I was struggling through algebra
not long after this program came out. I just wasn't
"getting it". I know the phrase is cliched now, but
this program was just so *intuitive* that after a
few days of fiddling I understood almost all the
math I'd ever take right up to 1st semester
calculus on a conceptual level. For me, at least,
seeing things in motion (that nifty little value
slider) made the concepts just click. Once they
were there, the actual mathematical manipulation
was much easier, because I was able to visualize
"they way this should work out". My teachers were
trying to show it on a static chalkboard, and it
just wasn't getting through. I just got my BS in
Physics, and without Graphing Calculator, I doubt
I'd be where I am today.
I'm currently having my ten-year-old brother
play with it like a computer game. He just likes
the shapes for now, but I hope it'll help get the
"I've seen this before" wheels clicking in his head
when the time comes.
Ariane
I always enjoy exploring the mathematical
"sculptures" you have brought to life in your
demos. The OS X version had some delightful
surprises.
My son, by the way, grew up on Graphing
Calculator. When he learned math analysis while a
freshman in high school, he had it on every time he
did homework. He drew pictures for almost every
problem and developed a deep geometrical feeling
for math. Three years later he is now halfway
through our university math program and still in
high school. Your program surely had something to
do with this.
Anonymous university math professor
This is one of the easiest programs for both
students and teachers to use. There are not many
computer mathematics programs that are a "must" for
use in the classroom.
Education News, October, 1998
Graphing Calculator is, in my opinion, one of
the best examples of elegant power and clean user
interface of any application I've seen. It's a true
pleasure to use such an excellent product.
Bruce Horn, creator of the Macintosh
Finder.
If it wasn't for the Mac calculator I know I
would not have passed Calculus. Their only downside
is that I never managed to fit it into my
handbag.
Chrissy Reeves
Your user interface is so natural that if you
aren't looking for it you don't even notice it.
Richard S. Palais, School of
Mathematics, The Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton University
I simply think it is a wonderful program. I do
graphics all the time and graphs all the time in
various programs like Mathematica, but
the playful nature of the your program
makes me do all my exploring in it. One
can try so many things so fast.
Steve Sigur
Graphing Calculator 2.1 is an excellent product.
I have used it for several months and have found it
to be very useful in nearly all areas of
mathematics that involves graphing. I use the
Graphing Calculator as a demonstration tool for my
algebra and trigonometry classes.
Students are always coming in during
lunch to use the application to explore
ideas touched upon in class. (I can't wait to get a
lab full of Power Macs.)
Mark Woodward, Del City High School,
Oklahoma.
Thanks again for a product which even in version
1 left me, as a mathematics professor, ready to
order a new computer in order to own it, and which
has been much improved in functionality while
maintaining its elegance in version 2.1.
Tim McLarnan, Associate Professor of
Mathematics.
Your Graphing Calculator program is the best
I've ever seen for combining ease of use, fast and
powerful two- and three-dimensional
visualization,and visceral symbolic algebra. Anyone
who goes through your well-thought-out demo should
be hooked for life. The way it does symbol
manipulation is something I've dreamed about having
for some time, but the reality is even better than
the dream!
I see Graphing Calculator as a program which
grows with the student. Kids should be exposed to
it in early algebra and use it seriously for
graphing equations and symbol manipulation. It
should really help folks graphing and understanding
functions in pre-calculus and calculus. On a more
advanced level, it will have use in differential
equations and will be great for visualizing and
understanding several variable calculus.
Just three years ago I slaved for a summer
making a web page of QuickTime movies of
interesting functions. With your program students
can do this in real time, and then explore by
easily changing parameters and functions.
Gene Klotz, Professor of
Mathematics, Swarthmore College and Director, The
Math Forum.
We have found the Graphing Calculator to be an
invaluable tool. It has become an indispensable
part of our arsenal used in our work for generating
factory fpu validation and verification screens and
carrying out performance studies of our underlying
numerics engine.
Ali Sazegari, Ph.D., Technical Lead,
Apple Numerics Group.
I wanted to share with you another use the
preloaded Graphing Calculator served us as Apple
resellers. Apart from a visually stunning demo to
run on computers in the showroom, you would often
find it running in the workshop as our service guys
found it a great "real world" test to run on
hardware in for repair.
Sometimes we would get in a computer from a
customer that had some random reported fault or
another, yet would pass all the hardware test
software we had from Apple. Running Graphing
Calculator in demo mode became a "unofficial" yet
very meaningful test in these situations as we
could just leave it to run and see what happened.
If we came back later and the computer had
frozen or crashed, suspect parts would be swapped
out and then the test rerun. This would be
repeated until the demo ran for several hours
without freezing.
Tristan Peemoeller, Senior Sales
Evangelist
