Path: csiph.com!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder3.hal-mli.net!nntp-feed.chiark.greenend.org.uk!ewrotcd!feeds.news.ox.ac.uk!news.ox.ac.uk!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!reader03.nrc01.news.zen.net.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Geoff Clare Subject: Re: Calculator Accuracy Newsgroups: comp.misc Reply-To: netnews@gclare.org.uk References: User-Agent: Pan/0.139 (Sexual Chocolate; GIT bf56508 git://git.gnome.org/pan2) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: Mon, 12 May 2014 13:50:40 +0100 Message-ID: <0ms64b-uet.ln1@leafnode-msgid.gclare.org.uk> Lines: 24 Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 3ff5be2c.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=8a\G:Yn]1gK2[5da\fQX9\BGe\aWc^aheFH]:IlgOG8A@W;RF_Mh^f`O X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Xref: csiph.com comp.misc:2758 Gordon Henderson wrote: > In article , Anssi Saari wrote: >>Gordon Henderson writes: >> >>> With that, you do expect some rounding, but a lot of calculators were >>> so far off the mark it was quite incredible. >> >>How far off the mark exactly? > > From memory (30+ years!) some were out by 10's or 20's. (ie results were 45 +/- 10) > I dug out my old Casio fx-1000 from the late 1970's. It gives 0.6948 (just those four decimals, although there were more for intermediate results). So quite bad by modern standards, but I happily used it when I was doing maths and science "A levels" (UK exams at age 18). One thing that surprised me using it again is how slow it is. Roughly a whole second for each trig function. I suppose it must have seemed normal back then. -- Geoff Clare