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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?"

6 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...

    --
    A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
  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.

  3. 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.

  4. As far as the state of 'handheld math' goes, by Mordant · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can add and subtract numbers less than or equal to ten with no problems!

    1. Re:As far as the state of 'handheld math' goes, by Ratbert42 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Learn binary math. I can do 10-bit and sometimes 20-bit math (or even 21-bit if it's not too cold).

  5. 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.

    --
    Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.