Are you sure? Every calculator I've used (the school-grade kind, basically the TI-series from explorer up through scientifics) has done it by mathematical order (PEMDAS) rather than straight entry. The only difference is the RPN calculators; RPN logic forces you to pre-processes the directives, anyways, so its not a big deal. It would actually fumble it if it tried mathematical order.
------Original Message------
From: Loren Finkelstein <Loren@Finkelstein.Net>
To: <newtontalk@planetnewton.com>
Sent: August 23, 2000 3:10:04 AM GMT
Subject: Re: NTLK Ntlk : A Newtoneer in Palmville, Day 2
on 8/22/00 8:05 PM, THX 1138 at 1f2frfbf@newted.dyndns.org wrote:
> Be careful with this. On the Palm IIIx I tried, the onboard calc didn't
> support mathematical order (ie. 8+2*4=40 instead of 8+2*4=64) this was
> rather annoying. I fixed it with an add-on program but was a bit shocked
> the first time it disagreed with my head calculations...
Um... 64??? Wouldn't the other choice be 16?
I thought calculators were supposed to process input linearly, and not in
mathematical order. They keep a running subtotal. On any calculator I have
ever used 8+2*4 is processed as 8 + 2 = 10. That times 4 = 40.
Loren
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