calc_owl | Entries tagged with ti84

Mood: determined
Music: War Pigs - Cake

I have been very busy with work and things around the house and I have unfortunately found it difficult to snap time together to sit and write a post. On the positive side, as eager as I am for my new calculator to arrive soon (it actually landed in my country late last night according to the website tracker), being busy keeps me preoccupied and will make it feel faster.

In the brief moments of down time at work, I was having some fun playing with π and i. There are some interesting and cool links between the two. It was a good way to get back into some polar graphing on my Ti 84 Plus as well which was something to keep my brain cells engaged.

And so a new userpic is born:

A lot of math-type people are obsessed with π. It has become a sort of flag for teachers to rally student engagement in math. At least from my perspective. And while π is a very important and fascinating constant, there are also many in the math world that are worth taking a look at and little boost too. I think i is one of these figures. It is imaginary which alone I think makes it intriguing. I am also very found of Euler's number or e which represents an infinite form of growth.

We will certainly be talking more about less talked about figures in math like i and e and Phi in more posts. When I can find the time, of course.

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Mood: nerdy
Music: Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode

...I should be getting my SwissMicros DM32 in the mail! I have the parcel tracking number from Swiss Post and it is estimating a delivery around the middle of the month. That is all depending on how long customs takes to get the device through. I've already paid the duty through Amazon and that usually covers any duty at at the border, but that doesn't mean that it gets through the processing facilities in any sort of timely manner.

In the meantime I have Youtube videos on the calculator itself and on RPN calculation. But my favourite videos are the ones that try and pump you up about the calculator, cool calculators, for ummm cool people?

Watch on YouTube

I have been diving into RPN more with an app for the Ti-83 Plus and 84 Plus that effectively turns the whole device into an RPN calculator styled on the HP42S. Here is the link on Cemetech if you are interested on trying it out on your own device. I am going to be writing some posts about RPN and I'll be using screenshots from this app. Also once I get the DM32, from that device as well as I learn more about it and RPN.

For now, I'll wait. And tinker. And post, now that I have this journal.

Is there something you are looking forward to this Fall?

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Mood: busy
Music: Takin' Care of Business - Bachman-Turner Overdrive

I am a little busy this morning but managed to find some time to sit down with a cup of coffee and write up a little post. I want to have some fun with the Golden ratio, denoted in mathematics by the Greek letter Phi, on my Ti calculator.

I am not going to get into too much detail about what the Golden ratio is and why it is important. You can read about it in the wiki and I am sure we'll get into it more in the future on the journal. What is important to know is that the ratio is based on the relationship between its parts. It is "golden" because a+b is to a as a is to b. Here is a good image to illustrate it from Wikipedia:

The ratio itself when brought down to the basic elements is a constant in math. It is an irrational number meaning that it goes on forever and has no ending when expressed in digits. It can be calculated by adding 1 to the square root of 5 and dividing the result by 2. It looks like this using pretty Mathprint on the Ti-84 Plus CE (I've stored the result to the alpha-variable P).

This should be pretty straight forward. The result is 1.618... (recall that it is irrational, so it will not have an end, and how many digits you see on your calculator depends on how precise it is). This figure is a ratio so when applying it to a shape like a rectangle you can think of it as 1:1.618... where one side is one unit and the other is a relationship to that single unit. We can get into ratios in the future. Just understand that this number can be applied in many different situations and circumstances using many different units because it represents a relationship between things.

Now let's start to have some fun. And this could make a cool little math trick with your friends. What number can you square and subtract by itself to equal one? You won't find any rational number that will do this. That is because the answer is the Golden ratio. This is because of the relationship of the ratio to the parts. Recall that P=1.618...

We can take this a step further and cube the Golden ratio and then subtract it from the square and itself. The answer is 0. And this is fascinated to me. Again, it is because of the ratio representing the ratio between the parts. The fact that a+b is to a as a is to b.

And we can do this with any series of three powers and the Golden ratio, the answer will always come out to zero.

And if you the super skeptical type and you are still not sure about all of this craziness, you can check it out on the Ti-84 Plus CE equation solver. Simply ask it to give you the variable for an expression where X is cubed, squared and subtracted by itself to equal zero. Keep the results as positive rational numbers (there is an inverse for the Golden ratio but we don't need to get into that now) and you'll get the Golden ratio as the result.

So that was some fun with Phi and I can now see the bottom of my coffee mug. That wasn't too much math, in fact that was hardly none at all. But it is a neat little trick to show a friend and something to play around with on your own calculator if you feel the need. Also, pretty Mathprint.

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Mood: excited
Music: Toxicity - System of a Down

I picked up a new calculator yesterday. And by new I mean brand new not just new to me. I've been meaning to pick up at Ti 84 for my collection, and since Ti recently changed the design of the model slightly by removing the I/O port (inaccurately known as the "headphone jack"), I was waiting in the tall grass for some clearance sales after the school kids had their pick. And it was worth the wait because I managed to get the device for a really good price. I do not suspect that these will be available for much longer in stores (a few years out, at least).

I have never owned a Ti 84 Plus before. I used a Ti 83 Plus from the school during my high school years and eventually picked one of my own up for university math and stats classes. I remember my brother using a Ti 84 Plus in high school after they had upgraded but that was it.

The device itself is very similar to the Ti 83 (a common thread in the Ti 8X series since the early days). The button layout is exactly the same. When it was released in 2004 it was a big deal because it had a faster processor that increased speed over the 83+ about 2.5x and a USB port for connecting to a PC and transfering files. The 83+ had an awkward link cable through the "headphone jack" that was slow and cumbersome. It also had way more ROM memory which allowed more assembly programs like shells and games that were becoming very popular among users of the calculator (think high school students bored in physics class). However, the device did not add any more RAM so BASIC programs were limited or had to be stored in ROM and then brought into RAM when they user wished to access them.

As time went on the Ti 84 Plus got additions like Mathprint which gave users the ability to work with formulas and inputs that looked the same as how they would be written by hand or printed in textbooks. There was also the addition of Calculator Help which eliminated the need to memorize the functions of the calculator, because you could look them up easily through the catalogue or menu system.

From a design perspective the Ti 84 Plus for me represents the early 2000s and could be considered part of the Frutiger Aero aesthetic. I certainly find the Ti 84 Plus more comfortable to hold and use than the new Ti 84 Plus CE even though the CE is much smaller and lighter. The edges on the newer model are sharper and the buttons are not rounded which become rough on the fingertips over time. The Ti 84 Plus (especially the translucent models) represent the round, shiny and practical feeling of tech in the early 2000s. The "polished" plastic that runs along the sides screams this loud to me, this was a popular design element in early tech. The screen is also not square, it is rounded along the edges that support the LCD mount. This was a time of breaking rules and changing things and there are subtle notes on this calculator face that capture that sentiment in time.

What really makes the Ti 84 Plus a desirable calculator for users is the fact that the assembly programming is still open. Unlike the new models of the Ti 84 Plus CE, where Ti has opted to close assembly program development from users, the Ti 83 Plus and 84 Plus can still have shell programs and more advanced apps designed by users. This is where the best games for the device are found if that is your thing. There is a still a very large and active community of people who are developing shells and other assembly tools for these devices. The added bonus of the 84 Plus over the 83 is the added speed and ROM memory to store all of those goodies.

Something surprising that I was not aware was part of the updated OS for the device was the summation function. This was not available on the Ti 83 Plus but I had fiddled around with it on the Ti 84 Plus CE. It is a really neat function and useful for many applications. Especially if you're looking to calculate Euler's number straight out.

So I have now added the most popular graphing calculator in the world (if we're using sales as a measurement) to my collection. I am off to fiddle with my new device some more. You can find out more about the model I own and other calculators in my modest but growing collection here.

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Owl's Calculator Journal

Entries tagged with ti84

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