Today I Learned

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Destroy TI's walled garden!

I love websites like this.

True randomness is really really hard to do in software; bigger CPUs often have hardware random number generators that exploit some sort of quantum or otherwise non-determanistic phenomena, but in software the best you can do is pseudo-random. These are algorithms that generate a sequence of randomly distributed numbers, but in a deterministic way - from a given starting state, it will always generate the same sequence of numbers. Good algorithms are designed to make it hard to infer the starting state just by observing the sequence (if you can do that, you can run the algorithm in parallel and predict the next number), but that's an active area of research.

At a guess, the calculator was programmed to initialise the random number generator from something that it is hard for the user to control (milliseconds since power on would be a good one) the first time you used it, but maybe TI got lazy and just initialised it to a constant value

You need to set the seed number.

They're passed down as heirlooms now, like slide rules before them.

fun fact: there are graphing calculator emulators, even modern tinspire cx and cx2 models can be emulated (firebird emu) (as well as ti 83/84 etc, although obviously a different emulator is used for those models)

Schools own them a lot of the time

Here I think using GeoGebra is the norm now for graphing needs.

They aren't allowed anymore where I live. Only basic calculators now

Yes

Some kid in middle school put mario on my TI-83. The buttons were not ergonomic at all, but it was cool. I also wrote my first ever script on the thing; it solved the quadratic equation.

I have fruit ninja on my ti-83. You swipe across the buttons to slice. It's surprisingly not as awful as you'd expect

The TI-92 wasn’t allowed on standardized tests due to the qwerty keyboard layout making it be classified as a computer device in the US. The TI-89 has the same CAS functionality as a TI-92 Plus, but in a standardized test approved physical form factor.

what's the point of a dedicated piece of hardware that's generally inferior?

Focus/concentration, kinda like how George R R Martin writes on an old DOS computer to eliminate distractions while writing (bad example for expediting work, I know). Still requires you to do a lot of the heavy lifting, which instills knowledge for the future.

There's also an element of trust; schools generally trust Texas Instruments that their products do math correctly (you'd be surprised how many calculators don't), the same cannot be said for MegaPower Graphing Calculator Pro (Ad-Free Premium) off of the Play Store.

What do you mean generally inferior?

It has physical buttons, no distractions, and the batteries last forever compared to a phone.

I use a calculator at work, i could use the one in my phone. I like using my calculator though.

Inferior hardware doesn't mean inferior performance. Phones do much more than calculators, and calculators just calculate.

Pacemaker hardware is a million times less powerful than mobile phone hardware. But I trust it more to keep the heart going.

taking tests

I have an HP prime I use at home and work. I also have the app that is identical on my phone, but I am much faster with the physical buttons on the actual calculator. Before I had my HP prime I had a TI 84+ silver and a TI 84+ emulator on my phone with similar experiences.

Yeah and I bet that sucked

Because that would have eaten into their price gouging. In the age of the iPhone, Texas Instruments was able to charge upwards of $100 for a Zilog Z80 powered nothing machine because they're quasi mandatory for high school and college students.