Calculator In Windows 7: A Secret Update
The Calculator, perhaps one of the oldest programs in Windows family of operating system, has got at last got a major face lift and new features in Windows 7. It took Microsoft to think about the face lift for older programs too in Windows. From the date of Windows release in 1985, this is the one of the programs, which was looking the same, from version to versions. Every Windows user including me, when looking for changes in the earlier releases of Windows, was made feel that, Windows will remain the same, when we launched the calculator program for the first time, in that release.
Earlier Calculators in Windows Versions
The calculator program made its debut in Windows 1.0 itself. This calculator contained simple arithmetic functions such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division etc. The next version came in Windows 3.0, and Windows 3.1, which consisted of a new mode called “Scientific mode”. That was the visible change which calculator received. The Windows 3.1 calculator in “Standard mode” is shown here. We were been able to switch to “Scientific mode”, by going to the “View” menu. Both the versions featured buttons in 2D.
In Windows 95, the calculator and other programs got major facelift.
The Calculator in Windows 95 got significant changes, with 3D buttons, being rearranged too. The layout remained same, and slight modification for Back button was done with the name being changed to “Backspace” instead of back, in Windows 2000. This change remained as it is, for Windows XP, Windows Vista. The calculator in Windows 3.1 used IEEE floating point library for floating point number handling. From Windows 95, the arbitrary precision arithmetic library was in use for dealing with floating numbers. It of course, made use of new data type bignum.
Image courtesy: supersite for Windows, Paul thurott.
Windows 7 Calculator:
Now, coming to Windows 7, as I said above, Microsoft rethought and redesigned the calculator program. This version of calculator looks somewhat attractive. The looks of buttons have substantially changed. The font also got changed when compared to windows Vista calculator.
The windows 7 calculator comes with some new modes of operations and makes a higher, complex degree of operations, smoother and more efficient. The calculator shown in figure is being in the standard mode. Here one can perform basic calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and square root of a given number or of a result etc. The buttons got relocated and Backspace button is being replaced by <- symbol.
As usual, the calculator switches to scientific mode which is listed under Mode Menu. This mode allows higher degree of calculation meant for scientific purposes. Several values can be obtained by using trigonometric functions which are available in the scientific mode.
Apart from these modes, the company has introduced newest modes. Among them is the programmer mode. The programmer mode will assist largely in program development segment.
The programmer mode has got facilities for number format conversion (Hexadecimal, Decimal, Octal and Binary) and also, data type conversion (Qword, Dword, Word and Byte). This mode enables one to perform Logical operations (AND, NOT, OR etc).
Another new mode in Windows 7 calculator is Statistic mode. This mode enable calculator to perform operations related to statistics.
There are some additional functionality to the calculator got added. One can access these through the “Options” menu. The option menu displays Unit Conversion, Date Calculation and Worksheets as its items. When these options are enabled, the calculator expands to the right.
One can perform unit conversions such as length, angle, velocity, area, power, time, velocity, weight/mass, energy, volume, temperature. Each conversion type offer specific options. For example, if one chooses temperature, then one can convert from or to Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin. The option Area supports to and from conversion of acres, hectares, square centimeter, square feet, square millimeter, square inch, square meters and many more.
The date calculation functionality enables one to calculate the differences between two dates, calculate a new date by adding or subtracting number of days to a specific date.
The Calculator offers a new degree of wide range of calculations in Worksheet option. It includes Mortgage, and Fuel economy (L/100 km), vehicle lease, fuel economy (mph).
Each of these worksheets is customized for the task at hand. One need to select what the value should be converted to, and the value and the answer will be displayed in the column below it.
At last, Windows has got a new looking, feature rich calculator. But, Microsoft could have thought more wisely and brought out some more features in it. What I felt was the text area which displays numbers could have been resized whenever needed, which means while displaying the long numbers. But, even then One really feel good to use this one, when compares this one with old one.
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