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| What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers? |
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| SiliconWizard:
As I mentioned before, I mostly use computer tools these days rather than a physical calculator (unless of course I don't have a computer around.) For symbolic calculation, mainly Maxima (wxMaxima) and for numeric stuff, I was mainly using "calc" ( https://github.com/lcn2/calc ). Lightweight, arbitrary precision, interpreted language close to C, easy to use. I tried again Qalculate (last time I had tried it was years ago, and I was not hugely impressed) lately, and it has become very good. It almost instantly became my go-to calculator. I highly suggest to at least have a try! It does pretty much everything people have talked about here, and more. https://qalculate.github.io/index.html |
| PlainName:
I am trying it out and keep getting stuff I'm not expecting. It is presumably the way I expect it to work is not the way it actually works, and I'm not sure I want to have two different realities to choose from depending on which app I am using. As a trivial example, I type '12' in decimal mode and '=', click the HEX button. I expect to see 0x0C (or similar) but instead I see 0x12. My FX-991 in BASE-N mode acts in the following way: when entering the number in decimal mode, pressing HEX before hitting return will simply change the entry mode to hex (so 0x12). After hitting return, pressing HEX converts decimal to hex (so 0x0C). OK, I want to convert 12 ft to something. So, back to decimal then select the conversion pane, select Length... Foot. The answer is "~39 ft + 4.440 944 882 in". It's probably very cool if you operate it how it expects to be operated but, personally, if I'm not 100% sure it's showing what I think it should then I can't trust it. |
| SiliconWizard:
A few hints: - Don't use the virtual keyboard - I think those are useless and a waste of time on desktop calculator applications. But if you still want to use it rather than use menus or read the manual, use pop-up hints on buttons. Here you'll see that the 'base' buttons select the base for *entries* on a single click, but a right click or long click will make them act as switches for the base of the result instead. But I personally have the virtual keyboard hidden, it's just an annoyance IMHO. - Read the manual. You'll discover a lot of stuff. - Conversions are one of Qalculate's strong points. You can convert any expression using the "to" keyword. Much more productive than trying to find the right button or the right menu item. It's a computer tool, use it a such, not as a poor substitute for a physical calculator. As for trusting the base of the result, it will always be shown (in subscript) unless it's decimal (which is default). So you can't go wrong. Again, read the manual, and after a couple minutes only I can guarantee you that you'll be up to speed. |
| PlainName:
I did read some of the manual, specifically the bit relating to conversions. Call me simple, but there comes a time when there are some many magic key presses and mouse gestures that one just can't remember them all. Or even a fraction. So while it might make sense to the developer that doing x then y with a superposition of z will obviously lead to something, as a multi-application user I am thinking "is that u or v, and is it this app or some other one". Just give me a clear button to press, a menu to select from, etc. If I get to use the thing enough I'll drift into using the magic shortcuts, but as a new user life is too short. I like the way that this app pops us choices as you type, and the base subscript. There were many other things I wrote in response to your comment but I decided they were probably best not posted :) |
| Berni:
You are not supposed to remember all the magic key combination shortcuts. You can typically do it with a menu, but you usually get to remember the ones you use the most often. But i do agree that on screen keypads on calculators are the wrong way to do it. The windows calculator is the most popular example of it. A lot of people don't even know they can type in numbers using a keyboard and instead click numbers with a mouse (slow and clumsy). All the buttons in Windows Calc actually are mapped to a keyboard key, however good luck remembering what key does Sine, 1/x or Pi, there are no hints in the UI for it. This is the main reason why i go for a text based calculator like SpeedCrunch. It's just a text box for me to type the expression into. I might not know the shortcut for Sine in Windows Calc, but here i can just type out "sin" and it works, everyone knows computers call the sine function sin. If i want a hex number input i just do "0x12" and it knows to treat it as hex. --- Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 16, 2021, 08:35:16 pm ---For symbolic calculation, mainly Maxima (wxMaxima) and for numeric stuff, I was mainly using "calc" ( https://github.com/lcn2/calc ). Lightweight, arbitrary precision, interpreted language close to C, easy to use. --- End quote --- Feeding C-like code into a calculator is a pretty neat feature i never saw before. Don't think i would find a actual use for it very often, but i can see some rare cases where this might be really useful. |
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