Recently, my TI-86 died on me. It died not because it stopped being awsome, but cause last week i was walking home in the rain and it got soaked in my backpack. Someone stole my backup 86 at the student union last semester so currently i am calculatorless. I've had it since 9th grade and i still remember that day. This is sort of a eulogy for my 86 that died (that was it's nickname, "86" instead of TI-86. It's just shorter and i think it sounds nicer).

86 was the best for one reason: SIMPLICITY. even tho the 89 has more ram, better cpu, and all that crap…we all know it's for nerds. so what? the 89 can compute your answers in fractions. I say, fractions schmractions. decimals are like the same thing basically. just because the 89 has algebraic manipulations doesn't make you any less of a tard. the 86 has everything you need: polynomials, integers, matrices, log's, trig functions, +, -, *, /, and much much more! and it's really easy to store information for tests and stuff using the upper and lower case numbers and the greek symbols. plus you can put super mario on it! there's even seperate squared and ^ buttons! I have used both the 83 plus and the 89 titanium and let me tell you, they're both really really GAY. the 83 doesn't have greek symbols, it's screen is smaller, it can't do as many functions as the 86, and i'm sure it has less buttons too…or at least it looks that way. Did I mention the gray border on the window just really puts me off. As for the 89…with it's roundish shape and split screen views…it thinks it's the shit! the 89 is like that guy who cuts off the sleeves of his t-shirts to show off "the guns and tribal tat". well you know what? you're not the shit! it takes forever just to do a simple operation. what's with the stupid menu thing when it turns on? what if i'm taking a test and i forget which option is for finding eigenvalues? even for simple algebra theres menu's on top of menu's. If i wanna do log's i have to manually type it. and if i wanna square something i have to write ^2…..GAY.

In conclusion, the ti-86 was the balls and should not have been discontinued. Texas instruments will be recieving a very wordy letter from me.