Calculator

Calculator Components

If you've read the previous page, you know by now that handheld calculatorsneed microprocessors with a single chip to perform their functions. But how do you activate the microprocessor? All it takes is what's located on the outside of your device.

Modern calculators come with a tough plastic casing that has small openings on the front to allow the rubber to be pushed through as a television remote would. When you press a button, you complete a circuit underneath the rubber. It sends electrical signals through a circuit board below. Those impulses are routed through the microprocessor, which interprets the data and provides an indication to the calculator's display screen.

The displays of the first electronic calculators were constructed of LEDs or lighting emitting diodes. Newer models that use less power feature a the liquid crystal display or LCD. Instead of producing light LCDs modify light molecules in order to create a pattern on the screen and aren't as dependent on electricity.

The first calculators also had to be connected to a power source or use heavy battery power. But by the late decade of the 1970s solar cells technology had become cheap and reliable enough to be used in consumer electronic. The solar cell generates electricity when the light rays of sunlight are absorbed by semiconductors like silicon, in the cell. These electrons get sucked out, and the electric field created by the solar cell makes them going in the same direction, and thus creates an electric current. (Something similar to an LCD calculator will require only a low-level current, which explains why the solar cells are tiny.) In the 1980s, the majority of manufacturers of simple calculators used energy-producing solar cells. The more powerful graphing and scientific calculators However, they still use battery power.

In the next section next section, we'll take a deeper look at binary codes and the way in which the calculator actually performs its job.Hello Beghilos!

Perhaps you've employed an in-pocket calculator at one point or another for spelling words upside-down, such as 07734 ("hELLO"). But did you know that the language actually has a name? It's known as "BEGhILOS," after the most commonly used letters you can create using a simple calculator display.

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How a Calculator Calculates

As you learned on previous pages, the vast majority of calculatorsdepend on integrated circuits which are commonly referred to as chips. They make use of transistors in order to add and subtract as well as perform computations using logarithms to accomplish multiplication, division and more complicated calculations like using exponents or getting square roots. The more transistors an integrated circuit contains, the more advanced its capabilities could be. The majority of pocket calculators come with identical, or very similar, integrated circuitry.

Just like any other electronic device the chips in a calculatorwork to function by cutting down any information you provide it to its binary equivalent. Binary number are able to translate numbers in a base-two system, in which we represent each digit by a 1 or a 0. This is doubled every time we go up by a digit. Through "turning on" each of the places -- in other words, by putting a 1 in it -this means that that digit is included in our overall number.

Microchips utilize binary logic, which is switching transistors to turn off and on through electricity. So, for example, if you wanted to add 2 + 2 in a row, your calculator will change each "2" to binary (which appears as follows: 10) and then add them up. Adding to the "ones" column (the two 0s), gives you zero: The chip will discern that there is no number in the beginning. When it adds the digits in the "tens" column, the chip will get 1+1. It recognizes that both numbers are positive. It then -- since there are no 2's in binary notationis able to move the positive reply one more digit to the left making a total of 100 -- which is, in binary terms, is equal to 4 [source: Wright].

This sum goes through the input/output chip of our circuit that applies the same logic to the display. Have you ever noticed that the numbers on a calculator and alarm clock are comprised of segments? Each of the segments of the numerals may be turned on or off using this identical binary logic. So, the processor takes that "100" and translates it through lighting up or turning on specific segments of the lines on the display to make the numeral 4.

The next section will look at the impact that the calculator has on the world as well as how we can expect to see them develop in the future.The Difference Engine

An engineer of the Hessian army devised the predecessor to the modern computer in 1786. His idea was for an instrument that could print mathematical tables by computing the factors that affect the equations. Since it was able to do it quickly and efficiently and continuously, these "difference engines" are considered crucial precursors to the modern computer. The Swedish father and son team, the Scheutzes developed a working differing engine in 1853. It is currently on display inside the Smithsonian Institute.