About a week ago I lost my calculator, a TI-89 which I had since high school. Of course, over the years the kinds of math I’ve had to do have gotten more and more complex, with the result that I’ve gradually been using my computer more and more, and my calculator less and less. At first I though maybe I could get along without a calculator, just using Mathematica and Python exclusively… turns out it’s tremendously useful to be able to do math with a little electronic gizmo that doesn’t have to spend a full minute (which, in computer years, is… where’s my calculator… oh right) booting up.

The thing is, the calculators on the market, as far as I can tell, are mostly aimed at educational use. They all concentrate on function plotting, algebraic evaluation, and simple statistical analysis, with the ability to do basic derivatives and integrals. Which is useful. But I wouldn’t mind having something that lets me calculate a commutator or a Fourier transform, or track significant figures (major pain-in-the-butt missing feature on all current calculators). And I really wouldn’t mind having something that lets me do all the above with antialiased fonts.

Let’s be honest: I don’t expect to see something like this out on the market anytime soon. Not many people are so anxious to calculate Fourier transforms that they can’t wait the two minutes it takes to fire up Mathematica. And I’m pretty sure that in the calculator industry, antialiased graphics aren’t a major selling point.

Now, I’ve written a lot of computer code to do exactly the things that I’d love to see in a calculator, so I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if I could just copy all that on to a pocket-sized computer and run it? I’d have my own customized-and-customizable pocket scientific graphing calculator! If you’re an open sourcer like I am, I don’t need to tell you that this sounds Very Cool (and if you’re not, I’m telling you anyway that this sounds Very Cool). So I’m going to try to build my own calculator. I figure it should be just a matter of getting an LCD display or two (dual 3” screens, how awesome is that) and hooking it up to a microprocessor along with a keyboard and other assorted parts — no sweat for someone with my sum total of 0 years of electronics experience ;-)

Okay, so it may take a while. But any efforts I make will be chronicled here. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who wants to do math their own way.