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Up to Catalina, macOS used to have the overpowered Emacs calculator[0] preinstalled. Default keybinding to activate it in Emacs is C-x * *. I especially like
by siraben 6y ago
Up to Catalina, macOS used to have the overpowered Emacs calculator[0] preinstalled. Default keybinding to activate it in Emacs is C-x * *. I especially like how it uses RPN but also has an algebraic mode, so one can use whichever is more convenient. There's several other features that I use quite often, such as
- symbolic differentiation/integration
- conversion between units
- solving equations
- working with matrices
- rewrite systems
[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.htm...
- LeoPanthera 6y agoWell "bc" is still included with macOS. "bc -l" to start it in a useful mode. It's slightly quirky, but very powerful. For example, "4*a(1)" to calculate pi.
- nomel 6y agoI often just: $ python from math import * When you have a hammer...
- dan-robertson 6y agoI don’t really understand how you could read the parent comment and then suggest bc as a reasonable equivalent. For one thing I find interacting with bc to not be so interactive as gnu calc—you have to type one line at a time and it is hard to see intermediate results or make modifications. For a second thing, I don’t think bc includes: - differentiation - symbolic/numeric integration - equation solving/manipulation - unit conversion - graphing - vectors and matrices - functional array operations like map/reduce - statistical operations - a detailed manual Personally my main use of bc is: ... | paste -s -d+ | bc
- mprovost 6y agoAnd dc (the original desk calculator) if you want RPN. I pretty much always have a terminal window with dc running for quick math. It's good for doing base conversions too.
- ybbond 6y agohow do you use this function? I am aware that Emacs keybinding (C-n, C-p, C-M-f) can be used in macOS' text inputs, but I somehow cannot trigger C-x to work