One of the essential utilities for any operating system is a desktop calculator. These are typically simple utilities that are perfectly adequate for basic use. They can include trigonometric functions, logarithms, factorials, parentheses and a memory function.
However, the calculators featured in this article are significantly more sophisticated with the ability to process difficult mathematical functions, to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, and much more.
The calculators also typically support the Reverse Polish notation (RPN). This is a prefix notation wherein every operator follows all of its operands. In other words, instead of pressing 6 + 8 and the enter key, in RPN you type in 6 8 +.
Occasionally, the calculator tool provided with an operating system did not engender any confidence. The classic example being the calculator shipped with Windows 3.1 which could not even reliably subtract two numbers. These types of bugs were not confined to ancient Windows operating system. For example, it wasn’t until April this year, that a horrible bug in the Windows Calculator shipped with Windows 10 was fixed. The bug in the calculator app didn’t provide the correct answer to the sum of the square root of 4 and then subtract 2. Rest assured, the calculators listed below are of precision quality.
To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 8 high quality Windows calculator tools. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone who wants more functionality offered by the standard calculator shipped with Windows.
| Calculators | |
|---|---|
| SpeedCrunch | High precision and powerful desktop calculator |
| Qalculate! | Powerful and easy to use |
| insect | High precision scientific calculator supporting physical units |
| Precise Calculator | Programmable calculator with 150+ maths and statistical functions |
| rpCalc | Simple RPN calculator |
| Nonpareil | High-Fidelity calculator simulator |
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