• merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    851·
    21 hours ago

    Calculators just have a bad user interface in general. It’s pretty amazing that the UI was established in 1970 and was never changed after that.

      • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        12 hours ago

        In defence of QWERTY, it did a decent job for what it was designed for (reducing the risk of mechanical typewriters jamming by not having two hammers next to each other be pressed at the same time), but really oughtn’t have lasted past the point where the risk of jamming was not longer there.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
      10·
      14 hours ago

      Well, they’ve sold the same product for about the same price since 1970, so it makes sense. I have no idea how schools can require a specific device from a specific manufacturer. It’s just straight up market control by a public entity.

      • figjamEnglish
        5·
        9 hours ago

        Its to make sure that they don’t get a billion questions about what button to push next and not being able to complete homework because of button confusion. Does it still need to exist today? Probably no but good luck getting rid of a standard adopted by all manufacturers of textbooks.

    • red_pigeon@lemm.eeEnglish
      9·
      18 hours ago

      Curious to know why ? Basic functionality seems very obvious and friendly to me.

      • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        10·
        12 hours ago

        For one thing, just displaying the latest number isn’t useful if you’re doing anything complicated. For another, many calculations involve using the same number over again multiple times. Some calculators have a memory entry, but many don’t. There’s a “C/CE” but there isn’t a backspace, so if you get one digit wrong, you have to start that entry over (and hope you chose the right option among C/CE/AC/CA/etc. If you accidentally hit the wrong operation key (multiply, divide, plus, minus) AFAIK there’s no way to clear the operation. A lot of common math operations involves parenthesized expressions, but if you’re using a basic calculator you have to instead enter things in an unnatural order. It’s pretty common to end up in a situation where the calculator is displaying B and you want to do A/B but you can only easily do B/A. Fancy calculators have a 1/X button to fix this, but if not you’re out of luck. Same with having B and wanting to do A-B but only being able to do B-A. You can fix that by multiplying by -1, but again, it’s a UI issue that you can’t just say “hold onto that number for a second because I want to enter another number and then use it”.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        16·
        16 hours ago

        If there is any nuance beyond a 4-function calculator with a single clear button, any nuance or deviation from any kind of standard will not be clearly explained.

        There’s never a backspace key, only two “clear” buttons that have nuance between them and little to no description as to which does what.

  • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    821·
    23 hours ago

    Press both simultaneously, while twisting the joystick in a “C” motion, to launch a fireball.

      • stupidcasey@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        21 hours ago

        There sure is a lot of overlap with people criticizing the technical interface of a calculator and nerds, wonder why that is? Oh well glad I’m not one of those nerds, now back to the clear button being so obtuse.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.worldEnglish
    375·
    1 day ago

    CE is Clear Entry. If you want to hit 2 x 4, but accidentally press 2 x 44, you can press the CE button before pressing = to clear the 44 but not the “2 x” part.

    C will clear all of it so you can start over at the beginning.

    Pressing CE twice may or may not clear entries in reverse order, depending on you calculator model.

      • tpihkal@lemmy.worldEnglish
        98·
        1 day ago

        Calculators are similar to a Dark Souls game. You always restart from the beginning.

        • teft@lemmy.worldEnglish
          30·
          1 day ago

          Calculators are similar to a Dark Souls game.

          If that were true then mashing buttons on your calculator would prevent any inputs from being processed for a few seconds.

          Fromsoft believes in punishing button-mashers.

          • stupidcasey@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            4 hours ago

            Oh, yeah I own that calculator. I bought it from amazon, it was an extremely cheap Scientific calculator with a gimmicky writing pad that tricked me into buying it.

          • Xanis@lemmy.worldEnglish
            24·
            1 day ago

            Unless it’s Dark Souls 2 wherein you mash a couple buttons after being knocked down or rolling and manage to queue up your binoculars perfectly. This, in turn, allows you to get a really splendid look at your enemy’s grimacing face as he shoves a rather vicious and often seriously pointy metal object up your ass. All the while you’re frantically trying to roll away and accidentally toss back a flask. This manages to save you from an untimely demise until you notice that you backed up a little too much and that dude waiting to ambush took one last drag from his cigarette, flicked it away, and proceeded to club your head like he was Babe Ruth after a particularly hearty breakfast.

            Then on the way back to your souls some asshole named “Forsworn” gets in your way. God only knows what his problem is.

    • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.eeEnglish
      58·
      1 day ago

      Problem is on some calculators C is clear all and CE is clear entry, on some C is clear entry and AC is clear all, and some have a C/AC or CE/C button where it’s press once to clear entry and press twice to clear all.

      So it’s safest to mash unless you really know your calculator, because the industry can’t get its shit together, and that’s the sole reason it died (I’m assuming.)

      • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
        8·
        22 hours ago

        Thanks I was looking at the answer and thinking it didn’t fit my memory. i’m sure most of mine were ACs. TBF with things like VPAM coming in the late 90s, you did have backspace and all sorts of stuff like that.

        I still remember doing linear regression in a stats exam on i think a casio fx-115W something like that . Excellent calculator - but just no, it was time for some things to be on a real computer.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
        26·
        1 day ago

        Why didn’t they just make one Clear and make another Backspace? The concept of erasing the last character had been in typewriters for a while by then, and this is far more obvious. Maybe erasing a single digit in earlier software/hardware was much harder than just clearing it all?

    • Ricky Rigatoni@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      1 day ago

      And it all depends on the calculator. The one right next to me only has a CE button and it acts as a C button. So not even the people making them know what they do sometimes.

    • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Shit. I thought it was clear and clear everything. I guess this is why I also push both buttons rapidly and make sure to just retype everything

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.worldEnglish
    116·
    1 day ago

    It’s solar powered so I just wait for night time to clear it then do the next problem in the morning

    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.eeEnglish
      14·
      24 hours ago

      I discovered that hitting something like C, CE and 0 simultaneously for some reason worked as an instant power off for my school calculator. Do calculators have such hidden off-buttons? Because I have discovered other calculators with other combinations.

      • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        92·
        17 hours ago

        There’s actually a neat reason for this! The way that simple keys work, like those in a calculator, is by connecting a circuit and letting a small amount of voltage through. This is usually fine because the keypad is broken up into different rollover zones, which is how multi-key input works. But if you find and press keys that are all in the same zone, their voltages add up and can actually overwhelm the little cpu in there. Really old calculators were really easy to break because designers never thought users would need to press keys like division, multiplication, subtract, add, square and square root all at once, which as you can imagine, caused a massive power spike.

        Now, is any of this true? I have no idea dude, you’re calculator was probably fucking haunted or something. I’d have taken that thing to a seance with a ouija board immediately.

        • bstix@feddit.dkEnglish
          1·
          7 hours ago

          I think this is actually still an issue. On PCs the space bar + up + left arrow keys conflicts on some keyboards. Try it: open Notepad, press two arrow keys and then space. Most of them works but if you hold up and left, it will not make a space.

          This is annoying in racing games, when you want to accelerate, turn left and use the hand brake at the same time.

          • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            1·
            54 minutes ago

            I don’t know the specifics, but there is such a thing as keyboard rollover. MOST KEYBOARDS—whoa, sorry. Most keyboards support up to 6 keys at once, but it might be that they’re still divided into sections with lower rollover numbers, such as the arrow keys and space. Some “gaming” keyboards support up to 25 though, so your best bet if this bothers you is just upgrading to a spiffier typer.

        • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          11 hours ago

          Now, is any of this true?

          Not really, since keys work by shorting the circuit. That’s why pressing multiple keys at once on your keyboard doesn’t cause it to blow up. It would just assume the button with the shortest circuit was pressed, and ignore the rest.

          It might cause weird things to happen with a mechanical or electromechanical calculator, since there were physical mechanisms engaged and disnegaged for each function, and might break/jam those, but not an electronic, and especially not a transistorised one.

          It’s more likely that hitting them all confused the CPU, or dropped the voltage down enough that it reset, just in case something strange happened, or to try and fix any bug that might have caused it to register all the buttons being pressed.

        • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          12 hours ago

          I love that you bring a great technical and insightful answer and then just leave with that my calculator is probably posessed.

    • Fonzie!@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      On an editor that auto saved and where Ctrl+S doesn’t do anything, yes been there done that.

    • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.eeEnglish
      19·
      1 day ago

      I don’t think anyone’s ever been punished for saving twice. Right?

      This is where people give me examples where people have been prove me wrong. Please I want to know the sadness of others sadness give give sadness. Give give now sadness give

      • AmbientChaos@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        13·
        1 day ago

        Once I was working on some music and got so excited about how it turned out I hit ctrl S like 5 times, it corrupted the project and I lost it 😭

        • Thassodar@lemm.eeEnglish
          6·
          22 hours ago

          Similarly I was working on a track and doing something super experimental that I was going to revert and accidentally hit CTRL S instead of CTRL A (automation), saving all the weird shit.

          Luckily I didn’t lose it, but CTRL Z-ing back to what I was doing prior was annoying because I did some things I wanted to keep on other channels

          (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

  • marcos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 day ago

    I just noticed I don’t have a hardware calculator…

    And the software one I remember about is translated.

  • callouscomic@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    I do it a bunch of times for the same reason I also CTRL+C a bunch of times when I need to copy on windows.

  • JimVanDeventer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    617·
    19 hours ago

    I am using and loving Solve by Pomegranate Apps. Multiple workspaces and advanced functions available a swipe away. It doesn’t seem to be available anymore, and it looked like the company was hitting hard times when they dumped things like Trump quotes and other shit apps into the store. So, apprehensive to recommend because of weirdness but best calculator ever.

    Edit: down arrows barely meant anything on Reddit and they mean literally nothing here. Fuck you and your annoying orange. Peace out, hugs and kisses.

    • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      18 hours ago

      My favorite was MathAlly. I still have it through some built-in android backwards compatibility emulator, but once it goes, it goes. They haven’t been on the app store for years.