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Casio fx-CG50 calculator comes with Python built-in
- miohtama 3y agoA screenshot from the manual https://twitter.com/moo9000/status/1718757628006834221 https://twitter.com/moo9000/status/1718757628006834221
- mbrumlow 3y agoI was interested. But I got slammed with a bunch of pop ups that took over the screen. Sites dead to me and I won’t by their product. I don’t care how cool it is.
- zo1 3y agoInstall an ad-blocker with annoyance block lists and stuff. I agree with you on the same things, but this site had Zero popups for me. Edit. Not even a newsletter, or cookie consent banner. Awesome.
- wslh 3y agoLike the HP Prime? Since mobile phones and graph calculators are ptactically the same size I would prefer a smaller calculator with a form factor difference such as financial calculators.
- pryelluw 3y agoI think it’s micropython. Not a bad thing, of course. Every time I see them at Walmart I’m tempted to buy one. But have no use for it.
- zik 3y agoYes, it's micropython 1.9.4
- BossingAround 3y agoInteresting, so it seems micropython 1.9.4 targets Python 3.4. Not that one'd use the calculator for any common Python development, but it's a shame since most Python libraries target at least Python 3.6.
- coldtea 3y ago>but it's a shame since most Python libraries target at least Python 3.6. Why would that matter? Would Micropython be able to run "most Python libraries" anyway?
- extraduder_ire 3y agoDoes python have many polyfills available, like javascript does? I'm sure you'd run out of space before too long, but it'd probably improve usability.
- matt_trentini 3y agoThat's _very_ old; v1.9.4 was released May 2018...
- layer8 3y agoAnything that qualifies as “very old” after a mere five years arguably shouldn’t be made part of a physical appliance anyway. That being said, I would disagree with that qualification here.
- tiahura 3y agoSeems odd to include Python but not a CAS.
- snvzz 3y agoArtificial market segmentation, such as TI-83/84 relative to TI-89.
- Shawnj2 3y agoSome tests that you can use this calculator on don’t allow you to use a calculator with a built in CAS. Python is fine because you would still need to copy your own CAS onto the calculator for it to have that feature
- baz00 3y agoThat's what pen and paper are for. Calculator is for getting answers to shit.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- breadwinner 3y agoThis Casio calculator from the 1980s supported Basic programming language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_BH7D45dE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_BH7D45dE
- js2 3y agoI have a Tandy PC-8 from high school which was apparently made by Sharp and also runs BASIC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Pocket_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Pocket_Computer
- fuzztester 3y agoThanks
- fuzztester 3y agoWonder if they would still work, i.e. battery available, etc. I think I used a similar one back in the day to learn BASIC. Had fun with it, including programming graphics.
- NikkiA 3y agoEvery 80s calculator that I used used the batteries that are still commonly available, CR2032 mostly, but some CR2025 and such as well. The hard to find batteries (not impossible) tend to be the wierd voltage batteries that cameras mostly used for light metering.
- fuzztester 3y agoThanks.
- pjmlp 3y agoThis kind of Casio calculators were quite common in Engineering degrees across Portuguese universities, all the way up to the last model 880-P. For us, Casio ruled, there weren't that many TI or HP calculators around.
- LeoPanthera 3y agoOutside of the artificially restricted world of education, it's hard to think of a use for a physical calculator that would not be better accomplished with a phone, tablet, or laptop.
- uoaei 3y agoI find one very handy when doing carpentry or other physical practices that require on-the-fly minor adaptations of designs as you build.
- Affric 3y agoI have never used a phone calculator I didn’t hate
- maven29 3y agoThis is a bit ironic, but have you tried the Numworks simulator app or any of its forks. I usually have excel sheets or python/matlab scripts. However, this simulator felt self-consistent enough to develop muscle memory for quick back-of-the-envelope work. https://github.com/UpsilonNumworks/Upsilon https://github.com/UpsilonNumworks/Upsilon https://www.numworks.com/simulator/download/ https://www.numworks.com/simulator/download/
- bxparks 3y agoI love the Free42 app. The Plus42 app is also great, but the buttons are too small on my 5" phone screen. JRPN15C and JRPN16C are also awesome, even more so in landscape mode.
- antod 3y agoI love free42 as well. Mostly as a tribute to the HP42S that got me through engineering school 30 odd yrs ago. The RPN muscle memory never completely went away.
- hskalin 3y agoDesmos
- leonidbelyaev 3y agoI use a Python REPL on the desktop or Termux to do all my calculations. Python comes with Casio fx-CG50 calculator built-in.
- ilaksh 3y agoHow did they get the calculator in Python? Is it an emulator? Maybe you meant to say it the other way around.
- epse 3y agoI think he just means it comes with all the functions of the calculator, that there's nothing the calculator can do that python can't
- herewulf 3y agoI think the point is that anything the calculator can do, Python can do (and more obviously). Perhaps with a bit more difficulty, at least in the Termux case.
- makapuf 3y agoMaybe using iPython (or even jupyter) could be useful here.
- theogravity 3y agoAlso TI-84 Plus CE https://education.ti.com/en/products/calculators/graphing-calculators/ti-84-plus-ce-python/programming https://education.ti.com/en/products/calculators/graphing-ca...
- avalys 3y agoWhat's the actual use case for these graphing calculators? Forget about the fact that smartphones make them obsolete and they're pretty much only used today in standardized test scenarios where you can't have a smartphone - what was the use case back in the 1990s? I was born in 1987 and I went through AP classes and an EECS degree at MIT and I never had a need to graph a function on my calculator.
- CamperBob2 3y agoWhat's the actual use case for these graphing calculators? There really isn't one, at least not when you have a PC close at hand that can run a Python prompt (or other language of choice that offers easy access to graphing tools). So, maybe if you're a student and need a dedicated calculator for class. That's about it.
- analog31 3y agoThe school says a calculator is required, and you go out and buy one for your kid. Some states require schools to provide any required materials, and maybe those states don't require graphing calculators.
- TheCleric 3y agoSchools in my area also have a set of calculators for kids in the class to checkout if they don’t have one.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoWhen I was in high school in Germany in the 2000's, IIRC there were 3 different mathematics curricula taught simultaneously in my state. This would depend on the school, but sometimes also on the specific class (major vs. minor). I just looked it up and it still seems to be valid: - 1) Standard scientific calculators: Calculators without any graphing or persistent memory. Algebra exams would test your written calculation steps (e.g. getting to the derivative of a function), and how well you are able to translate functions to graphs. Example question: "We are building an Autobahn that is defined by the function X. Please give the function of the tangent that merges into it smoothly at point Y. Make a graph of both." - 2) Graphing calculators, but not programmable and not able to do derivatives. Tests were mostly about complex derivatives. Example question: "Here’s function X. Please give derivates I and II if this function." - 3) Programmable graphing calculators. More exotic theoretical and conceptual stuff where the actual calculation was the easy part. Example question: "Here’s a complex body with some sides defined by functions. Calculate the volume. How would it change if function X was swapped for function Y?" (Caveat: example questions are from the best of my memory at different grades in school, so things might be more similar in reality) I was lucky to experience all three streams. It wasn’t that one was objectively harder than the other, but more that the challenges were different. The best thing about the programmable calculators was, though, that you could put Breakout or Space Invaders on them.
- RandomWorker 3y agoWhen I search Python on the page I find no results?
- SkyArrow 3y agoLook under "Program Functions"
- snvzz 3y ago>Approximate battery life (hours) : 140 (AAA-size alkaline batteries), 85 (nickel-metal hydride batteries) Assuming 5 minutes calculation and 55 minutes display per hour A huge downgrade from classic calculators with non-retro-illuminated screens, such as the venerable m68k-based TI-89.
- deostroll 3y agoA raspberry-pi might do better than this calculator. Besides comparing different things, a calculator's main design goal should be to assist with calculations and last for a long time. Anything beyond that it is overkill. If your goal is to visualize-and-study, use a PC.
- xlii 3y agoLet me try in hope calculator enthusiasts are in the room: I have a need for a specific calculator for young teenager with ADHD. It has to show input and output at the same time (or at least full input), be ergonomic (backlight, nice keys) and not looking childish. Right now I’m borrowing my SwissMicro RPN which is awesome gadget but outside of complete overkill - its not backlighted display is hard to read. Context is that the kid has very short working memory. Whereas they understand the concepts really well (I help with tutoring) due to frequent mistakes and forgetting numbers mid-flight the grades are awful which negatively impacts attitude etc. I noticed positive impact with calculator because not only they start to memorize some basic calculations, they also start to feel general result correctness based on those visual inputs. As mentioned before - SwissMicro works but maybe there’s something with backlight and not RPN based. It has to be calculator not an app because I hope to convince school to let them used daily.
- _trampeltier 3y agoAs someone who also likes RPN, I think for Texas Instruments TI-30XS MultiView is a good calculator. You can see the input at once, but I don't know any calculator with backlight, exept when you want something like HP Prime.
- ycombinete 3y agoI submitted an Ask HN a few months back about handheld calculators: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975021 There are some great comments and discussions there. I ended up buying the Casio fx-991 ES PLUS as a result.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gljiva 3y agoIf ES plus is the type of calculator you want, fx-991EX classwiz is a more capable version in every way except maybe the price. If you don't want a graphing calculator, programming and CAS on it, the fx-991EX is one of the best, if not the best scientific calculator out there (haven't seen many, though). Includes beautiful UI (roots, exponents and fractions are displayed like we write them, so more is visible, and the navigation is easier), spreadsheets, printing out values of a real function, solving any real equation for X (one solution at a time, gotta give it different starting Xs for optimization, though), some very basic probability (Gauss) statistics (e.g. linear regression), up to 4x4 matrices, finding derivative in a point, sum over a range, integral over an interval, arithmetic with complex numbers etc. It doesn't render graphs, but, it renders a qr code that a phone can scan and then the phone shows the graph, so some graphing is there for studying, but not an exam.
- BetaPictoris 3y agoIf anyone is calculator shopping check out the Numworks, it’s a glorious little thing (and can be hacked with apps, Python, and custom firmware — the firmware part is only on older versions). It’s definitely worth checking out, plus it’s less expensive than most alternatives and easier to use. It can even emulate a TI (someone made an app for it). My only complaint is that it is yet to support different bases, but I suppose you could use Python for that.
- est 3y agoWhy aren't any ESP32+eink calculators out there?
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoThere are the SwissMicros which have an STM32 and a very nice LCD. Which is perhaps slightly hungrier than e-ink, but looks much nicer especially when refreshing. Calculators benefit from very, very fast response times to keypresses and e-ink slows it down (e.g. when typing into an ereader).
- circuit10 3y agoSlightly off topic but you can unofficially program these in C/C++ and make things like this Minecraft clone I’ve been working on: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1135251023435415633/1147668810493591632/break.mp4 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1135251023435415633...
- KeplerBoy 3y agonice, this is super cool. Does it run as fast on the real calculator?
- circuit10 3y agoThanks, it runs at 14-20fps depending on the scene but you can overclock the calculator to get it to a solid 20fps like in the video (or more but that makes you move too fast)
- Vogtinator 3y agoI also made a Minecraft clone for a graphical calculator (https://github.com/Vogtinator/crafti https://github.com/Vogtinator/crafti), but the TI nspire has more resources available (esp. RAM) than the CG50. I'm wondering how you do rendering: Usual rasterization per scanline per triangle or some other technique (s buffers)? Depth sorting or Z buffer? Any other tricks?
- circuit10 3y agoHello, I've seen Crafti, it looks a lot more complete than mine. The rendering is based on the triangle renderer in https://gitea.planet-casio.com/Lephenixnoir/Azur https://gitea.planet-casio.com/Lephenixnoir/Azur which renders in fragments to the fast on chip memory so it isn't bottlenecked by the slow main RAM, but I customised it to add textures etc. It's using barycentric coordinates over a bounding box which is probably not as fast as scanline rendering but I can try to make it use scanlines at some point.I'm also using parts of https://codeberg.org/drummyfish/small3dlib https://codeberg.org/drummyfish/small3dlib. It's using depth sorting which works fine for a simple voxel world like this but if I add things like entities and non-full blocks that might complicate things. Also, to speed things up it uses affine texture mapping (which I think yours uses too?) but splits the triangles when they get close to reduce the distortion. The splitting is causing the seams in the video, I can probably improve it by having sub-pixel precision in the triangle rendering or something
- charcircuit 3y agoToo bad it's too weak to get pytorch working with a LLM to be able to teach you math or help catch mistakes.
- fifilura 3y agoIn my opinion, peak calculator was Hp 11c https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp11c.htm https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp11c.htm After that nothing significant was added. Oh! I see now that they started manufacturing 15c again in 2023! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-15C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-15C
- agumonkey 3y agoTime to resurrect the hp-01a https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp01.htm https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp01.htm
- wiredfool 3y agoNo, the 28s was the peak. Showing the stack is a huge ui win.
- fifilura 3y agoGood point, I have owned both and still use my 28s and look dearly upon it when I bring it up (and my younger colleagues smile at me like - well you know the type of smile) The details may be discussed (indefinetely). There may even be earlier versions than 11c that has the similar feature set but the longevity of the model and the build quality of the model says it all i think.
- zoky 3y agoYou’ve obviously never used an HP 48GX. An RPN graphing calculator, that actually had a real usable programming language onboard, and included communications (serial and IR) and expandability, in 1993? And it could function as a TV remote to boot? I’d still use mine today if I hadn’t accidentally smashed the screen. I bought a 49G+ as a replacement to use in college, but it just… wasn’t as good. Despite theoretically being much more powerful and having more features, it felt like plasticky garbage and was never really a joy to use the same way the 48 was.
- fifilura 3y agoYeah but then you may as well use a computer. The acid test here - do they still sell 48gx? Technically they dont sell 11c anymore but 15c looks similar enough count as the same to me (someone who has the time to read the fine print may correct me).
- pacifika 3y agoOf course it has a subscription. I’m glad PCs were already invented.
- esquivalience 3y agoI read that as being a subscription to lesson-planning software for teachers, not for the calculator itself.
- tshanmu 3y agocan confirm that - my child has one - no subscription needed for the calculator
- signal11 3y agoRe the subscription, it’s difficult to see how this is a step forward. Do computers (or, mobile phones & tablets) not exist? It’s sad, but Casio’s been “s*tifying” their calculators over the past year. Their 2023 calculators for high school are a particular highlight[1]: less buttons, more menus, more key presses for common operations. Sadly Casio are hugely dominant in many markets. [1] https://b28mathstutor.co.uk/the-new-casio-classwiz-cw-calculators/ https://b28mathstutor.co.uk/the-new-casio-classwiz-cw-calcul...
- lheck 3y agoThe reason is admission of calculators to exams in schools and universities. Casio and Texas Instruments basically have a cartel that dominates this market. Often one of these calculators is required.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoWouldn't it be easy to have a exams without calculators? Or on dumb terminals that only have basic apps like calculators on them? Where I grew up, exams disallowed any calculators or any kind of other electronic devices. From what I see, using calculators at exams is mostly an American thing.
- flanked-evergl 3y agoI think the chance that the person creating the "dumb" terminal is more competent at locking down the system than students are at breaking out of the "dumb" terminal is low. I work at a bank, and they have layers and layers of lockdowns for employees that take a couple of minutes to defeat with almost no skill. I doubt schools will do better.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoWhat's there to break out of a Windows XP PC without network connectivity?
- qwerty456127 3y agoI'd rather have a lisp than a python on a calculator.
- dig1 3y agoYou'd be surprised we had those 30 years ago [1] :) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-yuZ2pejGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-yuZ2pejGU
- agumonkey 3y agohehe, fully defmacro capable even also, hp RPL was stack+lisp in disguise
- qwerty456127 3y agoWhy not today?
- uticus 3y agoKnew somebody was gonna say this!
- RecycledEle 3y agoI loved it until I saw the part about asubscription.
- Saoshyant 3y agoThat page is awful at explaining the subscription and I'm not surprised you were confused by it. The subscription is actually for teachers using the projection/emulator software, not for normal users of the calculator.
- eternityforest 3y agoGraphing calculators are so cool! One of the largest contrasts between "Wow that's cool" and "I have literally no use for any of this" in any consumer gadget. I still want to see a nice app capable calculator OS for the Cardputer though. Seems ideal for a foss calculator. Perhaps there's something we've overlooked, like real time sync with a CAD app, to make them relevant IRL!
- matco11 3y agoThis is not unique/new: TI has a line of calculators with Python https://education.ti.com/en/products/calculators/graphing-calculators/ti-nspire-cx-ii-cx-ii-cas/programming-in-python https://education.ti.com/en/products/calculators/graphing-ca...
- askiiart 3y agoThe Ti-84 Plus CE also has Python.
- malloc-0x90 3y agoUser maven29 already mentioned the NumWorks open source calculator, and the new OS fork, but here is a video to better appreciate some of the features: - https://youtu.be/UnethgugvPA https://youtu.be/UnethgugvPA - https://youtu.be/GHWcLdQnfqI https://youtu.be/GHWcLdQnfqI Online emulator that runs in your browser: https://getupsilon.web.app/simulator https://getupsilon.web.app/simulator
- uticus 3y agoWhich also runs Python https://www.numworks.com/calculator/apps/python/ https://www.numworks.com/calculator/apps/python/
- rcarmo 3y agoWe have one of those in the house. Seems competent and capable enough, although I am a bit sad that we still can't have Mathematica in a calculator by now.
- imglorp 3y agoI think you could! Raspian used to come with Mathematica. There are plenty of pocket raspi machines you could run it on and boot directly to a window. https://www.open-electronics.org/pocketpi-raspberry-pi-pocket-sized-computer/ https://www.open-electronics.org/pocketpi-raspberry-pi-pocke...
- namibj 3y agoMy Pi4 has it.
- LorenDB 3y agoCan we all just take a moment to appreciate that their cookie dialog has a button that says "Do not sell or share my personal information"? I think that's the most clear-cut cookie dialog I've ever seen.