Microsoft Calculator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Microsoft Calculator | |
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 Microsoft Calculator, Scientific Mode, running on Windows Vista |
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| Developer: | Microsoft |
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| OS: | Windows |
| Use: | Calculator |
| Website: | none |
Microsoft Calculator is a calculation application for Microsoft Windows.
It is compact (Calc.exe is 112 kilobytes in Windows XP) and is bundled with most versions of Microsoft Windows.
Many recently made "multimedia keyboards" have a specialized "calculator" key, which launches Calculator by default.
Calculator, despite its simple interface and small size, can perform all of the functions of most four-function or scientific calculators. By default, the application is in the Standard mode, and functions as a four-function calculator. Scientific mode can be enabled from the View menu. More advanced functions are available in scientific mode, including logarithms, numerical base conversions, some logical operators, radian, degree and gradians support as well as simple single-variable statistical functions.
However, it offers no support for user-defined functions or complex numbers, no storage variables for intermediate results (other than the classic accumulator memory of pocket calculators), no automated polar-cartesian coordinates conversion and lack of support for two-variables statistics, making it hard or impractical to use with many common simple engineering, physics or even high school tasks, despite its common functions.
[edit] Other Calculator Applications from Microsoft
Microsoft has released other calculator applications to the Microsoft Download Center. They include improvements over Microsoft Calculator; however, none of these variants have ever become a Windows component.
- Microsoft Calculator Plus - In addition to the 'Standard' and 'Scientific' modes offered by Microsoft Calculator, Calculator Plus also offers a 'Conversion' mode. 'Conversion' mode supports unit conversion and currency conversion. Calculator Plus supports direct update of exchange rates for European currencies from European Central Bank website.
- Power Calculator - Distributed as a Microsoft PowerToy, Power Calculator supports graphing. Although the program allows user to adjust the precision of calculations, there are flaws in the implementation. For example, the program produces an erroneous graph for the following sine function: g(x) = sin(x * pi).
[edit] Trivia
- The version of Calculator shipped with Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.1 suffered from a bug causing it to display completely wrong results for certain classes of calculations. The most typical example was the 1-1.1 operation, which would lead to a long number sequence approximating the expected result, -0.1, such as -0.095645564564564.... One of the most joked about calculation is 3.11-3.1, results in 0.00. This leads to the joke "Q: What is the difference between 3.11 and 3.1? A: Nothing!" (In this case, "3.11" and "3.1" imply the version numbers of Windows.)
- Some versions of Calculator have a way to automate long calculations. Writing a text file in Notepad or another text editor containing a number on the first row, then operators followed by numbers on the next row and pasting this content to calculator's textbox will result in it performing the described calculations. This may not work correctly with all versions of Calculator, and depends on precise text formatting. Also, this sort of "automation" does not work with commands other that the standard arithmetic operators (+, - , /, *), making it only suitable for computing large cumulative sums starting from a file or spreadsheet data.
- Calculator since Windows 3.0 has had the 'sqrt' button available only in the standard mode. Switching over to scientific mode will make this button disappear. There is no fix, but Microsoft suggests [1] to raise numbers to the half power (i.e. 144 ^ .5 ). Of course, one can also select the check box for inverse functions and then use the x^2 button.
- Microsoft Calculator is not able to do "constant calculations", which is a very handy feature. Virtually all standard calculators are able to do it. When one wants to use the same constant and operation many times, the second and following calculations can be done without retyping the operation and constant. So one can type: 2*7=[14] 3=[21] 4=[28] etc. Microsoft Calculator ignores the number typed before the equal sign.
