The actuel Prime future...

[iconmaster]

We will continue to use graphing calculators for a long time in the future. It's a matter of security in education.

We need this technology to do fast calculations that would be repetitive to do by hand. While this is done by professionals using computer software, we don't want people using their laptops of phones in a classroom setting. While educators want calculators to remove repetitive math, they don't want these devices to be too powerful. If you use a calculator to effortlessly calculate what you are currently learning how to do manually, you are not learning at all. Educators cannot verify the power of a student's laptop or phone; the versatility of these devices allow people to use software of any mathematical power level. We still need calculators, the low-power devices they are, for learning and for testing.

This is why you see HP move from the 50g to the Prime. The 50g was an attempt at a professional tool. While it was a good calculator, it had no place in the market. It was too powerful, in a way. It had no place in education, and no place in a professional world dominated by software. The Prime is targeted to educators and students; its feature-set reflects this. The Prime has things like quiz modes, network polls, and classroom wireless.

Over in TI's world, you see the same thing with the TI-NSpire. Ever since the thing has come out, there has been a war between people uploading custom software to it and TI making changes to disallow this. This is due to the fact that the market for these things. They have to be completely secure; else people like us here could make it too powerful. Because of this, new calculators have no support for custom software. The NSpire, the Prime, and other new calculators are locked down, reflecting the trend towards education.

I guess this thing came as a bit of a shock to me. I always loved writing custom calculator software, but the problem is the calculator world is not a place for me anymore. It is a place for institutions to create education standards in. It is not my place to disrupt this.

It is the end of a calculator era, really. An era for which many of us now do not belong.