3 ms·

speaking from experience working in a truck repair shop, I quit using calculator in windows as it was rather unreliable. if im calculating inner diameter or out

speaking from experience working in a truck repair shop, I quit using calculator in windows as it was rather unreliable. if im calculating inner diameter or outer diameter for a part, or doing tooth math for machining a new bull gear, ive often encountered wildly different values in calculator from what a machinists handbook tells me. Ive even had an old-timer warn me about different depth and feed rate calculations that calculator has never done right. This is simple shop math, but i think we're calling it trigonometry these days. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/04/04/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-17639-for-skip-ahead/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/04/04/annou...

orbital-decay 8y ago
This is an issue with any math-related tool in general, including the specialized software, where bugs are much much more sophisticated. Most App Store/Microsoft Store/Google Play apps can't be trusted even for simple square root and trigonometry calculations.
- copperx 8y ago
  I know it's totally overkill, but I use Mathematica for even simple arithmetic computations. I assume that the developers have ironed most of the obvious bugs.
  - pkaye 8y ago
    I think Mathematica uses the GNU multiple precision arithmetic (gmp) library itself in many cases.
acqq 8y ago
> doing tooth math for machining a new bull gear, ive often encountered wildly different values in calculator from what a machinists handbook tells me Please some example, I'm curious, as Microsoft claims that they use the "infinite" precision library there.