Ah ok. To be honest, I just am unsure how an Illusiat 1 clone (with at least an Input/Prompt VAR command that doesn't block most of the screen view with a large prompt box or something like the Input command with no arguments on Z80 calcs, and the ability to draw wall graphics) would be feasible. >.<

That said, I realized I didn't fully push the 81 BASIC language to its limits after Illusiat 81 was featured, so who knows? Maybe some unexpected stuff is possible on the Nspire too

You can get around nesting a bit with string and expr abuse, but it's annoying to use normally and would be slow if you made functions; a preprocessor macro works great for it.

Do you mean the ClassPad II? Because I think the topic starter wants some game programmability too, which is a serious issue on the FX-cp400 (extremely slow Basic language compared to Nspire Lua and HP PPL). If you mean the Casio PRIZM (FX-cg10/20), then that has some better programmability (LuaZM, SH4 assembly and C, although all of them can only be done on the computer). The ClassPad II is also very expensive unless you live in Canada.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on February 09, 2014, 11:02:04 pm

Do you mean the ClassPad II? Because I think the topic starter wants some game programmability too, which is a serious issue on the FX-cp400 (extremely slow Basic language compared to Nspire Lua and HP PPL). If you mean the Casio PRIZM (FX-cg10/20), then that has some better programmability (LuaZM, SH4 assembly and C, although all of them can only be done on the computer). The ClassPad II is also very expensive unless you live in Canada.

Time to adapt the old saying.
1990 - 2007: "Death to Casio! Long live TI!"
2007 - 2013: "Death to TI! Long live Casio!"
2013 - now: "Death to Casio! Long live HP!"

It's not really "Death to Casio!"; it's more "Casio, get your stuff together!"

Do you mean the ClassPad II? Because I think the topic starter wants some game programmability too, which is a serious issue on the FX-cp400 (extremely slow Basic language compared to Nspire Lua and HP PPL). If you mean the Casio PRIZM (FX-cg10/20), then that has some better programmability (LuaZM, SH4 assembly and C, although all of them can only be done on the computer). The ClassPad II is also very expensive unless you live in Canada.

I meant the Casio classpad. I have the 330 Plus. The Casio fx CP400 seems to be about the same calculator but with colour display.

Since the OP mentioned he was going to use the calculator for School, this is why I mentioned the Classpad. I think it (if allowed) is the best calculator for school usage - disregarding games and coding. Let me tell why:

____HP Prime__________
From my experience in the PC-emulator and what I've read this product is a little "rough around the edges". It has diffuse error messages. In a situation where your exam results determine the next semesters student financing you can't have your calculator fail on you or be confusing. Adding to this, why no option for multi line editing? A long math expression results in really bad screen area utilization, a thin line - forcing scrolling. The HP 48 had multi line editing, and even an option to let the 1st stack item to show itself on multi lines! This might be a fun coding calculator, but from what I've seen this far, it's not the best school calculator.


______TI-Nspire CX CAS__________
I recently bought this calculator and have given it quite some time to learn it.
Major complaints:
* The user experienced leaves me feeling constrained. Locked in. Not pleasant. Like using windows with a keyboard and bad trackpad and then some (cryptic shortcuts).
* With the 3.6 software the freaking indication (colour) of what is selected is almost invisible against the white background (from a ordinary users viewpoint). Since "show selected text" is also used when you backspace editing math expressions this is very irritating. Doesn't TI bother to test their new software on users?
* Three types of menus in most given situations. doc\/, menu and ctrl-menu. Why not four .... ? ....
* no easy way to view and manage variables
* Requires you to memorize stupid shortcuts (se home/end below + many more) to get around a flawed (?) user interface with any kind of flow. This is so much worse than the TI-89.

Minor complaints:
* too small buttons for +-*/
* ctrl 7 & 1 for home and end, why?
* should have laplace transforms (my exams require "clean" calculator)
* you can't do 1/matrix, only matrix^(-1)...

The best thing I can say of the CX CAS is that it looks good and has a great undo functionality, and it can do multi line editing if you copy paste into notes page.

Having a TI-89 that I really like, I must say that the TI-Nspire CX CAS seems to be the calculators equivalent of Windows 8...

Or you could say the CX CAS is the calculators equivalent of "the teachers pet", it does everything a teacher wants - only to compensate it is far from the brightest "kid" in class....



_____Casio Classpad_____ (I have 330 plus)
* The user experience is positive. My face gets a smile like the one on the plastic cover. If you've got a GUI you should have a good pointing device, and you have that with the pen. Drag to copy. Point to edit etc, everything a smooth flow. Doing a box zoom is one click and then make the box (point drag pen up). I will admit that the GUI can have a "sharp learning curve", but when you get it it is good. Example: I still haven't figured out how to shrink a matrix on the CX CAS. Here you simply mark and backspace unwanted rows/columns.
* Can do multi line editing if you do copy paste into editor window. Start editor, then a main window. Then you can jump and resize between the two rather smooth.
* I haven't seen a (major) bug yet.
* Can do laplace.
* Regarding price fx CP400 is only marginally more expensive than CX CAS and Prime, all can be had for around 130-150 EUR in the EU. The 330 is even cheaper.



So right now I would recommend the Classpad, but who knows, next week I might say get the TI! :-) (But MAN they have to fix the colour of selected text!!)

I found a short unboxing video for those that haven't seen the "colour classpad":

Hi DJ Omnimaga!

The issue with the ClassPad though is the speed. If you run a program and have to wait 6 minutes 40 seconds for your result when the TI-Nspire CAS and HP Prime can do it in a single second or less, there is a serious problem. Also, when I run a program then exit, there is a 30-60 seconds loading before I can even do anything else.

Graphing, on the other hand, isn't that slow, and I love the touchscreen for it. I don't understand why they decided to go with a resistive screen and a stylus, though. We're in 2014, not 1999.

Casio really need to get their act up together and optimize the Basic interpreter. There's no reason why a 50-200 MHz calculator takes 13 times times longer to execute a program than on a 15 MHz one. That said, rewriting the basic interpreter all from scratch would result into a buggy one until they finally found all the bugs, as seen on the new HP calcs.

That said, I and many other people here are kinda biased because Omnimaga is a site almost entirely dedicated to game development and gaming and people here happen to prefer TI-BASIC-like languages, so they'll generally choose the calc which has the fastest one.

Understood. My selection of the Classpad is based on getting the calculator that helps you perform the best on exams, disregarding coding and gaming!

That said, I only own the Classpad I. And from what I see in this video
http://youtu.be/7VppXuhHO_g?t=11m42s
http://youtu.be/7VppXuhHO_g?t=14m5s
the keyboard menus in the Classpad II seems less detailed, and not as good. You can't do as much without flipping betweens submenus.

And the naming: "Math1, Math2..." is far from good.

But they've moved the backspace button to a better place!


The prices I mentioned can be had, also in France, from EU Internet vendors, then adding 10-20 EUR for shipping.

For the Classpad II I guess it would be fair to add an additional 20 EUR for rechargeable batteries and a charger.

Regarding math performance I found a nice video:

http://youtu.be/DHRsvSTGiBc?t=16m15s

integral(e^x^3,x,0,6)

his results: (a selection)
HP Prime <00:00
Casio Classpad II 00:03
TI-89 Ti 00:14

my own results:
TI-89 (std) 00:20
HP 48GX 01:45
Casio Classpad 330 (not+) 00:08
TI-nspire CX CAS <00:01

How fast (MHz) are the Nspires?

It depends. From what I remember, the default speed of the older models is 90 MHz in OS 2.0 or lower and 120 in newer OSes and you can increase it to 150 with Nover. For the color models, I think it's around 150 MHz by default and the max possible is around 226, but some people can use theirs around 246 with no problem.

Aka, "They've gone to plaid!"