Secrets of The Windows Calculator 

I never knew I needed a 13 minute video on the windows calculator. It’s a lot more advanced than I thought

Half of this video would make the ultimate intro to Computer Science. It's good that you talked about the "Programmer" section; because that contains THE MOST COMMON operations that newbie programmers should know about (i.e., bit shift, the logical operators, the "modulo" operator). Fantastic!

And there is a company still trying to develop worlds best calculator app for decades.

Me: I wonder if he can make a 13 minute long video about Windows Calculator exciting? 🤔 13 minutes later: More!!!

Excellent! There are a number of things in here that I didn't know. One point: DMS is a fixed format notation. In other words, 10.5 degrees is not 10 degrees and 3 minutes. 10.5 degrees is 10 degrees 30 minutes, even though the calculator presents it as 10.3 -- the trailing 0 is not displayed. 10.1 degrees in DMS is 10.06, or 10 degrees, 6 minutes.

One of my favorite features is reciprocal (1/X, or X^-1 on other calculators). Its keyboard shortcut is simply 'R'. I find this useful when deciding to say if X is some percentage of Y or vice versa. E.g. 4/5=0.8, then [1/X] = 1.25 (5/4). You can toggle (repeatedly) between the two values, instead of having to enter the other calculation. I also use this when calculating the price of a product per unit (e.g. € per kg), without having to think about whether to enter the price or the package amount first. You can immediately start entering the first number you come across. Then divide by the other number. If it doesn't make sense, take the reciprocal.

Even in college I never understood how memory worked on a calculator.... This would been so FUCKING USEFUL ON MY MIDTERM

Shifts are simple. Shifting right makes every digit move one step to the right. Left moves left. Logical shift does that, and in the bit in the end that doesn't have anything slide into it, it puts 0. So logical shift right of 1101 would be 0110, and a shift left of 1101 would be 1010. With binary numbers, this is very similar to multiplying and dividing by 2, corresponding to shifting left and right respectively. However, negative numbers (2's complement) must have 1 in their leftmost bit, and adding more 1's to their left are like adding more 0's before any number you know - it does nothing. So arithmetic shift does the same as logical shift, except when shifting right it fills in the leftmost bit with the previously-leftmost bit. 1100 (-4) shifted right arithmetically is 1110 (-2) and shifted left is 1000 (-8). Circular shift just takes the discarded bit in the far end and puts it back into the vacant bit at the start. Rotate through carry does the same thing, except it uses a storage bit of a certain arithmetic significance. It's a handy way of extracting its value and testing it, and then you can shift the other way and retrieve your original number.

I hope Microsoft can bring clearer indications of shortcut keys! I love the way traditional Windows applications show their shortcut keys. For example, using an underlined letter in the button text to indicate Alt+ being a shortcut, or showing a tooltip after pressing Alt, or showing the shortcut key of the button when we hover it. Somehow, such simple hints seem to be lost in more recent Windows applications, even in Office suite software. For example, pressing Alt in Teams shows nothing and I cannot select different elements easily without my mouse or tapping Tab a thousand times. And from what I have heard, in File Explorer, I still cannot jump between main content and navigation bar easily. I wish Microsoft will take a deeper look at how they hint the shortcuts.

I wasn’t aware, windows calculator has built in plotting capabilities. I use to go to wolfram alpha for all my plotting needs. Thanks ThioJoe!

programmer calculator is the most useful imo. Not only for converting between hex and decimal, but also for setting individual bits and seeing what the resulting hex value is. Good for finding what value a mode or command register should be or something like that. The bit shift is also pretty useful if a register uses only the higher n bits of a value. For memory mapping in x86, you use the top 10 bits for the directory, next 10 bits for the page, and the bottom 12 bits for the address in the page. Right shifting by 10 and 20 is an easy way to get the directory and page numbers.

This guy makes the best videos on youtube about the best topics for real

Fun fact about the Calculator up to Windows 8. Every computer that had it had a major security weak point. It could access the system memory and protected areas of the CPU. It is difficult to exploit put can be to gain access to system memory and CPU. Fixed when the Windows App Store version was released.

I did not know they had integrated some of features of geogebra and desmos into calc. Thanks, you are always helpful.

Not that it would help for a video almost 2 months old, but after the hamburger menu is open, if you press Alt again, you can see the letter shortcut for what you want. So, your example for Area and Angle, you actual type "AR" for area and "AN" for angle.

Teaspoons and tablespoons (pretty much 5 & 15 ml) are still used in recipes in the UK, particularly in older books. We have everything in metric by law, but depending on what you're looking at, it might well have imperial measurements too. Our non-metric weights & measures tend to be a bit bugger than yours of the same name. A gallon is 4.54 litres, whereas I believe that US gallons are 4. I could be wrong! Our pints are 4 fl oz bigger for definite, and unless we have a US cookbook, we don't use cups. HTH :) Thanks for the info about the calculator, I had never bothered to look at it because I have a cracking free one on my phone (HiPER) and a graphics calculator pro version that I got free (my favourite price). When my eldest went to uni to be an engineer (though he became a scientist instead) I bought him _the_ Texas graphics calculator that all students of maths have (I was lucky, my uni leant me one, 21 years ago. I was a "mature" student - by age if not by description) and the software to go with it. Even though it's been 13 years since he first went, I remember it cost me £114 in total! Fortunately I still had my "how to use the calculator" book, which is massive!

The older versions of Windows Calculator (the classic 9x/XP one and the Windows 7/8 one, which still exists in some Windows 10-based systems) also had a Statistics mode, where you could calculate the mean value, the sum or standard deviation of given values. Of course you can do it in Excel, but I don't know why that was removed from Windows 10 calculator.

I've been a subscriber ever since you released that satire video of you washing a motherboard to get rid of viruses. That was YEARS ago. You, still, never disappoint with your content. I've been programming on Windows 10 since it came out, and used the programming calculator and the other converter calcs countless times. Im blown away by all the shit I have been over looking for years. Typically, I would just create a quick and dirty calc in my IDE to get me by, but the game has just been changed.

The windows calculator is so much more useful than i though, nice job Microsoft!

*As a tech guru (40+years), I thought I knew just about everything there's to know. Seriously, I didn't know about that calculator simple Always on Top features! And I have a few of "Stay on Top Apps!" Again, this show that we do indeed still learn something new every day, no matter how much we think we know.*

Have a coffee on me, because this is going to save me tons of time going forward. Love your work!

i think the reason for the mebibyte confusion is that historically they always used powers of 2 and called them megabytes, and then at some point in the late 90s some organization decided that was confusing since those prefixes usually refer to powers of 10. so they made up new words like mebibyte to retcon the old terminology and try to make a new standard, but not everyone adopted the new standard. so some people still use the old definition of megabyte using powers of 2, and some use the new one and use mebi for legacy reasons or to convert them. and some people just never got the memo that theres a difference at all. probably the people that never switched are older programmers that got used to the old standard, or its a backwards compatibility thing (we all know how much windows loves backwards compatibility).

A classic example of "you don't know what you don't know". Brilliant video - very useful. Thanks!

"dms" converts degrees into degrees, but the decimal part is converted into base 60. So 10.5 degrees is (as with 10.5 hours) 10 degrees and 30 minutes. Not 10 degrees and 3 minutes. It is a weird function.

Damn do I love this RU-vidr. He's really good with explaining and his choice of word are very precise, accurate and descriptive. Another thing is he won't just tell you what the shortcuts are but also what they stand for and all it's details. I've seen multiple of his videos and they always impress me how well done his videos are. Funny thing is I remember hating him back then for some of his troll videos. It's an era where how to basics and trolling was a famous thing and he hoped on this trend but as usual. He perfects everything so he was dead serious making this troll videos making it very hard to tell if it's a joke or not and alot fell for it and got mad plus he broke alot of people's trust and it kinda ruined his brand so I believe he unlisted the videos but they are still there lol

Also, at 6:17 ->dms and ->deg and also be used for time calculations. At 6:37 10.5° is 10° 30' (10 degrees 30 minutes).

So, basically what I learned from this video is: I wasted a lot of time/internet looking for things that exists locally on my PC. Well, thank you daddy ThioJoe, this is probably one of the most helpful videos on RU-vid for me (especially the part that talks about binary operations and bit shifting).

I never noticed the always on top as I stopped using Standard calculator back in Windows XP, as it stopped to correctly do order of operations (e.g 5 * 2 + 3 * 7) when pasting expressions. Standard will calculate (5 * 2 + 3) * 7 from left to right, while Scientific does correctly (5 * 2) + (3 * 7). This is still true with the UWP Windows 10 version of the Calculator app.

Entertaining video. I didn't know there was a menu crammed full of stuff. Stay in the foreground is also useful - Thanks Thio.

Well, to be fair, Mililiters are used for liquid and Cubic Centimeters could be used for area without thinking about liquid at all. A cubic Decimeter (10cm or 0.1m) is actually exactly a liter, we had a metal cubic decimeter cube at school when I was 8, it was a great visualizer! These measurements exist, are (probably) all used and overlap because the Metric system, and I quote: "Wasn't invented by a drunk mathematician rolling dice" :D

What I don't like about "Always On top" in the calculator is that when you want to use the scientific calculator, while also having it on top, you cannot do that

ThioJoe, only you could have made this as interesting as you did. Thanks for the very good video, as usual.

3:19 I should mention that this one isn't necessarily shift+2 but rather whatever will type an @ symbol on your specific keyboard layout so if you're on a different layout then shift+2 won't work

The scientific calculator displays history as for example: 5+5+5+5= 20, which is what I prefer. The standard calculator did it this way at one time but now displays the same operation as 5+5=10 10+5=15 15+5=20. The reason I prefer the way the scientific does it, is I can see much more easily if I have entered the numbers correctly. I see no way to make the standard do it like the scientific. Thanks.

Ooh, brilliant video, Joe! Knew some of the initial stuff but hadn't realised how many other converters and calculators there are!

I searched for a video on the 'Programmer' mode for the Windows Calculator, and yours came up top (I'm subscribed). So many features that are just hidden away! Thanks for sharing.

MiB was standardized in 2009. Prior to that, MB was used for both base10 and base2. Mostly because storage companies wanted to make their devices appear larger than they were. The standardization is taking awhile to catch on.

I had fiddled around a lot on clac.exe but I'm still happy by the vid as there were some features which I didn't know but will be definitely helpful in the future. And nice work on the editing!

This is awesome! Very crisp information and very useful! Thank you!

This is very cool. I did not even know that there were so many interesting things there. Thanks.

Excellent! You make learning fun! 👏👏👏☺️

8:01 Hex uses 0 through 9 and A through F. Base 16. 16 "numbers" to use.

I knew most of what you covered here, but you did introduce some interesting items that were new to even me! I found this to be very informative and interesting, which is a reflection of your preparation.

Thanks for sharing, Thorough video :)

I hope they add integrals, derivatives and matrix... it would be so helpful. also, display fractions like casio calculators would be very nice too

I like the idea that the programmer calculator has no real world use and no normal people need to use the bitwise Boolean operators. As a programmer I've only ever used it and the basic/scientific calculator

As a long time user of the windows calculator, I found this video fun to watch. One thing that you did not mention about the difference between "Standard" and "Scientific" is how they do basic math. "Standard" calculator is really an adding machine and does everything as you enter it. 1 + 2 * 3 will equal 9. In "Scientific" mode, it is a calculator and will use order of operation when performing a calculation so 1 + 2 * 3 will equal 7. This is an important thing to know when using any thing we call a calculator. The easy way to know which it is, is to look for parenthesis. If a device has them, it will likely use order of operation. If it does not have them, it is likely an adding machine and will do stuff in the order you enter it.

What a fantastic video, thank you. Some really useful tips here

I remember as a NON-geek-nerd kid using the memory and other functions to perform the early days of rudimentary programming, in essence each string across those RED L.E.D.s was a line of code, and you could have a series of functions ready to perform upon a given input and then give you the solutions. There were no lockouts or hidden files or special instructions, anyone had total access or "root" all the time. .. of course that led to phone freaking and stealing, which was AWESOME!

Pro tip: just press (not hold) ALT and labels with appropriate key will appear (not sure about W11, but works on W10). Such as H for menu, I for history and M for memory. But there is more. You do not have to select ARea manually, it has also shortcut and that is alt+AR and obviously alt+AN for ANgle, alt+AB for ABout. But that still does not end. You can use it in almost in any program, just as browser/notepad and menu will have underscored characters, which are the key corresponding to them. E.g., alt+F = File menu.

Really good work! Thank you. :)

I loved when they included the currency calculator (and when my country, Venezuela, actually started using more and more the official currency... Well, when it's convenient), I didn't necessarily like the look though, but it's way more functional than people think.

I learned a number of new things, some useful to me and rest mostly of academic interest. One thing you did not mention is that you can open several calculators. They will open as the last selected type. I do this often when watching EU videos. I open Temp, Length, and Speed (sometimes Currency) so I can easily translate values into what I understand.

Extremely useful information on a standard feature in Windows that I never knew about but will definitely use and show others. Thanks for the Helpful hints!

Superb! Was knowing calculator literally by "face" only! Great job explaining everything in detail! So much behind that simple interface. Looking forward for more on other Windows apps revealing the "secrets"...

I had no idea the graphic calculator was that powerful. Also adding days onto dates is something that I do pretty often. Will have to remember to try the calculator next time instead of using so random website

When I went through computer/programming school back in 19xx all units GB, KB, TB, etc. were base 2 (1KB = 1024) but with the spread of computer users the computer sellers started making it easier for the users (i.e., 1kB = 1000) which actually made it more confusing.

Hello tuber, nitpicker here. 10.5 degrees are actually 10 degrees 30 minutes, since dms are divided into chunks of 60 just like time. Very useful for converting lattitude and longitude between Google and other systems actually.

Great info and video. Thanks.

11:15, one of the only Imperial units we use, as well as inches and feet for height, and stone and pounds for weight

Extremely useful video. I feel dumb for not exploring all these features. It's amazing how much you can do with this seemingly simple program. I would like to see more videos on this topic: things you never thought you could do with x program in Windows. I'm sure there are many more secret or hidden features in the OS that could be time savers.

6:33 A slight mistake, that's 10 degrees 30 minutes instead of 10 degrees 3 minutes

Informative video. Have been using calculator for a long time. Missed quiet e few things that you mentioned. Thank you.

You really get to know someone when you see their calculator history.

It would be nice if "Always on Top" would work in all modes other than Standard. And let it stay in the position it's already at like the lower right corner instead of going to the top! I hate having to move the calculator to another screen just to keep it visible and reasonably close to the other app I need it for, but that's a lot more mouse movement or Alt-Tab presses!

Good video. This is a great channel with tons of useful information. Thank you Thiojoe

Great video. Very helpful. Thanks!

I feel a small sense of power over knowing almost all of this, and having used half of it. the memory and bitshift keypad I didnt know tho, pretty cool.

What if I told you that the calculators you use in school don't actually know how to multiply or divide and do it all with repeated bit shifting, addition, and subtraction? True story.

thank you very useful tips never knew some of these points

Thanks a lot, I only knew about the default calculator. Definitely gonna come in handy at some point. I didn't expect to learn so much from a Microsoft Calculator tutorial but here I am.

even my trusty calculator hide stuff from me

If I am not wrong, many of these options are present Windows 7's calculator with different UI. Also, it is currently an open-source program mentained on github and probably that's why received many new features at a good pace. I really miss the win7 calculator's number editing feature where you can correct the numbers used for an arithmetic operation just by double-clicking on that operation line/row. This saves the trouble of retyping the entire operation just because of you entered one wrong number.

I subscribed! I didn't know about the GB and GiB stuff! Thanks!

Excellent presentation! And, even though I worked in computer science, there were some things I learned here. Well-deserved upvote!

11:06 I'm from the UK and I have never used any of those weird UK units except pints. I always just estimate how much a teaspoon/tablespoon is using an actual spoon. Also, I have never heard of fluid ounces being used in the UK let alone having a different value to US fluid ounces, weird.

I never liked the windows calculator because it never cleared the numbers properly for some reason. But maybe I was just using CE instead of C? It always annoyingly used the last function I used.

6:50 “and some of you may have flashbacks to calculus class” well I have flashbacks to the almighty desmos :D

6:16 - Just a nitpick from a nerd that had to deal with this on a physical calculator in high school. When you type in 10.5 and hit DMS, it's actually 10 degrees and 30 minutes (not 3). In the display format, it should read "10.30" (but, because the display drops trailing zeroes after the decimal point, it looks like "10.3"). An "upgraded" version of my physical calculator would show degree, minute, and second markers instead of using the decimal point (and had a special key for entering an angle in degree/minute/second format). I wish the Windows calculator would do the same; it would make it much more clear.

The programmer calculators is actually pretty useful for programmers, especially those who programs lower level or embedded stuffs. Basically it has to do with how many hardware make use of part of a byte/word to do something in order to save resource, and thus it's really helpful to know exactly how each bit goes in a whole byte/word.

In the "old" calculator that got shipped before this one, the hex digits were on the scientific screen. Now, if you have done a calculation in the "normal" calculator and you want to convert to hex, when you switch to programmers mode, the value is lost. I wish they'd still shipping the old one besides this one.

To explain bit shifting, an arithmetic shift right will copy the sign bit as it shifts to the right. So 1011 shifted right 2 times will be 1110. An unsigned shift right by 2 would make it 0010. Left shifts will copy 0 bits, so shifting left by 2 bits will be 1100. A rotation will copy the bits around in a circle, so a rotation left or right by 2 bits would make it 1110. One further note on arithmetic shifts right, the sign bit isn't a toggle on x86 and ARM computers. They use a system called 2's complement negation, so to negate a number you can't just flip that bit you have to flip all of the bits and add one. It sounds counter intuitive, but it is actually more efficient when doing math with mixed signs than the older 1's complement system was since with that system the sign bit *was* a toggle and had to be considered separately. An example: 1 == 0001 to negate it, flip ~1 == 1110 and +1 == 1111 which is the nybble representation of -1.

The explanation of Megabytes and Mebibytes is very helpful for a project I'm working on. Thank you!

"cackalader"

If you press and release ALT it will show you all the key combinations for that screen. This allows you to learn the ones for those menu options you thought didn't have one. :) Also KB/MB/GB/TB etc have traditionally been in units of 1024 not 1000. I guess it's only a recent thing where 1000 has been a more accepted measurement, but I suspect it's hard drive manufacturers trying to maximize their numbers while minimizing the actual disk space they put in their drives (you can see your 2TB drive is not quite that big if you use the 1024 scale).

11:00 mililiters is for fluids only while cubic centimeters is for basically everything

I learned more in this video than at school, thank you very much for all the explanations!

I had to look up what a hamburger menu was...

Yay. A new Video! :D

Again your videos are amazing 🙂

Ooh all these keyboard shortcuts are super useful!

So, no normal person needs the logic functions, and no normal, abnormal person needs the bitwise functions. Got it. 👍

This was such a pleasant surprise!!! I teach 1st and 2nd year Mathematics at Cal Poly Pomona & watched the video out of curiosity. I was amazed at the versatility of Windows Calculator and amazed at how useful the information packed into this video conveyed.

Excellent video! 👍

Great video and thanks... I never knew this stuff on this program...

Pretty useful, Thankx!

Omg tysm i never new these!

I'm glad you went off the rails at the end over GB, TB, GiB, and TiB. I've heard of those before but couldn't remember what they were called. Loved the video and I'm wondering why I'm not already subbed to this channel. I thought I did before but I'm not sure. Oh well. [Subbed]

I learned so much from your videos. Thank you!

Thank you for this tutorial!!!