P.S. I have no idea why you’re so skeptical that the Sinclair Executive can execute other than left-to-right, to the point of reading an example where the operations are executed left-to-right as evidence that it can execute in another order. But if you really cannot accept, due to some weird glitch in your programming or whatever, what about:
The Monroe 20. The example is typed in as 1 + 2 × 4 - 5 ÷ 6 = and the result is given as 1.16 (repeating). That has been executed left-to-right; the result would be 8.16 (repeating) if executed with the usual operator precedence.
The Montgomery Ward P300. An example is typed in as 8.3 + 2 ÷ 4 - 6.8 =, with the result given being -4.225. That has been executed left-to-right; the result would be 2 if executed with the usual operator precedence.
The Omron 88. An example is typed in as 98 + 76 - 54 × 32 ÷ 10 =, with the result being given as 384. That has been executed left-to-right; the result would be 1.2 if executed with the usual operator precedence.
And to round it all out here is an issue of Electronic Design with an article (read p41, “Which Arithmetic”) that explicitly says that, in 1978, “all scientific calculators” except those of TI and HP used immediate execution. I dunno how many sources for this you need; I’m guessing you’ll find some way of deciding that when a magazine says “all scientific calculators except TI and HP” it means something completely different.
I mean, it’s just like I said: the basic, four-function calculators are all like this. Scientific Calculators used to all be like this, until technical developments were made that allowed otherwise. Feel free to browse more manuals on that website if you want, it’s quite interesting! If you were to, you’d have a better understanding of how these calculators - which I practised with in primary school, but which you, because you didn’t, assert don’t exist - actually work.
As an extra favour to you, I found the manual of the scientific calculator I had at home when I was growing up - this is what I used whenever I needed a calculator for homework until we were instructed to get a specific calculator, from some specific school year. That calculator was:
The Casio fx-110. And what do you know, it has an example of typing the keys: 56 × 3 - 89 ÷ 5.2 + 63 = and printing the answer 78.19230769. The answer, if executed with usual operator precedence, would be 213.88461538.
So indeed, it’s not just basic calculators. So let’s go from here: there were millions and millions of calculators sold on which, if you type 2 + 3 × 5 it would give the answer 25.
Silence descends. @smartmanapps@programming.dev is nowhere to be found. A blissful sense of intelligence and sanity is restored, yet one thread remains loose: why the fuck was I talking about calculators this whole time?
Well, weary traveller to the depths of this rabbit-hole, who probably doesn’t exist, let me tie off that loose end. (OK I admit it, I’m just miffed I was never able to bring this back to The Point because Captain Denial over here can’t admit a single mistake)
The point is simply this: if a calculator works with some order of operations other than the normal one, so that in the operation of that calculator, 1 + 2 × 4 - 5 ÷ 6 = 1.16, and if this calculator proves useful for the solution of actual problems, there cannot be anything wrong with this set of rules.
Ages ago, Donald tried to claim that some scenario he came up with proved that left-to-right evaluation gave you wrong answers. One only needs to imagine how one would use an immediate execution calculator to tackle such a problem to see that his scenario does nothing of the sort.
So if you need to work out “Alice gave me 3L of juice, then Bob gave me two 5L cartons of juice, how much juice do I have?” You’d write down, with ordinary notation, 3 + 2 × 5 (and get 13), but on an immediate execution calculator you’d have to type in 2 × 5 + 3, but you’d still get the right answer of 13, because you know how to translate the scenario into the correct notation for the context. If you were talking to someone who insisted on ignoring ordinary rules of precedence and just proceeding left-to-right, you could write down the exact same string and they too would get the right answer of 13.
P.S. I have no idea why you’re so skeptical that the Sinclair Executive can execute other than left-to-right, to the point of reading an example where the operations are executed left-to-right as evidence that it can execute in another order. But if you really cannot accept, due to some weird glitch in your programming or whatever, what about:
The Monroe 20. The example is typed in as 1 + 2 × 4 - 5 ÷ 6 = and the result is given as 1.16 (repeating). That has been executed left-to-right; the result would be 8.16 (repeating) if executed with the usual operator precedence.
The Montgomery Ward P300. An example is typed in as 8.3 + 2 ÷ 4 - 6.8 =, with the result given being -4.225. That has been executed left-to-right; the result would be 2 if executed with the usual operator precedence.
The Omron 88. An example is typed in as 98 + 76 - 54 × 32 ÷ 10 =, with the result being given as 384. That has been executed left-to-right; the result would be 1.2 if executed with the usual operator precedence.
And to round it all out here is an issue of Electronic Design with an article (read p41, “Which Arithmetic”) that explicitly says that, in 1978, “all scientific calculators” except those of TI and HP used immediate execution. I dunno how many sources for this you need; I’m guessing you’ll find some way of deciding that when a magazine says “all scientific calculators except TI and HP” it means something completely different.
I mean, it’s just like I said: the basic, four-function calculators are all like this. Scientific Calculators used to all be like this, until technical developments were made that allowed otherwise. Feel free to browse more manuals on that website if you want, it’s quite interesting! If you were to, you’d have a better understanding of how these calculators - which I practised with in primary school, but which you, because you didn’t, assert don’t exist - actually work.
As an extra favour to you, I found the manual of the scientific calculator I had at home when I was growing up - this is what I used whenever I needed a calculator for homework until we were instructed to get a specific calculator, from some specific school year. That calculator was:
So indeed, it’s not just basic calculators. So let’s go from here: there were millions and millions of calculators sold on which, if you type 2 + 3 × 5 it would give the answer 25.
Silence descends. @smartmanapps@programming.dev is nowhere to be found. A blissful sense of intelligence and sanity is restored, yet one thread remains loose: why the fuck was I talking about calculators this whole time?
Well, weary traveller to the depths of this rabbit-hole, who probably doesn’t exist, let me tie off that loose end. (OK I admit it, I’m just miffed I was never able to bring this back to The Point because Captain Denial over here can’t admit a single mistake)
The point is simply this: if a calculator works with some order of operations other than the normal one, so that in the operation of that calculator, 1 + 2 × 4 - 5 ÷ 6 = 1.16, and if this calculator proves useful for the solution of actual problems, there cannot be anything wrong with this set of rules.
Ages ago, Donald tried to claim that some scenario he came up with proved that left-to-right evaluation gave you wrong answers. One only needs to imagine how one would use an immediate execution calculator to tackle such a problem to see that his scenario does nothing of the sort.
So if you need to work out “Alice gave me 3L of juice, then Bob gave me two 5L cartons of juice, how much juice do I have?” You’d write down, with ordinary notation, 3 + 2 × 5 (and get 13), but on an immediate execution calculator you’d have to type in 2 × 5 + 3, but you’d still get the right answer of 13, because you know how to translate the scenario into the correct notation for the context. If you were talking to someone who insisted on ignoring ordinary rules of precedence and just proceeding left-to-right, you could write down the exact same string and they too would get the right answer of 13.