Buffy, i dont hate you just because you make poor program choices such as excell as a calculator.
But here is what you could, if you had time, improve, maybe, if you added some more functionality to bc, that can become the most powerful calculator period
bc is capable of handling numbers with a few dozen thousand digits, I've proven its power by raising 123456789 to the power of itself.
As to programming, if i need a quick calculation of some kind of a weird function, i'll use Python scripting interface. if i need a program that might be recursive in nature such as a program that would prime factor just about any number, I'll use C++. Oh, if i need a program that would generate a list of primes from 2 to 10,000,000 in a little over a second (but definitely under 2), i will also use c++, or if there is base shifting like transforming a base 10 number to a base 2, I could do in about 4-6 lines of C++ code as well, but for anything else there is BC or Python depending on mood.
As to hand held calculators I dont have bu am planning to get a TI 93+ so i can setup gcc on it and not have to deal with terrible ti basic (which i have a lot of experience with, especially on TI 83s(yup i used to write programs to compute whatever it is we needed to compute in my math classes, so i never had to think on tests) or even worse, assembly (limited experience due to its horribleness as a language)...
And steve, yes there is a device that can do just that and a lot more, here is what you need:
a desktop computer or better yet a server with a ups and a controller board and a couple of perl scripts at home, and a hend-held Zaurus PDA that you can install BC on, and a TI emulator, yet at the same time you could order a wireless card for it and run a few more scripts to connect to your home network and a gui interface to all your house devices and controllers... (Ofcourse none of this is quite possible with windows, hence the Sharp's Zaurus PDA and Perl)
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Microsoft, the leader in using innovative tactics to promote irksome experience, coupled with antiquated technology that's held together by a pyramid of makeshift afterthoughts.
Apple, the leader in using irksome tactics to promote innovative experience, coupled with an antiquated core that's enhanced by state-of-the-art afterthoughts.
Linux, the leader in not using any tactics to promote user-defined experience, coupled with state-of-the-art core enhanced by innovative afterthoughts.
