5 ms·

Acording to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#Windows_9x_and_Windows_NT_4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#Windows_9x_..., the

by canucker2016 2y ago

Acording to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#Windows_9x_and_Windows_NT_4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#Windows_9x_..., the Win98 version of calc.exe got an arbitrary-precision math library for basic math functionality to fix this sort of problem. also mentioned by Raymond Chen, https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39193 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39... : "Today, Calc’s internal computations are done with infinite precision for basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and 32 digits of precision for advanced operations (square root, transcendental operators)." And they fixed the square-root-of-a-perfect-square bug a few years ago, https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/89s53g/microsoft_fixes_twodecade_old_bug_in_calculator/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/89s53g/microsoft...

zelphirkalt 2y ago
Can this be true? Does the calculator have any irrational number? What if I enter PI * 2? Infinite precision, wouldn't that mean running until your RAM is full? Or would it simply work, because no irrational number is calculated to infinite (as many as the device could) digits and is therefore finite and can easily be multiplied? Or another even simpler case: If division is infinite precision, and I enter (2/3) * X, does the calculator internally work with fractions? Otherwise it would have infinite digits to compute.
- Khoth 2y ago
  For 2/3, it does indeed work with fractions internally. For pi, it uses some floating point representation I think, you get about 50 digits.
- canucker2016 2y ago
  For PI, calc.exe, in scientific mode, returns 3.1415926535897932384626433832795 which is 32 digits of precision (33 chars if you include the decimal pt).

5 ms·

Acording to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#Windows_9x_and_Windows_NT_4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#Windows_9x_..., the

by canucker2016 2y ago

zelphirkalt 2y ago
Can this be true? Does the calculator have any irrational number? What if I enter PI * 2? Infinite precision, wouldn't that mean running until your RAM is full? Or would it simply work, because no irrational number is calculated to infinite (as many as the device could) digits and is therefore finite and can easily be multiplied? Or another even simpler case: If division is infinite precision, and I enter (2/3) * X, does the calculator internally work with fractions? Otherwise it would have infinite digits to compute.
- Khoth 2y ago
  For 2/3, it does indeed work with fractions internally. For pi, it uses some floating point representation I think, you get about 50 digits.
- canucker2016 2y ago
  For PI, calc.exe, in scientific mode, returns 3.1415926535897932384626433832795 which is 32 digits of precision (33 chars if you include the decimal pt).