13 ms·

SpeedCrunch

438 points by hkc 5y ago

smusamashah 5y ago
It also looks a lot like CCalc http://www.zoesoft.com/console-calculator/ccalc-screenshots/ http://www.zoesoft.com/console-calculator/ccalc-screenshots/ which is available since 2005.
krylon 5y ago
I LOVE SpeedCrunch. I do not need a calculator very often, but when I do, this is my calculator of choice. It doesn't support graphing, but it understands units, which is both useful and cool. I like the UI, too, for being simple but very much functional without getting in my way. And it supports a persistent history across sessions, which I also like.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Yes, I absolutely love being able to scroll back through my old calculations. It comes in handy so often
- jsilence 5y ago
  Using and liking it also. It is just that I need it so rarely that I fall back into the RPN that I'm used to from Emacs calc. Speedcrunch does not have a RPN mode, does it? That would be splendid.
B-Con 5y ago
I've been using this as my Linux GUI calculator for a while (maybe a decade?). It's a good blend of functionality and simplicity and after I started using it I literally haven't looked for anything else.
- bjoli 5y ago
  I believe it was default in kubuntu at some time. Or at least heavily pushed.
yboris 5y ago
I love SpeedCrunch on Windows, but for MacOS I prefer Numi https://numi.app/ https://numi.app/
- crispyalmond 5y ago
  How does Numi compare to Soulver 3[0]? [0] https://soulver.app/ https://soulver.app/
  - tksb 5y ago
    I have your exact question in mind. If the OP hasn't tried Soulver, they must! It's a gem of computing for me and I lean on it regularly.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    I have a single, but major, complaint with Soulver: version 3 for iOS/iPadOS doesn’t exist yet. There are a lot of calculations I’d want to do both at my desk and out on the road, and I’d like them synced. Calca handles that pretty well and I’ve been using it over Soulver lately for that one specific reason. I like Soulver more than Calca, though, and the second Soulver 3 for iOS comes along I’ll switch back.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Bummer, no RPN for Soulver, Numi, or SpeedCrunch.
Aaronmacaron 5y ago
Love it. Use it as my default calculator when I need one occasionally. I would love to see support for plotting graphs and solving equations. Also a more touch friendly UI would be nice when using my 2-in1 laptop in tablet mode when doing math excercises for uni.
themodelplumber 5y ago
Whoa, I didn't realize it had color themes and font options on top of everything else. I just subbed it in for my normal calculator software shortcut, this is great. Thanks for posting op. (Edit: The HTML export feature even preserves the color theme. It's a web publishing tool now! Hahaha)
Centigonal 5y ago
This seems really cool (esp. WRT unit conversions), but I'm already pretty entrenched in using Excel, R, or Python for calculations, since I usually already have one or more of those open. Is it worth learning another tool to pick up something like this?
- NathanielK 5y ago
  I find SpeedCrunch can be very useful along side excel once you get a feel for it. Often I use SpeedCrunch's unit conversion and SI prefix features to distill all the magic numbers I need and double check my formula. After that, creating a formula in excell (or another language) to deal convert data in a strange format is easy. Learning SpeedCrunch is easy if you're already comfortable with single-line calculators. It has autocomplete that will help learn some of the SpeedCrunch specific units. For example, year_julian vs year_tropical, gallon_US vs gallon_UK are slightly different.
clockwork-dev 5y ago
I love SpeedCrunch, especially for dealing with different bases. For back-of-the-napkin type math, OpalCalc is my favorite. https://skytopia.com/software/opalcalc/ https://skytopia.com/software/opalcalc/
middleclick 5y ago
This is one of the tools that I use everyday but I don't appreciate it much because it always works for me and I don't think twice. Thank you to the authors for working on it. Time to send them a donation!
faffernot 5y ago
Am I a weirdo for using the console (F12) in my browser for calculating stuff like tips, rent/utilities for the month, and other such things? Lol.
- josephg 5y ago
  I love the JS console for this sort of thing. It has autocomplete for math functions, lists and variables. And I know (and have muscle memory for) the JS math library already. The best part is its available anywhere, on any computer, in any web browser without installing anything.
- atdrummond 5y ago
  Seeing as others in this thread use the bog standard console - and I’ve seen other developers do exactly what you’re referencing - it seems such console usage isn’t unique to you at the very least.
- taviso 5y ago
  No, I always use gdb :) It also has a persistent history, variables, functions, base conversion, etc. I guess it doesn't have unit conversion or a math library, but it's a great programmers calculator.
  - eichin 5y ago
    Hah, I used gdb print expression for a calculator for decades (especially p/x for hex conversions.) I finally switched to "just fire up a python repl instead" around 2010...
    - mark-r 5y ago
      Python just makes it too easy. from math import * and you have everything you need.
driminicus 5y ago
This looks cool! I have been using qalculate (https://qalculate.github.io/ https://qalculate.github.io/) recently, which seems similar. Has anyone used both and can tell me how they compare?
- wiz21c 5y ago
  SpeedCrunch is less powerful but I find its interface much easier to understand. SpeedCrunch is really nice. It'd be nice if it was a tad more powerful (for example, to plot quick graphs)
dan-robertson 5y ago
Their demo of their efficient interface compared to GNU Calc: SC: 5+8 Enter [4 keys, 1 shift] Calc: 5 RET 8 + [4 keys, 1 shift] SC: 5*(113+23) Enter [11 keys, 3 shifts] Calc: 5 RET 113 RET 23 + * [10 keys, 1 shift] SC: 7*ans Enter [6 keys, 1 shift] Calc: 7 * [2 keys, 1 shift] SC: sqrt(1231+41) Enter [14 keys, 3 shift] Calc: 1231 RET 41 + Q [9 keys, 1 shift] Maybe it’s more efficient than clicking buttons with a mouse but it doesn’t feel more efficient than the calculator I already use, nor does it seem to be better integrated with the software I use. It doesn’t even seem more efficient than the scientific calculator I used in high school. I think I’m put off more by the lack of graphing and (as far as I could tell skimming their site) array/vector/matrix functions, which are the main things I do with Calc.
- atdrummond 5y ago
  I don’t have a horse in the race (I find myself still using the default of whatever OS I’m using more often than I specifically choose SC) but I will say that one can easily configure SC to operate with past calculated results and other references from previous operations, just as you did with your cited GNUCalc examples. If such shortcuts are utilised, one will find SC requires the same number keystrokes - or fewer.
- JoshTriplett 5y ago
  You're comparing infix with RPN. There are more factors there than just number of keystrokes; not everyone enjoys working with RPN or finds it comfortable. RPN is a deliberate tradeoff in favor of speed/efficiency at the expense of other things.
  - dan-robertson 5y ago
    The calculator I used in school was infix but, unlike this calculator, had: - single buttons for common operations like +, * or sqrt - no shifted parentheses - display-style input of fractions and exponential so you got some visual clue if your brackets weren’t totally wrong - single (sometimes shifted) buttons for functions like cos/tan/arcsin/… - specialised shift operators which mostly meant inverse or hyperbolic GNU Calc has most of these (+ and * are still shifted but all common operations are shifted. Parentheses are not used because of RPN. Display-style (‘big’) presentation is optional but ugly ascii art. Press H for hyperbolic, I for inverse). I think gnu Calc is lacking a bit in entry of algebraic expressions but I don’t think speed crunch is better. I’d like to see something that let you place a ‘(‘ somewhere ‘backwards’, or in other words a feature for ‘I would like to parenthetical use some of the past expressions. Please let me interactively choose them without fiddling with cursor movement commands.’
phoboslab 5y ago
After trying a lot of different calculators, I just settled on this little shell script to launch/raise a nodejs repl with FN+Backpspace: if [ $(xdotool search --name "calc repl") ]; then xdotool search --name "calc repl" windowraise else xfce4-terminal \ --title="calc repl" \ --color-bg=#123 \ --color-text=#fec \ --hide-scrollbar \ --font="Deja Vu Sans Mono 14px" \ --geometry 40x14 \ --execute node -i -e "$JSREPL" fi ($JSREPL just contains some extra functions that I want in a calculator) I can easily go back to previous calculations and results, define vars, run loops whatevs. Having it on a key combo and launching the terminal with a distinct text/bg color really makes a difference. It also launches faster than most other calculators I tried. For my purposes (non-scientific, mostly programming stuff), it's been great.
- shaicoleman 5y ago
  You need to be very careful, as you may get wrong results due to rounding and floating point errors. $ node -i > 2**54+2 18014398509481984 > 3-3.01 -0.009999999999999787 Other calculators such as calc [1] don't have these issues 1. https://github.com/lcn2/calc https://github.com/lcn2/calc
jicka 5y ago
Speedcrunch is amazing. I often have to do many simple calculations (adding numbers from a pdf,...) and having full history and being able to keep speedcrunch over the other windows is perfect. I also increased font-size dramatically to improve readability on big screens. Sure, there are more advanced tools. But the simplicity and lightness on ressources is what makes it my go-to calculator.
cyounkins 5y ago
Also in this space is insect: https://github.com/sharkdp/insect https://github.com/sharkdp/insect and https://www.insect.sh/ https://www.insect.sh/
- nusaru 5y ago
  This is from the same guy who made fd and bat!
widea 5y ago
One thing I do not like about Speedcrunch: there is a slight delay between pressing enter and showing the result, just enough to be noticed.
- jicka 5y ago
  Try clearing your history. I notice the delay only when I have dozens / hundreds of steps in history.
  - widea 5y ago
    That solved it, thanks! :-) Now I have nothing but good words about Speedcrunch!
    - hatsuseno 5y ago
      Except maybe that long histories create noticeable lag, that is.
      - unnouinceput 5y ago
        Looking at its inner working seems it's uses SQLite as storing. While a few hundred entries in any SQLite DB should be a breeze to parse and show under a second, maybe the person(s) involved in this project are not that DB proficient and made some rookie mistakes. Maybe they'll notice this and improve it's history speed as well, shouldn't be a problem for any SQL developer with a bit of experience in hands.
        alfu 5y ago
        Based on this issue https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/746 https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/746 (2017) it could also be re-highlighting the entire history when a new expression is evaluated.
- crispyalmond 5y ago
  I just installed it to try it out and I love the idea but this is the worst part about it. Even with no history as another said, it still has a delay.
gravypod 5y ago
This looks great but I wish it had some of the features that NaSC [0] has. It's a really amazing tool but it's awfully crashy to the point where it's barely usable. That being said being able to say `solve(... = 512 MiB)` and getting an answer is unbelievably amazing. [0] - https://appcenter.elementary.io/com.github.parnold-x.nasc/ https://appcenter.elementary.io/com.github.parnold-x.nasc/
granddave 5y ago
This is a great piece of software that's installed on all my machines!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- NathanielK 5y ago
  That's one of my favourite advantages of free software. No worries about licensing, any computer I pull out of a dumpster gets a full suite of powerful software I'm familiar with.
db65edfc7996 5y ago
Ever since Windows released their embarrassing touch-friendly calculator app which takes 1+ seconds to start, SpeedCrunch has been my goto across platforms. I was recently doing some (silly) combinatorical math, where I wanted to know factorial(400_000) and SpeedCrunch happily produced the answer immediately. Incredibly satisfied.
skyfaller 5y ago
I love SpeedCrunch, but lately I've been using Kalker on the command line: https://kalker.xyz/ https://kalker.xyz/ It's written in Rust ;-)
- paddim8 5y ago
  Wait... I made that! Nice
morpheuskafka 5y ago
I loved this on Windows but haven't used it since switching to macOS since it seems to not support Retina screens very well, anyone know of a workaround?
- annexrichmond 5y ago
  Heh, just came here to see if anyone else noticed the blurriness of the app on Mac.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Yeah, did a screenshot just to see what was up. Very blurry/chunky on Mac OS. Must be the UI library they use for Mac.
- dron57 5y ago
  The fix for this is detailed in this thread: https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/716/version-012-ugly-display-resolution-on https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/716/v... And the .dmg file that has the retina fix is here: https://github.com/gagarcr/speedcrunch-nightlies/releases https://github.com/gagarcr/speedcrunch-nightlies/releases Hopefully this helps!
  - morpheuskafka 5y ago
    Thank you! Works great on M1 under Rosetta too. Glad to see this app is still usable on the latest macOS after all.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
A small plug for my own script: I'm proud to present the most useful, least-work script I've ever written: `math` https://github.com/shawwn/scrap/blob/master/math https://github.com/shawwn/scrap/blob/master/math #!/bin/sh scale=4 # results will print to the 4th decimal echo "scale=$scale; $@" | bc -l It just yeets all its arguments into bc -l, so you can run math 1+2-3 or math '(1024 - 7)*10' or whatever else you want. I even use it in other shell scripts, since bash's math facilities are rather limited and inconsistent across sh vs bash. :~$ echo $(((3+4)*5)) 35 :~$ echo $(((3+4)*5/1024)) 0 :~$ math '((3+4)*5/1024)' .0341 It has all the precision you want, as long as you only want results up to the 4th decimal. It's surprising how much I use it. I find myself absentmindedly typing out math 220*1024*1024 while talking to people in meetings (what, you don't have meetings where it's crucial to know how quickly 220MB can be transferred?) and like thousands of other situations. Meanwhile, funny story: I bought an iPad recently, and discovered that it's a delightful way to pass the time while shopping. You can stick it in your cart and pull up 3blue1brown and zone out while getting your pineapples. So I was doing that, and I went to reach for the calculator app to figure something out, and discovered that there is no calculator on iPads. The punchline is that if you want a calculator on an iPad, it'll either cost you $5 or your soul: https://i.imgur.com/CJsDtB0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/CJsDtB0.jpg Someone please make SpeedCrunch, but MsPaint. I miss MsPaint every day. There's an OS X app called Paintbrush which is similar, but unfortunately quite buggy and somehow even more limited in certain respects. Being able to just paste a screenshot and draw a red circle within 5 seconds is something that I wish we could do in 2022. Nay, I say that it's our right as programmers to be able to do that. </rallying cry> EDIT: formatting. TIL you can backslash-escape asterisks on HN.
- namanyayg 5y ago
  I use Flameshot for screenshots. Onpaste (web) is good too.
- hk__2 5y ago
  > I miss MsPaint every day. I’m like you. On Linux there’s KolourPaint that does the job, but on macOS I never found any desktop app that does what I want. In the browser, there’s this clone [1] that mimicks all the features of the original one. You can "open" a file, "save" it, and everything in the meantime is saved in local storage. [1]: https://jspaint.app/ https://jspaint.app/
unanimous 5y ago
SpeedCrunch looks very promising, and I've used it a lot in the past. I'm sad to see that they still haven't released the order of operations bug fix [0] they made in 2017. SpeedCrunch does some operations in an order most people wouldn't expect. For example, SpeedCrunch says 1/2(-9.8) = -0.05102040816326530612 [0] - https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/commits/ac4983aef12e1a6aca415965030ba8d8738a01cc https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/commits/ac49...
- seanw444 5y ago
  Is that not correct? I guess I should touch on my order of operations. I thought distributing was part of the parenthesis step, that came before MDAS.
  - qsort 5y ago
    According to the mainstream interpretation, a/b(c) parses to: (* (/ a b) c) and not: (/ a (* b c)) It's very ambiguous, though. No scientist would ever write expressions like that.
  - commoner 5y ago
    Yes, that answer is incorrect since it breaks with calculator conventions. The contents of the parentheses are calculated first (P in PEMDAS), and then the multiplication is done later (MD in PEMDAS). Implicit multiplication (which does not explicitly use a multiplication sign) has the same priority as any other multiplication: a/b(c) = a/b*c = (a/b)*c Since SpeedCrunch only accepts input in a single line, this would be the least unexpected way to interpret the expression, and consistent with how graphing calculators operate. A horizontal fraction bar, which SpeedCrunch does not support (since it only accepts single-line input), implies parentheses around the numerator and denominator. For example: ax -- = (ax)/(by) = (a*x)/(b*y) by compared to ax/by = a*x/b*y = ((a*x)/b)*y (If the above is not displayed correctly, please view this comment on the HN website.) Implicit multiplication is a point of frequent confusion: - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/science/math-equation-pemdas-bodmas.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/science/math-equation-pem... - https://www.themathdoctors.org/order-of-operations-implicit-multiplication/ https://www.themathdoctors.org/order-of-operations-implicit-... To guarantee that the expression does not get misinterpreted, the person writing the expression should always add parentheses/brackets and explicit multiplication signs, or use horizontal division bars where possible, to make the expression unambiguous.
bitigchi 5y ago
Their macOS download link is broken. Oh well.
QuadrupleA 5y ago
The Python repl / console also makes a great desk calculator (for those who haven't thought to use it that way) .
- l-p 5y ago
  And with PYTHONSTARTUP you can get creative. I only use it to display numbers as hex and binary [1] but I'm sure it can be useful in many other ways. [1]: https://github.com/L-P/dotfiles/blob/39ac8d5849a593ef1633ed88ef2351ba4150a2b0/.local/bin/pythonstartup.py https://github.com/L-P/dotfiles/blob/39ac8d5849a593ef1633ed8...
seanw444 5y ago
I used to use this back when I mained Windows. Ever since moving primarily to Linux, and getting familiar with Emacs, Calc mode simply beats every calculator I've ever used in total functionality. However, there are certain cases where I also like to use https://insect.sh https://insect.sh if lots of units are involved.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  You may like qalc. It's an apt-get away and does all those units.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - stavros 5y ago
    I love you.
- xwowsersx 5y ago
  insect.sh is so cool! ``` (6 Mbit / s) × 1.5 h GB = 4.05 GB ``` Love that. Thanks the recommendation.
- CyberShadow 5y ago
  Emacs Calc (not unlike much of the rest of Emacs) is a little ... special. By default, it calculates 4/2*2 as 1, because multiplication has a higher precedence than division. https://orgmode.org/manual/Formula-syntax-for-Calc.html https://orgmode.org/manual/Formula-syntax-for-Calc.html
  - bufferoverflow 5y ago
    > because multiplication has a higher precedence than division Wow. That's actually quite bad.
    - bee_rider 5y ago
parentheses 5y ago
`bc` would be great interactively
- bee_rider 5y ago
  On my system, if run with no arguments, bc actually does open up an interactive shell thingy.
  - a-dub 5y ago
    don't forget the -l or it does weird rounding.
zokier 5y ago
It would be nice to know how numeric types are implemented, especially for something advertised as high-precision. Does it use some arbitrary precision floats or what?
- hatsuseno 5y ago
  From the documentation: * However, only about 78 significant digits are stored at any point. * SpeedCrunch stores integers with a precision of up to 256 bits.
msravi 5y ago
Somehow, it seems speedcrunch has a problem in dealing with big numbers. For example, I can do: (3(7^204+7^202+7^200)+7(3^204+3^200)-210) mod 10 in the calculator that comes with linux and get the right result (which is 7), but speedcrunch overflows and outputs 0. I've set the result format to fixed decimal and precision to 50 digits, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. Edit: Just tried it with insect, which also gets it wrong.
- hatsuseno 5y ago
  If you mean bc as the 'calculator that comes with linux', thats somewhat to be expected. Speedcrunch deals with a maximum integer size of 256 bits (~1.15e77), while bc is an arbitrary precision calculator.
  - msravi 5y ago
    Sorry, should have been more specific. I was referring to the gnome calculator: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Calculator https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Calculator
ajot 5y ago
I've used it in the past, until one day they removed the buttons/skeuomorphic UI. A couple of years ago, I found it again and is now my daiky driver. It has a newer skeuomorphic interface, which I only use if I can't remember the name of a function. What I like the most is the seamless integration of different notation styles, mainly using commas and points as decimal separators.
mpyne 5y ago
Fun fact about SpeedCrunch history, the software descends from an off-hand blog post by Roberto Alsina, a KDE developer, complaining about KCalc usability [1]. Back then developers were often just unthinkingly cloning 'skeuomorphic' interfaces like Apple used back then, designing user interfaces that resembled physical objects instead of taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by computers. His blog post elicited several rapid responses from developers taking his PyQt-based mockup and turning it into a 'real' application ([2], [3]). One of those was Ariya Hidayat's "SpeedCrunch", which has been actively maintained up to the present day. I can't find Ariya's original 2004 announcement, I think the original link was http://ariya.pandu.org/blog/archives/2004/10/calculator-fever.html http://ariya.pandu.org/blog/archives/2004/10/calculator-feve... but that's dead now. But it's really neat to see how this all started from a day or two of hacking on a solution to a simple problem. [1] https://ralsina.me/stories/33.html https://ralsina.me/stories/33.html [2] https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P245.html https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P245.html [3] https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P247.html https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P247.html
- pronoiac 5y ago
  Original post, in the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20050316093428/http://ariya.pandu.org/blog/2004-10.htm#02 https://web.archive.org/web/20050316093428/http://ariya.pand...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
NathanielK 5y ago
A little bit jank, but there is also a port for android available[0]. It still has SI prefixes and unit conversion, but you need to have a good keyboard to really take advantage of it. [0] https://github.com/mikkosyrja/speedcrunch-android https://github.com/mikkosyrja/speedcrunch-android
- krylon 5y ago
  I didn't know there was an Android port. Thanks for the link! On Android, so far, I prefer Calculator++ - it supports complex numbers (not that I need those, but sqrt(-1) returns i) and has fairly capable graphing.
TomGullen 5y ago
Is a decent scientific calculator simply a missing feature on Google?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
unemphysbro 5y ago
echo "expression" | bc -l :)
- bee_rider 5y ago
  In zsh at least, you can do also do: echo $((expression)) It will treat values as integers by default I think, so $((1/2)) evaluates to zero. But $((1./2)) treats the 1. as something else, I guess probably a float, and so produces .5.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
haunter 5y ago
Are there anything similar to iOS? Currently using Wolfram Alpha
- unnouinceput 5y ago
  Nothing beats WA, keep using it. SpeedCrunch is only better when you don't have an internet connection. WA is my default to go calculator, especially after learning its language it's so much powerful than anything
  - haunter 5y ago
    Yeah same experience, WA is really really good
xilni 5y ago
This would be amazing on iOS. I saw an issues thread from 2017 (https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/702/support-mobile-platform-android-ios https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/702/s...) that discussed porting to iOS but nothing since. What are the GPL implications of porting this to Swift even with putting all source on a public GitHub/BitBucket repo because of the App Store?
- brian_herman 5y ago
  VLC does it.
gautamcgoel 5y ago
I just use GHCi as my calculator. Works great!
greggman3 5y ago
I just press Cmd-Option-J (or F12 or whatever your browser's hotkey for that is) and the browser's devtools console opens. I can type expressions there.
medv 5y ago
I recently created web version with builtin currency rates and some crypto https://numbr.dev https://numbr.dev
Semiapies 5y ago
I wanted to like this, but when I tried it on Windows, setting the font size and/or color theme made the input bar/expression editor disappear. Absolutely nothing would bring it back, not changing the settings back or even uninstalling and reinstalling. I assume it works better in a linux. (I'd report a bug, but a calculator program making itself unusable in less than a minute with steps I can't precisely recreate kinda kills my enthusiasm for that process.)

438 points by hkc 5y ago

It also looks a lot like CCalc http://www.zoesoft.com/console-calculator/ccalc-screenshots/ http://www.zoesoft.com/console-calculator/ccalc-screenshots/ which is available since 2005.

krylon 5y ago

I LOVE SpeedCrunch. I do not need a calculator very often, but when I do, this is my calculator of choice. It doesn't support graphing, but it understands units, which is both useful and cool. I like the UI, too, for being simple but very much functional without getting in my way. And it supports a persistent history across sessions, which I also like.

netizen-936824 5y ago
Yes, I absolutely love being able to scroll back through my old calculations. It comes in handy so often
jsilence 5y ago
Using and liking it also. It is just that I need it so rarely that I fall back into the RPN that I'm used to from Emacs calc. Speedcrunch does not have a RPN mode, does it? That would be splendid.

B-Con 5y ago

I've been using this as my Linux GUI calculator for a while (maybe a decade?). It's a good blend of functionality and simplicity and after I started using it I literally haven't looked for anything else.

bjoli 5y ago
I believe it was default in kubuntu at some time. Or at least heavily pushed.

yboris 5y ago

I love SpeedCrunch on Windows, but for MacOS I prefer Numi https://numi.app/ https://numi.app/

crispyalmond 5y ago
How does Numi compare to Soulver 3[0]? [0] https://soulver.app/ https://soulver.app/
- tksb 5y ago
  I have your exact question in mind. If the OP hasn't tried Soulver, they must! It's a gem of computing for me and I lean on it regularly.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  I have a single, but major, complaint with Soulver: version 3 for iOS/iPadOS doesn’t exist yet. There are a lot of calculations I’d want to do both at my desk and out on the road, and I’d like them synced. Calca handles that pretty well and I’ve been using it over Soulver lately for that one specific reason. I like Soulver more than Calca, though, and the second Soulver 3 for iOS comes along I’ll switch back.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Bummer, no RPN for Soulver, Numi, or SpeedCrunch.

Aaronmacaron 5y ago

Love it. Use it as my default calculator when I need one occasionally. I would love to see support for plotting graphs and solving equations. Also a more touch friendly UI would be nice when using my 2-in1 laptop in tablet mode when doing math excercises for uni.

themodelplumber 5y ago

Whoa, I didn't realize it had color themes and font options on top of everything else. I just subbed it in for my normal calculator software shortcut, this is great. Thanks for posting op. (Edit: The HTML export feature even preserves the color theme. It's a web publishing tool now! Hahaha)

Centigonal 5y ago

This seems really cool (esp. WRT unit conversions), but I'm already pretty entrenched in using Excel, R, or Python for calculations, since I usually already have one or more of those open. Is it worth learning another tool to pick up something like this?

NathanielK 5y ago
I find SpeedCrunch can be very useful along side excel once you get a feel for it. Often I use SpeedCrunch's unit conversion and SI prefix features to distill all the magic numbers I need and double check my formula. After that, creating a formula in excell (or another language) to deal convert data in a strange format is easy. Learning SpeedCrunch is easy if you're already comfortable with single-line calculators. It has autocomplete that will help learn some of the SpeedCrunch specific units. For example, year_julian vs year_tropical, gallon_US vs gallon_UK are slightly different.

clockwork-dev 5y ago

I love SpeedCrunch, especially for dealing with different bases. For back-of-the-napkin type math, OpalCalc is my favorite. https://skytopia.com/software/opalcalc/ https://skytopia.com/software/opalcalc/

middleclick 5y ago

This is one of the tools that I use everyday but I don't appreciate it much because it always works for me and I don't think twice. Thank you to the authors for working on it. Time to send them a donation!

faffernot 5y ago

Am I a weirdo for using the console (F12) in my browser for calculating stuff like tips, rent/utilities for the month, and other such things? Lol.

josephg 5y ago
I love the JS console for this sort of thing. It has autocomplete for math functions, lists and variables. And I know (and have muscle memory for) the JS math library already. The best part is its available anywhere, on any computer, in any web browser without installing anything.
atdrummond 5y ago
Seeing as others in this thread use the bog standard console - and I’ve seen other developers do exactly what you’re referencing - it seems such console usage isn’t unique to you at the very least.
taviso 5y ago
No, I always use gdb :) It also has a persistent history, variables, functions, base conversion, etc. I guess it doesn't have unit conversion or a math library, but it's a great programmers calculator.
- eichin 5y ago
  Hah, I used gdb print expression for a calculator for decades (especially p/x for hex conversions.) I finally switched to "just fire up a python repl instead" around 2010...
  - mark-r 5y ago
    Python just makes it too easy. from math import * and you have everything you need.

driminicus 5y ago

This looks cool! I have been using qalculate (https://qalculate.github.io/ https://qalculate.github.io/) recently, which seems similar. Has anyone used both and can tell me how they compare?

wiz21c 5y ago
SpeedCrunch is less powerful but I find its interface much easier to understand. SpeedCrunch is really nice. It'd be nice if it was a tad more powerful (for example, to plot quick graphs)

dan-robertson 5y ago

Their demo of their efficient interface compared to GNU Calc: SC: 5+8 Enter [4 keys, 1 shift] Calc: 5 RET 8 + [4 keys, 1 shift] SC: 5*(113+23) Enter [11 keys, 3 shifts] Calc: 5 RET 113 RET 23 + * [10 keys, 1 shift] SC: 7*ans Enter [6 keys, 1 shift] Calc: 7 * [2 keys, 1 shift] SC: sqrt(1231+41) Enter [14 keys, 3 shift] Calc: 1231 RET 41 + Q [9 keys, 1 shift] Maybe it’s more efficient than clicking buttons with a mouse but it doesn’t feel more efficient than the calculator I already use, nor does it seem to be better integrated with the software I use. It doesn’t even seem more efficient than the scientific calculator I used in high school. I think I’m put off more by the lack of graphing and (as far as I could tell skimming their site) array/vector/matrix functions, which are the main things I do with Calc.

atdrummond 5y ago
I don’t have a horse in the race (I find myself still using the default of whatever OS I’m using more often than I specifically choose SC) but I will say that one can easily configure SC to operate with past calculated results and other references from previous operations, just as you did with your cited GNUCalc examples. If such shortcuts are utilised, one will find SC requires the same number keystrokes - or fewer.
JoshTriplett 5y ago
You're comparing infix with RPN. There are more factors there than just number of keystrokes; not everyone enjoys working with RPN or finds it comfortable. RPN is a deliberate tradeoff in favor of speed/efficiency at the expense of other things.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  The calculator I used in school was infix but, unlike this calculator, had: - single buttons for common operations like +, * or sqrt - no shifted parentheses - display-style input of fractions and exponential so you got some visual clue if your brackets weren’t totally wrong - single (sometimes shifted) buttons for functions like cos/tan/arcsin/… - specialised shift operators which mostly meant inverse or hyperbolic GNU Calc has most of these (+ and * are still shifted but all common operations are shifted. Parentheses are not used because of RPN. Display-style (‘big’) presentation is optional but ugly ascii art. Press H for hyperbolic, I for inverse). I think gnu Calc is lacking a bit in entry of algebraic expressions but I don’t think speed crunch is better. I’d like to see something that let you place a ‘(‘ somewhere ‘backwards’, or in other words a feature for ‘I would like to parenthetical use some of the past expressions. Please let me interactively choose them without fiddling with cursor movement commands.’

phoboslab 5y ago

After trying a lot of different calculators, I just settled on this little shell script to launch/raise a nodejs repl with FN+Backpspace: if [ $(xdotool search --name "calc repl") ]; then xdotool search --name "calc repl" windowraise else xfce4-terminal \ --title="calc repl" \ --color-bg=#123 \ --color-text=#fec \ --hide-scrollbar \ --font="Deja Vu Sans Mono 14px" \ --geometry 40x14 \ --execute node -i -e "$JSREPL" fi ($JSREPL just contains some extra functions that I want in a calculator) I can easily go back to previous calculations and results, define vars, run loops whatevs. Having it on a key combo and launching the terminal with a distinct text/bg color really makes a difference. It also launches faster than most other calculators I tried. For my purposes (non-scientific, mostly programming stuff), it's been great.

shaicoleman 5y ago
You need to be very careful, as you may get wrong results due to rounding and floating point errors. $ node -i > 2**54+2 18014398509481984 > 3-3.01 -0.009999999999999787 Other calculators such as calc [1] don't have these issues 1. https://github.com/lcn2/calc https://github.com/lcn2/calc

jicka 5y ago

Speedcrunch is amazing. I often have to do many simple calculations (adding numbers from a pdf,...) and having full history and being able to keep speedcrunch over the other windows is perfect. I also increased font-size dramatically to improve readability on big screens. Sure, there are more advanced tools. But the simplicity and lightness on ressources is what makes it my go-to calculator.

cyounkins 5y ago

Also in this space is insect: https://github.com/sharkdp/insect https://github.com/sharkdp/insect and https://www.insect.sh/ https://www.insect.sh/

nusaru 5y ago
This is from the same guy who made fd and bat!

widea 5y ago

One thing I do not like about Speedcrunch: there is a slight delay between pressing enter and showing the result, just enough to be noticed.

jicka 5y ago
Try clearing your history. I notice the delay only when I have dozens / hundreds of steps in history.
- widea 5y ago
  That solved it, thanks! :-) Now I have nothing but good words about Speedcrunch!
  - hatsuseno 5y ago
    Except maybe that long histories create noticeable lag, that is.
    - unnouinceput 5y ago
      Looking at its inner working seems it's uses SQLite as storing. While a few hundred entries in any SQLite DB should be a breeze to parse and show under a second, maybe the person(s) involved in this project are not that DB proficient and made some rookie mistakes. Maybe they'll notice this and improve it's history speed as well, shouldn't be a problem for any SQL developer with a bit of experience in hands.
      - alfu 5y ago
        Based on this issue https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/746 https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/746 (2017) it could also be re-highlighting the entire history when a new expression is evaluated.
crispyalmond 5y ago
I just installed it to try it out and I love the idea but this is the worst part about it. Even with no history as another said, it still has a delay.

gravypod 5y ago

This looks great but I wish it had some of the features that NaSC [0] has. It's a really amazing tool but it's awfully crashy to the point where it's barely usable. That being said being able to say `solve(... = 512 MiB)` and getting an answer is unbelievably amazing. [0] - https://appcenter.elementary.io/com.github.parnold-x.nasc/ https://appcenter.elementary.io/com.github.parnold-x.nasc/

granddave 5y ago

This is a great piece of software that's installed on all my machines!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
NathanielK 5y ago
That's one of my favourite advantages of free software. No worries about licensing, any computer I pull out of a dumpster gets a full suite of powerful software I'm familiar with.

db65edfc7996 5y ago

Ever since Windows released their embarrassing touch-friendly calculator app which takes 1+ seconds to start, SpeedCrunch has been my goto across platforms. I was recently doing some (silly) combinatorical math, where I wanted to know factorial(400_000) and SpeedCrunch happily produced the answer immediately. Incredibly satisfied.

skyfaller 5y ago

I love SpeedCrunch, but lately I've been using Kalker on the command line: https://kalker.xyz/ https://kalker.xyz/ It's written in Rust ;-)

paddim8 5y ago
Wait... I made that! Nice

morpheuskafka 5y ago

I loved this on Windows but haven't used it since switching to macOS since it seems to not support Retina screens very well, anyone know of a workaround?

annexrichmond 5y ago
Heh, just came here to see if anyone else noticed the blurriness of the app on Mac.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Yeah, did a screenshot just to see what was up. Very blurry/chunky on Mac OS. Must be the UI library they use for Mac.
dron57 5y ago
The fix for this is detailed in this thread: https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/716/version-012-ugly-display-resolution-on https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/716/v... And the .dmg file that has the retina fix is here: https://github.com/gagarcr/speedcrunch-nightlies/releases https://github.com/gagarcr/speedcrunch-nightlies/releases Hopefully this helps!
- morpheuskafka 5y ago
  Thank you! Works great on M1 under Rosetta too. Glad to see this app is still usable on the latest macOS after all.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

A small plug for my own script: I'm proud to present the most useful, least-work script I've ever written: `math` https://github.com/shawwn/scrap/blob/master/math https://github.com/shawwn/scrap/blob/master/math #!/bin/sh scale=4 # results will print to the 4th decimal echo "scale=$scale; $@" | bc -l It just yeets all its arguments into bc -l, so you can run math 1+2-3 or math '(1024 - 7)*10' or whatever else you want. I even use it in other shell scripts, since bash's math facilities are rather limited and inconsistent across sh vs bash. :~$ echo $(((3+4)*5)) 35 :~$ echo $(((3+4)*5/1024)) 0 :~$ math '((3+4)*5/1024)' .0341 It has all the precision you want, as long as you only want results up to the 4th decimal. It's surprising how much I use it. I find myself absentmindedly typing out math 220*1024*1024 while talking to people in meetings (what, you don't have meetings where it's crucial to know how quickly 220MB can be transferred?) and like thousands of other situations. Meanwhile, funny story: I bought an iPad recently, and discovered that it's a delightful way to pass the time while shopping. You can stick it in your cart and pull up 3blue1brown and zone out while getting your pineapples. So I was doing that, and I went to reach for the calculator app to figure something out, and discovered that there is no calculator on iPads. The punchline is that if you want a calculator on an iPad, it'll either cost you $5 or your soul: https://i.imgur.com/CJsDtB0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/CJsDtB0.jpg Someone please make SpeedCrunch, but MsPaint. I miss MsPaint every day. There's an OS X app called Paintbrush which is similar, but unfortunately quite buggy and somehow even more limited in certain respects. Being able to just paste a screenshot and draw a red circle within 5 seconds is something that I wish we could do in 2022. Nay, I say that it's our right as programmers to be able to do that. </rallying cry> EDIT: formatting. TIL you can backslash-escape asterisks on HN.

namanyayg 5y ago
I use Flameshot for screenshots. Onpaste (web) is good too.
hk__2 5y ago
> I miss MsPaint every day. I’m like you. On Linux there’s KolourPaint that does the job, but on macOS I never found any desktop app that does what I want. In the browser, there’s this clone [1] that mimicks all the features of the original one. You can "open" a file, "save" it, and everything in the meantime is saved in local storage. [1]: https://jspaint.app/ https://jspaint.app/

unanimous 5y ago

SpeedCrunch looks very promising, and I've used it a lot in the past. I'm sad to see that they still haven't released the order of operations bug fix [0] they made in 2017. SpeedCrunch does some operations in an order most people wouldn't expect. For example, SpeedCrunch says 1/2(-9.8) = -0.05102040816326530612 [0] - https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/commits/ac4983aef12e1a6aca415965030ba8d8738a01cc https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/commits/ac49...

seanw444 5y ago
Is that not correct? I guess I should touch on my order of operations. I thought distributing was part of the parenthesis step, that came before MDAS.
- qsort 5y ago
  According to the mainstream interpretation, a/b(c) parses to: (* (/ a b) c) and not: (/ a (* b c)) It's very ambiguous, though. No scientist would ever write expressions like that.
- commoner 5y ago
  Yes, that answer is incorrect since it breaks with calculator conventions. The contents of the parentheses are calculated first (P in PEMDAS), and then the multiplication is done later (MD in PEMDAS). Implicit multiplication (which does not explicitly use a multiplication sign) has the same priority as any other multiplication: a/b(c) = a/b*c = (a/b)*c Since SpeedCrunch only accepts input in a single line, this would be the least unexpected way to interpret the expression, and consistent with how graphing calculators operate. A horizontal fraction bar, which SpeedCrunch does not support (since it only accepts single-line input), implies parentheses around the numerator and denominator. For example: ax -- = (ax)/(by) = (a*x)/(b*y) by compared to ax/by = a*x/b*y = ((a*x)/b)*y (If the above is not displayed correctly, please view this comment on the HN website.) Implicit multiplication is a point of frequent confusion: - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/science/math-equation-pemdas-bodmas.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/science/math-equation-pem... - https://www.themathdoctors.org/order-of-operations-implicit-multiplication/ https://www.themathdoctors.org/order-of-operations-implicit-... To guarantee that the expression does not get misinterpreted, the person writing the expression should always add parentheses/brackets and explicit multiplication signs, or use horizontal division bars where possible, to make the expression unambiguous.

bitigchi 5y ago

Their macOS download link is broken. Oh well.

QuadrupleA 5y ago

The Python repl / console also makes a great desk calculator (for those who haven't thought to use it that way) .

l-p 5y ago
And with PYTHONSTARTUP you can get creative. I only use it to display numbers as hex and binary [1] but I'm sure it can be useful in many other ways. [1]: https://github.com/L-P/dotfiles/blob/39ac8d5849a593ef1633ed88ef2351ba4150a2b0/.local/bin/pythonstartup.py https://github.com/L-P/dotfiles/blob/39ac8d5849a593ef1633ed8...

seanw444 5y ago

I used to use this back when I mained Windows. Ever since moving primarily to Linux, and getting familiar with Emacs, Calc mode simply beats every calculator I've ever used in total functionality. However, there are certain cases where I also like to use https://insect.sh https://insect.sh if lots of units are involved.

marcosdumay 5y ago
You may like qalc. It's an apt-get away and does all those units.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- stavros 5y ago
  I love you.
xwowsersx 5y ago
insect.sh is so cool! ``` (6 Mbit / s) × 1.5 h GB = 4.05 GB ``` Love that. Thanks the recommendation.
CyberShadow 5y ago
Emacs Calc (not unlike much of the rest of Emacs) is a little ... special. By default, it calculates 4/2*2 as 1, because multiplication has a higher precedence than division. https://orgmode.org/manual/Formula-syntax-for-Calc.html https://orgmode.org/manual/Formula-syntax-for-Calc.html
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  > because multiplication has a higher precedence than division Wow. That's actually quite bad.
  - bee_rider 5y ago

parentheses 5y ago

`bc` would be great interactively

bee_rider 5y ago
On my system, if run with no arguments, bc actually does open up an interactive shell thingy.
- a-dub 5y ago
  don't forget the -l or it does weird rounding.

zokier 5y ago

It would be nice to know how numeric types are implemented, especially for something advertised as high-precision. Does it use some arbitrary precision floats or what?

hatsuseno 5y ago
From the documentation: * However, only about 78 significant digits are stored at any point. * SpeedCrunch stores integers with a precision of up to 256 bits.

msravi 5y ago

Somehow, it seems speedcrunch has a problem in dealing with big numbers. For example, I can do: (3(7^204+7^202+7^200)+7(3^204+3^200)-210) mod 10 in the calculator that comes with linux and get the right result (which is 7), but speedcrunch overflows and outputs 0. I've set the result format to fixed decimal and precision to 50 digits, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. Edit: Just tried it with insect, which also gets it wrong.

hatsuseno 5y ago
If you mean bc as the 'calculator that comes with linux', thats somewhat to be expected. Speedcrunch deals with a maximum integer size of 256 bits (~1.15e77), while bc is an arbitrary precision calculator.
- msravi 5y ago
  Sorry, should have been more specific. I was referring to the gnome calculator: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Calculator https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Calculator

ajot 5y ago

I've used it in the past, until one day they removed the buttons/skeuomorphic UI. A couple of years ago, I found it again and is now my daiky driver. It has a newer skeuomorphic interface, which I only use if I can't remember the name of a function. What I like the most is the seamless integration of different notation styles, mainly using commas and points as decimal separators.

mpyne 5y ago

Fun fact about SpeedCrunch history, the software descends from an off-hand blog post by Roberto Alsina, a KDE developer, complaining about KCalc usability [1]. Back then developers were often just unthinkingly cloning 'skeuomorphic' interfaces like Apple used back then, designing user interfaces that resembled physical objects instead of taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by computers. His blog post elicited several rapid responses from developers taking his PyQt-based mockup and turning it into a 'real' application ([2], [3]). One of those was Ariya Hidayat's "SpeedCrunch", which has been actively maintained up to the present day. I can't find Ariya's original 2004 announcement, I think the original link was http://ariya.pandu.org/blog/archives/2004/10/calculator-fever.html http://ariya.pandu.org/blog/archives/2004/10/calculator-feve... but that's dead now. But it's really neat to see how this all started from a day or two of hacking on a solution to a simple problem. [1] https://ralsina.me/stories/33.html https://ralsina.me/stories/33.html [2] https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P245.html https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P245.html [3] https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P247.html https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/P247.html

pronoiac 5y ago
Original post, in the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20050316093428/http://ariya.pandu.org/blog/2004-10.htm#02 https://web.archive.org/web/20050316093428/http://ariya.pand...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

NathanielK 5y ago

A little bit jank, but there is also a port for android available[0]. It still has SI prefixes and unit conversion, but you need to have a good keyboard to really take advantage of it. [0] https://github.com/mikkosyrja/speedcrunch-android https://github.com/mikkosyrja/speedcrunch-android

krylon 5y ago
I didn't know there was an Android port. Thanks for the link! On Android, so far, I prefer Calculator++ - it supports complex numbers (not that I need those, but sqrt(-1) returns i) and has fairly capable graphing.

TomGullen 5y ago

Is a decent scientific calculator simply a missing feature on Google?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

unemphysbro 5y ago

echo "expression" | bc -l :)

bee_rider 5y ago
In zsh at least, you can do also do: echo $((expression)) It will treat values as integers by default I think, so $((1/2)) evaluates to zero. But $((1./2)) treats the 1. as something else, I guess probably a float, and so produces .5.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

haunter 5y ago

Are there anything similar to iOS? Currently using Wolfram Alpha

unnouinceput 5y ago
Nothing beats WA, keep using it. SpeedCrunch is only better when you don't have an internet connection. WA is my default to go calculator, especially after learning its language it's so much powerful than anything
- haunter 5y ago
  Yeah same experience, WA is really really good

xilni 5y ago

This would be amazing on iOS. I saw an issues thread from 2017 (https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/702/support-mobile-platform-android-ios https://bitbucket.org/heldercorreia/speedcrunch/issues/702/s...) that discussed porting to iOS but nothing since. What are the GPL implications of porting this to Swift even with putting all source on a public GitHub/BitBucket repo because of the App Store?

brian_herman 5y ago
VLC does it.

gautamcgoel 5y ago

I just use GHCi as my calculator. Works great!

greggman3 5y ago

I just press Cmd-Option-J (or F12 or whatever your browser's hotkey for that is) and the browser's devtools console opens. I can type expressions there.

medv 5y ago

I recently created web version with builtin currency rates and some crypto https://numbr.dev https://numbr.dev

Semiapies 5y ago

I wanted to like this, but when I tried it on Windows, setting the font size and/or color theme made the input bar/expression editor disappear. Absolutely nothing would bring it back, not changing the settings back or even uninstalling and reinstalling. I assume it works better in a linux. (I'd report a bug, but a calculator program making itself unusable in less than a minute with steps I can't precisely recreate kinda kills my enthusiasm for that process.)