TI-Nspire Series - Handhelds

Handhelds

The TI-Nspire series is completely different from the previous versions of the Texas Instruments's calculators. Because TI wanted the calculator to feel more familiar for new users, the TI-Nspire uses a user interface that is more similar to PCs than regular calculators. It also handles documents in a similar way to PCs. The TI-Nspire was the first to be released in two models; a numeric and CAS version. The numeric is slightly similar in features to the TI-84, except with a bigger and higher resolution screen and a full keyboard. The higher resolution screen makes it possible to draw graphs that are more detailed. The feature that the numeric lacks is the ability to solve algebraic equations such as indefinite integrals and derivatives. To fill in the gap of needing an algebraic calculator, Texas Instruments introduced the second model with the name TI-Nspire CAS, where CAS stands for Computer Algebra System. The CAS is designed for college and university students, giving them the feature of calculating many algebraic equations like the Voyage 200 and TI-89, in other words it's a replacement to those models. However, the Nspire does lack part of the ability of programming and installing additional apps that the previous models had, although a limited version of TI-BASIC is supported, along with Lua in later versions. C and assembly are only possible through the jailbreaking program Ndless.

Both the Nspire and Nspire CAS calculators have 16 MB of NAND Flash, 20 MB of SDRAM, and 512 KB of NOR Flash. The NAND Flash contains the operating system and saved documents and is not executable. The SDRAM likely contains an uncompressed version of the OS, and a copy of all active documents. The NOR Flash contains boot instructions for loading the operating system.

The Nspire family does not contain a backup battery (like all previous models) so when a battery is removed, the SDRAM content is deleted, hence the need to load the operating system and file structure from the NAND Flash to the SDRAM, causing a longer loading time.