HP Forums

https://education.ti.com/en/us/products/...s/overview



I would like to see, with the wiring project, the father of arduino
http://wiring.org.co

1) Support USB-host serial things in the HP Prime OS
2) Provide HPPPL commands for Serial write/read
3) Done. That would beat ti-innovator instantly

I see now why TI nerfed the Nspire's built in programming capabilities - they knew they would want to blag you with over priced programmable peripherals at some point in the future.

An expensive way to make LEDs turn on and off - that Holy Grail of school IT provision.

Quote:they knew they would want to blag you with over priced programmable peripherals at some point in the future.

Actually, the price tag of the TI-Innovator is much lower than we could have feared, given the severe overpricing habits of the education market

However...

Quote:An expensive way to make LEDs turn on and off - that Holy Grail of school IT provision.

... you're still right, of course. It's a fact that most models of developer-oriented COMs and SBCs based on ARM SoCs are (much) cheaper, more open and uniformly much more powerful, in terms of computing power, storage space and I/O capabilities, than a Nspire CX, or a Prime. Out of the box, the boards run more or less standard Linux kernels.
The calculators' built-in screen, keyboard and battery, which make them autonomous, aren't that useful when connected to non-self-powered lab equipment anyway...

No sign of a UK price for these but a TI89 costs lap-top money over here.

The TI system as shown puts two "black boxes" between the student and the LEDs that are being power-cycled. I don't see how such hardware abstraction moves the learner any nearer to understanding the essence of a microprocessor system.

An old style Z80 based tutor board, with 2K RAM, hex display and keypad puts the student much closer to what is going on.

Such a basic device might not seem as cool as the TI set-up, nor would it excite teachers with poor technical knowledge when they attend Powerpoint-saturated educational conferences but when you need to learn something that is difficult then there is no alternative to sitting down and learning something difficult.

BTW, the TI-Innovator is derived from one of the MSP432 Launchpad boards, which are much cheaper. Therefore, one can leverage a subset of the TI-Innovator features, e.g. light sensor and buzzer are missing out of the box, at a fraction of the price tag - less than $15 - by reflashing the appropriate Launchpad model with the TI-Innovator firmware. The Launchpad has a micro-USB interface while the calculator has a mini-USB one, so one needs to buy one or more adapter cables.
This is not theoretical, critor and/or Adriweb have tested it - I'm basically summarizing https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=18947 here.