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Windows 10 Calculator Will Soon Be Able To Graph Math Equations (zdnet.com)
Earlier this month, Microsoft made the source code for its Windows calculator available on GitHub. This has spurred developers to add new features to the app, like a new graphing mode that will make its way to the official Windows Calculator app. The "Graphing Mode" is one of 30+ suggestions that open-source contributors have proposed so far. The ZDNet reports: As its name implies, Graphing Mode will allow users to create graphs based on mathematical equations, in a similar way to Matlab's (way more advanced) Plotting Mode. The feature was proposed by Microsoft engineer Dave Grochocki, also a member of the Windows Calculator team. In a GitHub issue Grochocki submitted to support his proposal, he argued that a graphing mode would help students learn algebra easier.
"High school algebra is the gateway to mathematics and all other disciplines of STEM," Grochocki said. "However, algebra is the single most failed course in high school, as well as the most failed course in community college." By adding a Graphing Mode to Windows Calculator, an app included with all Windows 10 versions, the Microsoft engineer hopes to provide students and teachers with a free tool to help schools across the world. "Physical graphing calculators can be expensive, software solutions require licenses and configuration by school IT departments, and online solutions are not always an option," he added. "Graphing capabilities in their daily tools are essential for students who are beginning to explore linear algebra as early as 8th grade. [...] At present, Windows Calculator does not currently have the needed functionality to meet the demands of students."
There's no timeline for when the new graphing mode will arrive, but it should arrive soon.
"High school algebra is the gateway to mathematics and all other disciplines of STEM," Grochocki said. "However, algebra is the single most failed course in high school, as well as the most failed course in community college." By adding a Graphing Mode to Windows Calculator, an app included with all Windows 10 versions, the Microsoft engineer hopes to provide students and teachers with a free tool to help schools across the world. "Physical graphing calculators can be expensive, software solutions require licenses and configuration by school IT departments, and online solutions are not always an option," he added. "Graphing capabilities in their daily tools are essential for students who are beginning to explore linear algebra as early as 8th grade. [...] At present, Windows Calculator does not currently have the needed functionality to meet the demands of students."
There's no timeline for when the new graphing mode will arrive, but it should arrive soon.
Nice idea, but oversold. This is not going to change the world.
"Nobody carries a calculator wherever they go." -- every math teacher in history
My Dad's cellphone already had a calculator in the early 90s.
I'm sure TI will figure out plenty of ways to force a $100+ price on 1980s technology.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
is a fucking joke. My work laptop has a 4k display and the windows calculator damn near takes up the entire screen.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
What I'd REALLY like is for MS to open-source Notepad. That's in more dire need of new features than the (now quite decent) Calculator app is.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
All points on the graph randomly fluctuates up and down around the answers as it attempts to guess the answer. Just like file time estimate in the copy dialog,
Err, so was he a Microsoft engineer who was already working on the calculator program, or was he an open-source contributor (while I understand he could be both, it's highly misleading to state the former since it engenders a sense that the proposer was actually an individual outside of the dev team working on the program).
...
Algebra and linear algebra aren't the same thing.
And it can be ad-free for just $10 a year...
I wrote a function graphing program when I was in high school. Should've told the press.
You mean windows will get a feature that's been built-in to every Mac I've ever owned?
(to those who don't own a Mac - I'm speaking of Grapher).
So amazing... so revolutionary... please do let me know when windows get another feature that real operating systems have had for a quarter century.
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Slowly but surely MS is catching up. XD lul.
So now all expert hackers in the world can directly insert their own secret backdoors (in the form of extremely hard to catch superbugs) to Windows source code???
Microsoft already has Microsoft Mathematics (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15702), that does exactly this, and a lot more.
Wrong.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/22/special-counsel-mueller-has-no-sealed-indictments-as-russia-probe-ends-nbc-news.html
Heh heh. If ever there is an Internet Screwball Hall of Fame, Theo "Teddy Boy" The Rat belongs in the top 10.
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... to minesweeper! 8)
Microsoft. Shrivel up and die. Pretty Please!
Yeah, it's much easier to do creative things by adding shiny new features. But what about fixing the horribly inconsistent GUI, old bugs and doing proper QA? It seems that MS stopped caring seriously about its users and fired people from the QA department. Now the user is the tester. Of course, there is LTSB, but even there most of the shit still remains. I'm not implying that Google or others are much better, but this company cares about quality and I haven't seen Android/Chrome/Chrome OS having such horrible bugs and user interface inconsistencies.
Also for your consideration...
gnuplot : user-friendly as a cornered rat, but powerful. I use it for roughing out functions for work, and producing .eps graphs for papers.
octave: freeware Matlab. I use this a lot for prototyping.
The graph plotted into that linked page is scary.
The BSOD of math!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
I bought a used TI-85 calculator for 25€ a few years ago. This new feature in calc is wonderful, but it's not like you're not able to buy a portable calculator because the price is too high.
All resources are now going on to CalculatorOS.
is NOT needed for high school algebra... nor for simple first-year college algebra classes.
they won't help students in the "most failed" course in high school. kids either get it or they don't.. and if they don't, they either care enough to get help, or they don't. surprise.. a lot of kids just don't give a shit.
and one could argue that graphing calculators aren't needed at all. in ANY mathematics course at ANY level.
So far although I have seen people mention the already-existing Microsoft Mathematics, I havenâ(TM)t seen anyone mention the Microsoft Powertoy Calculator that has existed since Windows XP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
... forget the fancy stuff. Just focus on delivering a secure, reliable operating system that you are able to update without bricking my PC. Is that too much to ask? Based upon the past couple of years, apparently, yes it is too much to ask.
so it can actually display unix text files. I mean, it has only been 40 years....
Just use other free and open source calculators that already exist and make those better. Why reinvent the wheel on a skimpy foundation?
Actually, I'm pretty sure US prison computer systems either do make use of Windows 10 or are transitioning to it.
There was a graphing calculator in the Power Toys. Why don't they just make that the default calculator?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
There have been better alternatives for decades. Try xcas/giac. There's even an Android port. And that's just one of many.
TI just says you can't use your phone because you might cheat. They also spend a bunch of time/money training the teachers. You can use a $50 Casio but if you get stuck and don't know how to access a feature you need then unless your teacher kicks more ass than Mr T you're SOL. And if all else fails they buy off the schoolboards.
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All PowerPC Macs in the 90's shipped with Ron Avitzur's Graphing Calculator which was an AMAZING software that, in my opinion, really set apart the Mac from the Windows PC in terms of educational usefulness out-of-the-box. It's sad Windows did not quickly learn from this and include a graphing calculator functionality in their PC's at that time. By the way I highly recommend Graphing Calculator for PC or Mac, still a great program and still available (although I wish it would improve the zoom, extents, rotate and pan functions for 3D graphs to act more like 3D modelling software, but that is the only issue I have with it).
"Windows 10 Calculator Will Soon Be Able To Graph Math Equations"
1985 called, they want their groundbreaking functionality back.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Mac os had this back in the mid 90's!
https://www.pacifict.com/Story...
How about adding an RPN mode? I know it is not that popular, but I still prefer it for rapid calculations in chains. So much quicker to type and figure out the numbers as you go along then adding all the parens, etc.
"Linear" means different things in different contexts. In high school, a "linear equation" in fact means affine equation. "Linear" doesn't gain the specialized meaning related to the superposition principle until college.
Do the un-thinkable . . . Open Source Windows!
... that throw-out-of-building cartoon along the lines:
Boss -- Open Source works, folks. Someone is making the calculator better.
Guy at the end of the table -- Hey, Open Source could make Windows work!
Boss (*looks not amused*)
Guy is thrown out of the building / into outer space / whatever
Seriously? Apple had this capability for something like 25 years now.
We've had that capability with many other software for years and all for free. Again, thanks for nothing Microsoft.
microsoft mathematics exist so they just merge
That is why students still buy limited graphics calculators.
The question arises as to why they use calculators at all in exams. I do know that I try to stop my kids from reaching for one when calculating 3 * 7, say.
What's inconsistent about the UI? What bugs haven't they fixed? How little have you paid attention? Don't answer that last one, it's obvious that you haven't paid attention or you'd realise that the biggest bugs (math bugs) in the calculator were fixed with the rewrite it received.
But then you're not actually talking about the calculator, you're just using yet another excuse to complain about something irrelevant under the impression that every man down to the janitor and their dog on the MS campus is somehow responsible specifically for Windows 10 right?
That burned in what, 1998 or so?
Apple used to offer distinctive value at a premium price. Now? Not so much.
These days Apple is the company that tells you how much RAM you need. Or whether you can get an SSD. Or that you don't want an NVIDIA GPU. Or that you're holding it wrong. Or that your keyboard failing is your fault.
Maybe, then, stow the Apple arrogance.
It really depends upon where.
As an engineering undergraduate, we were allowed laptops running symbolic algebra systems (in our case, Maple — a package similar to MatLab/Mathematica) during exams. They don’t help at all if you don’t know what the hell you are doing, and you can solve much bigger problems with that kind of force multiplier.
Besides, in the “real world,” you’re going to use systems like that to help you get your math right anyway so you’d better learn to use them correctly.
This was 20 years ago. Now, my kids have iPads in elementary school (which I think is a mistake, for many reasons). But the days of taking exams with just a No. 2 pencil and your wits (and whatever you can scrawl on the inside of your arm) are likely over.