ever been FORCED to buy tech for school? graph calculator?

[lordsmurf]

When, and how much was it?

I still have mine, brick that it is. No use for it whatsoever. I was forced to buy a TI-81 back in high school ($200), and upgraded to a TI-85 a couple years after it came out (sold 81 for $100, bought TI-85 for $150). Again, FORCED to upgrade.

That has always pissed me off.

Anybody else here in a similar situation? Did school force you to buy some POS that you never use, but costs too much to give away (and has almost zero resell value).

Besides books.

[Solarjetman]

Everyone was forced to buy a computer for my college (a little different than High School I know). But that is not really something you can't use elsewhere. Plus the requirements were from the stone age. You could have gotten a 5 year old computer to satisfy them.

BTW, I still use my IT-86 every once in awhile

[ZAPPER]

I almost remember when programable calculators where still kind of new. My older brother had I think a TI 57 or something. I took it to school and the teachers went nuts trying to figure it out. I had one chemestry teacher that loved the thing and could work the hell out of it. He taught me stoickiomtry(SP) in like fifth grade and now I can't even figure out how to count change.
My brother on the other hand was a big Heath Kit fan. I rember him buying and building all sorts of stuff, some I think was for his electronics courses. I think that he still uses an "O"scope that he built back in the seventies.

[yoda313]

Hello,

Yep - the calculator in highschool.

Kevin

[lumis]

overclocked TI-85:

http://richfiles.solarbotics.net/Turbo85.html

[waheed]

At university, i was FORCED to buy a Casio calculator. The university had new rules that only a Casio (cant remember model) can be used for exams (so people dont cheat with other calculators that can store info in memory).

This was s strict rule, a specific model Casio calculator. Only problem was since school i had been using a Sharp calulator for which the functions are different to the Casio (each calculator works in its own way)

Really hated it as i had to learn and get used to using a Casio.

[Capmaster]

Yep. Had to shell out 85 bucks I didn't have for a calculator up until then I didn't need

[rallynavvie]

Had to go through an 81, then 85, then finally the 86 that I do still use a lot.

Worst was at UND as they forced us to LEASE laptops for the aviation program. I remember them being about 2 year-old technology and we had to pay $565 a semester for them. They were only worth maybe $1000 new at the time, and we didn't get new ones until 3 years into the lease! Then the "new" ones were new technology from about the time we got the old laptops 3 years earlier. All told it cost me over $5000 over four years to lease a crappy old Dell laptop for an already-expensive program. They had these grand ideas for the laptop program and the only thing it really did was prepare the computer illiterate for the digital age

[rhegedus]

Hmmmmm....

Started with a Casio FX-82A, then the programable ones came aout and I just had to have one of those - until they banned them from exams because people were storing whole essays on them!

Dug out the FX-82A but then it died.

University caved in on the calculators because now all you could buy was programmable (so we were all supervised as we pressed our reset buttons ) so I splashed out on one of those calculators that drew graphs in colour.

That was about 10 years ago - I haven't used a calculator since

[jackal70058]

I was never forced to buy the calculator. But after I bought it, life became much easier. I like my TI-83 calculator.

[drjtech]

When I was an engineering major in '73 we were prohibited from using calulators in class - we were forced to buy and use slide rules. I still have my Pickette log log trig slide rule, but I haven't used it since about '74.

At least the slide rule was much less expensive than the HP RPN calculators available at the time.

-drj

[ps2daddy]

Wasnt forced literally but I noticed by my junior year in college the people that finished the tests quickly had a HP 48sx so I got one for $300 back in 92
Then I started finishing the tests faster and making better grades
Enabled me to redo problems without having to retype a bunch of extra crap back in

It got ran over by a car about a year later and then I got a 48gx
Man, I havent needed to use that thing much since then but back then it was my m16 with grenade launcher back in the day

[Faustus]

I was forced to upgrade my macs video card in order to school people in world of warcraft. Does that count?

[northcat_8]

I use a graphing calculator everyday...but that's kind of a job hazzard

I have a TI-85. Our school recommend the students buy a TI-83, which is a mesh between the TI-81 and TI-82. I recommend any student going to college, who plan on doing anything in math or science to buy a TI-86.

If they buy an 86 to begin with they shouldn't need to upgrade later.

and being a math teacher, I have to say...a calculator is a tool, you should be capable of doing the math algebraically by hand before using the calculator.

[yoda313]

I was forced to upgrade my macs video card in order to school people in world of warcraft. Does that count?

Hello,



Well your cpu has a MATH coprocessor doesn't it???

Kevin

[Faustus]

Both my cpus.

[ps2daddy]

I use a graphing calculator everyday...but that's kind of a job hazzard

and being a math teacher, I have to say...a calculator is a tool, you should be capable of doing the math algebraically by hand before using the calculator.

I couldnt agree with you more. I had finshed all my math classes before I even got one. For some of the stuff if you didnt understand the equations you were typing if you didnt know how to do it by hand you couldnt interpret some of the answers you obtained, couldnt type the problem in correctly, or which answer was the correct one.
(At least that was the way it was for me in Chemical\Biochem engineering)

[jimmalenko]

At high school I was "fortunate" enough to be doing my final year (year 12) when it was introduced at year 7 level (first year of high school) that all students "must" have a laptop. AS the years passed, those year 7's eventually became year 12's and every student in the whole school had a laptop. These were available to lease, or buy outright. Needless to say, I went to a school where people were pretty well off.

[EddyH]

"Scientific" calculator....... though they didn't specify which type. Luckily my mother is a teacher and so she saw fit to give me the extra to buy a decent Casio Fx-95 (the bomb in non-graphic calc terms) rather than some user-unfriendly rubbish like a Sharp.

Those casio system calculators are the last word in user friendliness and intuition, so long as you know how to use the function you're stabbing at... Still got it - good investment. Using it at college too.

Had to have a graphic one for like all of one or two classes, we were expected to buy it! Instead, got to borrow one from her school.... luck ran out.... it was a casio again, but having compared to a friend's Ti-85, definately got the dirty end of the stick. Casio graphing calcs are a pain in the backside and the programming language is horrific, too. Texas instruments has it going on...

You can even get games for them - a limited version of (3d!) tomb raider, I've seen! Probably Elite is out there.......

used it all of three times though - halfway through the class, the maths dept got it's computer room refurbished.... the pair of sad old EGA screened 386 SXs (still, you could put out a good letter in MS Works 3.0 for Windows with them!) being quietly shuffled to a corner to make way for a loudly humming new herd of whoppingly powerful........... 486/66s, with somewhat flickery 800x600 14" displays. (Have a heart - it WAS 1996). The calculators were rapidly consigned to the side pocket of our rucksacks in favour of the new high-rez mouse driven custom educational graphing software.
And soon, after that, when the teacher was out of the room, Screamer.