Panther's Calculator is a Bad Joke (A Rant)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Richard Outerbridge <outer () sympatico ca>
Date: August 9, 2004 12:26:38 PM EDT
To: tips2003 () macintouch com
Cc: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Panther's Calculator is a Bad Joke (A Rant)

The flagship Calculator application that ships with Apple's Panther is 
so sick as to be shameful.  Two examples:

From basic mode enter 12,000,000.  Go to Convert->Area...  Choose 
"From: Square Inch" and "To: Acre".  Press OK.
The displayed result is zero (0).  Press '='.  The displayed result is 
1.44.  The correct answer is actually 1.91307009488827.

Go to View->Advanced.  Try "10000/(2^32)".  The displayed result is 
454.5454545454546^32.  Press '='.  Nothing changes.
The correct answer is actually 0.00000232830643.

This could be the first piece of software that someone (that is, Apple) 
could get sued for, disclaimers of fit-for-purpose,
blah, blah, blah, all to the side.  It's utterly unreliable, yet 
seemingly so simple, basic and user-friendly!

Apple should make a special out-of-band update to their Calculator, if 
only to avoid the embarrassment of a prospective
Windows switcher finding he can't get a Macintosh to even do basic math 
correctly, let alone relying on it for doing any
"serious" day-to-day work.

Richard Outerbridge

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