Stuck solving in Simultaneous Equation Solver

[Boomaga]

This happens to me randomly at the worst times, like during an exam once .

for Nodal analysis in my electronics courses we need to use the simultaneous equation solver for a method called "Nodal Analysis"

sometimes, I have no idea why, it will become stuck in "busy" and not let you turn off or cancel or anything.

but it still knows that you're pressing the 2nd button and the diamond button which show up on the bottom of the screen and disappear when you press them.

a friend told me you had to have it in "exact" mode or else it uses fractions to solve and when you throw in imaginary numbers it takes super long to solve.

she suggested i type in numbers exact like 15.0 or 15.

but even when the numbers are very specific, say to 6 decimal places, it will randomly take super long.

my professor and I entered the exact same numbers into our calculators and mine solved almost instantly, while his became stuck on busy.



anyone with similar problems? possibly solutions? maybe an update...?

[mellamokb]

Hi Boomaga,

That sounds interesting. Can you provide the exact equations you were using? Also, what settings you have on Mode? And what version of the TI-89 OS (can be found under About, F1 -> A)?

You should be able to cancel most calculations by simply pressing the ON key to break. Sometimes if the calculator is performing some sort of internal parsing it won't let you break the process. This can be caused by using "Exact" mode instead of "Auto" mode, which should be faster.

Regards,
~ mellamokb