Tip - Get a calculator that can use HEX, BIN etc!

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Thu May 26, 2005 5:45 am

Get a calculator that can use HEX, BIN, DEC numbers and convert between them and use AND OR etc... If you program on a real Vic and do some ML, then this is extremely handy. Even if you just program in basic, it's handy to convert between BIN and DEC sometimes... I just bought this one: http://www.sharp-world.com/products/cal ... index.html
for only 129 SEK (At Clas Ohlson) (14 EURO or 17.7 USD). I think it is very good for that price. I've had the previous model (without HEX BIN etc) for a couple of years and it has worked well too... Another plus is that it uses a normal R6 battery...

/Anders

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu May 26, 2005 6:32 am

Hm. I am in need of some sort of calculator. I have an old Casio PV-180 whose display have had bad contact the last ten years and rather than try to fix it, I should buy myself something else. I also have a 200 kr gift card on the store you mention.. but there are so many things one could buy.

So, which colour did you buy: black, white or Smurf blue?

When cross-developing, I use Emacs, VICE monitor and the Windows calculator which has some conversion and other functions in advanced mode.

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Thu May 26, 2005 7:03 am

Cool tip!

I have thought about looking for such a calculator, with these functions, but didn't get around to searching for one yet.

I use BIN2HEX, BIN2DEC, DEC2HEX, HEX2DEC functions in Excel 2000 from the Analysis Tool-pak add-in.

I find this handier than calculator in Widoze.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu May 26, 2005 7:26 am

Wow. I hadn't even thought about firing up Excel as a programming tool. But yes, it is very powerful. In Emacs Hexl mode, one can insert binary, decimal or hexadecimal values into the buffer, but it is not so handy unless you are binary patching a file - for which it is excellent by the way.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Thu May 26, 2005 9:39 am

They only had the black one. But I think it's a little dark bluish. The old model I had (I gave it to my mother now

) was white... I bought that one on Siba a couple of years ago.

The NOT AND OR XOR XNOR functions only seems to work in one of the non-decimal modes instead of sin cos tan etc...

There is one thing that I don't like. If you continue to calculate on a previous answer, then then multi-line playback is cleared. For exaple, if you first do
45+3=
and then
555/2=
you can go back to the first calculation with the up key. But if you continue on the result and for example do
+2=
then this playbakc is cleared. It's also cleared if you store variables or convert between hex, dec etc... Otherwise I think it's really good and have a sturdy design. There is no programming features, other than using the arrows to change the formula you typed in...

/Anders

Rob Murphy · Post by **Rob Murphy** » Thu May 26, 2005 1:22 pm

When I sit down to program in Vice, I use the calculator program in Windows in scientific mode. It converts numbers from and to :dec hex oct and bin.

puterman · Post by **puterman** » Thu May 26, 2005 2:33 pm

With a little bit of practice you can think in hex, and there's no need for a calculator.

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Thu May 26, 2005 3:39 pm

I have a neat little tool called BaseView on my Palm Clie.

http://www.freewarepalm.com/educational/baseview.shtml

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu May 26, 2005 4:21 pm

Since I have never heard about bitwise logic on decimal numbers, I'm not surprised the calculator can not make ATN(2) OR SQRT(7)..

Well, the logic operator could truncate the integer part of course, or treat the floating numbers like bit strings. Bitwise logic on mantissa part?

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Thu May 26, 2005 8:18 pm

Schema wrote:I have a neat little tool called BaseView on my Palm Clie.

http://www.freewarepalm.com/educational/baseview.shtml

Nice little utility!

Link above seems to be broken

But, download may be done from Handiwerk's site:

http://www.handiwerks.com/software.html

One's compliment feature will come in very handy when creating inverse video for custom character sets.

I have used Megacalc in the past, but my Palm IIIe eats batteries like crazy.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Fri May 27, 2005 3:56 am

puterman wrote:With a little bit of practice you can think in hex, and there's no need for a calculator.

Yeah sure! Tell me, what is the decimal equivalence of $7CBA? And how long did it take you to think that out?

/Anders

aneurysm · Post by **aneurysm** » Mon May 30, 2005 6:19 pm

Boray wrote:
puterman wrote:With a little bit of practice you can think in hex, and there's no need for a calculator.
Yeah sure! Tell me, what is the decimal equivalence of $7CBA? And how long did it take you to think that out?

/Anders

HAHAAHAHAAHAHAH!!!

I just wonder why they still put OCTAL on calculators. Do they force people to practice that numeric system somewhere?

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue May 31, 2005 1:03 am

aneurysm wrote:I just wonder why they still put OCTAL on calculators. Do they force people to practice that numeric system somewhere?

In Duckburg perhaps? Count the fingers of my avatar...

And do you know why programmers can't tell Helloween from Christmas?

Michael

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Tue May 31, 2005 7:53 am

i know this because of anders carlsson and his post at minigames last autumn!

i won't let the cat out of the bag...

chris

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue May 31, 2005 8:40 am

Aha, now you had me think what octal numbers had to do with my mini games, but you meant the joke.

Actually there is one case where octal numbers are really handy over hexadecimal or decimal, but I can't remember when..