One problem with the TI-84 is that even in normal mode, it shows answers with an absolute value less than 0.001 in scientific notation. The problem is if the answer is 0.00045, I want it to show up in my students’ calculators like that and not 4.5e-4. How can I get the TI-84 to display the data like that.*
*If the answer is it can’t because fuck you HP knows what you want to do better than you do then that is a major design flaw in the “standard” calculator.
This might help. Or maybe not.
I don’t think you can really blame HP for problems with your TI-84. But I could be wrong.
I think I can when THEY program it to not show data in normal mode even if the calculator is set to normal mode.
I could be wrong, too, but I don’t think Hewlett Packard had much to do with the Texas Instruments TI-34 calculator, either.
DOH!!!
[tinfoil hat]It’s a conspiracy of all the large electronics companies[/th]
their tentacles reach everywhere.
Are you sure it’s not in Engineering mode? I say this because you say that numbers > 0.001 appear normally.
From what I have read, 0.00045 “shouldn’t” appear as 4.5E-4 in normal (as opposed to scientific or engineering) mode; it should only force scientific mode if the number requires more than 10 digits to display properly.
Also make sure it’s in “float” mode, rather than a fixed number of digits.
On the Ti-84 Plus C Silver Edition (which we just got, so the instructions aren’t lost yet), you push the button <mode>, then can select between normal, sci (scientific) and eng (engineering). You want normal.
OK yes I check to make sure it in NORMAL MODE. Even in NORMAL MODE, the calculator puts answers within 0.001 absolute value in scientific notation even if the calculator is in NORMAL MODE.
Just to clarify, the calculator is in NORMAL MODE when it does this.
So stop telling me to put it in normal mode. That doesn’t answer my question.
I was playing around with ours some more, and I can confirm what Saint Cad is saying (I didn’t have enough zeros earlier). The cutoff is 0.001. In normal mode, numbers 0.001 or higher will display in normal notation. Numbers slightly lower, e.g. 0.0009999999, will display in exponential notation. This happens even if the number of digits is set small enough that it rounds off, displaying 1E-3. Since changing the display mode works correctly for numbers bigger than 0.001, I’d guess there’s no way to make smaller numbers like 0.00099 display that way.
No, the answer is “fuck you, RTFM.” 
Pages 20-22. If you want to see five decimal places, set the Float setting for five decimal places. That may help, or you may get sick of all of your calculations being to five decimal places. You’ll have to try it yourself. My TI-86 is still MIA, I fixed a TI-83 for my daughter then she gave it to a friend, and if you’ll excuse me I will go back to fixing my TI-81, which is the first of most of the TI-8x line.
Well, that went faster than I expected, since it sat in my trunk/boot for five years.
No, “float” is just two letters longer than “fix” without the extra points for using X and without actually working, like it does on Casio calculators. Time to teach the kiddies scientific notation, and if they are too young and ignorant for that a TI-84 is wasted on them, it having been the height of technology in 1996. :rolleyes:
Make 'em use slide rules.
Fuckin’ A. Where will they be when their batteries die?
If I ever find myself teaching high school math, I literally and honestly do intend to require slide rules, at least for a week or two. Even if they’re not practical as a tool, in the age of calculators, they’re still great for teaching things like properties of logarithms and justified precision.
Was ist das? Is it like how the most significant digits are the bigger ones and as you move to the right you should care less and less what they are, but a calculator shows you all of them as if they were equally important? Or is it how, with a slide rule, you need an idea of what the answer should be so you know where to put the decimal point?