WBigCalc extended precision calculator

[DerellLicht]

Back in the MSDOS era, Judson D. McClendon wrote a calculator program which supported number up to 1075 digits... I have recently ported that program to Windows, in case anyone is interested in an RPN calculator which handles huge numbers!!

https://derelllicht.42web.io/wbigcalc.html

The program is free (source code available on Github).

[HP67]

Hello,

Thanks for the link. There is a note that the original code is not available on the net. So, how did you port it?

[fhub]

Hi,

nice program - but unfortunately there's a problem:

In the Windows version if you click on the 'View' button (with any number in the register), then the program just crashes.
And in the console version it only shows a part of the digits, but not the full number.

I've tried it with sqrt(2) and different settings for the number of digits ...

BTW, the original DOS version (v2.9) can still be downloaded here:
http://hagars.org.uk/z/mhgsv1/desktop/bigcalc.zip

[Commie]

(10-29-2024 03:59 PM)DerellLicht Wrote:  Back in the MSDOS era, Judson D. McClendon wrote a calculator program which supported number up to 1075 digits...

Hi,

Just wanna point out the problem with a high amount of digits with the end goal of turning into a scientific calculator. The programmer, has to pull all the digits through very long polynomials, which have to be of high degree, in order to get the high accuracy end approximation of a particular transcandential math function.

Cheers
Darren

[DerellLicht]

(10-30-2024 07:53 AM)HP67 Wrote:  Hello,

Thanks for the link. There is a note that the original code is not available on the net. So, how did you port it?

I made a donation back in around 2000, and he sent me the source code...
I used the source, at that time, to port it over to a Windows console program so it would run on Windows 7...

[DerellLicht]

(10-30-2024 10:15 AM)fhub Wrote:  nice program - but unfortunately there's a problem:

In the Windows version if you click on the 'View' button (with any number in the register), then the program just crashes.
And in the console version it only shows a part of the digits, but not the full number.

I've tried it with sqrt(2) and different settings for the number of digits ...

BTW, the original DOS version (v2.9) can still be downloaded here:
http://hagars.org.uk/z/mhgsv1/desktop/bigcalc.zip

Wow... I definitely don't see that issue; what version of Windows are you running?
I'm using Windows 10 Pro, Version 22H2 ...

As for that original version, it does not run on any 64-bit OS, because it was an MS-DOS program... That was why I originally ported it to a Windows console program, though I never previously distributed the console program on the internet.

[DerellLicht]

(10-30-2024 02:07 PM)Commie Wrote:  Just wanna point out the problem with a high amount of digits with the end goal of turning into a scientific calculator. The programmer, has to pull all the digits through very long polynomials, which have to be of high degree, in order to get the high accuracy end approximation of a particular transcandential math function.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to do some validation of the results...
I have started working on some test vectors for it, which can be seen in V6.09, now available on my website, but I'm not sure what sources I should use for reference values...

I also have to confess, that I don't actually know how his core computation functions work (in bigmath.cpp), so if any of the operations out to be problematic, I don't know if I can fix them; but in any case, there's no point in me looking at them until I can come up with reliable reference sources.

[DerellLicht]

(10-30-2024 10:15 AM)fhub Wrote:  In the Windows version if you click on the 'View' button (with any number in the register), then the program just crashes.
And in the console version it only shows a part of the digits, but not the full number.

I've tried it with sqrt(2) and different settings for the number of digits ...

I also tested in Windows 11 Home V23H2, with no crash...
Here is view of sqrt(2) :

https://www.flickr.com/photos/derelllicht/54116956859