What is your favorite calculator?

[CraigD]

In post #109 of “Riddles”, Jay-qu asks an interesting question

what kind of calculators do you guys use?

My answer is so long, I feel the need for a new thread just to contain it. :doh:

 

:) Keeping it short, however, my current calculators of choice are both ones I wrote myself:

• On my windows PC, a couple written in the M programming language, one with 32767 significant digits and another with about 16000000. I mostly use it in programs, but sometimes directly from the language’s command line.
  
• On my PalmOS handheld, one written in Hotpaws basic, with a measly 127 significant digits. My usual interface to it is as an RPN calculator acting on the contents of the clipboard.

In Post #4 or “Topic for seminar” coldhead introduced a elegant language, Ruby, a full programming language that features a built-in arbitrary precision calculator. The most simple interface to it is the command line, eg:

C:>ruby -e "print (9**9)**9"
196627050475552913618075908526912116283103450944214766927315415537966391196809

;) With all the number-crunchers at scienceforums, I’m sure many of us have favorite homemade, public, commercial, or built-in calculators on an number of platforms. So, everyone, what is your favorite calculator? And Why?

[C1ay]

On my desk I keep a simple TI-25X. On my Palm I use EasyCalc. On my PCs I use a KASH/KANT math shell when the OS calculator doesn't suffice. Sometimes I will also just write a custom program to solve a particular problem.

[UncleAl]

HP-35. Don't gild the lily unless you really need a gold-plated flower.

[alexander]

bc, python or ti92+ if you need a hand held one, cuz you can run gcc on it ;)

[Jay-qu]

I like my TI-83, it does all I need it to - with some extras that im slowly getting the hang of. The only thing was that it only has up to 100 digit numbers - not that I need any higher, but just for stuffing arounds sake it would be good

[CraigD]

With 4 replies after 45 hours, this tread has fallen well short of my expectations. I’ve seem a more spirited response to the “what’s you favorite calculator” at a croquette tournament! (yes, an actual croquette tournament)

 

I’ll make a desperate attempt to salvage it. Alternate topic:

 

What are the features of the perfect calculator? Does such a calculator exist?

 

Here’s my short list of features

• Arbitrary precision. Number of significant digits limited only by available memory, and Gibibytes of that.
  
• Lots of forms of numeric representation: exact integer, rational, real and complex numbers in terms of rationals to rational powers and as many of the important transcendental numbers as possible.
  
• Flabbergasting speed. Likely achieved through some sort of massively parallel architecture along the lines of a Raw chip array
  
• A Self contained, portable, USB device. A small display, keyboard, and battery, but stick it into a USB port and have a pretty application interface, as well as enabling high-number-crunching applications that support it.
  

And my short answer to “does it exist?”: I’m pretty sure not yet.

[Turtle]

I have paper & pencils, a $20 Casio 99 Function portable, the Windows Calculator on this machine, & an antique Borland Turbo Basic. After you all stop laughing yourselves sick & spewing your drink of choice out your nose holes, here is what I wish for that doesn't exist. Huge integers within my reach but beyond my grasp & voice interface - both input & optional output -, large visual display so I don't need a spectacle, & storage for long lists of those integers. :rolleyes:

[CraigD]

I have paper & pencils, a $20 Casio 99 Function portable, the Windows Calculator on this machine, & an antique Borland Turbo Basic.

You also, I have observed, have a scanner, which greatly enhances the expressive power of your paper & pencils!

… here is what I wish for that doesn't exist. Huge integers within my reach but beyond my grasp

For your occasional huge integer needs, you might find Ruby useful. It’s freeware, small (about 5MB of essentials, 35MB of frills), and can be used right from the DOS/Windows/Unix command line, but is pretty slow, and without using programming statements, has only the basic math functions. This “getting started” link tells all one need to know to install and use it for simple calculations.

 

:rolleyes: Maybe somebody knows of a smaller, faster arbitrary precision calculator?

[Buffy]

Alexander will hate me. My only calculators are Excel, the built-in one in windows that pops up from the function key on my keyboard, and the free ones I get as handouts at tradeshows. Half the time if its an interesting problem that has a process in it, I'll write a c++ program.

 

Long ago I had a long string of HPs, (enter > =), but I really don't need them...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[GAHD]

My favorite calculator? Texas instuments Ti84p. Sweet.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

My favorite calculator doesn't exist. :rolleyes: let's design one!

lol. You're going to think that I'm being facetious here. I'm not. I'm dead serious.

I want my calculator to show me the theory behind a formula. I want it to connect to a teaching system that can give me a course in say, the mathematics behind orbital mechanics or how to take the first / second derivative of a function.

I'm older. I hate tools that assume one has the eyesight of an eagle, i.e. a calculator the size of a postage stamp (hey look what we can do! we can make it fit on a gnat's butt!). Uh, yeah, but who can use it?

So, it has to be easy to use.

I'm a big guy so I really, really hate tiny buttons and even tinier words describing those tiny buttons. I'd like to think up an appropriate means of imparting the frustration I feel with poorly designed tools to the idiots that design the human interface for those tools. Something commensurately painful I think.

So right there I've limited the size of the calculator to something 'not small'.

But why stop there? I want my calculator to provide me with Scott Joplin every once in a while or Chopin but only when I'm not on the phone or talking to someone else. So it needs to control my speakers too. And therefore I want it to be aware of what I'm doing. Conversely, I want it to NOT let my phone ring when I'm listening to Scott Joplin. So, it has to control my phone too.

In addition, do you think we could make it change the position of my chair? Make it move to different positions over a period of time based upon some sort of understanding of what the term 'comfort' means? From standing to laying flat on my back. And while we're at it, I want it to give me a back massage or a leg massage when it detects that I am not doing anything requiring deep focus.

Anyone know of something like that out there? :hihi:

Steve

[alexander]

Buffy, i dont hate you just because you make poor program choices such as excell as a calculator.

But here is what you could, if you had time, improve, maybe, if you added some more functionality to bc, that can become the most powerful calculator period :rolleyes:

bc is capable of handling numbers with a few dozen thousand digits, I've proven its power by raising 123456789 to the power of itself.

 

As to programming, if i need a quick calculation of some kind of a weird function, i'll use Python scripting interface. if i need a program that might be recursive in nature such as a program that would prime factor just about any number, I'll use C++. Oh, if i need a program that would generate a list of primes from 2 to 10,000,000 in a little over a second (but definitely under 2), i will also use c++, or if there is base shifting like transforming a base 10 number to a base 2, I could do in about 4-6 lines of C++ code as well, but for anything else there is BC or Python depending on mood.

 

As to hand held calculators I dont have bu am planning to get a TI 93+ so i can setup gcc on it and not have to deal with terrible ti basic (which i have a lot of experience with, especially on TI 83s(yup i used to write programs to compute whatever it is we needed to compute in my math classes, so i never had to think on tests) or even worse, assembly (limited experience due to its horribleness as a language)...

 

And steve, yes there is a device that can do just that and a lot more, here is what you need:

a desktop computer or better yet a server with a ups and a controller board and a couple of perl scripts at home, and a hend-held Zaurus PDA that you can install BC on, and a TI emulator, yet at the same time you could order a wireless card for it and run a few more scripts to connect to your home network and a gui interface to all your house devices and controllers... (Ofcourse none of this is quite possible with windows, hence the Sharp's Zaurus PDA and Perl)

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Alexander:

And steve, yes there is a device that can do just that and a lot more, here is what you need:

a desktop computer or better yet a server with a ups and a controller board and a couple of perl scripts at home, and a hend-held Zaurus PDA that you can install BC on, and a TI emulator, yet at the same time you could order a wireless card for it and run a few more scripts to connect to your home network and a gui interface to all your house devices and controllers... (Ofcourse none of this is quite possible with windows, hence the Sharp's Zaurus PDA and Perl)

:rolleyes: I'll get right on it.

[alexander]

if you got the money...