Texas Instruments (TI) has announced the next generation of the TI-84 Plus family — the TI-84 Plus CE Python graphing calculator. Available in time for back-to-school, the TI-84 Plus CE Python graphing calculator helps students explore, visualize, and better understand math and science. It also introduces them to Python, one of the fastest growing, most…

Doing calculations in microcontroller based project is not an uncommon thing. That’s what CPU is for, isn’t it? However, all these calculations done by MCU are pre-written as a part of code – which means these formulae are part of the program written by programmer and cannot be changed or altered for each new calculation, if the situation demands so. What if your system has to solve equations on the fly? What if the user wants to define an equation to be evaluated and MCU has to perform the task based on that? Well, here comes handy a Postfix Notation to solve any type of equations in run-time that too without changing any source code. This method not only helps in solving trivial expressions like 3 + 4 but also can handle anything that involves parenthesis or algebraic operator precedence. We will also build a somewhat basic calculator based on this technique using Atmel’s AVR microcontroller.  

Scientific calculators are more of a habit for any engineer. Loaded with features that can solve complicated trigonometric, logarithmic and exponentia. The first scientific calculator was released in late 1960s by Hewlett Packard and numerous electronic manufacturers followed suit. Initially expensive and feature restricted, engineers have continually crammed more and more features into that little space as the semiconductor manufacturing industry continues to mature.Most of the scientific calculators, irrespective of the manufacturer, come in a hard plastic casing as shown above. The layout of the buttons is neat and ergonomic so that calculators can be used for long time without posing any risk of strain to the wrist and also ensuring correct key stroke each time, irrespective of the finger size pressing them.Let’s find out what makes this small sized gadget tick.