Foster@TI Responded (Monday)

[NETWizz]

Sorry everyone; this week has been chaotic and I have not checked my email @unitedti.org until today. Herb Foster at Texas Instruments formerly responded on behalf of Texas Instruments...

Mr. Foster writes:

Justin,
I apologize for the delay in the response. Last week was pretty much an all week “snow day” in Dallas.
Several of us reviewed your email request for information and our responses (in RED) follow your questions.
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I am one of the three original founders of United-TI (http://unitedti.org). I go by NETWizz (used to go by Jbirky). I used to be an active developer i.e. TI-BASIC, Z80 Asm, & even a Flash Application as well as a high school & college student. Now, I have limited involvement and pretty much let the next generation take over as my career, family, and other obligations are now my focus. That said I still care a great deal about the happenings of the development community, and I am writing on behalf of some concerns that have recently been voiced on the of http://unitedti.org/ community forum in regards to the continued availability of the Ti-84+ SE and the programmability of the TI Nspire.

We at United-TI have been informed via our community members that the TI-84+ is not being discontinued, and the TI-84+ Silver Edition is not being discontinued in North American markets, but we would all like to know about the current production/manufacturing status & the changing production trends. Is the TI-84+ Silver Edition still being actively manufactured/produced, or is Texas Instruments merely unloading its stockpiles with no intent for replenishment of the supply of this particular model (TI-84+SE)? The TI-84+ Silver Edition continues as a very important product for TI, and it will continue in our graphing product line.

Also, are there any plans to make the Nspire more friendly to the development community as a whole? As one of many communities I can honestly indicate our members have demonstrated a significant interest in programming the Nspire, with the powerful ARM architecture, and advanced mathematical functions only to be disappointed in that even the most trivial of commands: Input, Prompt, & GetKey are absent. Are there any plans to add this capability or is it deliberately absent in that the target customers are high school students and teachers instead of programmers & engineers? To us it does not make any sense to handicap a newer product. i.e. I personally own an 82, 83, 2x 83+, 83+SE, 84+, 84+SE, 86, 89, 89 Titanium, a 92+, & a Voyage 200. Obviously, I am one of your odd-ball customers for buying that many calculators, but you will notice the Nspire is sorely missing.. Many of us feel this way. The only reason some of our members own an Nspire is because it is recommended by their school or it was an uninformed purchase. TI-Nspire is our newest product focused on secondary and higher education math and science. At this point, we have not yet opened the platform to programming, however, that is in our future plans.

Lastly, are there any new developments coming out? i.e. Any chance of a calculator with colored screen? We will make our back to school 2011 new product announcements soon.

Please respond. Keep in mind a software fix for the Nspire would go a long way in showing commitment to the community of odd-ball people like me. If it is a concern about compliance with schools & standardized testing, it should be a simple matter to branch off having two OSes (one for students/testing & another for programmers/engineers).Surely there would also be an easy way to differentiate them such as that blinking LED light in the front to appease organizations such as the College Board...
I eagerly await your response, and I would like to give you the heads-up that I intend to post this response to the homepage of http://unitedti.org just to let you know, so please do not gloss-over or obfuscate your answers.
Thank you for your feedback and your loyalty to TI products.


Regards,
Herb Foster
Manager, Business Services
Texas Instruments
Education Technology
7800 Banner Drive
Dallas, TX 75251

[Xeda112358]

Wow, that is awesome! I believe that is the best response I have ever seen from TI on our behalf! I am very glad to hear that the 84+SE will still be on the market and that is very awesome that they have plans for the future to enable more programming features for the Nspire! Also, that back to school announcement... I read about that elsewhere (not the actual announcement, but the fact that there will be one). This is great!

♥

[montytyper]

That's awesome. Better late than never.

[NETWizz]

I am the one that was late being they had it answered by this Monday, which is pretty good given the bad weather that hit Texas.

[tifreak8x]

Rather interesting that they replied, even if it was brief.

[Galandros]

A nice reply for a change.


I have read the name Herb Foster before... *searches*
Found: he is the same person that sent this to Brandon Wilson.
I almost always remember connections if I have seen it before... ^^

[NETWizz]

I think he has many responsibilities as business manager and protecting copyrights, trademarks, and patents is certainly on the list of his responsibilities. There was one year someone posted some ROM images and we received similar notice. Then an article was posted to TiCalc.org, which referenced us, and we were Slashdot-ed.

All sort of traffic poured in, people were writing us asking for ROM images privately, and they were demanding signing keys... etc. Quite simply, we politely refused ALL requests referring them to our own policies, which do not permit violating any copyrights or breaking any laws. I know this bothers some people, but a DMCA is a legal notice to take down (or respond) to alleged copyright infringement. You will see this all the time on sites like Youtube, where the music/audio is removed.