There are many of these, all with a math or calculator theme. And it presents a cute aphorism to amuse (i.e., distract) you as it gets going. While PCalc certainly doesn’t start as quickly as Apple’s standard iPhone calculator, it’s become quite peppy. If you follow James Thomson on Twitter ( you know that he spent a lot of time working on PCalc’s code to get it to launch more quickly. Right now I’m using a three-line display of the stack. The settings let you choose from many options. Now you can chose to have up to four lines in the display, and the lines don’t have to be values on the stack. PCalc has had an optional two-line display since version 1.2. It’s accessed through the 2nd key.įor you Phil Dick fans, 1.7 also has an MC (Memory Clear) button that does just the opposite: erases all your memories while leaving your stack in place. Fortunately, PCalc 1.7 comes with a new SC (Stack Clear) button that will clean your stack while leaving your memories intact. This is an even more destructive operation now that there are 10 memory slots. PCalc has the AC (All Clear) button, but pressing it has the unfortunate effect of clearing the memory in addition to the stack. New Clear buttonsĪfter several calculations, my stack is usually cluttered with old results, and it would be nice to blow them away with a single command. No items on the stack are destroyed by errant zero, and you can always return to the state before the inadvertent retrieval by Dropping the zero. Fortunately, it’s a flaw that does no damage. As I consider zero to be distinctly different from empty, I see this as a flaw. NB: if you retrieve from a memory slot that hasn’t had anything stored in it, zero will be pushed onto the stack. The value will be copied from memory and pushed onto the stack. The value is now stored in that memory slot. Note how most of the buttons are dimmed pressing them has no effect. Now PCalc joins them with ten memory slots, labeled 0–9. But most serious scientific calculators have serveral memory slots that are quickly addressable. PCalc has always had a memory slot, and it’s always had a stack that can be loaded up with lots of values. The new display can pass the most stringent of visibility tests: that of a tired middle-aged man trying to do a few calculations on a late night flight. James Thomson, PCalc’s developer, bulked up the punctuation several point releases ago, which worked pretty well but when he later introduced the two-line display, the punctuation shrunk back down to a size I found hard to see.īut with 1.7, Thomson has introduced fonts with big, robust commas and decimal points that aren’t squeezed tightly in between the numerals. Because I am in my late 40s and have the faltering eyesight of middle-age, I have always prefered the Easier to Read digits, even though they weren’t as easy to read as i would have liked.Īctually, the digits themselves were pretty easy to read, it was the tiny comma and decimal point that I had trouble with. PCalc can display digits in a manner reminiscent of older physical calculators, imitating either LCD elements or chunky pixels. I should also mention that I use PCalc’s RPN mode exclusively-improvements to its algebraic mode fly under my radar, and I can’t comment on them. Most of what I wrote in my series of Definitive Posts on PCalc ( part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4) and my descriptions of the version 1.5 and version 1.6 updates still holds and won’t be repeated here. Let me first point out that I’ve written several earlier posts on PCalc. We’ll look at each of these features in turn. A setting that prevents the calculator from going to horizontal mode when the phone is rotated.A display that can show up to four lines of data. Buttons for Stack Clear (SC) and Memory Clear (MC).Easier to Read digits that are truly easy to read at all sizes.The new and/or improved features (in order of importance 1) are: PCalc 1.7 just hit the App Store, and it is-despite the meager 0.1 increment in version number-a major update to the iPhone’s premier calculator application.
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