May 12, 2017

Okay. This might seem like a dumb question, but who has used the calculator in Windows 10? Of course we all have at one time or another, starting with the basic add, subtract, multiply and divide options, but have you looked at the options in the ellipse menu (the three horizontal lines in the top left corner)? There are some great functions that really open up the calculator. Let's have a squiz.

To start with there are 5 main views – standard, scientific, programmer, date calculation and converter. 

Standard is the basic default view, with add, subtract, multiply and divide, plus percentage, square root, X squared, 1/x and the usual memory functions, but including a pull-down to actually see what is in the memory location without interrupting any ongoing calculations. 

Scientific view is also faily basic stuff with the usual scientific functions: x squared and 1/x (again), square root, 10 to the power X, X to the power Y, the usual logarithmic and trigonometric functions in degree, radian and gradients, and a factorial calculator (n!).

The programmer view is great for doing number conversions between hexademical, decimal, octal and binary – and show all conversions at the same time (I use this quite often for TCP?IP address calculations). It has full or bit toggling keyboard input as well as Byte, Word, DWord and Qword views and logic operations – Or, Xor, Not and And.

Two newer additions (well since Vista anyway) to the calculator are the date calculator and the converter:

The date calculator is good for finding the difference between two dates, or to add or subtract days, using the default window date picker.

And the converter does many different types of conversions: Volume, length, weight and mass, temperature, energy, area, speed, time, power data, pressure and angle.

So you don't have to go rushing to the Windows store or your favourite browser search functiom for all those converter apps, you already have them installed!

For more useful tips, check out the list of courses I run here and contact the team at New Horizons for more information.