:02 pm »
Great manual. Some nits related to Unicode. You can read about unicode input methods in Wikipedia (where else). Alt+127: ⌂ (Delta) That's U+2302 "house" symbol. Delta is U+2206: ∆. Alt+167: º (Degrees Symbol) That's "masculine ordinal symbol (Spanish)". Degrees symbol is U+00B0: °. They look differently in most fonts, but in some fonts difference is more pronounced:  . Alt+242: ≥ (Greater-Than-Or-Equal-To)
Alt+243: ≤ (Less-Than-Or-Equal-To) I usually prefer U+2A7D and U+2A7E: ⩽ ⩾. But it's matter of taste.
18
« on: December 01, 2010, 01:38:57 pm »
Something is wrong in this picture here. Why do you feel the sudden urge to reinvent the wheel? Naive SQL injections are closed once and for all if you use prepared statements. You can do it in PHP with mysqli_prepare, pg_prepare, ibase_prepare, etc.
19
« on: December 01, 2010, 11:55:11 am »
Granted, it is used, but there's a huge difference between 1.7 GHz and 6 Mhz. Quite a difference I'd say: 6MHz calculator will work for weeks on four AAA batteries, 1.7 GHz computer will not work at all. Even 90MHz TI-Nspire is battery hog. It was also in reference to how greedy Texas Instrument is and the monopoly they have and the fact they could put better hardware in their calcs for not much higher in money. Well, they did - but as compensation they crippled OS. If Casio Prizm ever becomes popular and that Casio FX-9860GII sales pick up, I am sure TI may need to reduce their prices and they would still make profits. Doubt it. They have a virtual monopoly. If schools have textbooks which can onl be used with TI calcs then what choice do you have? HP calcs were always better then TI (but were and are quite hard to master), Casio's offers are slightly better - but it does not really matter because TI sells teacher packs and so you can getting you fix in any case. And TI-Nspire all said and done is nice and powerful calculator. If you don't want to run tetris on it, that is.
20
« on: November 30, 2010, 06:34:23 pm »
Oh, then he's doomed. Buy a regular CAS Clickpad will work, right? Should work. From Ndless ReadMe.txt: "You need: A TI-Nspire CAS or non-CAS ClickPad. TouchPad models aren't supported except if you have a non-CAS ClickPad keypad". As I've said it's possible to attach non-CAS ClickPad to TI-Nspire CAS with Touchpad, but it's quite awkward because it physically don't "click" so you need to forcefully keep it in place.
21
« on: November 30, 2010, 06:24:23 pm »
I'm pretty sure there is a new CAS wich allows keypad swaping: Sure: TI-Nspire CAS with Touchpad. It's only compatible with OS 2.x and above. And you can swap keypad with another similar keypad - that's all. Keypads for regular TI-Nspire work fine if you'll manage to connect them, but they physically can not be inserted because of different form-factor! Noone knows why TI added such an useless "feature". Perhaps for some kind of future product?
22
« on: November 30, 2010, 06:18:10 pm »
I think you should buy the Clickpad version to play and homebrew and program?.
I recommend having the 84+ Keypad to play too. Well... it'll require some kind of dremel and soldering work, right? And some kind of software surgery, too... Remember: we are talking TI-Nspire CAS here. You can not change Keypad on TI-Nspire CAS with Clickpad (not even temporary like with TI-Nspire CAS with Touchpad where it's detachable but has slightly different form: on TI-Nspire CAS with Clickpad it's not detachable at all!) - and an OS does not include TI-84 emulator! That's why TI-Nspire CAS ROM is smaller despite addition of CAS!
23
« on: November 30, 2010, 05:29:02 am »
Hmm... All these little jokes are interesting, but they are not virii (or is it viruses?): they don't propagate.
It's obviously possible to write proper virus fo TI-OS, but of course it will only be able to propagate when two calcs are connected b wire (since there are no Bluetooth or WiFi on today's calculators). How often does it happen IRL?
P.S. May be we aleady have such a beast?
24
« on: November 28, 2010, 07:53:05 pm »
With certain softwares, it is generally advised to not edit the main templates, since it can make upgrades impossible later (unless done manually). It depends how the software is designed, though. In Omni case, some MODs must be updated manually by editing the code myself because I altered them. Strange - I never seen problems managing manual changes in PHP software. Takes small amount of preparation, though. Before playing with templates: $ git init $ git add . $ git commit -m ' Initial commit' $ git branch upstream... play with your templates, etc; don't forget to "git add ./git commit" (at least once) ... When new version comes: $ git checkout upstream... remove old sources, unpack new ones ... $ git add . $ git commit -m ' Here goes version x.y.z" $ git checkout master $ git merge upstreamOf course if new version if total rewrite it'll not work and if your changes clashes with bugfixes line-to-line you'll need to manually resolve conflicts, but it's not a big deal in my experience.
25
« on: November 28, 2010, 06:56:46 pm »
Tr1p1ea got a 84+ for $20 a few years ago, but the LCD was broken. The only calcs I can get from Canada under $40 shipping included (most sellers won't ship outside USA because they think USA is the only existing part of the world  ) are TI-81s, TI-82s, TI-85s and Casio FX-7000G It's the same story everywhere: people don't like to ship abroad. Makes small amount of sense for USA: it's large country and there are lots of domestic sellers and buyers. Makes less sense for UK - but at least it's an island. But when someone from France don't like to ship to Shitzerland... it's just ridiculous. But here we've talked about France - and there are lots of sellers. Most will not ship outside of France  The TI-83+ hardware is worth about $0.10 I am pretty sure. That's what indians thought when they invented their crazy plans. But no, real world does not work this way. Electronic components will cost you almost nothing, that's true, but you still need LCD (about 2 square inches to at least $1.5-$2), plastic parts (about $2-$3 minimum), some soldering work, some connectors... I doubt it's below $5, more likely $10... and that's because of orders measured in millions! If you'll try to order the same parts by hundreds you'll get 10x the price (and don't even think to build one single calculator - it'll cost more then $1000 easily).
26
« on: November 28, 2010, 02:53:49 pm »
There are probably 84 silvers all over ebay, for even cheaper than $53 anyway There are lots of them, but they are expensive even on eBay. If you are lucky you can buy one for less then $53: I've bough TI-89 (non-titanium) new in a box for less, but "buy it now" offers starts at $60-$65...
27
« on: November 28, 2010, 02:21:44 pm »
In the last few months, a huge variety of anti-virus came to the market, because before people only used from a range of 5 (Norton, MCAfee, Kaspersky, Panda, AVG). It's good to see more availability, though Funny, but I never used anything from this list: I've used ESET NOD32 for the last five years (and DrWeb for ten years before that). The anti-virus industry is really a scam in my opinion. No, it's not a scam. It's the pattern already discussed: people buy expensive AV packages and then download and run tons of the crap from the internet - because it's safe now, you see. The 100% guaranteed end result of this approach is system infected with tons of malware. Of course, a good way to not get viruses is to have a Mac or Linux machine, since 99.9% of the viruses are made for Windows (but I don't say 100% because a few Linux and Mac viruses exists as well and, IMHO, it's not advised to switch to Linux just because of that). Linux is much safer then Windows and significantly safer then Mac but if you'll use approach "I'm safe now so I'll download and install tons of crap without thinking" you'll end up with trojan too. And if you'll think about what you are doing you'll be able to keep your Windows virus-free too even without the help of AV solftware.
28
« on: November 28, 2010, 01:54:41 pm »
Woops I meant 9860G, not 9850G. With the 9850G you can link your calc, but good luck getting it detected. I never managed to succeed. With the 9860G it's easier. Tiny correction: most Casio calcs are PITA to link with the PC, but we are talking 9860G SD here. The last two letters make it very different affair... P.S. I really hate that all calculator-producing firms like to confuse everyone with suffixes. Think TI-83 vs TI-83+SE and TI-84+SE. TI-83 is quite different from TI-83 Plus (no flash and so no apps) but TI-83+SE and TI-84+SE are almost identical (the faceplate is cool but mostly useless addition, USB is also not very useful unless you own a PS3). The same with HP: compare HP-48G, HP-48gII, HP-49G, HP-49G+ and HP-50. HP-48G and HP-49G are very close to each other and the same is true for HP-48gII, HP-49G+ and HP-50, but HP-48G and HP-48gII are quite different and HP-49G and HP49-G+ are totally different too!
29
« on: November 27, 2010, 12:15:33 pm »
Whoat? HP Calculator? didn't even know about them. They are rarity in schools. More powerful then both CASIO and TI, but their learning curve is really step and manuals are quite hard to understand - but Surveying industry uses pretty much HP and nothing else (well, there are specialized hardware devices too).
30
« on: November 27, 2010, 12:04:36 pm »
my teacher has a HP calc, which he never uses =p
Even worse, I'm the only person in my class to be able to program on calcs, everyvody using a TI-89 don't even know how to use it  LOL. It's still up to you: if we are discussing calculators itself, then Casio is slightly better, but then there are more programs for TI-84+SE. Think CAS. 9860G sure looks nice, but there are more CAS-related programs here - even if they are not as nice.
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