Totally off topic......

[boxerman]

I've just bought a new calculator for the office - ok, it wasn't expensive but I do, kind of, expect it to be able to do basic maths. It's a small Casio and someone else has checked their Casio out with the same results. This thing would never pass a Maths O level (or whatever they are these days).....

Simple percentages: 4 + 25% or 4 + 75% - believe this piece of junk and the answers are 5.333333 and 16 respectively......

[SimonFisher]

Have you read the manual and using the percentage function as it's been designed to be used?

http://www.casio.com/support/content/AF64A1AC-193D-4650-A9A9-98BB6FE26CFE#5

[boxerman]

Thanks for that link Simon. There was no manual with it and it does work correctly following that procedure. If it has to be done in such an unintuative way then it#'s going in the bin 'cos I can't be buggering around like that for business. Many thanks tho - at least I now know the reasons but that really is a rubbish way of working it - about half a dozen folk on my own forum have been scratching their heads too..

[SimonFisher]

I never use a '%' key myself:

4 plus 25%: 4 x 1.25 = 5

4 plus 75%: 4 x 1.75 = 7

[oldclaypaws]

If either of you need a calculator to work out 4 + 1 or 4 + 3, I'd be tempted to report your former primary schools to Ofsted.

That spongy stuff between your ears is more reliable than machines if you practice using it occasionally.

[boxerman]

I quite agree, Paws, IF that's all you're using it for. % tho is one of my biggest uses when I'm working out a variety of discounts - if I have a list of 50 items at values ranging between 1p and £500, many with varying discount rates I simply don't have either the time or the will to sit there for an hour or two working them out with the risk of making mistakes. My maths isn't good enough to be reliably working out what 12% of £297.50 is and various other combinations.... I have a living to make..

Learning to use this thing would be like learning to use Windows 8 before it had the start button re-instated and about as pointless when you have a copy of Win 7 that you can install. Yes, I'm sure I could eventually find my way around it but I've no desire to have to be referring to a manual every time I want to use a simple tool.

[greyman]

I blame it all on the Babylonians myself

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Dia ... ymbols.gif

You'd need more than a manual if our calculators had these numerals on them! Sexagesimal system ya see. Although today with these wonderful Smart 'phones we can use this:
http://baptiste.meles.free.fr/site/mesocalc.html

[boxerman]

That would take a while to learn... but at least I can see a logic to that one - a downward pointing triangle is 1, a left pointing triangle equates to 10 downward ones.