TI Nspire CAS Specifications

[Faber]

Dear All,

I am a student in Cinema and Media Engineering at Politecnico di
Torino in Italy and I'm looking for a complete calculator. I've seen
the TI Nspire CAS that seems to be the last product from TI but while
looking at its specifications on
http://education.ti.com/sites/US/downloads/pdf/GraphingCalculatorComparison_All.pdf
I've noticed some functions are lost. Find them here below:

Graphing
- Sequence
- Differential Equations, Slope Fields
- RK, Euler, Initial Conditions
- 3D Graphing
- Contour Plotting, Implicit Plotting

Mathematics
- Conic Graphing
- Interactive Equation Solver
- Interactive Step-by-step symbolic calculations
- Inflection Points

Data Analysis
- Coin, Dice Toss

Science
- Significant Figures
- Periodic Table

I've supposed the 2nd and 3rd Mathematics features have been replaced
by CAS functionalities and also I don't understand why "Conic
Graphing" is not in the specifications as theoretically this
calculator should do it.

Then I've read somewhere that with the new ROM the sequence graphing
feature has been added but what about the differential equations with
slope fields and 3D graphing? I can see from many websites, for
example www.johnhanna.us/TI-nspire.htm, that it is possible to graph
differential equations on PC software but maybe it didn't work on
calculator. 3D graphs were also available on TI-89 but they are not on
TI Nspire CAS.

Does anyone know if all these features are currently available on TI
Nspire CAS with the new ROM or it is necessary to work with the PC to
get some 3D graphs or to graph differential equations etc? Is it
possible to import new applications/functions on the calculator?

Thank you in advance for your attention and best regards,

Fabrizio Farolfi

[Nelson Sousa]

Most of the features you mentio are available via 3rd party documents
(from several sources). Other functionalities are not available. I'll
try to answer to each one the features.

> Graphing
>  - Sequence
Included since OS 1.7

>  - Differential Equations, Slope Fields
>  - RK, Euler, Initial Conditions

Available through documents included with the OS; Browse the Examples
folder on the Nspire; You can download other documents to plot ODEs
from John Hanna's website;

>  - 3D Graphing
There's a 3D plotter available, made by Mauritz Blomqvist
Download it here: http://www.univers-ti-nspire.fr/resources.php
You can also see the 3D polyhedron viewer, 3D molecule viewer and
Nspir3D, a 3D geometry application, available at my website
(www.nelsonsousa.pt - check the full list on the TI-Nspire / Programs
section)

>  - Contour Plotting, Implicit Plotting

There's a document to do this by John Hanna;

>
> Mathematics
>  - Conic Graphing
Two good conics documents are available at the Resource TI-Nspire site
(link above)

>  - Interactive Equation Solver
Not as yet.

>  - Interactive Step-by-step symbolic calculations

This was never included with any TI calculator; there are some
programs available to do this with some limitations; check the derstep
document from Phillipe Fortin at Resource TI site.

>  - Inflection Points
Included on TI-Nspire CAS since OS 1.6; activate Calc menu from the
document or system settings;

>
> Data Analysis
>  - Coin, Dice Toss

On my website you have a few probabilistic simulators; namely, a Dice
Roll simulator (1, 2 or 3 dice), a Buffon's needle simulator and a
Galton's bean machine. I never decided to do a coin toss simulator but
the same techniques used on the other simulators can be employed;

>
> Science
>  - Significant Figures
TI-Nspire and TI-Nspire CAS allow fixed or floating number of decimal
places and scientific notation; use mode settings carefully depending
on the situation.

>  - Periodic Table
There's one graphical (and rather complete one) availble at my website;

Explore the community sites available and check their link list.

My personal reccommendations:
My own site (of course!);
Steve Arnold's Compasstech.au;
John Hanna's;
Sean Bird's (Covenant Christian school, Indianapolis);
Resource TI (French Nspire community with some resources also
available in English);
Lafacroft (keeps the files published here available for download with
screenshots).

Check the links pages of all those sites and you'll get a pretty good
collection of resources! (there are other very good sites available,
these are the ones I recall from memory - I'm not on my own computer,
so I don't have my bookmarks available and I haven't updated the link
list on my site for a while)

Cheers,
Nelson

[Ross]

If you go to http://lafacroft.com/?q=node/54, I have compiled a rather
large list of the available TI-Nspire resources available on the
internet, so I would suggest checking it out. It has all of the ones
that Nelson listed, along with many others that will help.

On 3 Sep, 06:45, Nelson Sousa <nso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Most of the features you mentio are available via 3rd party documents
> (from several sources). Other functionalities are not available. I'll
> try to answer to each one the features.
>
> > Graphing
> >  - Sequence
>
> Included since OS 1.7
>
> >  - Differential Equations, Slope Fields
> >  - RK, Euler, Initial Conditions
>
> Available through documents included with the OS; Browse the Examples
> folder on the Nspire; You can download other documents to plot ODEs
> from John Hanna's website;
>
> >  - 3D Graphing
>
> There's a 3D plotter available, made by Mauritz Blomqvist
> Download it here:http://www.univers-ti-nspire.fr/resources.php
> You can also see the 3D polyhedron viewer, 3D molecule viewer and
> Nspir3D, a 3D geometry application, available at my website

> (www.nelsonsousa.pt- check the full list on the TI-Nspire / Programs

[Joe]

Dear Mr. Fabrizio Farolfi,
Perhaps I can balance out the replies you have recieved to your post.
There is a tendency for people to assume that the newest product
produced by a company will be the best and most powerful.
Unfortunately, as you have noticed, that is not always true. As a
newly purchased product right out of the box, the purchaser of nspire
(for the reasons you have mentioned and others) does not recieve a
calculator that is as strong mathematically as the TI-89 or Voyage 200
which in my opinion make better engineering tools. In addition, here
in the U.S. the non-cas nspire is priced about the same as the cas TI
calculators which provide much greater capabilities. Yes, as Mr.
Nelson has written, some of the weaknesses of nspire have compensated
for, by software not produced by TI, but that is generally an attempt
to bring nspire up to the capabilities of the other calculators and
does not make nspire a superior product mathematically. Also,
something that you may not be aware of is that the programing for
nspire does not have input and output statements. That also makes it
not as desirable as other TI calculators. In addition, it will take
some years before we see just how committed TI is to producing and
supporting the new nspire products. So choose carefully as you will
be spending a significant sum of money when you buy your new
calculator. For the most part, the people that post on this site are
a small group of high school math teachers who seem to prefer nspire
for their teaching activities. Of course that is not to say that all
high school teachers feel that way about nspire however if you plan on
using your new calculator for high school mathematics perhaps you also
will be satisfied with nspire.
Sincerely, joe

On Sep 3, 1:34 am, Faber <faro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I am a student in Cinema and Media Engineering at Politecnico di
> Torino in Italy and I'm looking for a complete calculator. I've seen
> the TI Nspire CAS that seems to be the last product from TI but while

> looking at its specifications onhttp://education.ti.com/sites/US/downloads/pdf/GraphingCalculatorComp...

> I've noticed some functions are lost. Find them here below:
>
> Graphing
>  - Sequence
>  - Differential Equations, Slope Fields
>  - RK, Euler, Initial Conditions
>  - 3D Graphing
>  - Contour Plotting, Implicit Plotting
>
> Mathematics
>  - Conic Graphing
>  - Interactive Equation Solver
>  - Interactive Step-by-step symbolic calculations
>  - Inflection Points
>
> Data Analysis
>  - Coin, Dice Toss
>
> Science
>  - Significant Figures
>  - Periodic Table
>
> I've supposed the 2nd and 3rd Mathematics features have been replaced
> by CAS functionalities and also I don't understand why "Conic
> Graphing" is not in the specifications as theoretically this
> calculator should do it.
>
> Then I've read somewhere that with the new ROM the sequence graphing
> feature has been added but what about the differential equations with
> slope fields and 3D graphing? I can see from many websites, for

> examplewww.johnhanna.us/TI-nspire.htm, that it is possible to graph

[Faber]

Dear Mr. Joe and all others,

thank you very much for your replies. I will continue to keep an eye
on what this calculator can do and what the others offer in
consideration of my actual and future needs.

Regards,
Fabrizio

[Patricia (Elaine) Gibbons]

Please share some good sources for after-market software for the TI-inspire
..

I've had one now for a couple of years, and for real engineering stuff, I'd
like
to find some good software .. especially Electronics and Radio-related ..

Elaine

--
Patricia (Elaine) Gibbons
WA6UBE / AAR9JA
http://www.qrz.com/wa6ube

"The President can make me a General, however
it is communications that makes me a Commander.."
--- General Curtis LeMay

[Nelson Sousa]

In Joe's dialect, "some" means "all but one".

Cheers,
Nelson

[Nelson Sousa]

I think there isn't much out there on this subject...
Most of the available documents and libraries are math, physics and
chemistry related.

Your best hope would be ti.bank.free.fr, but last time I checked there
wasn't anything there for electronics.

Cheers,
Nelson

[Eric Findlay]

Mr. Farolfi,

I would just like to point out one error that Joe stated in his
response. The Nspire DOES, in fact, have output statements in the
programming, however, you cannot place text wherever you want on the
screen like the 83/84, which might be what he was referring to, because
of the use of pretty print, split screens, and other graphical limitations.

Also, I would like to say that it is Joe's opinion that the programming
on the Nspire suffers without the use of input statements. As a
programmer (BSc in Computer Science), I have to say that I think this
version of the programming language is way better than the previous
version. It's easier to read, there are more tools to use (like
libraries and more functions, plus spreadsheets and more control
statements), and way more powerful.

In my experience, there are very few (math/science related) programs
that require input that cannot be rewritten to provide the input at the
command line (as arguments to the function). Although, it might be nice
to have the Menu function in a later version (although this can be
worked around by providing a numerical arguments and stating the options
on a notes page).

--Eric

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.76/2344 - Release Date: 09/03/09 18:05:00
>

--
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor
demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
--
Eric Findlay
AKA Eagle-Man

[Faber]

Dear all,

I've understood that, thanks to all people take toke care about
solving the limitations of this calculator, now with thirdy party
software it is possible to let the Nspire take advantage of its
capabilities better than with standard TI software. Anyway I wish to
know if you have worked just with TI products or if you have also
tried products from other companies like Casio, HP, etc. and if you
think TI has been the best calculator producer with its TI-84, TI-89,
etc or if you have ever compared these products with others like HP
48g for example.

Thank you,
Fabrizio

[Nelson Sousa]

I have some (very limited) experience with Casio calcs, but haven't
tried them out for quite a while. I never tried HP calculators.

Cheers,
Nelson

[Joe]

I have an Hp50g which is the latest Hp cas calculator offering. It
comes standard right out of the box with such things as laplace
transforms and 3D graphing so it is actually more powerful
mathematically than the TI cas offerings but I don't use it very often
because I am more used to, and therefore more comfortable with, my TI
calculator. Some people complain that the learning curve for the
hp50g is quite steep and I think that is a big drawback but there are
also many people who feel the Hp calculator is the best and for them
it probably is. The price is quite attractive and it is perhaps the
most mathematically powerful calculator right out of the box but it
would take a lot of time to become completely comfortable with a
different keyboard and menu system.

I'd like to make a couple of other comments. As a computer
programmer, people like Eric might prefer the nspire programing but I
doubt that is the case for the typical calculator customer. Also,
Nelson criticized my use of the word "some" in discussing the short
comings of nspire and how some of them have been overcome by non-TI
software. He failed to take into account such things as short battery
life, large size, tight spacing of the keys that causes input errors,
and non-cas nspires at cas prices. I also think its important to
understand that you do take some risk when you use aftermarket
software sources.

Perhaps someone will now comment on Casio calculators in order to
round out and complete this discussion.
Just plain Joe

> > AKA Eagle-Man- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Ahlander, Bengt]

Hi

I wonder if someone has done some document or program which can solve for example

Sin(x)=(cos(x))^2-1/4

and get a proper CAS solution,  Today you got a numeric solution.

Look below:

 

I expected to get the answer

x= n*¶/6+2*n*¶  or  x=5¶/6 + 2*n*¶

 

Can anyone help me to get a CAS answer?

Thanks

Bengt

[Ahlander, Bengt]

[Nelson Sousa]

you may need to solve that one in two steps: first replace cos(x)^2 by
1-sin(x)^2; then solve the quadratic equation in sin(x); finally, get
the solutions.


See attached file.

Cheers,
Nelson

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 18:01, Ahlander, Bengt<b-ahl...@ti.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I wonder if someone has done some document or program which can solve for
> example
>
> Sin(x)=(cos(x))^2-1/4
>
> and get a proper CAS solution,  Today you got a numeric solution.
>
> Look below:
>
>
>

[Faber]

Hi,

at the end I will buy this one: http://edu.casio.com/products/adves/fx991esplus/

It is very cheap and has a lot of useful functions but it doesn't draw
anything. As at the moment I am totally WITHOUT any calculator because
the old one is lost, I will take this one and then decide if a graphic
one (and which one) is useful for future use or not. At the moment I
can use a laptop to draw except during the exams but it is quite
difficult it is required, during a 2hours exam, to draw complicated
things...

Thank you for all your comments (Joe, Nelson and the others).

Regards,
Fabrizio Farolfi

On 5 Set, 20:55, Nelson Sousa <nso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> you may need to solve that one in two steps: first replace cos(x)^2 by
> 1-sin(x)^2; then solve the quadratic equation in sin(x); finally, get
> the solutions.
>
> See attached file.
>
> Cheers,
> Nelson
>

> On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 18:01, Ahlander, Bengt<b-ahlan...@ti.com> wrote:
> > Hi
>
> > I wonder if someone has done some document or program which can solve for
> > example
>
> > Sin(x)=(cos(x))^2-1/4
>
> > and get a proper CAS solution,  Today you got a numeric solution.
>
> > Look below:
>
> > I expected to get the answer
>
> > x= n*¶/6+2*n*¶  or  x=5¶/6 + 2*n*¶
>
> > Can anyone help me to get a CAS answer?
>
> > Thanks
>
> > Bengt
>
>
>

>  cas_trig_equation.tns
> 1KVisualizzaScarica