mechanical digital calculator

calculator Use in education

A student using an calculator.

In most developed countries, students use calculators for schoolwork. There was a first resistance towards the idea based on the fear that basic math skills would be affected. There's still debate over the importance of the ability to perform calculations by hand as well as "in the head," with some curricula restricting calculator usage until a certain level proficiency is achieved and others focusing heavily on teaching estimation techniques and solving problems.

There are also other issues to consider, for instance it is possible for a student to use the calculator in the wrong fashion but believe the answer because it was the result provided from the calculator. Teachers attempt to prevent this by urging the student to calculate the result manually and ensuring it is in line with it. calculatedresult. Additionally, it is possible for the child to type the formula -1 x 1 and get the correct answer, which is 1 but without knowing the fundamentals involved. In this way, the calculator becomes a crutch rather than a tool for learning, and can cause a slowdown for students at exams when they try to check even the smallest small of results on the calculator.

Other concerns regarding the use

Errors are not restricted to school pupils. Anyone could rely on the calculator's output without double-checking the size of the result--i.e. which decimal points are located. This problem was all but impossible in the past of pencil-and-paper calculations, when the task to determine the magnitudes of results was to be performed through the use of.

Some fractions such as 2/3 are awkward to display on a calculator display since they are usually rounded to 0.66666667. Also, some fractions like 0.14285714... might be difficult to discern as decimal numbers. In reality this number is 1/7. Certain more advanced scientific calculators can work in vulgar fractions, however, the process in actual use is a bit awkward.Basic calculator

Calculators vs. computing

A fundamental difference between calculators and computers is that calculators are only tools for numeric calculations however computers can make use of numbers to manipulate words, images, or sounds, for example.

Markets for calculators is extremely price-sensitive; most of the time, users are concerned about the most expensive calculator with a particular feature set, but does not focus on speed (since speed is limited by the speed at that the user can press the buttons). Therefore, the makers of calculators attempt to minimize how many logic components that are on the chip, but not the amount of clock cycles required to do a computation.

For instance, instead of an hardware multiplier an calculator might be able to implement floating point mathematics with code in ROM, and compute trigonometric functions with the CORDIC algorithm, as CORDIC does not need floating-point. Because of the same reasons, bit-serial logic designs are more common in calculators and bit-parallel designs prevail in general-purpose computing: A bit-serial design reduces the complexity of the chip however, it consumes a greater number of clock cycles.

Personal computers and digital assistants may perform general calculations in a variety of ways:

• Many programs exist for performing calculations, ranging from basic calculator emulators to advanced scientific calculators like Microsoft Calculator, to advanced spreadsheet programs such as Excel as well as OpenOffice.org Calc.
• Computer algebra programs such as Mathematica, Maple, or Matlab can perform complex calculations.
• Client-side scripting could be used for calculation, e.g. by entering "javascript:alert(calculation written in Javascript)" in a web browser's address bar (as opposed to "http://website name"). These calculations are able to be embedded in a distinct Javascript file or HTML file, as well.
• Online calculators like the calculator feature of the Google search engine, can carry out calculations on the server side.