something new from TI
Message #1 Posted by Don Shepherd on 25 May 2008, 8:55 a.m.
While shopping at Meijer last night, I came across a new scientific calculator from TI, the TI-34 MultiView. It is designed for middle school students, and has many functions for working with fractions and mixed numbers. It also has an interesting feature called "op1" and "op2" that let you apply a pre-recorded series of numbers and operations. While this is not a replacement for real keystroke programming, ala HP, it does offer some interesting possibilities.
For example, converting numbers from base 10 to another base. The method I learned a long time ago is this: divide by the new base and save the remainder, right to left. By entering, on this calculator, op1 as "int / 8", you can convert a base 10 number to octal by entering the base 10 number, press op1, write down the remainder (it shows the quotient and remainder on the screen), press op1 again and write down the remainder to the LEFT of the first one, and repeat until your quotient is 0. Thus, 1022 base 10 becomes 1776 base 8.
Not exactly keystroke programming, but a minimal level of automation in a $25 student calculator.
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