Apple OS X 10.4 calculator errors

It was bad when I realized the iPhone’s calculator being broken yesterday. Even worse is when I just realized the built-in OS X 10.4 calculator is broken too.

Fire up Calculator and try

33.33 - 3 =

and you get 30.33 just as expected. Now, change the input to use reverse Polish notation (in View->RPN), then enter

33.33 [enter] 
3 - 

and drop jaw at the result: 30.

This behavior is independent on View->Precision settings. Not what you’d expect with the only variant being shifting from arithmetic to RPN mode of data input.

We can argue which answer is correct (dropping precision may be right in some cases) but the behavior should be consistent when all you change is the manner of data entry.

I googled around and noticed this has been an issue since at least early 2006. Wow. I wonder if 10.5 has fixed it.

For sanity, I opened terminal to check if the behavior is system-wide:

$ dc
33.33 3 - p
30.33

Phew. At least that works as expected.

Comments

[A user]

Calculator ver. 4.0.6
OS X ver. 10.4.11

Precision setting 16 places (via menu in Calculator).

REAL result (via paper and brain):

56789*12.34=700776.26

and here's the

BUGGY result via Calculator (from the /Applications folder):

56789 * 12.34
= 700776.2600000000093132