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Texas Instruments Monopoly (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by alphanerd4@lemmy.world to c/usauthoritarianism@lemmy.world
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Read the first thing that popped up on DuckDuckGo for me about it To prove I’m not literally just making the concept up. https://bhsblueprint.org/showcase/2024/02/29/tis-calculator-empire-the-unstoppable-ti-84/

But again the point is still as always that I’m pitching a shift in perspective against always giving the benefit of the doubt to massive corporations literally in every aspect of any argument. What if-hear me out- what if, it actually doesn’t matter how Texas Instruments got their monopoly. That whether or not it was done “illegally” or as a natural result of shrewd business practices is ., in fact, deliberately obfuscating the fact that it is a monopoly, that it did come into existence by leveraging its standing as a weapons manufacturer and government partner to dominate a smaller market.
Like that would be the important part or something.

Yeah whatever. I loved Lemmy at first and I’m hoping it’s just the election season but gd this is terminally online. And that’s coming from me

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[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 68 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The linked article is pretty good, but does not match your pictured text. TI didn't develop or own the CPU for the calculators. The Z80 was designed by Zilog. Also there's nothing about bombs in your article to back up that text.

The REAL reason TI dominates the hand calculator market is stated in the article: TI made teaching materials that give student and teacher instructions only about TI calculators.

Thats it really.

[-] jwiggler@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 months ago

Thanks for actually reading the article. Pretty upsetting a mod of this community just posts shit without any factual basis. Especially a person who is "researching American crimes against humanity." Like, c'mon. If you're gonna do "research," you gotta read the article. There are plenty examples of American crimes against humanity that can be backed up by factual evidence. Posting BS just degrades any legitimacy your viewpoints have. Gotta be better.

[-] alphanerd4@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

My sibling in Christ I do world class research but not for the death-to-america sideblog..,

[-] jwiggler@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

You're missing the point.

Why should I believe you? You've misrepresented something once already, and then tried to justify it as a means to change people's perspective. Well, you're not going to change anyone's perspective by posting blatantly inaccurate memes, and then getting caught with your pants down when someone calls you out in the comments.

That shit erodes your credibility, along with that of the rest of us who call out the US and profit-driven companies with actual evidence.

[-] nvermind@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago

Yup, several companies have near-monopolies on microchips at different levels (Intel for CPU, NVidia for GPUs, TSMC for manufacturing) but not really TI. They used to, but pretty much lost it now.

[-] scoutFDT@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago

I don't think Intel has that big of a monopoly if you take the whole CPU chip market. They might have majority PC share but consoles are mostly AMD and most new servers will/probably do move to AMD EPYC. Also ARM dominates the mobile space.

[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

You’re conflating popularity with monopoly. There are many CPU chip manufacturers. A monopoly means that one company has exclusive control over a particular market, preventing other companies from entering said market.

Also, your claim that TSMC is “for manufacturing“ is misleading. They do manufacture semiconductors; which are then used by a multitude of technology companies, which also include Intel and TI.

[-] nvermind@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

Lol, popularity vs monopoly is barely more than a matter of perspective. Google argues they don’t have a monopoly on ad services, they’re just the most popular (the government disagrees).

Every company I listed attempts to stop others from entering the market. TSMC holds the lions share of the market and works hard to keep it that way. They are also one of few foundry’s manucturing the highest end chips. Just because multiple companies use them as a foundry doesn’t mean they aren’t a monopoly over certain segments of the market. (Google is used by literally everyone).

If you’re interested in how the chip market is actually dominated by very few players, check out Chip Wars by Chris Miller.

[-] the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

IIRC TI produces the chips themselves (they're an American electronics powerhouse), but you're right that they didn't design it themselves.

Also, man, that thing has been in use for 48 years. I guess when you have the market under your thumb, you don't need to worry too much about improving your hardware.

[-] Chocrates@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Are they still used? I feel like they should be dead since smart phones Re ubiquitous

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You're solving for the wrong problem with a smartphone. This isn't a question of computational power. Remember these hand calculators are teaching tools for basic and intermediate math. The TI calculators hit that competency threshold decades ago.

The TI calculator has decades of teaching material written for it and known and documented limitations on programmable storage that can be verified cleared by a proctor prior to use by students on tests.

Besides the cost they are nearly ideal for a school and teaching environment.

this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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