New TI68K AMS functions may break old programs

AMS 3.10 for the TI68K calculators (Voyage 200, TI-89 Titanium, etc) includes some new functions, most of dubious value. One particular dubious function, root(), caused one of my old programs to break. I had ported a polynomial root finder, polyroot(), using Laguerre's method, and it included a local function called root(). polyroot() ran fine under AMS 3.10 until I unarchived it and edited it a bit. This caused the "missing (" error after the Local declaration. Obviously, the built-in root() conflicted with my local root().

The solution is obvious: don't use built-in function or system variable names as locals in TI Basic programs. An even better policy is to avoid names which may become functions in future AMS releases. I renamed root() to root1(), and all was well.

Finn flings faulty phone farthest, finishes first

This short article at the Register is sort of funny, but, mainly, I liked my headline better.

Clever solution to a particular cubic equation

This forum thread at the Museum of HP Calculators shows a short expression to find, quite quickly, one root of the cubic x^3 + 3x - A = 0, for any 'A'. The author, Valentin Albillo, occasionally posts math 'mini challenges' to be solved on vintage HP calculators with limited resources. His solution descriptions are most often interesting and informative.