The hidden monopoly behind your TI graphing calculator

The Verge's podcast Version History explores the long-running market dominance of Texas Instruments' graphing calculators in a new episode. Host David Pierce is joined by Nilay Patel and Victoria Song to trace how TI became the ubiquitous choice for students' back-to-school lists.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished 21 minutes agoUpdated 21 minutes ago0 views

The hidden monopoly behind your TI graphing calculator

Why It Matters

TI's near-monopoly on graphing calculators has shaped classroom tooling for decades and affects what hardware students use for standardized tests and coursework. The episode situates that market story within a broader look at educational technology history featured in Version History's fifth season.

Key Facts

Podcast: Version History (The Verge)
Episode: Second episode of season five
Hosts/guests: David Pierce with Nilay Patel and Victoria Song
Topic: History and dominance of Texas Instruments graphing calculators
Related season theme: Back-to-school / educational technology history

The Verge's Version History podcast examines how Texas Instruments came to dominate the graphing calculator market in its latest episode. Host David Pierce talks with staff writers Nilay Patel and Victoria Song about the models that have appeared on students' school-supply lists since at least the early 2000s and the deeper history of TI's calculator division.

The episode is the second installment of Version History's fifth season, which is focused on back-to-school technology. Earlier in the season the show covered The Oregon Trail’s presence in school computer labs, and upcoming episodes will look at projects and devices such as One Laptop Per Child, Chromebooks, the LeapPad, and the overhead projector.

Listeners are reminded that Verge subscribers can access Version History and other Verge podcasts without advertisements by adjusting their account settings. The episode offers a narrative about how a single company's products became the default in classrooms, situating that story among other episodes that chart technological fixtures of students' academic lives.