Have you used your calculator for something that was not really math related?

[ttw]

I've written several games for the calculator. Lately I wrote a Sudoku solver but quit after showing that it works. I did run into a few problems: binary integers cannot be used in matrices, the REPL function will not work if the replacee is a real matrix (one can only put integers into matrices even though the matrices are real), this wasn't the case in earlier versions of the HP50g. Still by using integer matrices to represent the puzzle and the auxiliary information, things were easy. I put in a few strategies and a back tracker. The only thing I found was that what's easy by hand is harder by computer.

The game I'm currently testing is similar to The General and other such dice games. Mine uses three throws of six 6-sided dice. The mechanics are simple (like Yahtzee) but the scoring is quite complicated; it does allow for duplicate competition though. Right now, I'm looking at an extension that allows one to score bonus dies and bonus throws (like in pinball) but I haven't got it balanced.

I wrote a funny variant that used Bose-Einstein statistics rather than the usual Maxwell-Boltzmann. It was easy to get 4 of a kind or better, but straights were tough. I've also been experimenting with ghost dice that (with known probabilities) mess up the hands.