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For twenty years, TI has been the dominant force in calculator technology for schools. But how did we arrive in this place? How did Texas Instruments manage the supremacy that they now maintain to this day. To answer this question, we actually need to go back to more than 20 years before TI released their first graphing calculator.

In 1967, TI, a business to that point best known for semiconductors and weapons and defense technologies such as radar, created the world's first electronic handlheld calculator. Today, we would call it an "adding machine." It could do arithmetic and output those operations onto a piece of paper. Soon, the folks at Texas Instruments realized people might actually want to get hold of one of these electronic miracles and in 1972, the TI-2500, the world's first commercial calculator was released.

TI became the leader in calculators. In about ten years, Texas Instruments released popular calculator technologies such as programmable calculators and solar calculators. However, as is always the case, technology moved forward at amazing speed, and they weren't thoroughly keeping up. The world's first graphing calculator was not released by Texas Instruments but by Casio, the fx-7000G, in 1985. Soon after, HPHewlett Packard followed with the HP 28C. With two of the "big 3" already having released graphing calculators and Texas Instruments not having a single graphing calculator product in their lineup, they needed a hit product, and fast.

And so, in 1990, Texas Instruments struck back fast and hard with the TI-80. The calculator was popular and over the next few years led to a decision by TI to launch three levels of calculator. The TI-80 was the beginning of their entry level series of calcualtors. A couple of years later, a mid-level line was launched with the TI-85. It was also decided that a high end model could attract buyers, so Texas Instruments launched the TI-92.

Despite a huge head start by their rivals, Texas Instruments gained ground rapidly. While other calculator manufacturers focused on the calculator buyers, at that time mainly college students of engineering, computers, and science, TI took a different approach and focused on educators. They developed resources such as educational activity books, worked with third party manufacturers to develop scientific probes and devices that would interface with their calculators, encouraged textbook writers to include TI graphing calculator activities in their books, and held training conferences for teachers. The approach worked. As the 90's wore on, Texas Instruments began to dominate high school classrooms around the United States and infiltrated foreign markets as well.

And, of course, they upgraded that product line. The TI-80 gave birth to the TI-81, TI-82, TI-83, and TI-84. Each of these calculators added significant upgrades but was fairly similar, so students and teachers could move up without feeling like they had to start over. The TI-85 became the TI-86, but that product line eventually died out as TI shifted focus to their higher end line of calculators, the TI-89 and TI-92. Finally TI added a middle school line of calculators. The TI-80 was simplified for the TI-73 for middle school students.

As the 2000's got underway, TI finally departed from it's tried and true line of TI-80's calculators. In 2007, the TI-Nspire was released. It's a major departure from their storied history, but TI learned it's lesson in the 1980's when it briefly fell behind its rivals. This time instead of being behind the curve, they attempt to stay ahead by releasing the first truly innovative calculator of the 21st century.

For more information, visit Tech Powered Math. There you can learn more about the TI-92.

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