If you don’t have a computer around, or a pda, the next best thing is the Ti-89 graphing calculator manufactured by Texas Instruments. I bought my Ti-89 at Target for about $130 during September of 2002. It was worth the investment. The Ti-89 can do just about anything! There is the built in programming language, the Ti-GCC C language, and ASM programming support on it’s processor. It has voliate and flash memory built in (around 700kb total though) for storing things and support for transferring files from one calculator to another or to and from your computer.
The best thing about this calculator is it’s program support. Ti Calc is a program archive site for the Ti=89. There are programs written for everything! You can read e-books on the Ti-89, play chess, play 3d shooters, zelda, final fantasy, super mario (nintendo and game boy), breakout, pac man, asteriods, and just about anything you can think of. It can even play sounds (through headphones). Damn, it’s just so awesome. There is even a matrix screen saver for it! If there is ever a calculator to get, it has to be the Ti-89 hands down. Humanity wouldn’t survive without it.
The picture to the top is a scan of my own Ti-89. It’s a hardware version 2 with AMS 2.07 currently loaded. I had 2.08, but it had bad support of many applications, so I downgraded. On the screen is TICT’s ebook reader with Aleph1’s Smashing the Stack. I created an ebook of Smashing the Stack so I could read it in school.