the market of calculators

calculator Use in education

Student using an calculator.

In most developed countries, students use calculators for schoolwork. There was initially some resistance to this idea due to worry that the fundamental arithmetic abilities could be affected. There's still some disagreement on how important it is to calculate calculations with a pencil and "in the head," with some curricula restricting calculator use until a certain proficiency is achieved and others focusing the teaching of estimation techniques and problem-solving.

Other concerns are, for instance, that a pupil could utilize the calculator incorrectly but believe the answer because that was the result given by the calculator. Teachers attempt to stop this by encouraging students to calculate the result manually and ensuring it's close to the calculatedresult. Additionally, it is possible for a child to type in the formula -1 x 1 and get the correct answer 1 without understanding the concept involved. In this case the calculator can become a tool for a child rather than a tool to learn, and it may slow students in exam conditions as they look up even the most minor of numbers on a calculator.

Other concerns on the use

Errors don't only affect students at school. Any user could carelessly trust the calculator's output without double-checking the magnitude of the result--i.e. which decimal points are located. This issue was virtually impossible in the past of pencil-and-paper calculations, in which the job of determining the magnitudes of results was to be performed through the use of.

Certain fractions, like 2/3 can be difficult to display on a calculator display as they are generally rounded up to 0.66666667. Also, some fractions such as 0.14285714... can be difficult to discern when they are in decimal form. In actual this number is 1/7. Some of the more advanced scientific calculators can calculate in vulgar fractions but the way to do it is a bit awkward.Basic calculator

Calculators vs. computing

A fundamental difference between calculators and the majority of computers is that calculators are purely numeric instruments, while computers may use numbers to directly manipulate words, images or even sounds, like.

It is true that the market of calculators is highly price-sensitive. generally, the consumer is concerned about what is the least expensive calculator with a particular feature set, but doesn't focus on speed (since speed is primarily constrained by the speed at which a user presses the buttons). So, designers of calculators try to reduce how many logic elements on the chip, and not the number of clock cycles needed to do a computation.

In this case, instead of a hardware multiplier for example, a calculator could implement floating-point mathematics by using code stored in ROMand calculate trigonometric functions using the CORDIC algorithm, since CORDIC does not need floating-point. For similar reasons, bit-serial logic designs are more commonly used in calculators however bit-parallel designs dominate general-purpose computers. A bit serial design is less complex for the chip however it requires a lot more clock cycles.

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

• There are many programs available for calculations, ranging from basic calculator emulators to advanced scientific calculators like Microsoft Calculator, to advanced spreadsheet software like Excel as well as OpenOffice.org Calc.
• Computer algebra programs , such as Mathematica, Maple, or Matlab are able to handle complex calculations.
• Client-side scripting is a method of using 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 separate Javascript in a separate HTML or Javascript HTML file, as well.
• Online calculators such as The calculator feature of Google's Google search engine may perform calculations on the server side.