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What's Out There for Handheld Math?

Posted by Cliff on from the better-than-an-abacus dept.

PowerVegetable asks: "What's the story with handheld computation? Not address books and schedule reminders; I'm talking about the type of stuff computers were invented for. Anyone who's used Mathematica or Maple knows what desktop computers are capable of these days math-wise, but handheld computation seems to have fallen behind on the innovation front. Cell phones and handheld game systems have certainly enjoyed rapid advancement, so where are the handheld mathematical portable oracles? What's available that doesn't have obscure menu systems, bad displays, underpowered processors and unwieldy programming languages? Pickings are slim in the hard-coded calculator industry, but what about Pocket PC's or other programmable portables? Is there any portable solution out there that's more capable than my old HP49g?"

13 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Ummm.... by Hanji · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ti (Texas Instruments) calculators are quite powerful, especially the Ti-89 and above. 3D graphing, symbolic just about everything, ...

    Unless I missed something skimming the post, seems like a good solution...

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    1. Re:Ummm.... by xenocide2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The TI 92 is like a portable computer. Symbolic manipulation? Check. Indefinite integration? Done. graphing? Yes. The thing has a qwerty keyboard underneath the display. The 89 is essentially a 92 in regular TI style. I can't recall which language you program the both in, but I'd imagine it has the standard TI BASIC at least. The UI is menu based, similar to the TI 85/86 with more visual description.

      Since its got a keyboard, you won't have to look up many key functions, unless you have a hard time with the alphabet.

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  2. Mathematica and Zaurus by arcadum · · Score: 4, Informative

    i've been using Mathematica on my zaurus for a while know... here is where I learned about it.

    1. Re:Mathematica and Zaurus by RevAaron · · Score: 2, Informative

      pffft, lame.

      I came pretty close to buying F1, but never did. It looks nice, but doesn't have all of the features that Maxima or Octave have, both or one of which you can get easily and free for Windows CE/PocketPC or Zaurus handhelds. It sure as hell is far away from being Mathematica...

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  3. Easycalc for Palm Pilots by the_truk_stop · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've found Easycalc for Palm OS to be a small-yet-powerful package.

  4. Symbolic Calculator by timdaly · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maxima, a general purpose computer algebra system runs on the zaurus. Yacas, another computer algebra system runs on the zaurus. Axiom is coming shortly (once the glibc issue gets resolved). Octave runs on the zaurus. These are open source, freely available, research quality computer algebra systems. More are on the way.

  5. Re:gee. by Mad+Marlin · · Score: 3, Informative
    If the HP 49G+ is insufficient for your handheld computation needs, you're in a really unusual position. What exactly are you wanting your calculator to do?

    He said 49G, no +. The 49G+ is pretty good though. 75-MHz 32-bit ARM9 CPU, 2.5-MB of RAM, and an SD card port, which can hold more than 512-MB. Anything handheld with more power would be called a PDA. And, after you get it, download my library of 116 additional functions for it.

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  6. ti-89? by aggieben · · Score: 2, Informative

    Good grief, man. Of all the things you said you wanted, what can't be done on a ti-89 or an hp49g (or whatever it is...I'm a ti-89 guy...can't stand postfix notation.)

    Having said that, there's a nice open source clone of matlab out there called octave. You might be able to run it on a zaurus running linux or something.

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  7. I know of three for the Zaurus.... by Trelane · · Score: 2, Informative

    Calculon (does 2d&3d charts and also allows you to change variables to see how it affects things, etc. I don't think it integrates, although I may be wrong)

    Formulae 1 (for writing formulae and recording 'em; I don't think it does a whole lot of calculations, but I could be wrong. Note that it requires Java)

    Finally, there's QPlot, which is essentially a frontend to bc.

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  8. Discrete Maths and more - Pari/GP by You're+All+Wrong · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/

    It's a bit like Mathematica, but faster, GPL'ed and amazingly well supported (i.e. bugs get fixed within days of reporting).

    YAW.

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  9. PalmOS - LyME by sysadmn · · Score: 2, Informative
    If you're using a PalmOS-based device, look into Lyme & Sysquake from Calerga. It's a free mostly-Matlab compatible math language. From the website:
    LyME is a port of LME ("Lightweight Math Engine", the heart of SysQuake) to Palm OS handheld devices. It implements more than 360 native commands, functions and operators, mostly compatible with Matlab, and 70 functions written in LME. It requires Palm OS 3.1 or higher and at least 1.5 MBytes of free memory. Palm OS 3.5 or higher is preferred; Palm OS 5 offers optimal performance and functionality.
    Excellent documentation is available here.
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  10. two different great ones: by laika$chi · · Score: 2, Informative

    Power One:
    Finance, Scientific, Graphing flavors.
    Infinity Softworks
    Alot like the HP, TI power scientific calcs. Has Pocket PC & Palm versions

    CmplxCalcPro:
    Has a powerful programming capability, but the UI is a bit rough. Only Palm, I think.
    ADACS

  11. Power48 by vlm · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://power48.mobilevoodoo.com/

    Power48 runs on palms and palm compatibles and it emulates a HP48 at the hardware level.

    It is, however, slow and locks up by sony SJ-33 rather often.

    It's not as good as a real HP48 because there is no keyboard so it is very hard to tap and click as fast as you can type on a real HP48

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