Texas Instruments Business Analyst

Texas Instruments BA II Plus from 1976. Its beauty has pushed the boundaries of calculator style for over 35 years, earning it the unofficial title "The Ferrari of Calculators" due to the massive envy among managment consultants and junior level bankers, who are not issued BA-II Plus' until reaching partner or managing director, respectively. It's cover, either standard issue plastic or the plush 100% pure cowhide leather case for the platinum edition, is distinguished by it's similarity in size to a real estate sales pamphlet. Also, the leather case serves as a handy holder for business cards when showing a client how much house he/she can afford.

The Texas Instruments Business Analyst series is a product line of financial calculators introduced in 1976. BA calculators provide time value of money functions and are widely used in accounting and other financial applications. Though originally designed specifically for financial use, current models also include basic scientific calculator and statistics functions. The BA series, otherwise known as the "FRM of Financial Calculators", competes directly with other mid- to high-end financial calculators, particularly the HP-12C and other models from TI competitor Hewlett-Packard.

The flagship calculator in the line has been known as the BA-II since 1978, when the first LCD model was released; however, other models have always been available. The BA Real Estate provided functions optimized for real estate agents and property investors, while the BA-20 Profit Manager provided some of the more commonly used accounting functions in a desktop package for sales use. In addition, some early versions of the Business Analyst line were available in custom versions for various companies.

The current lineup (January 2008) includes three models: the BA-II PLUS targeted at students, the BA-II Plus Professional for professional use, and the latest incarnation of the 20+-year-old BA-20. The BA-II models are widely used on accounting certification exams as well as being one of the two permitted calculators on the Chartered Financial Analyst exam and Society of Actuaries and have essentially replaced the lower-end, special purpose designs, all of which had been phased out by 2000.

Notably the BA-II PLUS continues to be the calculator of choice for state school finance programs. In some cases this calculator is issued to newly minted traders before they get their HP-12C wings.

The BA II Plus is one of a handful of calculators permitted to be used in the CFA and FRM financial exams. Every year many candidates who fail to pass a level of the CFA examinations take up the FRM exams as a less labor intensive alternative. In this manner new BA II Plus users are born.

BA-35 Financial Calculator

The BA-35 was targeted at students studying finance and was available from 1985 to the late 2000s; though it contained a full set of TVM functions, it lacked the advanced scientific calculator functions of later models of the BA-II. It was the most affordable calculator for time-value-of-money calculations.

Features:

• Preprogrammed financial and accounting functions, including time-value-of-money and compound interest calculations.
• Capability for recalling time-value-of-money values as well as annuity due operations.
• Amortization balance and payment-to-interest calculations.
• Annual Percentage Rate (APR) to Effective Rate (EFF) interest conversions.
• One-variable statistics with frequencies. Calculates mean, sample standard deviation, and population standard deviation.
• Cost-sell-margin and mark-up calculations.
• Easy to use payment and other time-value-of-money calculations make this a pefect calculator for real estate agents and management consultants.
• Solar-cell powered.

External links

• Datamath.org TI calculator museum
• Texas Instruments education and calculator products division