College Algebra - Calculator Question!

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I3roknI3ottle

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Jan 19, 2005
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Ok so I'm taking College Math 110 at Henry Ford Community College here in Dearborn Michigan. The class requires a graphing calc, which I had a ti83+ but somebody stole it my junior year of highschool. So I borrowed my sisters ti84+ silver, but she starts school next week and is going to need it back. I was told to buy the ti83 or 83+, and not too be tricked into buying the higher end stuff because its not needed. I said hell with that, the 83+ got old quick for me. I went on ebay and purchased a ti89 for 76 shipped instead of buying a ti83+ again. Did I make a good descision, I've read alot of reviews on the ti89 that suggest it as a supercalculator and is able to make algebra a breeze and that it can make somebody lazy.
 
Depends. For algebra the teacher prob will not care. If you take Calc then yea the teacher will prob not let you use it because it can solve almost everything for you. If you go to a real college(4yr) after jr college and are in a program hard in math the 89 could turn out to be good for you.

FYI the 89 has better games(graphics wise) on it. Just get the data cable so you can download them.
 
It should be fine.. and most of the prof's should let you use it. It all depends on the professor. All the TI-8x series calculators are great for math stuff. I've used em all. But, I found out after being in calc and everything, that NOT using a calculator is actually easier.

Anyhow, you are right next door to me. I go to the University of Michigan Dearborn. Stop by and say hi. ;)
 
As long as the professor doesn't care, good choice. I switched from ti-83 to ti-89 for AP calc, its a sweet calc. It does so many things that I wouldn't expect a calculator to do.

As for it making you lazy...ehh not so much, you still need to know calc or whatever you are studying to make use of the calculator. You do get used to interface and stuff, so you may become dependant on it in the long run.

As for games, its pretty hard to get games on this calc. You have to modify the shell of the calculator OS to get games to work. If you find a good tutorial it shouldn't be that bad.
 
jayjaya29 said:
As for games, its pretty hard to get games on this calc. You have to modify the shell of the calculator OS to get games to work. If you find a good tutorial it shouldn't be that bad.
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Since when. I just use to download them via my old school serial cable to them using tis software. I know the Titanium version had some compatability issues but that was about it.

BTW ticalc.org has a bunch of software and use to be one of the best sites for this shit. Haven't messed with it in a few years though. My 83+(the only on I have left) has the same games on it that I loaded like 5 years ago...
 
About the only potential problem is that many of the functions of the TI-83/84 are more complicated on the TI-89. Plus, the interfaces and mechanics of the calculator are difficult to get used to at first. It helps to have it, but only as long as you know how to do everything with it that you might be doing in a class that is using a the 83/84 as the standard.
 
I am in my last semester of Calculus (Calculus 3) here at Tallahassee Community College in Florida. Mostly anymore I use just a basic scientific calculator for some arithmetic. (And I stress some, most can be done easily by head) Anything that a ti-80 series calculator can do will be taught to do. It is just that the calculator can do some things faster. Almost all my teachers until just recently in Calc 3 have not allowed any calculator beyond a ti-83. In fact my Calc 2 teacher banned our calculators for the entire semester. You are required to know and be able to do all the math by hand regardless. I agree with the above poster that it is usually faster to just use your brain and skip the calc. After a while you get good enough and it becomes fairly easy except for a few extreme cases.
Lol I remember taking college algebra. If your curious the entire class can be done on a Ti-83. A Ti-89 doesnt really come in handy until you hit more difficult subjects like certain integrals or Reimann Sums and such. But that is later classes. I guess it doesnt really matter though considering you already bought the calc. Be warned however that alot of teachers do not allow the Ti-89 because of some of its advanced functions.
 
If your teacher allows you to use a TI-89, use it. It is such a wicked calculator and is far easier to use than an 83/84, as well as being more powerful than its predecessors. I had one for half of high-school and through the four required math classes I had to take earlier in college and there really is nothing it can't do.
 
well she said i was going to need a graphing calculator and that she didnt recommend getting the ti84 other stuff because its not needed. I used to program on my ti89 back in my freshmen and softmore year. I wrote all kinds of programs to do my own math homework and word and games stuff. Plus it wasnt tha tmuch more to get a ti89 from a ti83, so i figured what the hell.
 
I used my TI-89 Ti in calc 1&2 and physical chemistry in college and found it very helpful in those courses. However for simpler calculations (such as algebra) I used my TI-83 because I could use it more quickly. However, if you plan on going any further in math it will be very handy. In my coursework, I didn't run into anything that my TI-89 Ti couldn't do that Mathematica could do.
 
Oh god.. Mathematica.. *BARFFFFF* ... hahah. Every single one of the people I hang out with at college HATE mathematica. I mean, when I use it, it totally blows. I can type in a command perfect, and it just says "mathematica produced a beep" or has some other error.. or does nothing. lol. Then when I restart the program it works fine with the same command. :confused: Just the syntax you have to type everything in with is enough to make you go insane. I swear, it has to have the worst coding ever as far as official college level apps go, right along side Matlab. I've tried the latest versions and still the same problems. I'm hoping our prof's don't make us use Mathematica again, but its in our coursepack. =(((

Not to bash it too much, its a great app when it actually works and can do some stuff the TI calc's can't.
 
w1retap said:
Oh god.. Mathematica.. *BARFFFFF* ... hahah. Every single one of the people I hang out with at college HATE mathematica. I mean, when I use it, it totally blows. I can type in a command perfect, and it just says "mathematica produced a beep" or has some other error.. or does nothing. lol. Then when I restart the program it works fine with the same command. :confused: Just the syntax you have to type everything in with is enough to make you go insane. I swear, it has to have the worst coding ever as far as official college level apps go, right along side Matlab. I've tried the latest versions and still the same problems. I'm hoping our prof's don't make us use Mathematica again, but its in our coursepack. =(((

Not to bash it too much, its a great app when it actually works and can do some stuff the TI calc's can't.
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Sorry to say, but from my experience most college level teachers use either Mathematica or Maple. I think that mathematica is better. I would give it another chance. It is an extremely powerful tool if you learn how to use it correctly. I would still be an undergrad without it! But, yeah it does have its quirks. The whole math lab was full of beeps for the first month of class.
 
I have both a 83+ and an 89 and I got to say when trying to follow teachers when they are using an 83+ is a pita with the 89 beucase of the interface change. I always had to look up the functions and stuff in the book. I just went out and found a cheap older style 83+ used and that has been nice for following along in class.
 
I much prefer the TI-89 and I think for the small price difference the advanced functions and cleaner UI are worth it. The display alone is much easier to work with, and it's the main reason I'm glad I got a TI-89.

If you learn to do all the stuff it can do, it's very powerful. I doubt it will really make you lazy, since you have to actually figure out how to use it first.
 
Yes it will make you lazy. The TI-89 can do most things taught in calculus courses. Learning to punch something into your calculator is NOT the same as actually being able to solve a problem. You will really be in a bind when the teacher hands you a "no calculator allowed" test. (And yes they do because most of my calculus teachers have done this.) Besides on most college level work you must actually show the "work" involved in solving the problem. I doubt any real professor would give full credit for just a few key-strokes and an answer.
 
I3roknI3ottle said:
I said hell with that, the 83+ got old quick for me. I went on ebay and purchased a ti89 for 76 shipped instead of buying a ti83+ again. Did I make a good descision?
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Yes and no.

The Ti83+ is much easier to use for simpler things. The Ti89 takes longer to type stuff in and what not.

The Ti89 has many more feaures over the Ti83+. Wanna know the funny part? You shouldn't have to use these features for your math class.

If it were me, and I didn't expect to take anything that required math above your 110 level, I would have stuck with the tried and true good old Ti83+.

If you expect to take more advanced math and become a quantum physicist, sure... the Ti89 will pay off. (The bloody thing does have it's limitations too for all of you who said it can do pretty much anything... just as a heads up)
 
Have some recent personal experience with this. I'm a Comp Sci major, which requires College Algebra, Trig, Calc 1-3, Stat Methods, Discrete Math, and Linear Algebra (might as well get a math degree, eh?)

Anyway, I'm about four classes deep now. Had an 85 from high school like 7 years ago, and while they are good machines, the interface is completely different and its impossible to follow the prof on "calculator days".

So, borrowed an old TI-83 that was falling apart, which it finally did. Had to buy a new one anyway, and knowing I'd be going into advanced math courses, I sprung for the 89 titanium halfway through my trig class this summer.

WOW. It has limitations, but in 1 level math classes those limitations are few and far between...lol. Especially being able to use it in trig. One of the greatest things about it is that it displays the exact values of irrational numbers, which basically makes trig really, REALLY easy. Saves lots and lots of memorization, which is a good and bad thing.

Check syllabi. If you aren't allowed to use it, it will say so explicitly. Moving on to Calculus I this semester, that teacher explicitly bans 89's, as do many others. It is a very powerful little number cruncher. Love mine, even though I can't really use it much right now.
 
with a Ti89, you won't have to do any work in algebra anymore, if you don't want to. At the least, you should be able to double check your answers with it.
Solve( menu option ftw.
 
I love my TI-89, but in college it was a PITA sometimes. In a Statistics class the teacher used the 83 exclusively which required me to do alot of extra work. Same with calculus but the Solve function saved my life more than a few times.

Just make sure you get the manual for it. And bring it to class so you can look up the functions since the input will be different on an 89.
 
I remember my high school geometry class requiring a 90 dollar calculator. Made my parents less than pleased. Got me a TI-85 only to discover it didn't have the trigonometric functions necessary besides being more expensive than the 83. From what I recall, the 83+ had nothing other than more memory and a couple of extra programs that nobody used.

You wanna go wild, get a TI-92. That thing was almost a laptop :D
 
I love my TI-83 plus, don't need anything more. I remember taking the first algebra classes at baker. I hardly needed the graphing calc (well, none of us really did) for the first one. Second class is where we got into graphing and such
 
I used an TI83+ from 9th grade to the end of college - of course, it's easy to say since none of my college courses allowed calculators (Calculus 3+4, Discrete, Linear Algebra, Probability and Statistics, theory classes) and my major math requirements involved CS foundational math (NFAs, DFAs, blah blah).

The TI-89 will make you lazy if you rely on it too much, it can do a lot of stuff for undergrad calc and engineering as well. So it was a good thing that all of my math classes didn't allow calculators during tests and needed fully constructed solutions to math problems.
 
That said, it's often helpful to check homework answers with the answers your -89 gives. It's still up to you to justify how and why that is the answer.
 
I can gaurantee you that, no way in hell will the teacher let you take that calculator into a test. The TI-89 can do every single calculation that they spend years teching you in grade school, college algebra, trig, and calculus. Go for a TI-84, and upgrade to an 89 when you get in grad school (if you have a highly analytical major). They wouldn't let me use my TI-89 in Calculus, but I'm in University Physics and boy do I appreciate it!
 
InorganicMatter said:
I can gaurantee you that, no way in hell will the teacher let you take that calculator into a test.!
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Then I must have been hallucinating when I used mine on my calculus 3 final.....................

I can gaurantee you that, it depends solely on the teacher.
^_^
 
Reading through this thread nobody really elaborated on the main reason why you cant use the 89, just alluding to the fact that it can solve anything.

The real advantage of the 89 is that it can do abstract integration and differentiation. It will return the result in terms of the dependent variable. The 83 can do differentiation and integration as well, but it does it with set values. With the 89 you only need to know how to do a few of the more complex integrations that the 89 balks at, everything else not only does it solve it but it expresses the answer in the same form that your teacher wants it in.

The only time a teacher will let you use an 89 is because they dont actually realize all the stuff it can actually do. The people who said the 89 will make you lazy are exactly correct. I learned almost nothing in my AP Calc class because we all got 89's and I was able to do the entire course on my calculator. When I had to take calc in college they wouldn't let us use graphing calculators at all and I was lost because I had never actually learned how to do integration....lots of catching up to do.
 
Boy, I feel ancient. When I was in school the best we had was the TI-85 :).

Well, here's my $0.02, always better to learn earlier rather than later if you have to do it the "hard way." However, while hard work may pay off in the end, laziness always pays off now ;).
 
Erasmus354 said:
When I had to take calc in college they wouldn't let us use graphing calculators at all and I was lost because I had never actually learned how to do integration....lots of catching up to do.
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A college level calc class that didn't let you use calculators? That's retarded. Thank god I'm done with calculus, not that I had any trouble with it, in fact I went up to Calc III in college and got an A in every single one. Then again, I did have the comfort of a Ti-89 throughout each of them so that probably helped. But the thought of calculus still scares me, probably because everyone overeacts and thinks it's the worst thing ever. And it's been a good 2-3 years before I touched it so I couldn't even tell you how to differentiate right now, except for maybe x^2 which becomes 2x from what I remember. :p

Another fact on the Ti-89. It's sooooo easy to cheat with. Don't wanna memorize formulas or notes? Just use the text editing feature and type everything onto your Ti-89. So yeah, if you don't wanna become lazy and you would like to actually learn the material, please do not take this advice. :p
 
I got a TI-89 my junior year of HS (in '97) and it served me well through HS and my calc class in college (I was a music major, I only had to take math for jocks, but I wanted to take calc for my own sake) I would recommend it, it is a great calc.
 
I had to get a new calculator as well, MTH 110 (MSU) i use to have an 83+, but that got broken so i got an 84+ and downloaded all the sweet programs that do everything for you. Here at MSU they will not let you use the 89, or any of the higher calculators in your math classes, and they even come around and check to see if you are using them.

Graphing calculators are so over hyped anyways, you really dont need one. But i would get the 84+ since its got the USB port on it, and its super easy to get programs for it.
 
I'm a teaching assistant for a similar class at Michigan State. We do NOT allow the 89, as well as a few others. They're too smart.

Basically, we like the 83, 83+, 84, and I believe the 86...

Not sure on the last one. Either way, I wish you would have posted earlier, I would have recommended the 83+ or 84.
 
Erasmus354 said:
Reading through this thread nobody really elaborated on the main reason why you cant use the 89, just alluding to the fact that it can solve anything.

The real advantage of the 89 is that it can do abstract integration and differentiation. It will return the result in terms of the dependent variable. The 83 can do differentiation and integration as well, but it does it with set values. With the 89 you only need to know how to do a few of the more complex integrations that the 89 balks at, everything else not only does it solve it but it expresses the answer in the same form that your teacher wants it in.

The only time a teacher will let you use an 89 is because they dont actually realize all the stuff it can actually do. The people who said the 89 will make you lazy are exactly correct. I learned almost nothing in my AP Calc class because we all got 89's and I was able to do the entire course on my calculator. When I had to take calc in college they wouldn't let us use graphing calculators at all and I was lost because I had never actually learned how to do integration....lots of catching up to do.
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Symbolic Differentiator on TI-83/84 ... Comes in handy at times.

I do have to say that having the 89 will tend to make you lazy if the teacher doesn't have non-calculator tests.
 
Wingy said:
I'm a teaching assistant for a similar class at Michigan State. We do NOT allow the 89, as well as a few others. They're too smart.

Basically, we like the 83, 83+, 84, and I believe the 86...

Not sure on the last one. Either way, I wish you would have posted earlier, I would have recommended the 83+ or 84.
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what class?
 
I've taken four math courses so far, and none of them have allowed any calculators at all on tests. As for homework, what you do in the privacy of your own dorm or study lounge is your business. However, when they grade the homework, they're not looking for just the answer. If I just spit out the answer with no justification or work shown, I would have gotten no credit.

On the other hand, the -89 is still a powerful tool. Though your answers for a homework problem can't come from the calculator, it provides an easy way to check those answers. Also, classes like Physics aren't out to test you on your ability to do integrals. In timed exams with double integrals, the -89's "integrate(" function can be a lifesaver if you need to spend your time elsewhere.
 
Aelfgeft said:
I remember my high school geometry class requiring a 90 dollar calculator. Made my parents less than pleased. Got me a TI-85 only to discover it didn't have the trigonometric functions necessary besides being more expensive than the 83. From what I recall, the 83+ had nothing other than more memory and a couple of extra programs that nobody used.

You wanna go wild, get a TI-92. That thing was almost a laptop :D
Click to expand...

I have the Ti-92 and it is wonderful, but it really is the same as the 89 with a larger screen and much better input (due to QWERTY). Any teacher that allowed calculators for me allowed it, and any that didn't allow it, didn't allow any calculator at all. Applied Math major here at the University of Akron in Ohio here. I do recommend the 89 or 92+ as a minimum if going into any engineering degree, as the generic TI-92 cannot have it's firmware updated, and there is a bug when doing certain polar calculations (done many times in circuit classes).

edit -> when we were allowed to use it in the class, that meant for everything, including tests. Calc 1 and 2 allowed it (awesome for checking integration in calc 2), however calc 3 didn't. And it will only make you lazy if you allow it to make you lazy. If you do it to check your work, that is one thing, but if you do it to do your work for you, then it will make you lazy.
Jason
 
Myrandex said:
And it will only make you lazy if you allow it to make you lazy. If you do it to check your work, that is one thing, but if you do it to do your work for you, then it will make you lazy.
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That's just a fancy way of saying: You make your education what you make of it. (Boy, there's a big Duh!!!)

Anyways, this thread is getting a little winded. I would be surprised if the OP even checks it anymore.
Either case, good luck with your new calculator I3roknI3ottle
 
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