Version History votes every gadget it covers into or out of a Hall of Fame, and this episode was about the TI-84 graphing calculator. The hosts had spent the hour on how Texas Instruments held the market — lobbying, textbook and exam standardisation, a button layout schools taught to — rather than by improving the machine. This is Patel's vote against it, with the iPhone named as the kind of product that earns forgiveness for bad behaviour.
the deciding vote.
The cosine function. Got it. Nailed it.
I'm going to say no. I just don't know. I don't think you get to monopoly your way into this unless you're monopolying your way with a good product. Like if you have a really good product and then you do a bunch of shady shit, I can get past it. So the iPhone. But if you make this and it's fine and then you essentially don't touch it for 40 years and you spend all of your actual energy on making sure that no one else can defeat you, I don't think you belong in the Hall of Fame. Do
you think the calculator division and TI is just a bunch of lawyers and accountants?
I think there's a strong chance there is no one left in the calculator division at TI. It's
just like. One Mac Mini running claw. That's exactly right. Just ordering stuff.