Monckton has responded to Abraham. It’s long, long, long!
I sent Abraham three questions. They are
- Do you plan to respond to Monckton’s “Response to John Abraham”?
- I notice your presentation is still hosted on U of St. Thomas’s server here. Has the University Administration exerted any pressure to persuade you to remove it?
- What is your answer to Monckton’s question 466?
Unfortunately, I received an out of the office response. Dang!
For those of you wondering, question 466, it’s this is:
Will you, therefore, now be good enough to take down your talk from whatever public places it has reached; to pay $10,000 to the United States Association of the Order of Malta for its charitable work in Haiti; to ensure that your University, which failed upon my request to have your talk taken off its servers at once, pays $100,000 to the same charity for the same purpose; and publicly to disseminate a written apology and retraction substantially in the following terms:
“The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
“We, St. Thomas University, Minnesota, and John Abraham of that University, retract, apologize to Lord Monckton for, and undertake never again to repeat all or any part of, the 83-minute talk with 115 slides entitled “But Chris Monckton Said …”, that we prepared without notification to him and then widely disseminated via the University’s servers and other media. “We have agreed that, in token of our good faith, by 30 June 2010 without fail we shall have paid between us US$110,000 to the United States Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta for its charitable work in the reconstruction and relief of Haiti.”
I noticed University of St. Thomas has not take down the presentation. I suspect no one will send any checks to the United States Association of the Order of Malta and no letter of apology has been written. I wonder what happens next?
Update(9:56 pm): Abraham’s is on vacation. I sent him the pdf and questions. He couldn’t read the whole pdf, but I told him it appeared to be a letter Monckton has previously sent him. Abraham replied:
Written by lucia.Lucia,
on June 10 he sent me this document. It sounds like he hasn’t changed it since then. My reply is that I continue to stand by my work, I invite people to view it and come to their own conclusions. Finally, my university has not asked me to remove the presentation. How is that for a reply?
Texas Instruments Voyage 200 Calculator Description:
MODEL- TIVOYAGE200 VENDOR- TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
FEATURES- Voyage200 Personal Learning Tool
Combines the functionality of the TI92PLUS with the added benefit of
3x more Flash ROM memory and improved interface. Complete with a
built-in QWERTY keyboard a Computer Algebra System (CAS) and
“Pretty Print” which shows mathematical expressions the way they
are traditionally written.
Voyage200 has 8 pre-loaded software applications including the
Geometers Sketchpad Cabri Geometry and more!
MANUFACTURER WARRANTY: .
- Brand: Texas Instruments
- Model: voyage 200
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.30″ h x 7.40″ w x 4.90″ l, .86 pounds
Features
- QWERTY keyboard for typing
- Large easy-to-ready 128 x 240 pixel LCD
- Preloaded with popular applications, including The Geometer’s Sketchpad
- Accepts StudyCards for history, foreign language, English, and more
- Numeric and symbolic equations; factor, solve, differentiate, integrate
Customer Reviews:
Astonishingly powerful, but awful documentation
The actual calculator itself is stunningly powerful. It is faster than the TI-92, the full keyboard makes it easier to work with than the TI-89, and the ability to solve, factor, work with imaginary numbers, give exact answers, as well as do all of these things symbolically, plus the amazing applications included (a version of Geometer’s sketchpad!), make this the best calculator made by TI.
Just beware that some standardized tests and some teachers will not let you use this calculator.
The biggest drawback is the documentation that is supposed to help you utilize the power of this calculator. There really isn’t any. There’s a short manual that’s included in the box, but it only gives you the broad overview of how to put the batteries in and how to turn it on and off.
To find any information on how to, say, type something in that you want to factor, you have to load up the cd-rom, and hunt around on that thing to find the information you want.
Why don’t they include all of this documentation along with the calculator in an actual book form? (Okay, so I know the answer to that – it saves money for them.)
It’s a huge hassle – if I’m at class, or work and want to be able to use some function, I have to wait to figure it out until I can get home and load up the cd-rom, find the right page, etc….not to mention that the documentation on the CD-rom isn’t that helpful either. There’s lots of discussion of stuff, but it is very hard to understand.
A great calculator, but awful documentation that makes learning how to use all of its powerful functions frustrating and annoying.
Powerful little beast
Plain and simple, I love calculators. Yes, I have both Matlab and Mathematica running on my multiprocessor workstation but calculators have always had a special place in my heart. Since high school, I’ve firmly been in the HP camp and like many, I think the HP41C remains one of the finest calculators ever made. But the HP legacy started its sad decline with the 28C and the bottom fell out with the HP48G, perhaps the worst calculator HP has ever made. (It literally can take seconds to add two numbers… what could they have been thinking?)
All of that being said, I decided to venture into the TI camp, if only because they still take calculators seriously. I was dubious, however, because their machines seem designed for high school students rather than professional scientists/engineers, and this is reflected in the lack of high-end software packages available for them. Nonetheless, I don’t think since the HP41 line have any calculators attracted so much interest or had so large a community built around them as have the recent TIs.
The Voyage 200 is something of a tour de force. It is based on the Motorola 68000, the same processor found in the original Macintosh and many other popular computers. It is programmable both in TI Basic and in 68000 assembly, the latter of which has lead to a rather impressive library of available games and applications that all run amazingly quickly given their platform. This whole software world is somewhat muddled by the fact that TI has released a series of operating system upgrades and patches for this calculator and wading the compatibility waters is very confusing for the uninitiated. (For example, for HP aficianados, it is quite possible to run an extremely well done RPN interface on this calculator, but it requires that you find & download both the RPN assembly program and HW2 AMS 2 TSR support (h220xTSR) if you’re using the latest version of the operating system, AMS 2.09. When was the last time you worried about what operating system your calculator was running??)
Another troublesome point about this calculator is the documentation is shockingly bad. Really, it is just plain awful. It comes with a thin, almost useless manual, and you’ll have to read through 20+ pages just to find out how to add 1+1. Haven’t they ever heard of a “getting started quickly” guide? There are several hundred pages of manuals on CD and on the web, but in general, there are written very poorly indeed. Coming from the world of professionally written documentation for systems like Mathematica and Matlab, I realize just how lucky we are that those companies take documentation very seriously and write far simpler manuals for much more complex systems.
All in all, however, I think the Voyage 200 is the best thing going in the calculator world today. It’s wonderful to once again have a calculator whose capabilities are as much fun to discover as it is to use. I doubt I’ll ever find time for assembly programming on this beast, but it warms my heart to know that I could.
The Voyage 200 is a Ti-89 made difficult
My first graphing calculator was a TI-83 Plus. What a fantastic calculator! Its ease of use is a real credit to its designers. The TI-89 is more difficult to use than the TI-83, but its not too unnecessarily hard, especially considering its advanced features.
The Voyage 200, however, is a real pain in the you know what. Not only is the Voyage absent a printed manual–this may be the new cost-cutting norm for TI products–but the electronic copy is hard to use. Instead of putting all the main information in one manual like the TI-83, the Voyage 200 design team spread its manual out across 28 individual PDF files, making it nearly impossible to print out a hard copy for reference when you’re away from your PC. TI could argue that it was necessary considering the large volume of information, but after perusing the PDFs–replete with numerous examples of duplicated information–I’m sure it was really about a large lack of effort.
With that scolding of the manual designers out of the way, let me say that the features of this calculator are really quite good. When it comes to graphing calculators, TI really does make the best. If you are considering the most powerful graphing calculator on the market right now, it would come down to the TI-89 or this TI Voyage 200. The Voyage 200 is suppossed to be backwards compatible with the TI-89, but I’ve already found programs that run fine on the 89 but won’t run on the 200–I can’t understand why since they both use the same Motorola 68000 processor. Personally, if I had it do over again, I’d probably pick the TI-89 because its more traditionally styled case is less conspicuous, its features are easier to use, and it’s manual is better written and available in hard copy. But if you want a tiny built-in QWERTY keyboard, a slightly bigger screen, more flash memory, and are not bothered by difficult documentation, then the Voyage 200 is probably your best choice.
From the Manufacturer
The Voyage 200 let you easily customize your handheld by adding new functions through software applications. The Computer Algebra System (CAS) enables you to manipulate mathematical expressions and functions (factor, solve, differentiate, integrate) and easily evaluate mathematical expressions symbolically or numerically.
Differential-equation features let you compute exact symbolic solutions to many 1st- and 2nd-order ordinary differential equations. Solve single differential equations or systems of them using Euler or Runga Kutta methods, and graph slope fields and direction fields. Pretty Print allows mathematical expressions to appear on the display the same way they look on a blackboard or in a textbook.
With the StudyCards App your TI-89 or Voyage 200 can be used for almost all classes: history, foreign languages, English, math, and others. The easy-to-use PC software allows you to create StudyCards for specific subjects and topics. Review topics between classes, on the bus, and at home, with the press of a button.
Tags: B00006D2Q1, Buy Texas Instruments Voyage 200 Calculator At Amazon!, Electronics, Texas Instruments Voyage 200 Calculator
