Articles or book(s) about the functions behind a scientific calculator

[cdmackay]

(11-29-2018 12:30 PM)Karl-Ludwig Butte Wrote:  Along the way you'll meet the Cambridge Computer Lab's EDSAC computer and its builder Maurice Wilkes

Often noted as the "inventor" of the subroutine. A friend of mine was a student of Prof Wilkes, and jokes that had he patented it, and received a royalty on every subroutine call…

[Helix]

(11-29-2018 08:03 PM)cdmackay Wrote:  

(11-29-2018 12:30 PM)Karl-Ludwig Butte Wrote:  Along the way you'll meet the Cambridge Computer Lab's EDSAC computer and its builder Maurice Wilkes

Often noted as the "inventor" of the subroutine. A friend of mine was a student of Prof Wilkes, and jokes that had he patented it, and received a royalty on every subroutine call…

I've been playing for several weeks with the EDSAC simulator.
This computer is very interesting! It was one of the very first stored-program computers, the first one to use a rudimentary assembler, and it led to the first practical book about programming: "the preparation of programs for an electronic digital computer", that I have the chance to own.
The second edition of this book is available here.
Although this second edition applied to a later version of the EDSAC, having different orders, the "initial orders" were unchanged, so many explanations are still relevant to the EDSAC simulator.

There is currently a project to replicate the EDSAC:
http://www.tnmoc.org/special-projects/edsac
I find the second video on this page, commented by Maurice Wilkes himself, fascinating.

By the way, I think that subroutines for the EDSAC should be credited more to David Wheeler, the programmer. The idea of subroutine was known earlier, by Mauchly, von Neumann or Goldstine.

[cdmackay]

(11-30-2018 02:33 AM)Helix Wrote:  By the way, I think that subroutines for the EDSAC should be credited more to David Wheeler, the programmer. The idea of subroutine was known earlier, by Mauchly, von Neumann or Goldstine.

right; I think Wheeler was my friend's supervisor at some point. I should get him to write here instead of paraphrasing him, thanks

[pier4r]

Thanks a lot for the additional contributions!

What is nice in this forum (and I wish it would be for every community) is that even apparently "old" post are useful and should be updated with new info rather than creating duplicates. Of course this is easier said than done as one - especially newcomers- do not know if a discussion was already opened in the forum.

[edryer]

Slightly off topic but relevant.

If you are interested in a foundation maths course that encourages Calculator usage may I suggest the following book published nearly forty years ago by Prentice-Hall that I came across by complete accident.

Algebra and trigonometry with calculators.
Marshall D Hestenes.
556 pages.
1981.

Not only has this book been lost in the mist of time, it is quite a fantastic basic course that takes you from sub high school level rapidly through all of pre-calculus and some Matrix work, a lot of Algebra, Trig and Geometry and a huge number of examples and exercises. By the end you'd be pretty adept at most of the core areas. It is beautifully written and very clear, it is also VERY thorough, touching areas that would never often be seen (good practice!).

The book itself makes little recommendation of Calculator to use but suggests the likes of the TI-25/30/50 and SR40, Casio FX-21 and FX-31, Sharp 5806 and finally... the HP-31E, these being the (Late 70's) Basic Scientific Calculators of that time.

It is an unusual book in that it encourages you actually use a Calculator throughout whilst simultaneously attempting to second-guess a rough answer mentally. A chapter on Calculator accuracy and many exercises just to familiarise yourself with a Scientific calculator with random equations to solve, it also highlights some solutions in RPN.

Quite an odd book then but I think gold dust for those wanting to explore mathematics but have little expertise to start too deeply.

A few copies floating around used on the usual sites cheaply. You can also "loan" an electronic copy through the archive.org library if you wish to have a look first.

I tried to locate the author to thank him... but he has also seemingly long gone.