Re: Backwards advancement...

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Re: Backwards advancement...

At 06:45 PM 8/5/97 -0400, Fox Possession wrote:
>Today I saw the 86, and all hopeful for a great leap in abilities, I got
>it, only to
>be horrified to find that the thing's slower than my trusty 85.  What's
>with TI?

The 86 was never intended to be fast, first of all.  Second of all, it has
the same speed.  You must be running basic programs! That's bad on any
calculator =).  What TI did was exactly what was asked of them: creating a
calculator with much more memory.  However, they changed almost nothing
else, except for built in ASM and a few other things.  Now, when you
compile a basic program, there is ALOT more memory to go through, making it
take longer to compile, but not run.  I'm assuming this is what you meant
by slower.  If you run an ASM program, I am sure you will see a VERY
distinct difference, in that it is not slow at all.

>One would think that with four years of advancing technologies, they
>might
>actually be able to make a calculator faster, just maybe?  All the new
>memory
>is nice, but I never encountered any problems with the memory in my 85;
>I
>kept my programs lean and everything worked out.  If it meant paying ten
>bucks more for a processor that's got a little more oomph than a
>Commodore
>64, I'd gladly pay the money.

If you want something like that, get a palmtop with CE, a calculator is a
calculator.

>I think a future upgrade to the 86
>design
>to bring them up to at least 85 speed wouldn't be too much to ask.

It does have the same speed =). A 6mhz chip, I do believe.

>In
>the age
>of fitting Pentiums into palmtop cases, there's no excuse for having an
>underpowered calculator.

That appears to be what you are looking for in a calculator.  The
difference can easily be seen, maybe you should look into one of these
instead.


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|         Joseph M. Gaffney - gaffney@thethinker.com         |
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|           "Tiocfaidh Ár Lá" / "Our Day Will Come"          |
|  "If Ignorance Is Bliss Then Wipe The Smile Off My Face"   |
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