Programmable Calculator
Programmable calculators are calculators that can automatically carry out a sequence of operations under control of a stored program, much like a computer. The first programmable calculators such as the IBM CPC used punched cards or other media for program storage. Hand-held electronic calculators store programs on magnetic strips, removable read-only memory cartridges, or in battery-backed read/write memory.
Since the early 1990s, most of these flexible handheld units belong to the class of graphing calculators. Before the mass-manufacture of inexpensive dot-matrix LCD displays, however, programmable calculators usually featured a one-line numeric or alphanumeric display.
- For earlier devices, see: History of computing hardware
Read more about Programmable Calculator: Calculator Programming, Persistent Memory, Programmable Calculators and Pocket Computers
Famous quotes containing the word calculator:
“Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. The most exact calculator has no prescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next moment. I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)