ATARI SOFTWARE REVIEW-CALCULATOR

By Peter Pappas

Whether you're into research, engineering, economic analysis, or "plain old boring homework", the time wasted performing conversions or calculations can be a nonprofitable experience. In order to conquer this boredom and resolve this conversion dilemma, man developed the abacus and as time and technology progressed moved on toward the first computers - huge machines these were with titanic proportions. Hundreds of cubic feet in size containing so many vacuum tubes that they consumed a great deal of electricity, produced much heat, and could do little more than the four basic mathematical functions. Then the digital computers came about soon after the invention of transistors and later, large scale integrated circuits. And soon after by the common pocket calculator, now turning into pocket computers. Is this development the ultimate mechanism to perform man's many calculations and conversions without having to tote a 1000 pound computer about?

If you answered yes to the above question, you can go to the back of the class. The solution to the question/problem lies in the new Calculator program from ATARI. Unlike the programmable calculator, the ATARI Calculator diskette provides the user with a simple and efficient means to perform any calculation or conversion in any field or discipline without having to (a) cope with an assortment and array of paper and (b) have any real background in computers, science, or economics. The ATARI diskette contains all of the formulas required to perform a multitude of conversions and calculations.

For the small businessman who might be interested in ascertaining his or her annual percentage rate, mortgage rate or profit yield, the ATARI Calculator can provide assistance in providing the answer. These financial functions along with compound interest, balloon payments and annuities, when combined with ATARI's Stocks and Bonds analysis programs provide the family economist or small business person with an array of financial functions to perform virtually all necessary budgeting and investment calculations. If your field requires statistic, algebraic or trigonometric functions, the ATARI program can perform these calculations admirably.

Calculations are not the only positive attribute of this new state of the art micro-computer program. Calculator also provides the ability to perform numerous scientific conversions ranging from Fahrenheit/Celcius to Polar /Rectangular. Any one of these functions can be performed accurately and efficiently by following the format layed out in the Calculator manual. Or should I say book?

What you receive is a 115 page manual (book?) covering everything you need to know, and a lot of 'stuff' you may want to learn. But don't get confused into thinking this is a tough program to comprehend! In a few minutes you'll get the hang of it, and then you may want to page through the manual to see what else Calculator can do. While the ATARI Calculator program may not be as portable or as convenient for everyone, it does provide other advantages to the more portable programmable calculators now on the market.

FEATURES OF THE ATARI CALCULATOR:

• The ability of hardcopy output using any of the ATARI printers

• The ability to save and load numerical data from disk or tape

• You can define whether to use standard input or RPN (Reverse Polish Notation). RPN is generally preferred in scientific work

• Easy conversion between English/Metric systems
• Memory with displayable stack (you can see what's in memory) - You have 100 memory locations and can visibly see the first 10
• You have the ability to fix the amount of digits displayed to 8 places and also exponentiation
• The capability to easily enter numbers in Decimal, Octal, or Hex!
• The standard math functions of Pi, square root, rounding off, reciprocals, etc.
• Algebraic functions including factorials, modulos, logarithm's
• Sine, Cosine, Tangent functions, and the Arc's of each
• Statistical functions with slope, mean functions, standard deviation, and much more including linear regression
• Financial applications with 14 different functions

The Calculator is available on diskette only, for $29.95 and requires 24K of RAM.