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The pictured sharp calculator made me rage at the state of modern desktop calculators in most OS’s. The other day I needed atan (inverse tan) and found the buil

The pictured sharp calculator made me rage at the state of modern desktop calculators in most OS’s. The other day I needed atan (inverse tan) and found the built in windows/osx calculators do not support this function. Google for web calculator, nothing. In the end I hacked up a quick c based program. A 40 year old calculator with a 4004 or 6502 CPU can do more than default desktop applications. Removing features can eliminate a customer or two.

altano 7y ago
First google result for "windows calculator atan": https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3kb0n1/how_to_do_inverse_functions_with_the_new/cuw55jz/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3kb0n1/how_to_do...
- masklinn 7y ago
  Pretty similarly, OSX's calculator (at least in 10.11) has a "2nd" / shifted layout with inverses:https://imgur.com/a/xFUKxwP https://imgur.com/a/xFUKxwP
Damogran6 7y ago
Turning the iPhone calculator sideways reveals a scientific calc layout, including tanh Unfortunately feature bloat on a simple device often results in making things no longer easily discoverable. (I'm looking at you, force touch.)
- masklinn 7y ago
  tanh and arctan are different functions.
  - didgeoridoo 7y ago
    To get to inverse tan, you need to hit the “2nd” toggle on the far left. (So yes, you need to turn your phone sideways and tap a poorly-marked and unexplained toggle button that looks like every other button on the screen.)
    - Damogran6 7y ago
      And everyone else uses ‘inv’ instead of 2nd.
      - jimktrains2 7y ago
        That's not true at all. The ti30 and relatives are arguably one of the most well known scientific calculators in the world, and it uses 2nd. http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$T2eC16FHJH4FHejHUSZ3BSB3Dzh6%20g~~_32.JPG http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$T2eC16FHJH4FHejHUSZ3BSB3Dzh6%20g~~_... The hp35 and relatives use an upper and lower "shift" button to access the inverse trig functions. http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/251900074306-0-1/s-l1000.jpg http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/251900074306-0-1/s-l1000.jpg
      - masklinn 7y ago
        « 2nd » is the toggle for the alternate calculator layout (which has all the inverse functions). The key on that alternate layout is tan^-1.
willis936 7y ago
Are you sure? I haven’t seen a windows calculator that didn’t have that feature since before I learned trig. Were you using the scientific calculator layout and the shift/2nd key?
jimktrains2 7y ago
Both Mac and window have scientific mode. https://support.apple.com/guide/calculator/welcome/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/calculator/welcome/mac https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4039496/windows-10-scientific-calculator https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4039496/windows-10-... There is also bc, that macos should have by default. https://www.gnu.org/software/bc/ https://www.gnu.org/software/bc/
- jaifraic 7y ago
  Having used bc as my calculator for a while, i recently switched to insect - because it has fore features. For example it can parse and convert between physical units and has a lot of predefined constants. So instead of using two command line tools (bc to calculate, units to convert) i just use insect. https://github.com/sharkdp/insect https://github.com/sharkdp/insect There is a web version available as well: https://insect.sh https://insect.sh
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pvorb 7y ago
WolframAlpha is still around, no?
mark-r 7y ago
I use Python as my desktop calculator.
huhtenberg 7y ago
> built in windows calculator Alt-2 (for Scientific mode), Inv, Tan
jacobolus 7y ago
> windows/osx calculators do not support this First of all, the default OS X and Windows calculators both do support this feature. But that’s not really the easy way to approach this type of problem. On OS X, first do command-space (to bring up the floating “spotlight” bar), then type e.g. atan(1), and it reveals the answer rounded to 10 digits, 0.7853981634 To get 20 digits, open up a terminal window, and type: bc -l <<< "a(1)" Or use your favorite scripting language... > Google for web calculator, nothing Type atan(1) into google and it prints the answer. Or open up the JavaScript console on this forum page (or any other web page) and type Math.atan(1) to get the answer to 16 digits 0.7853981633974483 Alternately, try https://www.wolframalpha.com/ https://www.wolframalpha.com/ for more complicated calculations. > default desktop [calculator] applications Imitating the buttons of a handheld electronic calculator on a computer with a full keyboard is anachronistic and cumbersome. Stop using those, even when they do include the specific functions you want.
kps 7y ago
> Google for web calculator, nothing. https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42) https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42) https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42)+in+degrees https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42)+in+degrees (Personally, I usually do quick-and-dirty arithmetic directly in the shell, as ksh expressions include floating point. echo $((atan(42))) )

altano 7y ago

First google result for "windows calculator atan": https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3kb0n1/how_to_do_inverse_functions_with_the_new/cuw55jz/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3kb0n1/how_to_do...

masklinn 7y ago
Pretty similarly, OSX's calculator (at least in 10.11) has a "2nd" / shifted layout with inverses:https://imgur.com/a/xFUKxwP https://imgur.com/a/xFUKxwP

Damogran6 7y ago

Turning the iPhone calculator sideways reveals a scientific calc layout, including tanh Unfortunately feature bloat on a simple device often results in making things no longer easily discoverable. (I'm looking at you, force touch.)

masklinn 7y ago
tanh and arctan are different functions.
- didgeoridoo 7y ago
  To get to inverse tan, you need to hit the “2nd” toggle on the far left. (So yes, you need to turn your phone sideways and tap a poorly-marked and unexplained toggle button that looks like every other button on the screen.)
  - Damogran6 7y ago
    And everyone else uses ‘inv’ instead of 2nd.
    - jimktrains2 7y ago
      That's not true at all. The ti30 and relatives are arguably one of the most well known scientific calculators in the world, and it uses 2nd. http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$T2eC16FHJH4FHejHUSZ3BSB3Dzh6%20g~~_32.JPG http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$T2eC16FHJH4FHejHUSZ3BSB3Dzh6%20g~~_... The hp35 and relatives use an upper and lower "shift" button to access the inverse trig functions. http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/251900074306-0-1/s-l1000.jpg http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/251900074306-0-1/s-l1000.jpg
    - masklinn 7y ago
      « 2nd » is the toggle for the alternate calculator layout (which has all the inverse functions). The key on that alternate layout is tan^-1.

willis936 7y ago

Are you sure? I haven’t seen a windows calculator that didn’t have that feature since before I learned trig. Were you using the scientific calculator layout and the shift/2nd key?

jimktrains2 7y ago

Both Mac and window have scientific mode. https://support.apple.com/guide/calculator/welcome/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/calculator/welcome/mac https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4039496/windows-10-scientific-calculator https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4039496/windows-10-... There is also bc, that macos should have by default. https://www.gnu.org/software/bc/ https://www.gnu.org/software/bc/

jaifraic 7y ago
Having used bc as my calculator for a while, i recently switched to insect - because it has fore features. For example it can parse and convert between physical units and has a lot of predefined constants. So instead of using two command line tools (bc to calculate, units to convert) i just use insect. https://github.com/sharkdp/insect https://github.com/sharkdp/insect There is a web version available as well: https://insect.sh https://insect.sh

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pvorb 7y ago

WolframAlpha is still around, no?

mark-r 7y ago

I use Python as my desktop calculator.

huhtenberg 7y ago

> built in windows calculator Alt-2 (for Scientific mode), Inv, Tan

jacobolus 7y ago

> windows/osx calculators do not support this First of all, the default OS X and Windows calculators both do support this feature. But that’s not really the easy way to approach this type of problem. On OS X, first do command-space (to bring up the floating “spotlight” bar), then type e.g. atan(1), and it reveals the answer rounded to 10 digits, 0.7853981634 To get 20 digits, open up a terminal window, and type: bc -l <<< "a(1)" Or use your favorite scripting language... > Google for web calculator, nothing Type atan(1) into google and it prints the answer. Or open up the JavaScript console on this forum page (or any other web page) and type Math.atan(1) to get the answer to 16 digits 0.7853981633974483 Alternately, try https://www.wolframalpha.com/ https://www.wolframalpha.com/ for more complicated calculations. > default desktop [calculator] applications Imitating the buttons of a handheld electronic calculator on a computer with a full keyboard is anachronistic and cumbersome. Stop using those, even when they do include the specific functions you want.

kps 7y ago

> Google for web calculator, nothing. https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42) https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42) https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42)+in+degrees https://www.google.com/search?q=atan(42)+in+degrees (Personally, I usually do quick-and-dirty arithmetic directly in the shell, as ksh expressions include floating point. echo $((atan(42))) )