Fixed to Scientific notation - transition of numerical display

[Pyjam]

(10-19-2023 12:51 AM)Johnh Wrote:  This is a simple thing but it's a bit of an annoyance IMO:

As an engineer, I normally want to see 4 or 5 decimal places on my calcs. But on all the HP's that I've seen either in person or as emulations, if you set say FIX 4, and start generating smaller numbers, you start to lose digits until the machine swaps to a scientific notation.

eg, If you set FIX 4 and take the square root of 2, divided by successive factors of 10:

1.4142
0.1414
0.0141
0.0014
0.0001
1.4142 E-5
1.4142 E-6

FIX should remain fixed, and not switch to scientific mode. Precision being variable, this is a format for accountants, not engineers.
So, below 0.0001, we should simply see 0.0000.

(10-19-2023 12:51 AM)Johnh Wrote:  But it would be great to have a mode that did something like this:

1.4142
0.14142
0.014142
0.0014142
1.4142 E-4
1.4142 E-5

This is what you see with SIG-4 on DM42 using the C47 application.

Or you can specify a transition to engineering format rather than scientific and you get:

1.4142
0.14142
0.014142
0.001414·2
0.000141·42
14.142×10⁻⁶

In case you're not familiar with this format, here's what you get when you multiply:

1.4142
14.142
141.42
1,414.2
14,142.
141,420.
1,414,200.
14,142,000.
141.42×10⁶
1.4142×10⁹
…