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A software calculator is a calculator that has been implemented as a computer program, rather than as a physical hardware device.
They are among the simpler interactive software tools, and, as such, they provide operations for the user to select one at a time. They can be used to perform any process that consists of a sequence of steps each of which applies one of these operations, and have no purpose other than these processes, because the operations are the sole, or at least the primary, features of the calculator, rather than being secondary features that support other functionality that is not normally known simply as calculation.[1]
As a calculator, rather than a computer, they usually have a small set of relatively simple operations, perform short processes that are not compute intensive and do not accept large amounts of input data or produce many results, though many software calculators can emulate handheld scientific calculator and graphing calculator features such as trigonometric functions, approximations of pi, and making plots of functions.
- ^ Quirchmayr, Gerald; Schweighofer, Erich; Bench-Capon, Trevor J. M. (1998-08-14). Database and Expert Systems Applications: 9th International Conference, DEXA'98, Vienna, Austria, August 24-28, 1998, Proceedings. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-3-540-64950-2.