Calculator application included in Microsoft Windows
Windows Calculator
|
Calculator in Windows 11
|
Original author(s)
| Chris Peters,
Mark Cliggett,
Marc Taylor,
Kraig Brockschmidt
[1]
|
---|
Developer(s)
| Microsoft
|
---|
Initial release
| November 20, 1985
; 38 years ago
(
1985-11-20
)
|
---|
Repository
| github
.com
/Microsoft
/calculator
|
---|
Written in
| C++
,
C#
|
---|
Operating system
| All versions of
Microsoft Windows
,
Xbox system software
,
[
citation needed
]
Windows 10 Mobile
,
Windows Phone
|
---|
Platform
| IA-32
,
x86-64
,
ARMv7-A
, and
ARMv8-A
(and historically
DEC Alpha
,
Itanium
,
MIPS
, and
PowerPC
)
|
---|
Type
| Software calculator
|
---|
License
| Proprietary Software
(
Windows 1.0
-
Windows 8.1
)
MIT License
(
Windows 10
)
|
---|
Website
| aka
.ms
/calculator
|
---|
Windows Calculator
is a
software calculator
developed by
Microsoft
and included in
Windows
. In its
Windows 10
incarnation it has four modes: standard, scientific, programmer, and a graphing mode. The standard mode includes a number pad and buttons for performing arithmetic operations. The scientific mode takes this a step further and adds exponents and trigonometric function, and programmer mode allows the user to perform operations related to
computer programming
. In 2020, a graphing mode was added to the Calculator, allowing users to graph equations on a coordinate plane.
[2]
The Windows Calculator is one of a few applications that have been bundled in all versions of Windows, starting with
Windows 1.0
. Since then, the calculator has been upgraded with various capabilities.
In addition, the calculator has also been included with
Windows Phone
[3]
and
Xbox One
.
[
citation needed
]
The Microsoft Store page proclaims
HoloLens
support as of February 2024, but the Calculator app is not installed on HoloLens by default.
History
[
edit
]
A simple arithmetic calculator was first included with
Windows 1.0
.
[4]
In
Windows 3.0
, a scientific mode was added, which included
exponents
and
roots
,
logarithms
,
factorial
-based functions,
trigonometry
(supports
radian
,
degree
and
gradians
angles), base conversions (2, 8, 10, 16), logic operations,
statistical
functions such as single variable statistics and linear regression.
Windows 9x and Windows NT 4.0
[
edit
]
Until
Windows 95
, it uses an
IEEE 754-1985
double-precision floating-point
, and the highest representable number by the calculator is 2
1024
, which is slightly above 10
308
(~1.80 × 10
308
).
In
Windows 98
and later, it uses an
arbitrary-precision arithmetic
library, replacing the standard
IEEE
floating point
library.
[5]
It offers
bignum
precision for basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and 32 digits of precision for advanced operations (
square root
,
transcendental functions
). The largest value that can be represented on the Windows Calculator is currently
<10
10,000
and the smallest is
10
?9,999
. (Also
!
calculates the
gamma function
which is defined over all real numbers, only excluding the negative integers).
Windows 2000, XP and Vista
[
edit
]
In
Windows 2000
,
digit grouping
is added. Degree and base settings are added to menu bar.
The calculators of
Windows XP
and
Vista
were able to calculate using numbers beyond 10
10000
, but calculating with these numbers (e.g. 10^2^2^2^2^2^2^2...) does increasingly slow down the calculator and make it unresponsive until the calculation has been completed.
These are the last versions of Windows Calculator, where calculating with
binary
/
decimal
/
hexadecimal
/
octal
numbers is included into scientific mode. In Windows 7, they were moved to
programmer mode
, which is a new separate mode that co-exists with
scientific mode
.
Windows 7
[
edit
]
In
Windows 7
, separate programmer, statistics, unit conversion, date calculation, and worksheets modes were added. Tooltips were removed. Furthermore, Calculator's interface was revamped for the first time since its introduction. The base conversion functions were moved to the programmer mode and statistics functions were moved to the statistics mode. Switching between modes does not preserve the current number, clearing it to 0.
The highest number is now limited to 10
10000
again.
In every mode except programmer mode, one can see the history of calculations. The app was redesigned to accommodate
multi-touch
. Standard mode behaves as a simple checkbook calculator; entering the sequence
6 * 4 + 12 / 4 - 4 * 5
gives the answer 25. In scientific mode,
order of operations
is followed while doing calculations (multiplication and division are done before addition and subtraction), which means
6 * 4 + 12 / 4 - 4 * 5
=
7
.
In programmer mode, inputting a number in decimal has a lower and upper limit, depending on the data type, and must always be an integer. Data type of number in decimal mode is signed n-bit
[6]
integer when converting from number in hexadecimal, octal, or binary mode.
Data type
|
Data type size
|
Lower limit
|
Upper limit
|
Byte
|
8 bit
|
−128
|
127
|
Word
|
16 bit
|
−32,768
|
32,767
|
Dword
|
32 bit
|
−2,147,483,648
|
2,147,483,647
|
Qword
|
64 bit
|
−9,223,372,036,854,775,808
|
9,223,372,036,854,775,807
|
On the right side of the main Calculator
[
clarification needed
]
, one can add a panel with date calculation, unit conversion and worksheets. Worksheets allow one to calculate a result of a chosen field based on the values of other fields. Pre-defined templates include calculating a car's fuel economy (mpg and L/100 km),
[7]
a vehicle lease, and a mortgage. In pre-beta versions of Windows 7, Calculator also provided a Wages template.
Windows 8.1
[
edit
]
While the traditional Calculator is still included with
Windows 8.1
, a
Metro-style
Calculator is also present, featuring a full-screen interface as well as normal, scientific, and conversion modes.
[8]
Windows 10
[
edit
]
The Calculator in
non-LTSC editions
of
Windows 10
is a
Universal Windows Platform app
. In contrast, Windows 10 LTSC (which does not include universal Windows apps) includes the traditional calculator, but which is now named
win32calc.exe
. Both calculators provide the features of the traditional calculator included with Windows 7 and Windows 8.x, such as unit conversions for volume, length, weight, temperature, energy, area, speed, time, power, data, pressure and angle, and the history list which the user can clear.
Both the universal Windows app and LTSC's
win32calc.exe
register themselves with the system as handlers of a '
calculator:
' pseudo-protocol. This registration is similar to that performed by any other well-behaved application when it registers itself as a handler for a filetype (e.g.
.jpg
) or protocol (e.g.
http:
).
All Windows 10 editions (both LTSC and non-LTSC) continue to have a
calc.exe
, which however is just a stub that launches (via ShellExecute) the handler that is associated with the '
calculator:
' pseudo-protocol. As with any other protocol or filetype, when there are multiple handlers to choose from, users are free to choose which handler they prefer? either via the classic control panel ('Default programs' settings) or the immersive UI settings ('Default Apps' settings) or from the command prompt via
OpenWith calculator:
.
In the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, a currency converter mode was added to Calculator.
[9]
On 6 March 2019, Microsoft released the
source code
for Calculator on
GitHub
under the
MIT License
.
[10]
Windows 11
[
edit
]
In Windows 11, the Calculator app's user interface was modified to match the design of Windows 11 and a new settings page is present for users to toggle between the themes of the app without changing the operating system's theme. In 2021, Microsoft announced it would migrate the codebase of the Calculator app to C# in order to welcome more developers to contribute to the app.
Gallery
[
edit
]
Features
[
edit
]
By default, Calculator runs in standard mode, which resembles a four-function calculator. More advanced functions are available in scientific mode, including
logarithms
,
numerical base
conversions, some
logical operators
,
operator precedence
,
radian
,
degree
and
gradians
support as well as simple single-variable
statistical
functions. It does not provide support for user-defined functions,
complex numbers
, storage variables for intermediate results (other than the classic accumulator memory of pocket calculators), automated
polar
-
cartesian coordinates
conversion, or support for two-variables statistics.
Calculator supports
keyboard shortcuts
; all Calculator features have an associated keyboard shortcut.
[11]
Calculator in programmer mode cannot accept or display a number larger than a
signed
QWORD
(16
hexadecimal
digits/64 bits). The largest number it can handle is therefore 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (decimal 9,223,372,036,854,775,807). Any calculations in programmer mode which exceed this limit will
overflow
, even if those calculations would succeed in other modes. In particular,
scientific notation
is not available in this mode.
Issues
[
edit
]
| This section
needs expansion
. You can help by
adding to it
.
(
May 2020
)
|
- In older versions of the calculator
[
which?
]
, some
transcendental function
operations, such as the
square root
operator (
sqrt(4) − 2 = −8.1648465955514287168521180122928e−39
), would be calculated incorrectly due to
catastrophic cancelation
.
[12]
In newer versions, this doesn't happen with integers, but it still happens when you enter decimal numbers.
- Older versions of the universal Calculator in
non-LTSC editions
of
Windows 10
doesn't use any regional format (can be set in Region Control Panel) that are different from the app's display language for number formatting (the app's language is English (United States) but Windows's regional format is set to a different format).
[13]
Calculator Plus
[
edit
]
Calculator Plus is a separate application for
Windows XP
and
Windows Server 2003
users that adds a 'Conversion' mode over the Windows XP version of the Calculator. The 'Conversion' mode supports
unit conversion
and
currency conversion
. Currency exchange rates can be updated using the built-in update feature, which downloads exchange rates from the
European Central Bank
.
[14]
[15]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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