Graphing Calculators??
 

Hey fellow suffering college students/ professionals, my TI-86 is getting really flaky, so I need a new graphing calculator, any recomendations? I'm an aerospace engineering student, so I probably need more than a TI-83, I've noticed that they now have a TI-89 Platinum, as well as some cool looking ones from HP. Any opinions before I drop $150?

I used a HP 28S mini computer when I studied aerospace engineering.

I could have cared less for the graphing feature but its ability to solve complex linear equation sets and store formulas made it worth its weight in gold.

Nowadays I would just probably use a laptop and matlab instead if I had to do it over again.

HP for me too! After selling a few CD's back to the CD store and drinking only 5 nights a week, I was able to afford the super duper HP48S from the college book store. :)

To this day, 10+ years later, I'm still using it for engineering work. It helped that I collected a bunch of programs and created a bunch of programs while I was in school. They are useful...well, the ones I remember how to use :D I've dropped it several times and had to recover the memory once (phew!), and it's still rocking on! I swear that thing is built for military abuse :)

But yes, Tony is right, a laptop with Matlab would work better :( I love my HP.

OH CRAP! I'm a NERD!

Thanks guys, is the HP any more user friendly than the TI products? I swear the UI on those things was just designed to be a bigger pain in the ass than herpes. Damn computer engineers......

I have a TI-89, it is superb. Go for an 89, or a TI-91 or TI Voyage 200. I've typed out a response twice and my explorer has closed when I've tried to send it (yes I copied the text I wrote but I seem to have lost that too) so I can tell you more why I like it, but I'll have to do it later.

Where do you go to school?

Look around on the web - there is a TI emulator for windows, all you need is the rom image for whatever calculator. I found a copy on a french (.fr) website. Ahh... google:

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/84/8442.html

HTH

if i know anything, i know calculators!

the HP48GX will get you further in math than the texas intruments. i think most calculus classes in college are based on the TI, but myself and 4 friends got by with our HP's. the professor lectured with the TI. you can follow along button by button. after a month of class, we blew them away. we crunched graphs faster, the badboy will integrate! so you can check your answers mathmatically. it can do 3 equations 3 unknowns so goddamn fast that my TI bretheren were effen converted. and those plug in memory cards and engineering specific cards cannot be beat. i have TWO HP48GX's. one on me, and one on my desk. reverse polish notation found on the HP will save your life. you can stack your answers, pull from the stack, etc. trust me matt. i may not always have a 911, but i will never get rid of my HP for any TI.

That's right, once you have gotten use to reverse polish notation you'll never go back to the norm.

I should have sold more CD's and drank on 4 nights a week, and then bought the top of the line model at the time (GX?) for the xpansion port, but then I got away with using the IR comm. to grab programs from friend's calculators.

Klaucke, I go to Wichita State University, in the grand state of KS. They have pretty nice facilities for AE, including their own wind tunnel. Lots of connections with all the local industries as well, a nice bonus. Are you an AE student? Where do you go?

Is this the Hp model you guys were talking about? http://www.hp.com/calculators/graphing/49gplus/
Seems like the 49 is just the upgrade to the 48, bigger screen is a bonus.

A true recipe for coolness right there!;) Could you somehow twist that into a pickup line?

naw, i tried that line and the woman, got out of the bed, got dressed and left! haha.

that new HP looks interesting. i bet the instruction manual is daunting. good luck in school. have the girls gotten hotter?

No, none of them can hold a candle to my wife...........ok, she's gone. :D Just as hot, but I feel old. Plus, there aren't ANY attractive girls in engineering, which makes my wife happy. BTW, is this the calculator that you have?
http://www.hp.com/calculators/graphing/48gII/

no this one is mine:

http://store.yahoo.com/aaaprice/hp48gx.html

i honestly dont know the newer models. but RPN calcs are faster/more efficient.

It's a little redundant at this point but I want to throw in one more vote for the HP. When I was studying engineering I had a 48G and found it to be excellent. Writing programs and functions for it is a breeze and once you've done calculations with a stack you'll never go back to a regular calculator again. And no one will borrow yours 'cause they won't be able to figure it out :D .

LOL, I know what you mean about people wanting to borrow your calculator. I had the 28 which was the old fold out model with the complete alpha keyboard on the left. Not only did it make punching in data a lot easier but it baffled and amazed anyone who wanted to borrow it.

I never upgraded cause I couldn't stand how HP tried to cram everything into a few buttons on the later models.

http://www.hpmuseum.org/img/28cs.jpg