> The calculators were highly approximate trig functions This is true, but not the whole story. The Sinclair calculator undercut its only competitor at the tim

> The calculators were highly approximate trig functions This is true, but not the whole story. The Sinclair calculator undercut its only competitor at the time by 75%(!), bringing a scientific calculator to a lot of people who otherwise would never have had one. He did this by using a chip designed for four-function math and using a series of brilliant (if, yes, slow and approximate) hacks to fit arithmetic and trigonometry in the same 320 assembly instructions and three registers. It cuts basically every corner, but my favorite one is that it didn't have room for constants like pi in the ROM. No matter what they did they couldn't fit it in. Eventually, they just printed pi on the case. My impression of Sir Clive is that he always tried to take shortcuts no other company would dare, and while this often flamed out, sometimes he pulled it off and brought a lot of technology to a lot of people. Here's a fantastic breakdown of how the calculator worked and why it was so impressive: http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simul...