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In the mid 1990s I had a fantasy about an actual physical real scientific calculator that computed to over 30 decimal places...It finally came true with the DM42.

The WP 34S has done this for a while too.


Pauli

(12-10-2017 01:48 AM)zeno333 Wrote: [ -> ]In the mid 1990s I had a fantasy about an actual physical real scientific calculator that computed to over 30 decimal places...It finally came true with the DM42.

In the mid 1990's, you say? Your dream came true in 1994. The HP 48/49/50 have been able to do that and far more (settable up to 9999 digits!), with the LongFloat library installed, first published in 1994. The HP48 version was fast, but the 50g version is even faster: square root of 153 to 100 digits in less than 0.3 seconds.

"Get serious about precision. Get LongFloat."

(12-10-2017 03:29 AM)Joe Horn Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-10-2017 01:48 AM)zeno333 Wrote: [ -> ]In the mid 1990s I had a fantasy about an actual physical real scientific calculator that computed to over 30 decimal places...It finally came true with the DM42.

In the mid 1990's, you say? Your dream came true in 1994. The HP 48/49/50 have been able to do that and far more (settable up to 9999 digits!), with the LongFloat library installed, first published in 1994. The HP48 version was fast, but the 50g version is even faster: square root of 153 to 100 digits in less than 0.3 seconds.

"Get serious about precision. Get LongFloat."

True, I have that for my 50G, forgot about that one. Now I can start dreaming about a pocket sized device with the full version of Wolfram's Mathematica on it

(12-10-2017 03:35 AM)zeno333 Wrote: [ -> ]True, I have that for my 50G, forgot about that one. Now I can start dreaming about a pocket sized device with the full version of Wolfram's Mathematica on it

You can fit a Raspberry Pi in your pocket (comes with a free, full version of Mathematica) although not so easily with keyboard and display attached! Here is a link to a 7 inch portable touch-screen version - almost pocketable?

Nigel (UK)

I think mathematica can run on most of the new smartphones. The point is if someone wants to port such work on a smartphone.

Most of the time the possibility is there, what is missing is the manpower working on it. Plus what I saw often is that people overestimate always the role of the tangible things (hardware), over the work required for intangible things (software).

Developing proper libraries needs a lot of time, while many think it is a work of a couple of days.

(12-10-2017 10:40 AM)Nigel (UK) Wrote: [ -> ]You can fit a Raspberry Pi in your pocket (comes with a free, full version of Mathematica) although not so easily with keyboard and display attached! Here is a link to a 7 inch portable touch-screen version - almost pocketable?

Here is an even cooler and "integrated" e-ink display for the Pi for less than $20: https://www.waveshare.com/product/2.7inc...er-hat.htm

Mathematica needs a proper keyboard to be used at its maximum, otherwise there are things such as WolframAlpha for the more casual use with a smartphone.
I'd say that my earlier convertible laptop / tablet with Windows on it was the closest thing to a portable device capable of running Mathematica. You might find smaller devices on chinese sites which run Windows and are as small as you can get. They will technically run Mathematica but I doubt about their actual practicality as a work machine.