Texas Instruments Corporation

Floyd R Gerwig

Todd D Fortenberry

David Ross Stoutemyer

Tom M Ferrio

The present invention discloses the use of a hand-held calculator programmed to teach subject matter such as mathematics in a manner that emulates traditional step-by-step teacher-student teaching methods and shows the important intermediate steps. The method evaluates a selected problem against a master set of possible operations, organized according to a hierarchy that can be applied to the problem and then provides choices of several operations that are applicable or can operate on a selected problem. Importantly, the choices available to the student will not always lead to a solution or simplification of the problem. This allows the student to see the effect of a good choice, as well as a poor choice. If the problem can be operated on further, the results of the previous operations have a new problem or expression to be solved. This repetitive process continues until there are no further operations possible that will move the problem closer to a final solution.

Use of a directed acyclic organization structure for selection and execution of consistent subsets of rewrite rules

A data processing apparatus capable of operating in a plurality of modes includes a technique for automatically determining the proper mode from user inputs. This invention is most applicable to small hand held or desk top data processing apparatuses which operate in one mode like a calculator and which include provisions for entering, editing and running computer programs in a higher order language. User inputs, such as those from an ordinary keyboard, are stored in an input buffer memory until an end-of-entry key is actuated. Depending upon the nature of the end-of-entry key and the particular set of keyboard entries stored in the input buffer memory, the apparatus automatically determines the required mode for processing the data in the input buffer, enters that selected mode and peforms the function required by the input characters.

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Plano, TX, United States of America

Floyd R Gerwig