mechanical digital calculator

calculator Use in education

Student using the calculator.

In most developed countries, students use calculators for schoolwork. There was some initial resistance against the idea, primarily due to fears that the basic skills of arithmetic would be affected. There's still disagreement over the importance of the ability to perform calculations by hand as well as "in the head," certain curricula prohibit calculator use until a certain level of competence has been reached, while others concentrate the teaching of estimation skills and solving problems.

There are also other issues to consider, for instance the possibility that a student could use the calculator in the wrong fashion but rely on the result because this was the answer provided from the calculator. Teachers attempt to address this by encouraging the child to calculate the outcome manually and make sure it roughly agrees with the calculatedresult. Also, it is possible for students to enter -1 x -1 and obtain the correct result, 1 without understanding the concept involved. In this manner the calculator becomes a crutch rather than a tool for learning, and it can slow down students during exam time as they check even the most minor of numbers on an calculator.

Other concerns related to the use

Errors aren't limited to students at school. Anyone who uses a calculator can blindly count on the calculator's result without double-checking the result--i.e., where the decimal points are located. This issue was virtually not present in the days of pencil-and-paper calculations, in which the job of establishing the magnitudes of results was to be performed by the individual.

Some fractions like 2/3 can be difficult to display on a calculator display as they are generally rounded up to 0.66666667. Furthermore, certain fractions, like 0.14285714... might be difficult to identify in decimal form--in fact the number is 1/7. Certain of the more sophisticated scientific calculators can operate with vulgar fractions, although the operation in practice can be awkward.Basic calculator

Calculators vs. computing

One of the main differences between calculators and most computers is that calculators are purely numeric instruments and computers can employ numbers to manipulate words, images or even sounds, like.

It is true that the market of calculators is extremely price-sensitive; generally, the consumer is concerned about what is the least expensive model having a specific specification, however, it does not pay attention to speed (since speed is primarily constrained by the speed at which a user can use those buttons). Therefore, the developers of calculators aim to reduce any number of components within the chip, not the number of clock cycles needed to perform a computation.

For example, instead of the use of a hardware multiplier an calculator could implement floating-point mathematics with code in the ROM, and perform trigonometric calculations using the CORDIC algorithm since CORDIC does not need floating-point. Similar to this, bit-serial logic designs are more prevalent in calculators while bit-parallel designs are the most popular on general-purpose computer systems. A bit-serial design reduces the complexity of the chip but takes many more clock cycles.

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

• Numerous programs are available to do calculations, ranging from basic calculator emulators, to sophisticated calculators such as Microsoft Calculator, to advanced spreadsheet programs such as Excel as well as OpenOffice.org Calc.
• Computer algebra software such as Mathematica, Maple, or Matlab can perform complex calculations.
• Client-side scripting can be utilized for calculations, e.g. by entering "javascript:alert(calculation written in Javascript)" in a web browser's address bar (as opposed to "http://website name"). The calculations may be embedded in a distinct Javascript and HTML file, as well.
• Online calculators such as The calculator feature of the Google search engine may perform calculations server-side.