The Museum of HP Calculators

HP Forum Archive 21

 Default angle modeMessage #1 Posted by Eric Smith on 2 Dec 2012, 3:25 a.m. The first thing I have to do after resetting a calculator for any reason is switch to radians mode. Just out of curiosity, how many people here would be upset if the default angle mode was radians rather than degrees? Or we could make the default angle mode grads, and annoy nearly everyone. :-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #2 Posted by Harald on 2 Dec 2012, 5:01 a.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith Quote: The first thing I have to do after resetting a calculator for any reason is switch to radians mode. Just out of curiosity, how many people here would be upset if the default angle mode was radians rather than degrees? That is the same for me, and I would welcome that. Quote: Or we could make the default angle mode grads, and annoy nearly everyone. :-) LOL :) Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who uses it?

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #3 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 2 Dec 2012, 5:12 a.m.,in response to message #2 by Harald Gradian / Grad / Gon was an attempt to extend the metric system to angles. The WikiPedia article states that it has its origins in France. Nowadays it's only in use by surveyors.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #4 Posted by Paul Dale on 2 Dec 2012, 5:40 a.m.,in response to message #3 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Bring back the metric calendar.... - Pauli

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #5 Posted by Ángel Martin on 2 Dec 2012, 1:30 p.m.,in response to message #4 by Paul Dale Nah, much better to change time so that hours have 100 minutes and these 100 seconds...

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #6 Posted by Mike (Stgt) on 2 Dec 2012, 2:29 p.m.,in response to message #5 by Ángel Martin Use BMT (Biel Mean Time). Ciao.....Mike

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #7 Posted by Harald on 2 Dec 2012, 3:37 p.m.,in response to message #5 by Ángel Martin Then a day would have 8.64 Hours. Hmm, not sure if I could get used to that :)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #8 Posted by Fred Lusk on 3 Dec 2012, 1:30 p.m.,in response to message #3 by Marcus von Cube, Germany I'm a civil engineer with a modest background in surveying. To my knowledge, grads and radians are never used by US surveyors, only degrees. The last time I used a radian in battle was in college calculus. I've never used a grad. In the US (and probably most other parts of the world), angles are almost always expressed in the form degrees-minutes-seconds (e.g. 12°34'56.7"). Bearings (for direction) are expressed in the form [North or South]-degrees-minutes-seconds-[East or West] (e.g. S 12°34'56.7" E). Decimal degree angles and decimal degree bearings are used occasionally. Azimuths are also used once in a while, in both decimal and DMS form. Azimuths are angles measured clockwise from North (e.g. the previous bearing would be Az 167°25'03.3"). However, the last time I personally used an azimuth was in my 2nd year surveying course in college as part of doing star and sun shots. This application of astrometry was sometimes used in the pre-GPS days to establish your location on the Earth. I suspect that when it comes to angles, far more people use degrees than radians, which is why it is the default on HP calcs. I wish Excel defaulted to degrees.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #9 Posted by Walter B on 3 Dec 2012, 1:39 p.m.,in response to message #8 by Fred Lusk While I concur with most of your post, the following ... Quote: In the US (and probably most other parts of the world), angles are almost always expressed in the form degrees-minutes-seconds (e.g. 12°34'56.7"). ... does not apply here. Angles are almost always expressed in decimal degrees here d:-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #10 Posted by Maximilian Hohmann on 4 Dec 2012, 8:03 a.m.,in response to message #9 by Walter B Hi! Quote:... does not apply here. Angles are almost always expressed in decimal degrees here d:-) Not "almost always" in my environment (aviation) unfortunately. There is a big mess between degress mintes seconds (.decimals) and degrees minutes.decimals depending on the source of data, even between different national sources. The flight management computer is built in the States and only accepts DMS.decimals so there is always some (maybe dangerous) potential for error and confusion. And this is what the angle mode selector of a calculator should look like :-) (please note also the _black_ background and _red_ _luminous_ display...)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #11 Posted by Fred Lusk on 5 Dec 2012, 12:46 p.m.,in response to message #9 by Walter B Thanks for the info. I probably should said "possibly some other parts of the world."

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #12 Posted by Tim Wessman on 3 Dec 2012, 2:58 p.m.,in response to message #8 by Fred Lusk In my time working on surveying stuff, I never ran into any customers who actually used grads. This included plenty of surveyors from Europe and other parts of the world. The argument about "surveyors need grads" really never held any water. The only people who might are artillery captains...don't really have many of those anymore. :-) TW

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #13 Posted by Derek Walker (UK) on 4 Dec 2012, 3:12 a.m.,in response to message #8 by Fred Lusk Quote: I'm a civil engineer with a modest background in surveying. To my knowledge, grads and radians are never used by US surveyors, only degrees. The last time I used a radian in battle was in college calculus. I've never used a grad. Many years ago, in the early days of scientific calculators, I was a setting-out engineer on the M25 London orbital motorway [1]. One day a colleague and I were setting centre-line for the next stretch of fencing and site clearance, and we spent a frustrating day with nothing tying-in as it should, despite trips back to the office to check our calculations. Eventually we noticed someone had set the slide switch on our shared office Casio calculator to grads. :-( Quote: I suspect that when it comes to angles, far more people use degrees than radians, which is why it is the default on HP calcs. I wish Excel defaulted to degrees. Or even allowed degrees as a user-selected option. My Excel formulae are full of multiplications or divisions by pi()/180. [1] (for UK readers, just east of where Clacket Lane services now are)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #15 Posted by Derek Walker (UK) on 6 Dec 2012, 11:42 a.m.,in response to message #14 by Fred Lusk Quote: It's funny now. It wasn't funny at the time. :-) I think that it's that sort of experience that is described as "character-forming", and it's just such painful events that typically stick in the memory long after smooth-running jobs are largely forgotten. Fortunately the passage of time and the glow of nostalgia mellow the grief one felt at the time.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #16 Posted by Andrés C. Rodríguez (Argentina) on 2 Dec 2012, 7:32 a.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith I prefer degrees as first-time default, but the most important thing (absent in older calculators) is a visible indicator of angular mode. From a "real estate" point of view, it seems convenient to keep the GRAD and RAD annunciators, even if the default were RAD. As long as we have "continuous memory" for these settings, angular mode only needs to be set at first use or because a specific need. GRAD is good to normalize numbers in the 0-100 range with few keystrokes, for instance to simulate bouncing objects in a game. I never used it for angular or phase measurements.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #17 Posted by Nigel J Dowrick on 2 Dec 2012, 11:00 a.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith The source code for the WP 34S firmware is supplied and freely editable, so minor changes such as default angular mode can be made by users if they are prepared to re-compile the code. Will the source code for this new machine be available in a similar way? Playing with the WP 34S source code has given me almost as much pleasure as using the actual calculator! Nigel (UK)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #18 Posted by Walter B on 2 Dec 2012, 11:37 a.m.,in response to message #17 by Nigel J Dowrick There's a sourceforge project for this as well - but pretty empty so far.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #19 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 2 Dec 2012, 2:48 p.m.,in response to message #17 by Nigel J Dowrick Nigel, are there any contributions worth considering inclusion in the WP 34S?

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #20 Posted by Nigel J Dowrick on 2 Dec 2012, 4:13 p.m.,in response to message #19 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Thank you for asking! I've produced 5 modifications: the casio-style fraction separator making the exponent key enter pi if pressed at the start of numeric entry making 2..3 enter 2/3, rather than 2.0.3 a display mode that only displays a user-selectable number of significant figures, without going into exponent notation unless the number is too large or too small displaying the contents of the y-register on the dot matrix line I'm reasonably happy about the code; it has been running happily in my calculator for a couple of months now (and I use the calculator a lot!) I'm currently trying to make patch files for it; I could make these available when I'm sure that they're correct. (I coded all five changes together; separating them out, particularly the last two, is proving fiddly.) Nigel (UK)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #21 Posted by Egan Ford on 2 Dec 2012, 11:50 a.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith I do the same. I would welcome RAD as the default. And it should be annunciated.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #22 Posted by Gerson W. Barbosa on 2 Dec 2012, 12:19 p.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith I prefer DEG as the default angular mode. On the other hand, the change to RAD should require no more than three keystrokes.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #23 Posted by C.Ret on 2 Dec 2012, 2:00 p.m.,in response to message #22 by Gerson W. Barbosa Hi, I also prefered DEG as défault mode. Since I am using my calculator to compute navigational data, expressing in degree is mandatory. Please imagine the trouble if I send instruction to the pilot : " Prepare your weaponery system, coordinates of your target are N $\frac{143120}{829^{2}}\pi$ W $\frac{1.0867\sqrt{789.61}}{5^2}\pi$. Acknowledge reception. Confirm target identification". Edited: 2 Dec 2012, 2:11 p.m.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #24 Posted by Maximilian Hohmann on 2 Dec 2012, 2:16 p.m.,in response to message #23 by C.Ret Quote:...Please imagine the trouble if I send instruction to the pilot : Prepare your weaponery system, coordinates of your target ... Please don't tell me that you calculate target coordinates with selfmade software on a pocket calculator? I think I need to dig a shelter in my garden tomorrow! And regarding the original question/poll: Degrees, please!

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #25 Posted by Ethan Conner on 2 Dec 2012, 2:17 p.m.,in response to message #24 by Maximilian Hohmann DEG please.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #26 Posted by Mike (Stgt) on 2 Dec 2012, 2:32 p.m.,in response to message #25 by Ethan Conner RAD is all I need! Ciao.....Mike

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #27 Posted by Walter B on 2 Dec 2012, 2:23 p.m.,in response to message #24 by Maximilian Hohmann Quote: Please don't tell me that you calculate target coordinates with selfmade software on a pocket calculator? I think I need to dig a shelter in my garden tomorrow! US-American technology: homegrown but works - with some collateral damage sometimes :-/

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #28 Posted by Gerson W. Barbosa on 2 Dec 2012, 2:40 p.m.,in response to message #24 by Maximilian Hohmann Quote: And regarding the original question/poll: Degrees, please! It looks like this is not a poll, but if it is I would suggest it is ended ASAP. Democracy is great, especially now that we DEGs are winning :-) "Democracy is when I rule, dictatorship is when YOU do!", Millôr Fernandes :-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #29 Posted by Dave Shaffer (Arizona) on 2 Dec 2012, 4:39 p.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith Degrees for me

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #30 Posted by Paul Dale on 2 Dec 2012, 4:41 p.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith I use degrees and radians about equally, but would prefer the default to be degrees. An on screen indication for degrees mode too is sensible. - Pauli

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #31 Posted by htom trites jr on 2 Dec 2012, 6:47 p.m.,in response to message #30 by Paul Dale Grad I understand and don't think I've ever used except to demonstrate it. Rad I use not quite half the time. Deg I use a bit more than half, and wish for D. and DMS. as modes. There's also the various schemes using bit counts, with and without various codings, scalings, bounds, ... messy. Probably shouldn't do that one. Changing is annoying, and it doesn't seem to matter much which comes up when I start, I usually have to change it once or twice before I'm done with a session. It's more important that it be displayed and easy to change.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #32 Posted by Bill Carter on 2 Dec 2012, 9:09 p.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith Degrees for me. When I find myself in radians, it usually reminds me to stop, drop, and roll into MathCad or Mathematica. Bill

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #33 Posted by Walter B on 3 Dec 2012, 1:07 a.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith DEG about 75%, RAD 25%, GRAD 0%. And all shall be indicated - I suggest by °, pi, and g, respectively d:-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #34 Posted by Eric Smith on 3 Dec 2012, 1:51 a.m.,in response to message #33 by Walter B I *much* prefer having the annunciator actually say DEG, RAD, or GRAD, rather than the suggested symbols. The proposed degree symbol makes sense, but it will result in users asking "what's the little zero in the display", just like they do for flags 0-4 of the HP-41. The "g" even more so. The pi symbol doesn't make much sense to me; if it was 2pi I'd get it instantly. I think showing 360 or 2pi for degrees and radians might be OK, but I think it's less obvious than simply DEG and RAD. As high-resolution as the display is, the annunciator could even be the full word.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #35 Posted by Walter B on 3 Dec 2012, 3:10 a.m.,in response to message #34 by Eric Smith Did you ever think about people not speaking English? Then you'd realize why symbols are better. Think of all the other peoples sometimes at least ... d:-) So 360° and 2pi are more comprehensive than degrees and radians, and g is the international symbol for gon. BTW, please see p. 43 of the WP 34S manual. Edited: 3 Dec 2012, 3:22 a.m.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #36 Posted by Egan Ford on 3 Dec 2012, 12:21 p.m.,in response to message #35 by Walter B Quote: Did you ever think about people not speaking English? How many non-English speaking/reading users do you expect? It is not possible to create solution optimized for all. Edit: Assuming that you are using a matrix LCD and not a custom display you can probably have a regional settings menu. Edited: 3 Dec 2012, 12:22 p.m.

 About equal rights - all languages are equal, some are more ;-)Message #37 Posted by Walter B on 3 Dec 2012, 12:41 p.m.,in response to message #36 by Egan Ford Quote: How many non-English speaking/reading users do you expect? It is not possible to create solution optimized for all. May I quote Gerson? Quote: Democracy is when WE rule - dictatorship is when YOU rule. d;-)

 Re: About equal rights - all languages are equal, some are more ;-)Message #38 Posted by Egan Ford on 3 Dec 2012, 1:09 p.m.,in response to message #37 by Walter B Well that didn't answer my question. Regional settings and user prefs can eliminate all personal and regional preference issues. To address cold reset preferences I would suggest a type of wizard. This is not uncommon for consumer electronics. Defaults such as deg/rad, comma/period, annunciators, etc... would be prompted before initial calculator start. Oh and don't confuse fundamental equality with market equality. Edited: 3 Dec 2012, 1:11 p.m.

 Re: About equal rights - all languages are equal, some are more ;-)Message #39 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 3 Dec 2012, 1:54 p.m.,in response to message #38 by Egan Ford Egan, the device in question will have a matrix display. Did you see Tim's suggestion to use an angle symbol together the °, g and PI symbols? This will solve the problem for most of us.

 Re: About equal rights - all languages are equal, some are more ;-)Message #40 Posted by Egan Ford on 3 Dec 2012, 3:04 p.m.,in response to message #39 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Yes, but I like yours better with the angle (<) prefixed to remove any ambiguity. I found the aforementioned symbols on their own without the < to be ambiguous lending credibility to the legacy HP conventional DEG/GRAD/RAD.

 Re: About equal rights - all languages are equal, some are more ;-)Message #41 Posted by Walter B on 3 Dec 2012, 3:34 p.m.,in response to message #40 by Egan Ford Good grief - who has eyes to read, read!

 Re: About equal rights - all languages are equal, some are more ;-)Message #42 Posted by C.Ret on 4 Dec 2012, 5:45 a.m.,in response to message #39 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Quote: To address cold reset preferences I would suggest a type of wizard. This is not uncommon for consumer electronics. Defaults such as deg/rad, comma/period, annunciators, etc... would be prompted before initial calculator start. Egan, you catch it right. I use several consumer electronics that have such a design, it is a nice solution. You have to set all the parameters only once or occasionally after completed reset or deep crash. Of course, you also may change any of these setting individually whenever this is needed. Quote: [...] to use an angle symbol together the °, g and PI symbols? This will solve the problem for most of us. I agree with Marcus. This will also help interpreting results of trigonometric calculation or entry of angle into other mode than actual selected mode. For exemple 0.5 ASIN will return 30°, 0.52360rd, .16667pi.rd or 33.3333gr depending of current trig mode. In the other hand, 30.0875 SIN is interpreted differently depending of trig mode, where 30.0875°, 30° 5’15”, 30°5.25’, 30.4306gr, 0.167153 pi.rd or 0.525126rd will be unambiguously interpreted in specific trig modes and formats. Having an angle enunciator (combine or not with trig unit indicator) will also help interpreting result of R->P and P->R. Of any calculator I use these function, I always have to look after the manual instruction (or try dummy value) to remember in which order I have to enter coordinates, distance or angle. A smart system, may interpret correctly polar coordinates (r, <_ a°) even when incorrectly entered as ( <_ a° , r ) . As well, the result of the conversion of Cartesian coordinate (x,y) will unambiguously return radius r , and angle <_ a° displayed with appropriate enunciators Edited: 4 Dec 2012, 5:49 a.m.

 Re: About equal rights - all languages are equal, some are more ;-)Message #43 Posted by Paul Dale on 4 Dec 2012, 6:09 a.m.,in response to message #42 by C.Ret Seems like you're wanting units attached to results. - Pauli

 About units and annunciatorsMessage #44 Posted by Walter B on 4 Dec 2012, 6:38 a.m.,in response to message #42 by C.Ret Quote: For exemple 0.5 ASIN will return 30°, 0.52360rd, .16667pi.rd or 33.3333gr depending of current trig mode. Just a little remark - the second value carries no unitthe third is times pithe last value shall be 33.3333g since the unit is called gon internationally and the unit symbol was a lower case elevated g. I recognize units are a difficult topic ;-) And annunciators are a completely different cup of tea. d:-)

 Re: About units and annunciatorsMessage #45 Posted by C.Ret on 4 Dec 2012, 8:39 a.m.,in response to message #44 by Walter B Thank you for the correction, using gr instead of the I.U symbol is a bad personal habit that comes from intensive use and reading of very old local handbooks (using aged cgs unit system!). You right, enunciators and units are two different aspects. One more parameter to take into account is that most of users currently use only one unit/format. Having to specify units/format for each data entry can rapidly became boring and annoying. Peoples, who regularly have to handle several formats and units, generally have programmed specific subroutines to print out unambiguously results.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #46 Posted by Eric Smith on 4 Dec 2012, 6:06 p.m.,in response to message #35 by Walter B Yes, I think about people not speaking English, and I know from experience that they are completely familiar with "DEG" and "RAD" on calculators. Maybe they shouldn't have to be, but then, there seem to be other functions in the calculator that have English-centric names, the most obvious example being "ENTER", and I haven't heard much complaint about that.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #47 Posted by Egan Ford on 4 Dec 2012, 6:42 p.m.,in response to message #46 by Eric Smith Now you've done it. :-) To be international friendly I guess the ENTER key will have to be: | | | <---------' And the alphabet on the keyboard is clearly US(western)-centric. Now what? Edited: 4 Dec 2012, 6:57 p.m.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #48 Posted by Kiyoshi Akima on 4 Dec 2012, 11:27 p.m.,in response to message #47 by Egan Ford And you need to be able to group digits in fours instead of threes, and provide an ENG-like display mode with exponents as multiples of four.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #49 Posted by Walter B on 5 Dec 2012, 5:23 a.m.,in response to message #48 by Kiyoshi Akima See p. 39 of the WP 34S Owner's Manual. Does that grouping in steps of four also work in Japan?

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #50 Posted by Paul Dale on 5 Dec 2012, 6:05 a.m.,in response to message #48 by Kiyoshi Akima Quote:And you need to be able to group digits in fours instead of threes, and provide an ENG-like display mode with exponents as multiples of four. Doing either of these on the 34S would be reasonably straightforward and that is quite a statement given the very high level of complexity of the real number rendering code. Just wondering what benefits grouping by and exponents of four gives? Or is it cultural? Exponents being multiples of three match the metric system nicely and I figured this was the purpose of ENG mode. On the other hand, grouping digits by three is kind of arbitrary. It matches English numbering words and more weakly corresponds to the metric units. - Pauli

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #51 Posted by Walter B on 5 Dec 2012, 6:16 a.m.,in response to message #50 by Paul Dale That's cultural. Chinese count in multiples of 1, 10, 100, 1000, and 10000 (yi1, shí, bai3, qian1, wàn). I'll look if I find the picture of a corresponding calculator. d:-)

 Chinese calculatorMessage #52 Posted by Walter B on 9 Dec 2012, 2:53 a.m.,in response to message #51 by Walter B As promised:

 Re: Chinese calculatorMessage #53 Posted by Walter B on 10 Dec 2012, 3:55 a.m.,in response to message #52 by Walter B Maybe this calculator needs some explanation, especially the nine blue keys: They correspond to different factors of ten - the bottom right means shi2 = 10, the next to the left (!) is bai3 = 100, the next is qian1 = 1000, then go one row up (!) and find wan4 = 10000. Now the mechanics starts: the next key is shi2 wan4 = 10 x 10000, then bai3 wan4 = 100 x 10000, then qian1 wan4 = 1000 x 10000. For 10000^2, there is another character: yi4 = 10^8. Then the mechanics repeats: shi2 yi4 = 10 x 10^8, and would continue with bai3 yi4 = 100 x 10^8, qian1 yi4 = 1000 x 10^8, and wan4 yi4 = 10000 x 10^8. That shall do for all common man's problems ;-) d:-)

 Re: Chinese calculatorMessage #54 Posted by Kiyoshi Akima on 10 Dec 2012, 12:23 p.m.,in response to message #53 by Walter B Shouldn't the digit separators appear every four digits instead of every three?

 Re: Chinese calculatorMessage #55 Posted by Walter B on 10 Dec 2012, 3:00 p.m.,in response to message #54 by Kiyoshi Akima I think so, too (compare p. 39 of the WP 34S manual). I'm neither an owner nor a designer of that Chinese calculator, however. d:-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #56 Posted by From Hong Kong on 9 Dec 2012, 8:22 a.m.,in response to message #51 by Walter B The rightmost digit of a decimal integer is better called ge4(­Ó) rather than yi4(¤@¡^. This digit position is called ge4 wei4(­Ó¦ì). We call various digit positions as follows: n ge4(­Ó) n0 shi2(¤Q) n00 bai3(¦Ê) n,000 qian1(¤d) n0,000 wan4(¸U) n00,000 shi2 wan4(¤Q¸U) n,000,000 bai3 wan4(¦Ê¸U) n0,000,000 qian1 wan4(¤d¸U) n00,000,000 yi4(»õ) n,000,000,000 shi2 yi4(¤Q»õ) Edited: 10 Dec 2012, 4:02 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #57 Posted by Walter B on 9 Dec 2012, 10:03 p.m.,in response to message #56 by From Hong Kong Quote: The rightmost digit of a decimal integer is better called ge4(­Ó) rather than yi4(¤@¡^. This digit position is called ge4 wei4(­Ó¦ì). Thanks for the information - I stay corrected :-) Alas, the characters you included are not displayed here properly (no idea what I can do to change that), so I have to guess: You are talking about ge4 like in yi4 ge4 ren2, aren't you? d:-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #58 Posted by From Hong Kong on 10 Dec 2012, 1:18 a.m.,in response to message #57 by Walter B Those characters are Traditional Chinese characters. You could change the code to "Traditional Chinese (Big 5)" to view them. Traditional Chinese is commonly used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau whereas Simplified Chinese is used in Mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia. Yes, the ge4 here is the ge4 in yi1 ge4 ren2(¤@­Ó¤H). Edited: 10 Dec 2012, 1:37 a.m.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #59 Posted by Walter B on 10 Dec 2012, 3:25 a.m.,in response to message #58 by From Hong Kong (For our unilingual readers: Thanks!) d:-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #60 Posted by Tim Wessman on 3 Dec 2012, 10:22 a.m.,in response to message #33 by Walter B Put a little angle symbol in front of the o, pi or g. That is what we will be doing... TW Edited: 3 Dec 2012, 10:22 a.m.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #61 Posted by Walter B on 3 Dec 2012, 10:48 a.m.,in response to message #60 by Tim Wessman Thanks for sharing. So it will look like <°,

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #62 Posted by Eric Smith on 4 Dec 2012, 6:09 p.m.,in response to message #61 by Walter B I still think it should be 2pi, even with the angle symbol prefix. And unless the angle symbol is very clearly an angle symbol, people will misinterpret the degrees annunciator as meaning that something is less than zero. If I weren't going to use "DEG", "RAD", and "GRAD", I think I'd use <360, <2pi, and <400, respectively. Edited: 4 Dec 2012, 6:12 p.m.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #63 Posted by Tim Wessman on 4 Dec 2012, 9:10 p.m.,in response to message #62 by Eric Smith That is why you use the "measured angle" character. Hard to interpret that as anything but. TW

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #64 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 5 Dec 2012, 4:10 a.m.,in response to message #62 by Eric Smith Quote:If I weren't going to use "DEG", "RAD", and "GRAD", I think I'd use <360, <2pi, and <400, respectively.And this could even be optimized to a single numeric digit: Just use 3, 2 or 4 , respectively, since everybody will know the meaning of the digit in the reserved place (This wasn't to be taken too serious, but the discussion seemed to go somewhat abroad somehow;-) More seriously, why not just use D,R and G ? This is what I use in SpeedUI, it's described in the doc, and it's near enough to the DEG,RAD, GRAD every user of HP scientific calcs from the LCD area (more than 32 years now) should be used to.

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #65 Posted by Paul Dale on 5 Dec 2012, 4:35 a.m.,in response to message #64 by Raymond Del Tondo Instead support internationalisation of messages and annunicators. - Pauli

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #66 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 5 Dec 2012, 5:25 a.m.,in response to message #65 by Paul Dale Quote:Instead support internationalisation of messages and annunicators.I'm not sure if I understood you correctly. D,R and G are international. Example from the German Wikipedia about Radians:Quote:Taschenrechner und Computer Wissenschaftliche Taschenrechner berechnen Winkelfunktionen wahlweise in Radiant oder in Grad, manchmal zusätzlich auch in Gon. Der Modus zur Berechnung in Radiant ist auf den meisten Taschenrechnern mit „RAD“ oder "R" gekennzeichnet. which nearly literally translates into: Scientific calculators calculate angle functions in either degrees or radians, sometimes they also offer gon. The mode for calculating in radians is indicated with "RAD" or "R" on most calculators. After all it's simply a convention, as many things;-) If you want to make everyone happy, just make it configurable (short,long,short_sym,long_sym,custom) . Ray

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #67 Posted by Paul Dale on 5 Dec 2012, 6:07 a.m.,in response to message #66 by Raymond Del Tondo Quote:If you want to make everyone happy, ... This will never be possible :-) There will be compromises and limitations. - Pauli

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #68 Posted by Walter B on 5 Dec 2012, 5:28 a.m.,in response to message #65 by Paul Dale ... by simply taking over the international language of mathematics wherever possible. d:-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #69 Posted by Paul Dale on 5 Dec 2012, 6:13 a.m.,in response to message #68 by Walter B Even that isn't always clear. LG vs LOG. ASIN vs SIN-1 vs ARCSIN vs ARCSINE..... - Pauli

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #70 Posted by Walter B on 5 Dec 2012, 6:19 a.m.,in response to message #69 by Paul Dale ... wherever possible! d:-)

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #71 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 5 Dec 2012, 7:37 a.m.,in response to message #68 by Walter B Maybe someone should start a poll about this...

 Re: Default angle modeMessage #72 Posted by Eddie W. Shore on 6 Dec 2012, 1:19 a.m.,in response to message #1 by Eric Smith Quote: The first thing I have to do after resetting a calculator for any reason is switch to radians mode. Just out of curiosity, how many people here would be upset if the default angle mode was radians rather than degrees? Or we could make the default angle mode grads, and annoy nearly everyone. :-) Radians is fine with me.

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