Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Found Calculators? 302
New submitter Covalent writes "I'm a science teacher and have, over the years, accumulated a number of lost graphing calculators (mostly TI-83s). After trying to locate the owners, I have given up and have been loaning them out to students as needed. I want to something more nerd-worthy with them, though. I would feel wrong for selling them. What is the best use for bunch of old calculators?"
Doing the right thing (Score:5, Insightful)
You're loaning them to the needy. Doing good can be nerdy too.
Re:Doing the right thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Mod parent up. You *are* doing the "right thing"(tm)
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Yeah but it sounds like he has TOO MANY graphing calculators. Rather than leave them around to grow old & obsolete, I would save one for a "loaner" in class, and sell the rest on amazon or ebay. Then dump the money into the student council treasury so it can benefit the students. (Alternatively if I'm the type of teacher who spends my Own money to buy school supplies, I'd designate the money for that purpose.)
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Now we know where the calculators go: is this not the very definition of calculator heaven?
Re:Doing the right thing (Score:5, Funny)
No Silicon Heaven? That's preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?
Re:Doing the right thing (Score:5, Funny)
They just derive off into the sin set.
BAM!
Re:Doing the right thing (Score:4, Insightful)
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That is what I was figuring. You are a science teacher. You have a supply of calculators that you can loan, what else do you need to do with them.
I mean if you have a huge inventory of them you can share them with other science teachers to share too.
Ti-83's while useful they are only really good for 11th grade-12th grade students. Once you go to college they normally require the higher end calculators (If they still do so, I would except they may be using Matlab or Maple)
In theory they could go to an unp
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Really helpful - offer them as loaners as well if needed for homework.
You can also erase their memory and enforce their usage during tests and finals, too - no calculators allowed - they will be provided for you.
But loaning them out is the perfect scenario - if you have too many, offer them to the math and science classes so they can have loaners as well.
Depending on the principal, you might be able to have them as sc
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You can also erase their memory and enforce their usage during tests and finals, too - no calculators allowed - they will be provided for you.
"I failed Mr. Smith's final exam because he forced me to use one of his fancy calculators that I don't know how to use, instead of allowing me to use my old four-function one that I have been using all year."
I've seen the result of loaning calculators to students, although not this drastic. I was a TA for a chemistry class and during one quiz a student forgot his calculator. He asked to borrow mine. His: TI. Mine: HP. Seeing '1' as the concentration of hydrogen ions in a buffer solution: priceless. (I.e.
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Ti-83's while useful they are only really good for 11th grade-12th grade students. Once you go to college they normally require the higher end calculators (If they still do so, I would except they may be using Matlab or Maple)
Just graduated last May, B.S. in Comp Sci from Penn State University so I took a fair bit of math and science -- and I can't remember a single math class that _permitted_ calculators in class, let alone _required_ them! As for sciences -- I think you were permitted something like a TI-34 if you REALLY felt better having it (they made a point of stressing that the exams were designed to be done without one), but nothing more advanced than that. Graphing calculators were strictly forbidden. Maybe if you're ge
GOP (Score:5, Funny)
Send one to Paul Ryan - he could do with help with his math
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Do what you're doing! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that loaning them out to needy students is the best possible use for them. Don't change a thing!
Build a (Score:4, Funny)
Beowulf Cluster
how many? (Score:5, Insightful)
I also have a number of graphing calculators. That number being 1. How many is 'a number'! If its a complex or irrational number, your post would be more interesting. Otherwise, apart from some kind of modern art installation, the calculator lending library you already have seems like a good answer.
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If you have more than you regularly lend out, give the rest to a library that will loan out the rest. You'd be surprised what libraries will lend sometimes. Our local library even loans out fishing poles and equipment.
Beowulf Cluster (Score:5, Funny)
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You mean like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mjn98Bs2Cg
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Considering the means of connectivity for a TI-83, the best you can hope for is a bus network.
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Keep loaning them out. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nerd-worthy to me.
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There are plenty of kids out there whose parents won't justify spending $100 on anything educational
I still don't see why anyone would need a $100 calculator. I am a Physics student, even been to an olympiad, so I have probably used a calculator more than most of my peers. However, I had a $20 Sharp from elementary school to university, and my classmates had similar ones. In all this time, I've never needed anything except basic arithmetic, angular/hyperbolic/log/exp functions and the value of pi.
So, what have I been missing all these years?
Re:Keep loaning them out. (Score:4, Interesting)
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If you must have brick and mortar, any pawn shop will have one. Or you could buy a modern grapher like the Casio FX-9750 for $50. TI does run a racket and they offer a vastly inferior product. I have a stack of Casio's and I am amazed at how cheep they are and how much better they do everything vs the same TI-83 that I used in middle school in 1992. I was helping a kid with some simple math assignment the other day and I was shocked at how ridiculous using the TI product was, gave him a $20 Casio FX-115ES f
Re:Keep loaning them out. (Score:4, Interesting)
Your duty is clear: (Score:5, Interesting)
CALCnet [cemetech.net] allows networking of TI-83 and similar calculators with relatively simple external hardware.
With that detail out of the way, you are free to implement a display-wall and/or the most powerful z80 cluster computer in the known universe.
Extra credit, of course, will be awarded if you succeed in writing an xorg driver that can treat an MxN array of networked calculators as a greyscale display of appropriate resolution.
Re:Your duty is clear: (Score:5, Informative)
CALCnet [cemetech.net] allows networking of TI-83 and similar calculators with relatively simple external hardware.
With that detail out of the way, you are free to implement a display-wall and/or the most powerful z80 cluster computer in the known universe.
Extra credit, of course, will be awarded if you succeed in writing an xorg driver that can treat an MxN array of networked calculators as a greyscale display of appropriate resolution.
As the author of that hack, I solidly second that suggestion. We also have a bunch of other calculator hacking projects that might interest you, like case-modding, adding features likes backlights, PS/2 ports, a touchpad, etc. There was the FloppyTunes project ( http://www.cemetech.net/projects/item.php?id=38 [cemetech.net] ) that lets you play music on a floppy drive with a calculator. Since you have so many calculators, though, CALCnet would be fun to play with, and since we're always looking for people to help with a wireless version of CALCnet, that might be something fun. And no one has written a distributed computation system with CALCnet yet!
Before selling or donating .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Loaning is probably OK, but before you donate or otherwise give up possession, check the rules.
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... check with your school policies on handling lost and found crap. I assume these were lost on school property, so the school has a say in their disposition.
I would suggest that even though the school may have a policy, it is the law that has a say.
...
I would suggest that these calculators are not "lost" in the legal sense, but have been "mislaid" in the legal sense.
Under "common law",
Lost = owner dropped the item some place by accident
Mislaid = owner forgot (where) to retrieve the item after setting it down
In all likelihood, the only legal things to do are either (a) return them to where you found them, or (b) deliver them to the police. Option (a)
Re:Mod parent insightful (Score:4, Interesting)
Did I mention it was my last day there as a sub? They didn't fire me; I took my name off their list.
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Keep using them as loaners (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about your school, but in every one of my middle school and high school math classes, students always needed more loaner calculators than they had. (my college banned calculators from math classes, which didn't really hurt since all I took was Calc II).
If you find that students are consistently being responsible and bringing their own, I suggest donating them to another school, so they can get some use from them.
There's not really anything interesting you can do with them - they aren't powerful enough to do anything other than do simple math, or perhaps play a mediocre Wolfenstein clone on (yes, it's real - google "ti-83 doom app"). The displays are shit, the processor is pathetic, and the input mechanism is severely lacking.
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There's not really anything interesting you can do with them - they aren't powerful enough to do anything other than do simple math... The displays are shit, the processor is pathetic, and the input mechanism is severely lacking.
Too bad they can't advance... my android phone is wayyyy more powerful, but for some on-the-fly number crunching, it's hard to beat a calculator with real, physical buttons.
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I am a trifle surprised that nobody seems to have banged out a USB/bluetooth 'calculator keyboard' peripheral(external numpads are a dime a dozen; but I've never seen one with a scientific calculator's complement of operator symbols and things), since building HID devices to spit out whatever keycodes burned into their dinky little processors isn't a wildly expensive process; and would make phone or computer-based calculating a bit more comfortable.
As for dedicated calculators, though, it seems most unlikel
Beowulf Clusters (Score:2)
Beowulf Clusters?
Not because it's effective, but because you can!
Give to the needy and nerdy (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have more calculators than you need for your own lending program, and the other math teachers (if any) at your school are also adequately equipped, then share them with other schools in your area. There's probably a classroom not too far down the road - perhaps across the tracks? - where they don't have a large number of kids carelessly abandoning valuable electronics.
Re:Give to the needy and nerdy (Score:5, Insightful)
Do this. Talk to the math teachers at your school, find out if they've got any poor students that need them. And find out there's any other schools in the area that would have a use for them.
There's lots of single parents and otherwise poor families that can barely scrape together school supplies for their kids, let alone buy the graphic calculator that they would need to get into a precalc or AP math. Something simple like one of these old calculators could turn a kid's life around. Seriously.
Give them to Charities (Score:4, Insightful)
Donate them to local Charities or over seas charities.
The Lend them out program you're doing works well also.
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the TI-83 calculators for Africa foundation! Giving away calculators to people that need clean water. That way they can derive how thirsty they are.
What I usually do... (Score:5, Funny)
Key in 5,318,008, turn the calculator upside down, then smile with fifth grade satisfaction.
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The font is too good on the TI- series calculators. It doesn't look the same as the 7-segment characters.
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latest nerd hipster chic (Score:3)
I dunno, how about checking what the latest nerd hipster chic is at BoingBoing and modifying the calculator accordingly?
Let's see ...
Cover in leather
Paint to look like R2D2
Haunted Mansion theme.
Yeah, no shortage of nerd things to do to old crap.
I'd avoid using tapeworms. But steam punk might still be acceptable in some circles.
A very calculated question... (Score:2)
I'd suggest finding a charity that would provide them to schools in Africa.
Donate them (Score:2)
Do they blend? (Score:2)
We need to know
Bitcoins! (Score:3)
Link them together and use them to mine bitcoins. You might need to pay a few students to type in the numbers, but you will be richly rewarded.
Must be nice (Score:2)
What do you mean there's no silcon heaven? (Score:2)
Where else would all the old calculators go?
Give them to a math professor... (Score:2)
To loan to his students. That's what mine does. And, who wants to spend $100 on a calculator they're only going to need in one class?
Keep on keepin' on (Score:5, Interesting)
Please keep doing what you're doing. I had my graphing calculator stolen in high school, and was not happy about having to shell out the cash for a new one. I had a test later that day that required one, so I went to the head of the department and she reached into a box marked "graduated" and pulled one out. She put every found calculator that came her way into a box labelled with that year. Four years later she moved it into the graduated box, understanding that the student had since left and would not be claiming their lost property. She simply handed me one and said not to worry about it. A decade later I still use it.
Save a bunch (Score:2)
When you have enough, take them down to the calculator store and trade them for a good one that does RPN [wikipedia.org].
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Yeah! RPN forevah!
*hoofbro*
Cluster (Score:2)
A beowulf cluster of these could surely run that japanese AI that's so good at passing math tests. Once your school's test scores rise, the federal government will give you more money. Profit.
keep loaning them out (Score:2)
or give them away to students who need them.
Put on Bubble Bobble (Score:2)
Put on Bubble Bobble 83 [dwedit.org] for some 2P link game action.
Assembly programming (Score:3)
As a matter of objective fact, the nerdiest thing you can do with a TI-83 is to write assembly programs for it on your PC, send them to the calculator through the proprietary* cable (if you've got one) and run them. If you don't have time to do it then maybe you have a student who has time. Challenge your students to write a simple program that draws something on the screen!
*It goes without saying that it would be nerdier if you built your own cable and used that.
They're calculators (Score:2)
Loan them to nerds-to-be (Score:5, Interesting)
A story I've kept for years as inspiration. A hundred points to anyone who can find the source:
One of the best parts of high school was when my math teacher took a spare TI-83 and let me use it exclusively for the whole semester, under specific terms: Do something awesome with it, and he'd let me skip my final.
Three weeks later, I'd written a small text adventure. A few weeks after that, I had a trading game with a complex market. By the end of the year, I had turned that same trading game into a graphical one, where the goal was to sail around the world buying low and selling high. The more money you had, the more likely you were to be attacked, which also took place in stunning 1-bit color graphics. The game's actions were controlled through a menu system, which was also used to launch the game (as opposed to the various tools I'd written to do my homework for me).
He was impressed, and I was inspired. When I started applying to colleges, I finally knew what major I wanted: computer science.
Keep loaning out those calculators. A student might need one, and not even realize it.
Beowulf cluster (Score:2)
Music clip (Score:2)
Create a clip of the song "I'm the operator with my pocket calculator".
Obligatory XKCD (Score:2)
http://xkcd.com/768/ [xkcd.com]
Zilog Z80 (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_Z80
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-83_series
Oh, and keeping them as "loaners" for students who loose theirs or otherwise can't afford one would be awesome too. Times are tough.
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send me a TI-85 ;) (Score:2)
I loaned one out to my cousin and never saw it again. I remember writing games for that thing too... checkers, reversi, hex, nym, etc. fun little basic programming environment with pixel-level graphics. (not too speedy though) So atm I just use my old TI-35 for basic stuff.
More importantly (Score:3)
Oh, and obigatory xkcd [xkcd.com].
round up some cables and robotics geeks (Score:4, Interesting)
http://hackaday.com/tag/ti-83/ [hackaday.com]
http://www.ticalc.org/basics/calculators/index.html [ticalc.org]
http://www.ticalc.org/hardware/cables/serial.html [ticalc.org]
http://education.ti.com/guidebooks/sdk/83p/sdk83pguide.pdf [ti.com]
http://sami.ticalc.org/irlink/e_hard.htm [ticalc.org]
http://smallrobot.bizland.com/Instructions.pdf [bizland.com]
http://www.mathinscience.info/public/mathbots_challenge/mathbot_chall_lesson.htm [mathinscience.info]
http://www.razorrobotics.com/knowledge/?title=TI_Connect [razorrobotics.com]
http://www.free-scientific-calculator.com/texas-instruments-graph-link-connectivity-kit/ [free-scien...ulator.com]
http://blog.makezine.com/2006/02/19/how-to-connect-a-ti83-to/ [makezine.com]
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Informative)
Yup.. It's about the same as if I had asked "I get old computer stuff abandon with me. What should I do with it?" . I give it to people who want or need it.
In other industries, there is a standard 90 day storage.. After that, they can do with it as if it is their own. If it's legally titled stuff (like a car), you have to request a court ordered transfer of ownership. Something like a calculator? If the owner didn't come get it, it's yours.
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When I bought my house I decided to not move all the computer trash I had hanging around my old apartment. I discovered that I had 15 computers I had no use for. I dropped them all, 2 or 3 at a time, next to the dumpster. Each time by the next morning they were gone.
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nobody gets it anymore...you have to say hadoop cluster now.
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
I was on a field trip school field trip(winter) and one immigrant kid was crying he was so cold. I loaned him my oversized gloves and hat that day and gave the principal some high-tech gloves and hat to give to the kid the next day. There is no way that kid is getting a graphing calculator out of his parents.
I ask my kids if any of their classmates need a computer as I often end up with an older computer every few months. Again critical for homework but unaffordable in many homes.
We slashdotters probably look at things like the raspberry pi as a toy for some cool robot project but personally I suspect that one of the biggest impacts they will have will be a small number of industrious kids who make them their home computer and then are able to get ahead educationally.
So to the OP, you have a pile of life changing resources there; so go change some lives.
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They're junk... give them away if you can find someone who wants them.
If he starts giving them to random people they could end up on eBay.
OTOH it seems to me like he already found some people who need them...
Re:Give them away (Score:4, Insightful)
Sell them. You're getting paid about 1/4 of what you're worth. Sell 'em.
You could give them to needy students, each who can't afford one but still has a new Nintendo DS, of you could pocket some cash and take your significant-other out to dinner. If you ever get a night off from grading papers or writing lesson plans.
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Give away?
Sell them. You're getting paid about 1/4 of what you're worth. Sell 'em.
You could give them to needy students, each who can't afford one but still has a new Nintendo DS, of you could pocket some cash and take your significant-other out to dinner. If you ever get a night off from grading papers or writing lesson plans.
Whatever floats your boat...
I gave away a ton of my stuff last week... not because it had no resale value, but just because it's just petty and beneath me to grub around after chump change for it.
I never sell anything... I give it away, or throw it away. I think people who actually take the time to sell their used crap are kind of pathetic, really. Just give it to someone who needs it and get on with your life.
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
All I'm saying is, teachers need to stop using their personal resources in the classroom. As long as they're willing to give things to the students, the school system will continue to encourage them to do so. Let the parents figure out how to provide calculators for their children. That's not the teacher's responsibility.
Your posts are insightful. You don't need to be an asshole.
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
"Nobody poor should ever get to enjoy themselves."
Look, I understand prioroty spending and budgeting, but you have to look at the costs and the humanitarian factor here.
A DS will cost what, $150? Maybe it's a birthday present. I know that a fair number of the families at my kids' school don't get breakfast every day, and at Gift Day time, it gets worse. Why? The families can afford food and clothing to get by, but then when you add in $X for presents, it doesn't work out so well. That's where hampers can come in. They don't have to splurge on the food for the feast, it takes the pressure off the food bill for a couple of weeks, and suddenly they've got a couple hundred for presents.
Maybe the kid's got a paper route and works their butt off to pay their phone bill / buy DS games. I had a paper route when I was a kid.
Now, let's look at the cost of lunches. It's going to run, let's say, $2.50 for a lunch for the kids. If the parents are below the poverty level (which you would if you're making min. wage) that lets you take that $2.50 a day and spend it on other things. Clothes. Bling. That's about 3 months worth of subsidized lunches for a DS. (I know, you're all like "THATS MY TAX MONEY I DONT USE GOVT MONEY AT ALL" when you're drinking EPA-approved water, driving on DOT roads approved by a PE, in a car regulated by the NHTSA, and all while you're protected by the police, fire department, and military. But other than that, no tax dollars, right?)
And bling is fucking important when you're in high school.
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Informative)
$150? That'd be a 3DS. A new DS is $100 from Best Buy. $70 if you get a refurbished one. Go down to GameStop, and you can get a used one for even less. Hit a pawn shop or ebay, and you can go even lower. I'd be willing to bet that Goodwill and similar places have some for sale fairly cheaply as well.
And don't forget, even the poor have relatives. Mom & Dad may be too proud to take money from their parents or siblings, but you can bet the kids won't mind getting a shiny new electronic toy for a birthday or Christmas from their aunt, uncle, or grandparent. And going back to the used bit above, a lot of younger kids get consoles and such as hand-me-downs from an older brother or sister in high school or college... who may have bought it with their own money, from their own job.
My family wasn't poverty-level poor when I was a kid, but we were poor... and quite a few of the nicer toys that I got came from my oldest brother, who went into the Navy right out of high school, and was flush with cash for a few years, until he decided to move off-base.
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Every student in my wife's 2nd grade class qualifies for the free and reduced lunch program, which puts them all at or below the poverty level. And they all seem to have Nintendo DS's.
So all we really need is a graphic calculator cartridge for the DS.
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So all we really need is a graphic calculator cartridge for the DS.
Done, over half a decade ago. http://blog.davr.org/2006/10/15/ds85-release-2/ [davr.org]
You do need a flash cart, though. But those are cheap these days.
Re:Give them away (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets say your company sent you to install some software at a client site, but you have to supply the server. Would you do it? Maybe you would, if you were passionate enough about your job. Would your boss expect it the next time? Oh yeah.
And in regards to the federal level comment, school shouldn't be part of the Federal Government at all. Lets keep the taxes, the revenue, and the expenditure at the local level. Then, if you have a problem with the way schools are run, you can take it up with the county. Unless, that is, you prefer things like No Child Left Behind.
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
It turns on instantly, does what it's supposed to do correctly the same way each time, and turns off instantly. I have a TI-83 on my desk at all times. The user interface can't be beat either.
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it can. See: HP 48GX/SX.
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Yes, 48SX was the best, and 48GX is the best.
And yet, I sold my 48SX to buy some perfume for my girlfriend.
It paid off, she's my wife for the past nearly 20 years!
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Re:Give them away (Score:5, Insightful)
Being Junk is debatable. What matters is they retail for $100 and up, and scores of high school math courses require them. My Algebra II class (in 1998) might as well have been retitled to "How to use your TI-83 calculator" Class tutorials often worked buttonpress by buttonpress. I lost 3 of them over the course of my high school career (two were stolen from my bookbag), and this was certainly no fun for my parents.
Yes, I realize the older models sell for cheap on ebay. I purchased my 3rd this way and still have it (I suspect it was stolen too), but when you've got an assignment due tomorrow, and even if you get an extension from the teacher, you risk falling behind, so you often bite your lip and pay Best Buy prices.
I wish they weren't so expensive. They shouldn't be. With the exception of some tiny crappy memory expansions, they haven't changed in like 20 years, yet the price tag has only gone up. I'd love to see some project like OLPC destroy this monopoly.
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With calculators, appearance is everything. Even small nicks and scratches will knock down the price to a tiny fraction, and because these were both forgotten by careless students and loaned out to others, it's fairly certain that they're not in great or even very good condition, and will lack manuals and boxes.
So they'll be worth very little.
Note: Certain models are rare, and can be worth more. If you have a HP-10C or TI-78 in the collection, you can get good offers, even if not in perfect condition. I
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The fact that schools require their students to purchase these things never ceases to amaze me. Seriously? A highschool requiring $100+ purchases by students for a single class? A university sure, but a highschool should be providing the students with any materials that are required.
Maybe it's because I grew up in a somewhat small university town with high income inequality (so the school district had enough money but a lot of poor students,) but for the few classes where we were actually required to have a
Re:Give them away (Score:5, Interesting)
Any calculator would be fine, TI and ETS would have you believe that anything else would be a cheating device.
That's why they go to such ridiculous lengths to make them difficult to hack (encrypted loaders, secret keys, etc).
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It's interesting and disconcerting people can't figure anything out on their own and feel the need to ask for help online or Google answers. If the OP doesn't know what to do with found calculators yet the OP works in a school where students would benefit from these calculators, I think we're in trouble. Next time I'm sleepy or hungry and don't know what to do about it I'm going to post a /. article and ask everyone.
Perhaps its a matter of "whats the best course of action." He knows how to sell them. He knows how to give them away. He knows how to throw them out. He is looking for an out of the box solution, or third party moral justification for any of these actions.
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It sounded to me like he was less interested in providing them to his students as a "calculator" and more interested in using them for either personal or classroom geeky type things. Things like integrating them into a robotics device.
That said, I personally feel that the best use they could have would be in the hands of a child whose parents cannot afford to purchase a calculator.
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