Is there a graphing calculator better than the TI83?

[phongn]

Since your in Queen's, definately the Ti-89. I call it the cheat calc because it basically does SATII Math IIC for you, giving you an easy 800. It's biggest danger is overuse and abuse - I know people who used their calcs to ace all sorts of exams and when NYU took away their calculators began to fail courses they should already know - e.g. People who scored 4 or 5 on Calc AB failing university Calc I.

Yes, there is indeed a danger of becoming calculator dependant - but that really applies to any of them, IMHO. Many of my professors have banned anything but a scientific (or even four-function!) calculator on tests.

From what I've seen, the -92 is most commonly banned, probably due to the keyboard.

Calculators with a built-in computer algebra system are also becoming banned.

Aren't the 89 and 92 basically equivalent?

Yes.

[Ypoknons]

Yes, there is indeed a danger of becoming calculator dependant - but that really applies to any of them, IMHO. Many of my professors have banned anything but a scientific (or even four-function!) calculator on tests.

I think that risk is doubly big with the T-89 series; anecdotally people are less likely to get dependant on a 83/84 because of its lesser power: there's less to get dependant on. That said, if you can control your usage the 89 is much more worth it.

[sketerpot]

In my opinion, if you are looking for an upgrade from a TI 82/83, go for the 89. I find that the best feature of it is that it will display exact values, i.e. radical 2 instead of a decimal, pi/4 instead of 0.7853975 (very handy if trig is not your forte).

Not exactly. It has two different types of numbers: rationals and floats. Rationals are the ratios of two integers, and the integers can be very long. Floats are fixed-length binary approximations. When you type in "1.5", it is read as a float. When you type in "3/2", it evaluates to a rational, 3/2.

If you ask the TI-89 for the square root of "2", it will display radical 2. If you ask it for the square root of "2." or "2.0", it will display 1.41421356, because it doesn't want to waste time being exact when dealing with floats, which are inherently approximate.

Also, floats are contagious. "2.0 * 3/2" gives "3.0", while the non-float-infected "2 * 3/2" gives "3".

These are subtle issues, but it's important to know about them if you intend to use a TI-89 seriously. Or program computers, for that matter; it's shocking how many CS students don't understand floating-point arithmetic.

[phongn]

These are subtle issues, but it's important to know about them if you intend to use a TI-89 seriously. Or program computers, for that matter; it's shocking how many CS students don't understand floating-point arithmetic.

CURSE YOU IEEE754!