C++ Weekly - Ep 356 - The Python Enabled Calculators of 2022

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[cppweekly]

To address many comments all at once, I need to clarify the point here:

About 13 months ago (relative the the posting of this comment) I had the opportunity to interact with people who live in very remote locations. They have no electricity nor access to running water.

However, they do have a solar panel with 12v backup battery and the ability to charge a USB device, such as a cellphone, and cellular access available to them.

They are interested in learning more computer skills and know that broader education will help them preserve their current way of life while not having to sell their land and move to the city.

So I began investigating ways of helping to make programming more accessible (and if you had watched the linked video from C++ On Sea, you would have gotten this background, but you did not watch the video, so here we are).

A cellphone pre-loaded with a python environment is a possibility. A calculator that's rechargeable is a possibility. A laptop simply does not work in this scenario!

It takes far more effort to set up and maintain a laptop *and* MUCH more power to charge a laptop. So I have completely ruled out that option in my investigations.

[victotronics]

Memory measured in Kb? What's this, a 1980s tribute video? My Atari 1040 had more....

[mobluse]

In Numworks you can copy one program to the clipboard and paste it in a new file. That compensates for it not having "save as".

[ashtum]

With almost 100$ you can buy an android 12 phone with 4gb of ram. What would be the reason for buying a calculator for programing?

[EdouardTavinor]

i learned to program on a casio fx-7000g when i was at school. it only did keystroke programming and had a memory of about 500 key presses. but i programmed it to do all sorts of maths stuff, like poisson distribution and normal distribution and i even wrote tic-tac-toe for it :) i learned what variables are and loops, how to get user input and how to display stuff.

now i'm a professional programmer. i owe a lot of it to my old fx 7000g :)

[overclockedsanic]

Ben Heck took apart one of those calculators and the Python implementation is actually very janky. You basically have a seperate microcontroller running python, and the shell just communicates with that microcontroller over serial.

[PaulMetalhero]

Embedding Python in C++ with pybind11, please Jason!

[numericalcode]

The Casio fx-cg50 color is a great value. It is easy to write an emulator for the calculator plotting functions in pygame so you can write and test all your programs on your computer and just transfer to the calc.

[WouterStudioHD]

I don't understand why this would be more useful than giving a basic laptop to a student? This looks hideous to type on.

[Eugensson]

"TI 83 Premium CE Edition Python" is just a French version of the standard European "TI 84 Plus CE-T Python Edition"

[chololennon]

Fond memories, thanks.
1- For those who miss C in a calculator, you can look for the ancient and lovely CASIO PB-2000C (or PB-1000 if you love BASIC).
2- I still have a CASIO calculator (FX-9700GH), programmed in its own proprietary language which is "on" since 1996 with all my programs from university! ; the menu, keyboard and plastic cover look pretty similar to 4:21, wow, CASIO keeps its soul until today.
3- I am still trying to learn how to use my other calculator, the venerable HP-50g, but I think it's time to move on, I want one of those with Python ;-)

[pentasticboom]

Python is a whitespace formatted language with very long attribute lists in the standard library. So let's stick it on a device with limited inputs and screen space! Also the best thing about those calculators is how long the widely available standardized batteries last, let's trash that too! That'll teach those kids...

[TheBuilder]

Calculators have a place but trying to write code on a calculator is almost impossible, I have a similar issue with parents giving their kids low resource Raspberry Pies and telling them "this is how you learn how to code"

[yash]

9:17 > _"and yes, I did ... buy these calcs just ... to make these videos"_
woah

[mrlithium]

I think you did a good thing here, but its not practical. the main selling point here is getting python for free with a calculator you already own. So pushing for python to be standardized and available in-stock, not only in France, that would be good.
I think there are better $100 devices for portable python if you are going to buy new. I also think the "just a calculator for education" may be outdated. everyone is using phones, tablets or laptops by now (at least US/EU, not sure other countries)

[yash]

20:29 > _"using python as a gateway for teaching programming"_
oh no, please pick Julia language for that. There're plenty of tutorials out there for python, but Julia needs you.

[yash]

4:19 i initially thought it doesn't have any keypad at all, but it has all 26 letters, woah. nice.

[randyhelzerman]

The sad thing about the role that calculators play in our educational culture is this: in order to be acceptable as a calculator, i.e. in order to be used in the class room or on tests, the calculator must be AS HARD AS POSSIBLE to be used as a programming environment.

For example, the keyboard cannot be QUERTY. The faster you are at typing in QUERTY, the slower and more frustrated you are going to be typing on a calculator.

Exam modes, which are enforceable by the teacher, lock out most of what is special about the differences between programmable computers and dumb calculators. The better you are at using your calculator to solve actual problems, the worse you will be using it on tests.

[yash]

1:25 what's c++ on sea now? i only heard of cppcon

[Mutombo]

Great video again as always. thanks

another option for starting to program could be the mobile phone with remix termux installed. it is a Linux distro running on mobile, and offers "all" programming languages you can dream of. c++ python ...