Calculators

A scientific calculator is a type of electronic calculator, usually but not always handheld, designed to calculate problems in science, engineering, and mathematics. They have almost completely replaced slide rules in almost all traditional applications, and are widely used in both education and professional settings.

In certain contexts such as higher education, scientific calculators have been superseded by graphing calculators, which offer a superset of scientific calculator functionality along with the ability to graph input data and write and store programs for the device. There is also some overlap with the financial calculator market.

Scientific calculators are used widely in any situation where quick access to certain mathematical functions is needed, especially those such as trigonometric functions that were once traditionally looked up in tables; they are also used in situations requiring back-of-the-envelope calculations of very large numbers, as in some aspects of astronomy, physics, and chemistry.

They are very often required for math classes from the junior high school level through college, and are generally either permitted or required on many standardized tests covering math and science subjects; as a result, many are sold into educational markets to cover this demand, and some high-end models include features making it easier to translate the problem on a textbook page into calculator input, from allowing explicit operator precedence using parentheses to providing a method for the user to enter an entire problem in as it is written on the page using simple formatting tools.

The first scientific calculator that included all of the basic features above was the programmable Hewlett-Packard HP-9100A,[1] released in 1968, though the Wang LOCI-2 and the Mathatronics Mathatron had some features later identified with scientific calculator designs. The HP-9100 series was built entirely from discrete transistor logic with no integrated circuits, and was one of the first uses of the CORDIC algorithm for trigonometric computation in a personal computing device, as well as the first calculator based on reverse Polish notation entry. HP became closely identified with RPN calculators from then on, and even today some of their high-end calculators (particularly the long-lived HP-12C financial calculator and the HP-48 series of graphing calculators) still offer RPN as their default input mode due to having garnered a very large following.

The HP-35, introduced on February 1, 1972, was Hewlett-Packard's first pocket calculator and the world's first handheld scientific calculator.[2] Like some of HP's desktop calculators it used reverse Polish notation. Introduced at US$395, the HP-35 was available from 1972 to 1975. HP continues to develop and market high-end scientific calculators, like the HP-35s and HP-49 series, which have been favored by scientists and engineers, in labs, offices, as well as in the field. In 1974, HP had the HP-65, which could be programmable.[3]

Texas Instruments, after the introduction of several units with scientific notation, came out with a handheld scientific calculator on January 15, 1974 in the form of the SR-50.[4] TI continues to be a major player in the calculator market, with their long-running TI-30 series being one of the most widely used scientific calculators in classrooms.

Casio and Sharp have also been major players, with Casio's FX series (beginning with the Casio FX-1 in 1972[5]) being a very common brand, used particularly in schools. Casio is also the #3[citation needed] player in the graphing calculator market, and was the first company to produce one (Casio fx-7000G).

No.

Calculators cannot be used.

In fact, some schools or testing centers don't let you bring anything but a #2 pencil.

Strictness varies but many places will confiscate a calculator if it is brought.

Your better off not bringing one at all.

If you have further questions you can go to the official HSPT scholastic website ( www.scholastictesting.com/HSPT).

They actually don't. It is sometimes just the way they display the results. If you have formulas that end up creating results with decimal points, the spreadsheet might round them up. So something like 23.729999 that you might see on a calculator will show as 23.73 in a spreadsheet when it has been set to only show 2 decimal places. It still actually retains the true value, but displays it differently.

Another reason may be the way that you are doing some calculations. Without seeing what you are doing, it is hard to know. Spreadsheets calculate longer formulas than calculators do and calculators do them in a step by step process, sometimes in a different way. If you wanted to do 10+2*5 on a spreadsheet and a calculator you may get different answers, depending on how you do it. First, looking at it you are probably thinking the answer is 60. You would enter it into a spreadsheet like this:

=10+2*5

The answer you will get is 20, not 60. Using the laws of mathematics, the multiplication is done before the addition, so 2 multiplied by 5 is 10, plus 10 is 20. 20 is the correct answer. If you put 10 + 2 into a calculator and pressed the equals sign, you would get 12. If you then pressed * and 5 and the equals sign, it will give you 60. That is because you've broken the calculation into two steps. Depending on the way your calculator is set up, if you only do the last equals, you may get 20 too. To get the spreadsheet to give you 60, you type the formula like this:

=(10+2)*5

Some calculator have keys with ( and ) on them, which can be used for the same effect. So there are some reasons why you get a different result on a spreadsheet than you do on a calculator. It can be the way it is displaying the result or the way you do the calculation.

ACCOUNTING MODE

Another reason Excel may give you a different answer than your calculator is if you are doing accounting -- and you have your calculator in a common accounting mode where all answers are rounded off and displayed with 2 decimal places. In this mode, your calculator will actually round off each intermediate calculation. From an accounting perspective, this gives you intermediate results that can be shown in dollars and cents -- and the final result correctly matches these intermediate numbers.

This difference doesn't cause a problem if you are adding and subtracting dollars and cents -- or multiplying with whole numbers. However, if you multiply decimals or divide, then you can end up with a different result, often by a few cents.

For example, if you are calculating a daily interest accrual and multiplying by the number of days, you would have a calculation like this:

$50,128.45 x 5.15% / 365 days x 30 days = ??

Your calculator will multiply the first 2 numbers and round off the answer to 2581.62. Then, you type in 365, hit "/" and get the next result rounded off again to be $7.07 of daily interest. Multiply this by 30 and get $212.10.

Excel would calculate this to be $212.19 because it did not round off the intermediate results.

If you change your calculator to the floating decimal mode instead of the 2 decimal places (e.g. slide the switch from "2" to "F"), then you should get the same answer as Excel.

To get the calculator's accounting mode answer in Excel you would have to write the formula to round off each intermediate calculation, like this:

=round(round(50128.45*0.015,2)/365,2)*30

Texas Instruments of
The First Commercial totally electronic calculator was made by Bell/ Punch Sumlock in the UNITED KINGDOM in 1961. It was called the Anita ( Mk 7 and 8) and was the only electronic calculator on the market untill 1964 when Friden in the USA and Sanyo in Japan launches their own calculators. NO it wasnt Texas instruments or some Japanese electronics giant it was a small English Firm situated in Brighton that started the electronics revolution. Sumlock continued to make calculators untill 1974 when Rockwell bought them out and closed them down.

PLease get your history right the electronic calculator was first made in ENGLAND.