this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
689 points (96.4% liked)
memes
19841 readers
713 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"You are continuously wrong all the time" is in the present tense which, by your logic, only covers the present moment. "All the time" can no more change that than "never" can change that.
The second clause is only a guess from you, so I don't really care about it.
It can't mean equals if part of its function is addition. "Add, and update the display with the current accumulated value" (which is what the button actually does) does not mean "update the display with the current accumulated value". That is only part of its meaning; saying that something means only part of its meaning is simply not correct.
I know you are. And that claim is not supported by the manual. That sequence of keypresses is not there.
Still waiting for that video!
This was not an example in the manual of it obeying order of operations in violation of right to left execution, so you have failed to provide that evidence.
A stack requires hardware to operate; it requires memory. In early calculators, the stack was, in fact, a dedicated area of memory, because the amounts of memory we are talking about are so small that there was no way to dynamically assign memory to different functions.
You would not necessarily find the stack size in the manual, but you would expect to find it in the technical specifications. As an example of the kind of evidence you're looking for this guide to using the HP-41 specifically mentions its 5-level stack. Note that this calculator was introduced in 1979, 7 years after the Sinclair Executive, and had 64 memory registers (in the original model; this could be expanded).
So, off you go.
You just tried to deflect this. I'm quite happy to post a video showing how my free calculator works, but you indicated you would dismiss it as a "chain calculator". If you give any indication that you're not going to dismiss it, I'll happily provide one. For now, we are talking about the evidence you could provide.
Weird thing to be skeptical of. Here's a link to an emulator for the Sinclair Cambridge
Note that you can type in the exact same sequence of keys we're talking about on this calculator: 2 + 3 × 5 =, and it will produce 25.
That is four different ways you could have demonstrated that this calculator has the capability to operate other than in immediate execution mode, and your responses were:
I'll explain this once more. In the manual, the calculation we are discussing is rendered as 2.6 + 5 + x 9.1. We can tell the calculator executes this left-to-right because it gets the answer 69.16 and not 48.1. You are saying that, if a different sequence of keys had been pressed, then the calculator would do something produce 48.1 You have no evidence for that claim, because that sequence of keys is not in the manual, and nor is that result. I have evidence that it cannot happen, because it is impossible with the calculator's hardware.
Yes, the calculator has an operator register. Explain what I have said that you think this contradicts, and why. Note that it cannot remember more operators.
No, it can't. You enter four numbers, but it only remembers three (the one you're currently entering, the accumulated total, and one manually stored number). You can see how it works from the diagram: at each step, the next number is calculated from those three values.
(a+b)/(c+d) has four operands (did you get operand confused with operator?).
It doesn't need to remember them all for the same reason that when you add up 4 + 6 + 23 + 21 + 5 + 8 + 1 you only need to remember the running total ("the accumulator"), not all 7 operands in the sum.
That's not an evaluation, that's an expression with an equals sign at the end, which doesn't make any sense. The original expression has brackets, so I'm not sure what you mean by "without brackets" unless you want me to rewrite it in a notation that doesn't use brackets. I just meant I'd first add b to c, then add e to f, then multiply those two values by their respective coefficients. No splitting needed.
If we were talking about whether you need a plus-sign before a number to express that it is positive, the expression 2+3 and its evaluation to 5 would be sufficient evidence that you do not. Likewise, when we are discussing whether you need brackets to express that addition is to be performed before multiplication, the expression 2 3 + 5 x in RPN and its evaluation to 25 is sufficient to show that no brackets are needed. There are no brackets in the RPN expression 2 3 + 5 x, and its correct value is 25.
You've said that the brackets can be "built-in" meaning, according to you, that there are no buttons for them. Look man, either the brackets buttons are required for evaluating complex expressions, or they aren't. Make your mind up, then we can talk about this some more.
You know, every time you say "says person", it actually is a deflection. So thanks for proving that one.
Just to recall: I asked, "if you mean something else than brackets buttons, explain what" and you did not do that. Indeed, you didn't even quote that sentence in your reply where you seem to delight in quoting every single clause on its own. Interesting!
No, it's not, but you didn't ask how I'd calculate it on this specific calculator, which I have always agreed can't do it. Rather, you just asked how I'd calculate it without splitting it up, and without using brackets keys. I'd write it out in RPN, which does not require brackets keys, and does not need to split it up.
This was your point that you raised, genius, and you forgot what it was about. Embarrassing.
Finally!
You really need to get better at explicitly distinguishing between strings of symbols and their numeric counterparts. What it does is it puts the result of adding b to a into the accumulator.
But you insist that the Sinclair Executive obeys the order of operations. And MS Calc behaves the same as the Sinclair Executive. They behave exactly the same - if they don't, find an example of the Sinclair Executive behaving differently. If they do, what's your problem with MS Calc? It's behaving the same as a physical calculator.
Try to keep up. We're talking about the Sinclair Executive. Is your calculator one of those? No?! So indeed, you're guessing about how the Sinclair Executive works without that keypress.
I'm just going to replace your deflections with some text like that, to show where you've failed to answer.
And yet the manual does not say "you have to do that second press to put it in brackets" and there is no example without that second press to compare to soooooo... you're guessing.
Uh huh! Keep going!
Thanks for not playing!
So, you do teach them the concept of implicit multiplication. You just don't use the same words. Cool! Thank fuck for that!