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Math Microsoft Open Source Software Windows

Windows 10 Calculator Will Soon Be Able To Graph Math Equations (zdnet.com) 130

Posted by BeauHD from the new-and-improved dept.
Earlier this month, Microsoft made the source code for its Windows calculator available on GitHub. This has spurred developers to add new features to the app, like a new graphing mode that will make its way to the official Windows Calculator app. The "Graphing Mode" is one of 30+ suggestions that open-source contributors have proposed so far. The ZDNet reports: As its name implies, Graphing Mode will allow users to create graphs based on mathematical equations, in a similar way to Matlab's (way more advanced) Plotting Mode. The feature was proposed by Microsoft engineer Dave Grochocki, also a member of the Windows Calculator team. In a GitHub issue Grochocki submitted to support his proposal, he argued that a graphing mode would help students learn algebra easier.

"High school algebra is the gateway to mathematics and all other disciplines of STEM," Grochocki said. "However, algebra is the single most failed course in high school, as well as the most failed course in community college." By adding a Graphing Mode to Windows Calculator, an app included with all Windows 10 versions, the Microsoft engineer hopes to provide students and teachers with a free tool to help schools across the world. "Physical graphing calculators can be expensive, software solutions require licenses and configuration by school IT departments, and online solutions are not always an option," he added. "Graphing capabilities in their daily tools are essential for students who are beginning to explore linear algebra as early as 8th grade. [...] At present, Windows Calculator does not currently have the needed functionality to meet the demands of students."

There's no timeline for when the new graphing mode will arrive, but it should arrive soon.
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Windows 10 Calculator Will Soon Be Able To Graph Math Equations More

Windows 10 Calculator Will Soon Be Able To Graph Math Equations

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  • Heh... (Score:3)

    by Pezbian ( 1641885 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @02:06AM (#58319326)

    "Nobody carries a calculator wherever they go." -- every math teacher in history
    My Dad's cellphone already had a calculator in the early 90s.

    I'm sure TI will figure out plenty of ways to force a $100+ price on 1980s technology.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *

      My Dad's cellphone already had a calculator in the early 90s.

      And now you have an entire generation that can't multiply 8 x 6 in their head.

    • Calculator watches were popular in the 70s and 80s. Far more ever-present and close at hand than a phone.

    • TI just says you can't use your phone because you might cheat. They also spend a bunch of time/money training the teachers. You can use a $50 Casio but if you get stuck and don't know how to access a feature you need then unless your teacher kicks more ass than Mr T you're SOL. And if all else fails they buy off the schoolboards.

  • is a fucking joke. My work laptop has a 4k display and the windows calculator damn near takes up the entire screen.

  • Notepad Next (Score:3)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @02:18AM (#58319340)

    What I'd REALLY like is for MS to open-source Notepad. That's in more dire need of new features than the (now quite decent) Calculator app is.

    • What I'd REALLY like is for MS to open-source Notepad

      Please post some code excerpts when MS does. We all need a good laugh.

    • I disagree. Notepad should remain as just something to create, edit or view text files. It does not need to be able to insert video files or java apps, it does not need a calendar / reminder option and it sure as God-damned fucking hell doesn't need to be part of any social media shit, pardon my French there. It is fine as it is. Leave it alone.

    • Re: Notepad Next (Score:4, Interesting)

      by aglider ( 2435074 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @06:24AM (#58319722) Homepage

      Forget about that.
      Maybe MS will buy notepad++.
      It's the normal MS strategy: don't do anything meaningful, do nonsense.

      • Maybe MS will buy notepad++

        As it is GPL, Microsoft could only buy the Notepad++ brand, not the code itself.

        The smart thing to do would be to replace the current Notepad with Notepad++'s code, under a different name, with credits to Notepad++.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      If you can't write your own better version of Notepad in 30 mins you don't belong on this site.

      • If you can't write your own better version of Notepad in 30 mins you don't belong on this site.

        I didn't know this was a coders-only website with a test to get in.

      • If you can't write your own better version of Notepad in 30 mins you don't belong on this site.

        It would take more than 30 minutes to find and install a compiler that works on windows.

        In Tk in Python on Linux, probably, but I have better things to do.

    • Notepad is, and always has been, just a skeleton window frame around a text control. It's just an easy way to massively test an important ui element.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )
      The notepad source is literally one paragraph: create a window, slap in a standard windows text field widget, and have a pulldown menu with the load/save dialog box.

      If you want more features, either use wordpad or one of the bazillion free download alterantives like pspad, notepad++, etc.

    • Why? Windows comes shipped with a more capable text editor already. Why mess with the simple one? Are you that desperate for bugs that you need to start messing with probably the most reliable piece of software on a computer?

      Do you also complain that nano doesn't support syntax highlighting?

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by Barny ( 103770 )

    The "Graphing Mode" is one of 30+ suggestions that open-source contributors have proposed so far.

    The feature was proposed by Microsoft engineer Dave Grochocki, also a member of the Windows Calculator team.

    Err, so was he a Microsoft engineer who was already working on the calculator program, or was he an open-source contributor (while I understand he could be both, it's highly misleading to state the former since it engenders a sense that the proposer was actually an individual outside of the dev team workin

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They still have a Windows Calculator team and had to opensource their code to get a graphing mode? What have they been doing all these years?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Calculating...

  • Algebra and linear algebra aren't the same thing.

  • Like solitaire (Score:3)

    by qubezz ( 520511 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @02:29AM (#58319364)
    And it can be ad-free for just $10 a year...

  • Redmond, start your photocopiers (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @02:37AM (#58319378) Homepage Journal

    You mean windows will get a feature that's been built-in to every Mac I've ever owned?

    (to those who don't own a Mac - I'm speaking of Grapher [wikipedia.org]).

    So amazing... so revolutionary... please do let me know when windows get another feature that real operating systems have had for a quarter century.

    • Well, they added some kind of linux change root environment a year ago ...

    • please do let me know when windows get another feature that real operating systems have had for a quarter century.

      That has been the case for many things, for decades. The question is: why everyone got (and still is) stuck with Windows?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        Because MacOS is a pain in the ass. It's that simple.

        Look, if it works for you then great. It doesn't for me. And it doesn't for a lot of other people as well. For some it doesn't work, because they are too stupid and for others it doesn't work because IT is too stupid.

        Fact is there is no good OS on the market. They just all suck for different reasons.

        • Because MacOS is a pain in the ass. It's that simple.
          If you are a windows user, then there is actually not much of a difference.

          Fact is there is no good OS on the market. They just all suck for different reasons.
          Perhaps you are mixing up UI with OS?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tom ( 822 )

          Because MacOS is a pain in the ass. It's that simple.

          It's actually not so simple.

          I've seen first hand making people transitions between OSes in many cases and in practically every direction. I think OSX to Linux is the only direction I've not seen happen.

          There is always the pain of things just being different than you are used to. That happens no matter from which OS you switch to which other OS. It even happens to a smaller extend between major versions of the same OS (we all remember the crying and shouting when Windows 10 appeared).

          So if you are a life-lon

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            I use all three regularly. OS X to Linux is fairly trivial. The GUIs are pretty much all equivalent, although Microsoft likes to screw with it every once in a while and then relent and put it back.

            If you're doing any kind of scientific computing, Linux or OS X are both fine, Windows is a big disadvantage. Lots of projects aren't really supported on Windows. If you play games, the opposite is true.

          • I think OSX to Linux is the only direction I've not seen happen.

            It's a little annoying at first, but absolutely worth the effort.

        • As soon as they start porting engineering software to MacOS people will use it. SolidWorks would be a good start.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by aix tom ( 902140 )

      MS is *way* ahead of you.

      They already had it, discontinued it in 2011, and now re-inventing it. (Unfortunately still without Blackjack and Hookers.)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        I stand corrected. They had a first version in 2006, only 12 years after Apple. :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Classic OS had a graphing calculator too, since 1994.

      Grapher really is nice though. Unfortunately it's a bit hidden, so not a lot of people know it exists.

    • Better question, why does the inclusion of an app that can draw a line make an OS "real". You have strange priorities, and clearly so does MS.

  • Windows filling out features for MacOS8.6 (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Slowly but surely MS is catching up. XD lul.

  • They already have it? (Score:3)

    by abelenky17 ( 548645 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @03:18AM (#58319426)

    Microsoft already has Microsoft Mathematics (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15702), that does exactly this, and a lot more.

    • How does that compare to, say, Wolfram alpha ?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Last update was 8 years ago, and the systems requirements say it only works on XP and Windows 7. It doesn't look like it's being maintained.

    • Not for you, for Microsoft. But I ought to inform you that your computer has been mining bitcoin for me for a year now.
  • Yeah, it's much easier to do creative things by adding shiny new features. But what about fixing the horribly inconsistent GUI, old bugs and doing proper QA? It seems that MS stopped caring seriously about its users and fired people from the QA department. Now the user is the tester. Of course, there is LTSB, but even there most of the shit still remains. I'm not implying that Google or others are much better, but this company cares about quality and I haven't seen Android/Chrome/Chrome OS having such horri

    • What's inconsistent about the UI? What bugs haven't they fixed? How little have you paid attention? Don't answer that last one, it's obvious that you haven't paid attention or you'd realise that the biggest bugs (math bugs) in the calculator were fixed with the rewrite it received.

      But then you're not actually talking about the calculator, you're just using yet another excuse to complain about something irrelevant under the impression that every man down to the janitor and their dog on the MS campus is someh

  • Also for your consideration...

    gnuplot : user-friendly as a cornered rat, but powerful. I use it for roughing out functions for work, and producing .eps graphs for papers.

    octave: freeware Matlab. I use this a lot for prototyping.

    • user-friendly as a cornered rat, but powerful
      oO!
      A phrase I need to remember ... reminds me about GIMP :P

    • gnuplot : user-friendly as a cornered rat, but powerful.

      Also Geogebra [geogebra.org] which is designed for education and thus is more of a fluffy guinea-pig in a nice spacious cage, but watch your fingers, because it also does interactive geometry and can be used to set up nice geometric models. My test is always, will it draw a circle if you type Y^2+y^2=1

    • I'd probably find Maxima more useful than Octave, unless I'd have to do some heavy numerical linear algebra.

  • The graph plotted into that linked page is scary.
    The BSOD of math!

  • All resources are now going on to CalculatorOS.

  • So far although I have seen people mention the already-existing Microsoft Mathematics, I havenâ(TM)t seen anyone mention the Microsoft Powertoy Calculator that has existed since Windows XP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]

  • ... forget the fancy stuff. Just focus on delivering a secure, reliable operating system that you are able to update without bricking my PC. Is that too much to ask? Based upon the past couple of years, apparently, yes it is too much to ask.

  • so it can actually display unix text files. I mean, it has only been 40 years....

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just use other free and open source calculators that already exist and make those better. Why reinvent the wheel on a skimpy foundation?

  • There was a graphing calculator in the Power Toys. Why don't they just make that the default calculator?

  • Something that power Macs had in the 90's (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    All PowerPC Macs in the 90's shipped with Ron Avitzur's Graphing Calculator which was an AMAZING software that, in my opinion, really set apart the Mac from the Windows PC in terms of educational usefulness out-of-the-box. It's sad Windows did not quickly learn from this and include a graphing calculator functionality in their PC's at that time. By the way I highly recommend Graphing Calculator for PC or Mac, still a great program and still available (although I wish it would improve the zoom, extents, ro

  • "Windows 10 Calculator Will Soon Be Able To Graph Math Equations"

    1985 called, they want their groundbreaking functionality back.

  • Mac os had this back in the mid 90's! (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @11:19AM (#58320652)

    Mac os had this back in the mid 90's!
    https://www.pacifict.com/Story... [pacifict.com]

  • RPN (Score:3)

    by clifwlkr ( 614327 ) on Saturday March 23, 2019 @11:35AM (#58320736)
    How about adding an RPN mode? I know it is not that popular, but I still prefer it for rapid calculations in chains. So much quicker to type and figure out the numbers as you go along then adding all the parens, etc.

  • Seriously? Apple had this capability for something like 25 years now.

  • That is why students still buy limited graphics calculators.

    The question arises as to why they use calculators at all in exams. I do know that I try to stop my kids from reaching for one when calculating 3 * 7, say.

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