vB Easy Archive - 8900's calc is faulty?

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8900's calc is faulty?
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Posted by: Dustyny1

Today during class I entered in the following equation
[5+2.5+7.5/3 and got the answer 10
Entering in 5+2.5+7.5 hitting ok gives the answer 15 dividing by 3 now gives the proper answer.

Tried it again with the following equation to reconfirm.
5.5+4.5+2.5+2.5/3 = 13.33 (answer should be 5 again)

Can somebody check this to make sure its not just a problem with my phones software?

Thanks
Dusty

Posted by: Waruwaru

Quote:

Originally posted by Dustyny1
Today during class I entered in the following equation
[5+2.5+7.5/3 and got the answer 10
Entering in 5+2.5+7.5 hitting ok gives the answer 15 dividing by 3 now gives the proper answer.

Tried it again with the following equation to reconfirm.
5.5+4.5+2.5+2.5/3 = 13.33 (answer should be 5 again)

Can somebody check this to make sure its not just a problem with my phones software?

Thanks
Dusty

This aint scientific calculator, it does calculations as you enter them. In your first example, you broke it down to 2 steps to get the proper answer. Same as sample 2, you need to break down the equation if you want the proper answer, i.e.
5.5 + 4.5+2.5+2.5 (OK) = 15
15/3 (OK) = 5

if you enter everything in one shot, you get
5.5 + 4.5 + 2.5 + (2.5 / 3 ) (OK) = 13.33

Posted by: Dustyny1

Quote:

This aint scientific calculator, it does calculations as you enter them.

Hey i know its not a scientific calculator, but even a wris××××ch calculator can computer 5+2.5+7.5/3
Come on this is basic math, nothing crazy at all.

I know I can't be crazy, (my old phone did these kind of equations all the time) this has to be a bug.

How do we go about reporting bugs? Do I contact Verizon or Audiovox?

(Side note: Why is this board censoring Wristw@tch??)

Posted by: error94

I don't think this is a bug -- it appears to be the intended function, and I think it is correct. Most calculators (especially the watch variety) can only display one value at a time. The 8900 is actually displaying the entire formula as you type it in, not just each individual value.

So, since the formula is actually being displayed as "5+2.5+7.5/3", the 8900's calculator is accounting for operator precedence. Thus, "7.5/3" must be computed first (division and multiplication take precedence over addition and subtraction), then add "5" and "2.5".

The problem, really, is that they didn't provide a way of entering parentheses, so the formula could have been entered as "(5+2.5+7.5)/3"

Posted by: Zaediex

Quote:

Originally posted by Dustyny1
Hey i know its not a scientific calculator, but even a wris××××ch calculator can computer 5+2.5+7.5/3
Come on this is basic math, nothing crazy at all.

I know I can't be crazy, (my old phone did these kind of equations all the time) this has to be a bug.

How do we go about reporting bugs? Do I contact Verizon or Audiovox?

(Side note: Why is this board censoring Wristw@tch??)

That's right. It's BASIC MATH. Do you remember order of operations? Here's a quick review of the rules:

1) Perform any calculations inside parentheses.
2) Perform all multiplications and divisions, working from left to right.
3) Perform all additions and subtractions, working from left to right.

These rules are _always_ followed in order. So... what happened is this:

You told the calculator to divide 7.5 by 3 and add the result to 7.5. (5+2.5) which results in the answer you got.

Z...

Posted by: Waruwaru

If they give you a good calculator, then you wouldn't pay $10 to get the good one from GIN.

Posted by: Dustyny1

Quote:

The problem, really, is that they didn't provide a way of entering parentheses, so the formula could have been entered as "(5+2.5+7.5)/3"

See now this makes total sense. You have to admit it is a bit confusing though. The question is why implement only half the order of operation? Wouldn't it have made more sense to just have the operation complete from left to right? Anyway..

Quote:

If they give you a good calculator, then you wouldn't pay $10 to get the good one from GIN.

If only they had one.. sigh.. I would actually pay for it..

Thanks for all the good info guys, it actually made sense when it was explained.

Posted by: GRR

Unbelievable
Maybe we need another sputnik