TI, the DMCA, and the Calculator Programming Community

[allynfolksjr]

I for one support TI.
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http://tcpa.calcg.org/

[elrunethe2nd]

TI needs to stop trying to take a huge dump all over their customers.
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[swivelgames]

Well, Ben, (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone) it's not like TI's done this in the past (bashed their more explorative customers), but I agree they went too far with this to begin with. I'd like to see a written apology; Nothing less. A company like TI needs to understand that it's OK to request these things be removed for the protection of their integrity's sake (although, this isn't very realistic to expect or even ask for from a corporation), instead of (what it looked like) panicing and harrassing individuals with empty threats. However, it's something you'd expect from a corporation if their integrity was at all put to the knife. (even if it is just a flimsy rubber knife...)

The only outcomes from this are: They make enough noise to wake the neighbors and schools find out about the discovery because of their failed attempts to cover this up and change calculator suppliers, or they don't lose any customers as at all and just piss their loyal consumers off.

This whole situation is a waste of time on both ends. TI is going to bully us around a little, the teacher (EFF) is going to break up the fight in the playground and scold the bully, but TI will probably do it again eventually and their old consumers will continue to be their current consumers. Who here is going to boycott TI for this? How likely are schools (the education as a whole) to throw out the thousands, if not millions, of dollars worth of calculators and supplies just to change calculator brands because a hobbyist found a way to load a sub-par (if that) OS on to their calculator? What is TI going to lose from all this? Our respect? Cause regardless they're still going to get our money, am I right? At this point in time I highly doubt TI even cares that the EFF is calling them out on their baseless, empty threats. As I've come to believe, they (TI) are still not listening anyway.
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[KermMartian]

While in an ideal world it would work out this way, someone on ticalc.org correctly identified the answer to these two parts of your post:

[swivelgames]

[elrunethe2nd]

Well, a similar thing happened to Casio in Australia.

Before, the calculator had a large amount of memory (You could even have extra SD cards!), and so kids were found with complex number and algebra systems on their calculators, pretty much making a mockery of quite a few tests.

Because of this, the Education Department went and raged at Casio, and so Casio released a new calculator with exactly the same specs but with a trivially small amount of memory space.

Notably, regardless of this, a new complex number system has still been made.

From that, I doubt that TI will lose its dominance over the education business. I can't see that happening.
In fact, they very well could do what Casio did.
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[swivelgames]

I could definitely see them coming out with another TI-83 equivalent, but with some changes to the OS and how it's identified. I doubt they'll alter the specifications of their hardware, but I'm sure they'll come up with a method of identifying their OS that'll be harder to crack. After all, the calculator firmware/os is over 10 years old. They did nothing to improve it with the TI-84, except at a few functions and possibly optimize some things. Although their latest variant (the 84 plus) is only 5-6 years old, they could use another calculator.

Although, they can't expect it to take the place of the 83 very quickly in schools. Most schools still only have the 83, and there are some schools that are finally upgrading to the 84+, but still not that many. If anything you'll see a mixed array of 83s and 84+s in each class room. (at least, at my schools)
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[elrunethe2nd]

Over here, each child is compulsorily made to buy a calculator in ~year 10, so they had no trouble with changing the system over.
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[swivelgames]

Many over here are now buying calculators for their students. The main complaint is: "If we pay all these taxes and they go to our schools, why do we still have to buy supplies?" 0x5
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[elrunethe2nd]

Well, graphics calculators certainly aren't cheap.
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[Ultimate Dev'r]

[elrunethe2nd]

$90 is a bit much for a year 10 student.
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[swivelgames]

These calculators are used beyond High School. They're used in College too. A $100 calculator is not a bad investment for something you'll be using for the next 6+ years. Hell, they're even quite useful in the work environment, depending on where you work and what your profession is. A calculator is more of an investment then a tool you'll use for a couple years and then sell/give/throw away.
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[elrunethe2nd]

No, I appreciate that, I do like my fx-9860G a lot, its just still a lot for someone back then. I didn't mean its not worth it.
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[Ultimate Dev'r]

[elrunethe2nd]

Nope.
We are stuck with the drastically memory reduced fx-9860G AU edition or an HP variant I know not of.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Casio-fx-9860G-AU_W0QQitemZ280418532461QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Business_Industrial_Office_Equipment?hash=item414a3f3c6d#ht_500wt_1182

AU $120.00
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[KermMartian]

== $109USD. From the Wikipedia entry on the topic:
"The AU version limits the amount of internal flash memory available to 800 KiB to meet Australian school regulations."

800KiB? That's enough to store entire textbooks in plaintext format.
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[elrunethe2nd]

But only about 4 extra programs.
Is it so wrong to have my Tetris, my Arkanoid, my Complex number System AND a Periodic Table application in there?

Plus, the operating space IS tiny. The calculator divides memory between Storage memory and Primary memory, and Storage is far larger, where notes and whatnot goes. Primary is actually rather small, despite the fact that the calculator relies on that to work, and it can only hold about, maybe 5 pictures and two decent hand-coded programs before its all gone.

Textbooks are all very well (And I do, as a matter of fact, have textbooks.), but the courses are being structured with interpretation in mind, and teachers are asking trickier questions, making textbooks not a very efficient way of cheating, but it DOES help.
Mind you, the new course bans these from Chemistry, Physics and Biology exams from next year (Not this one!). So the younger kids don't get notes at all.
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[GloryMXE7]

really? you were allowed to use textbooks on exams?
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[dxfan101010]

i think he was talking about the caculator
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