TI-Nspire, TI-Nspire CAS, early Prototype

[Joerg Woerner]

Yesterday I received two different TI-Nspire CAS calculators and found some astonishing details:

1) The TI-Nspire and TI-Nspire CAS are COMPLETELY different!
Internal pics of them are on the Datamath.org website

2) The prototype of the TI-Nspire CAS, manufactured in 2006,
made use of the Texas Instruments OMAP processor instead
the later LSI LOGIC ASIC!

Regards,
Joerg

[Tim Wessman]

Wow. Only thing I can imagine is that they wanted to make it impossible to put the ROM from one into the other. If I understand correctly, one doesn't have symbolic calculations. Since we all know software locks can always be defeated. . . maybe separate HW was their solution? Concerns about test cheating?

Either that or all new units will use the same more recent HW.

TW

Edited: 25 July 2007, 11:02 a.m.

[Dave Boyd]

Quote:

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Either that or all new units will use the same more recent HW.

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I haven't seen the NSpire up close yet, but for what it's worth, I don't think so. There appear (from the TI web-site) to be other physical and software differences, for instance the CAS version does not have the provision for the swappable TI-84-style keyboard, and therefore the internal software probably dispenses with the compatibility code to emulate the 84. (It also appeared to me that the keyboard swap feature was also used as a battery compartment cover for the non-CAS version -- I don't know what the CAS version uses. Maybe access from the back?)

[Joerg Woerner]

You are right - the TI-Nspire CAS has battery access from the back of the calculator.
Lots of pics here:
http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/NSpire_CAS.htm
I just compared all components, the basic chips are identical between the production versions of the Nspire and Nspire CAS.

Regards,
Joerg