Mac OS X 10.4.7 Seeded

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Apple has seeded Mac OS X 10.4.7 to Apple developers earlier this week. The current build is reported to be 8J111 for PowerPC and 8J2111 for Intel Macs.

Areas of testing are listed as Mail, Safari, Aperture, Syncing and iChat. Known issues include inaccurate Calculator results and Mail signatures note working reliably.

[Roller]

Lots of updates lately - that's generally good, although I think that 10.4.6 made my system a bit less stable.

[kwajo.com]

i've been very happy with all the versions of Tiger on all 5 of my machines, and 10.4.6 seems to be the most reliable yet. Can't wait for this next update, I hope it does something about energy saving settings. A couple of my systems, including my G5, have trouble going to sleep when they're supposed to

[thomasp]

That "inaccurate calculator" bit intrigues me?

*Enters '1 + 1' into calculator*

*Hits 'Equals'*

*Calculator returns result of '3'*

[bowzer]

Known issues include inaccurate Calculator results

You'd think calculator would be a pretty easy app to get right...

[sam10685]

You'd think calculator would be a pretty easy app to get right...

i agree... a computer IS a calculator so that app should be pretty easy to nail.

[miketcool]

Calculator?

Makes those new Mac commercials kinda silly now. iLife, cool. At least the calculator app on windows works correctly! :eek:

[m-dogg]

i've been very happy with all the versions of Tiger on all 5 of my machines, and 10.4.6 seems to be the most reliable yet. Can't wait for this next update, I hope it does something about energy saving settings. A couple of my systems, including my G5, have trouble going to sleep when they're supposed to

Y'know, my iMac G5 has been having some sleep issues lately as well. Never associated it with that update, but it probably was around that same time...

[Macnoviz]

You'd think calculator would be a pretty easy app to get right...

I read about such things once, but don't worry we're talking about a difference of 0,00000000000000000000001 or so (not really sure about the amount of zeros)

These differences are really no big deal for almost any user, but they can make a difference in science (especially space and such), unfortunatly, one of the Powermacs (and other macs) selling points.

[ToastyX]

I'm sick of how buggy Mac OS X is, but nobody seems to notice because they're too busy claiming how "superior" everything is.

I complained about the calculator back in November: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=160617

They're just now getting to it?

There are also tons of other bugs that aren't getting fixed, but nobody seems to notice or care.

[joshysquashy]

do you think newer phones will be supported in isync? is this what syncing refers to?

[Mr_Brightside_@]

How about the fact that the controller bar in DVD player disappears when you go into expose? that's been there since the start, and is quite annoying. as for calculator, it could have something to do with order of operations.

[LastLine]

i've been very happy with all the versions of Tiger on all 5 of my machines, and 10.4.6 seems to be the most reliable yet. Can't wait for this next update, I hope it does something about energy saving settings. A couple of my systems, including my G5, have trouble going to sleep when they're supposed to
Y'know, my iMac started doing that since the 10.4.6 update too - I found resetting the PRAM actually helped sort it (I think the phrasing's right there) and it's not done it since (touch wood). Might be coincidence, but worth a shot in my opinion.

[rye9]

I hope it does something about energy saving settings. A couple of my systems, including my G5, have trouble going to sleep when they're supposed to

Yupp, same here, I emailed Apple last month about this too, hoping the next OS update would fix sleeping problems. I just ended up resetting my PMU.. it worked and now it's fine though.

[ChrisA]

You'd think calculator would be a pretty easy app to get right...

Really? How would YOU propose the TEST it?

Let's see now I could add "1" to every number betwenn 0 and 10 billion and when I'm done I'll try adding 2, then 3 and so on untill I've done a billion plus a billion. Then maybe I try negative numbers then move on to division and square roots. If I do 10,000 tests per second could I actually finish before the sun runs out of hydrogen fuel to burn. Gosh no.

So it seems testing is not the way to go here.

How about spot checking? Here is a good example -- I have a new theorem: "60 is divisable by all integers?" Let's try: 1 goes into 60?, Yes., 2, yes, 3, yes, 4, yes, 5, yes, 6, yes. this is to slow, 10, yes, 20, yes , 30 yes. end of proof: "60 is divisable by all integers.

OK so much for spot checking.....

So if it's "easy" tell us how you whould do it and if your method would find the problem where the square root of pi/0.334 is wrong in the 6th decimal place.

Actually checking a calculator is used as a classic example of a hard problem. How to find that one in a trillion error in the 6th decimal place and you can't exaustive test and you can't spot check. You are prettymuch stuck with a functional analysis of the design and what they call "white box" testing.

[joshysquashy]

Really? How would YOU propose the TEST it?

Let's see now I could add "1" to every number betwenn 0 and 10 billion and when I'm done I'll try adding 2, then 3 and so on untill I've done a billion plus a billion. Then maybe I try negative numbers then move on to division and square roots. If I do 10,000 tests per second could I actually finish before the sun runs out of hydrogen fuel to burn. Gosh no.

So it seems testing is not the way to go here.

How about spot checking? Here is a good example -- I have a new theorem: "60 is divisable by all integers?" Let's try: 1 goes into 60?, Yes., 2, yes, 3, yes, 4, yes, 5, yes, 6, yes. this is to slow, 10, yes, 20, yes , 30 yes. end of proof: "60 is divisable by all integers.

OK so much for spot checking.....

So if it's "easy" tell us how you whould do it and if your method would find the problem where the square root of pi/0.334 is wrong in the 6th decimal place.

Actually checking a calculator is used as a classic example of a hard problem. How to find that one in a trillion error in the 6th decimal place and you can't exaustive test and you can't spot check. You are prettymuch stuck with a functional analysis of the design and what they call "white box" testing.

I think you misunderstood him: computers are calculators so a calculator function is the easiest app to build, compared to say, image editing. Image editing uses mathematical calculations to create and manipulate images, much more complex.

any programmer (I am not one) knows that a good place to start programming is to create a simple calculator. the difference here is that apple are looking at inaccuracies in incredibly complex calculations which take the computers to their limits.

[plinden]

You'd think calculator would be a pretty easy app to get right...
You forget that while people use decimal, computers use binary. All user-entered numbers have to be converted to binary for the computer to actually perform the calcution. Integers are easy (8000 = 1111101000000) but floating points are hard. How would you go about representing 3.142 in binary? And that results in rounding errors that can be very noticeable if not taken into account.

[jamesmcd]

Well both my calculators work perfectly so I don't know what ya guys are on about.

[Doctor Q]

Some of you may remember that Calculator.app Security Update 2006-007 was issued exactly 46 days ago. :wink:

[Marlon_JBT]

Well both my calculators work perfectly so I don't know what ya guys are on about.
Mine does too?

What's going on here?

[SiliconAddict]

I'm sick of how buggy Mac OS X is, but nobody seems to notice because they're too busy claiming how "superior" everything is.

I complained about the calculator back in November: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=160617

They're just now getting to it?

There are also tons of other bugs that aren't getting fixed, but nobody seems to notice or care.

Every OS sucks. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. The thing is you still can have a favorite even though it sucks. After a few months with OS X now I still like XP better then OS X. But I like the apps on OS X more. There is a trade-off on everything when it comes to computers. Apple has some strengths, Windows has others, and Linux has others as well.

[maxvamp]

Really? How would YOU propose the TEST it?



If it were me, I would likely write an automation program that would tie into the methods embedded in the Calculator App, and submit values to the methods, and compare the output with values I believe they should be. I would also do some spot checking to verify manually that they app behaves correctly.

Yes, some of this is blackbox testing, and any errors found through the automation app would be suspect until the test app has the provability of time, but even then, errors would draw human attention.

Unit tests may help, but I am not an ultra huge fan of them when compared with other forms of testing.

Max.

[ChrisA]

If it were me, I would likely write an automation program that would tie into the methods embedded in the Calculator App, and submit values to the methods, and compare the output

That's called "spot checking".
It would not have found these obscure calculator errors nor would that have found the now infamous Pentium floating point bug. The Pentium bug was caused by some select few floating point values that just happened to have a large number of ones in a row in their binary representation and even then you had to have the "right" sequence of events to trigger it. Automated testing would not have caught that in a reasonable amount of time.

I think there are only two options
(1) Write the software in such a way that you can _prove_ it's correctness. This is very hard and requires PhD level computer scientests on staff or (2) test as best you can and live with the fact that there are likely some bugs not yet discovered. Going one step futher you can use some metrics to estimate the number of undiscovered bugs and release the software when that number is below some threshold.

[maxvamp]

That's called "spot checking".
It would not have found these obscure calculator errors nor would that have found the now infamous Pentium floating point bug. The Pentium bug was caused by some select few floating point values that just happened to have a large number of ones in a row in their binary representation and even then you had to have the "right" sequence of events to trigger it. Automated testing would not have caught that in a reasonable amount of time.

I think there are only two options
(1) Write the software in such a way that you can _prove_ it's correctness. This is very hard and requires PhD level computer scientests on staff or (2) test as best you can and live with the fact that there are likely some bugs not yet discovered. Going one step futher you can use some metrics to estimate the number of undiscovered bugs and release the software when that number is below some threshold.


Actually, it's called Functional and / or System tests.

You would need to ( and could ) write your software to check in such a way that it could have even detected the Pentium bug ( think networkability and long run automation ) .

As one who has made such tests, I can tell you that it would not be that hard to do.

Now, due to the price charged for this app, is it worth as much effort as, say, Testing the file system????

There are acceptable levels of ship-able bugs.

No software can ever be made perfect...AND ship.

Max.

[cc bcc]

Try this in Calculator:

654,654.321 - 987.312

You'll get 653,667.00899999996 instead of the correct 653,667.009

(weird, copy pasting the result out of Calculator gave me the correct number)

It's a side effect of the binaire nature of computers.

[Doctor Q]

Try this in Calculator:

654,654.321 - 987.312

You'll get 653,667.00899999996 instead of the correct 653,667.009And if you enter the 653667.00899999996 directly, it changes to 653667.009 immediately.

If will be interesting to know whether 10.4.7 fixes this particular case.

[apollo8fan]

Believe it or not, I've actually had my calculator go erroneous on me. I'm sitting there, balancing my checkbook, subtracting and adding as I go down my entries, then BAMM!, I lose the results right of the decimal. And no, the result should not be an even dollar. I even turned on the tape to make sure I was entering the right numbers.

I don't even trust calculator to balance my checkbook any more. I pull out my trusty old HP 11C RPN; works every time.

[emaja]

Will someone please tell me how anyone can rate a story about an OS update a negative?

I guess some people just cannot be pleased.

[1020]

Try this in Calculator:

654,654.321 - 987.312

You'll get 653,667.00899999996 instead of the correct 653,667.009

(weird, copy pasting the result out of Calculator gave me the correct number)

It's a side effect of the binaire nature of computers.

Nope, I get 653667.009

[yg17]

I'm surprised no one has yet commented on how 10.5 is close because they'll be at 10.4.7 soon and will run out of numbers :rolleyes:

[boer]

I'm surprised no one has yet commented on how 10.5 is close because they'll be at 10.4.7 soon and will run out of numbers :rolleyes:
They could very well go to 10.4.10, 10.4.11, ..., 10.4.100 etc. Do not confuse decimal numbers with version numbering.

[bemylover]

Nope, I get 653667.009
me too

[bigbossbmb]

curious to see what aspects of Aperture they will deal with... probably just new camera profiles but still interesting.

[Wellander]

They could very well go to 10.4.10, 10.4.11, ..., 10.4.100 etc. Do not confuse decimal numbers with version numbering.
Hi,
Like Mozilla.org did with the 1.7x Suite.
It went 1.7,1.7.1(for glass)1.7.2,1.7.3,(1.7.4 was skipped for major bug smashing)1.7.5,1.7.6,1.7.7.,1.7.8,(1.7.9 was skipped partically becuase of my fault) 1.7.10,1.7.11,1.7.12,1.7.13.
(I do some dev work for mozilla.org.)
On top of my real job.

[tektonnic]

10.4.6 made my 2x2ghz G5 stable, it kept going coco-bananas and starting all its fans up before...

[dogbone]

why is it that 12345679 x (9 x 1...9) equals 9 identical numbers?

for example 12345679 x 54 = 666666666

[pfisette]

One minor and mildly annoying bug I wish Apple would fix is how the display window in Safari drifts around the screen of its own accord. Everytime I open Safari the window is in a different location on the desktop. I have several 20-inch iMacs at work and home and they have all done this since the introduction of Tiger.

[thefunkymunky]

Try this in Calculator:

654,654.321 - 987.312

You'll get 653,667.00899999996 instead of the correct 653,667.009

(weird, copy pasting the result out of Calculator gave me the correct number)

It's a side effect of the binaire nature of computers.

My calculators came up with the correct answer.:confused:

[ChrisA]

You would need to ( and could ) write your software to check in such a way that it could have even detected the Pentium bug ( think networkability and long run automation )
Max.

The pentium uses 80 bit internal representation for floating point numbers. To Actually TEST every possable combination would required 2^160 tests
Lets assume to could get 100,000 Pentuim chips all hooked up to the network and lets assume EACH chip could do a billion tests per second. OK so you are doing 1E17 tests per second. You'd be done in 1E36 seconds. There are about 3E7 seconds in a year. so you'd be done testing in about 3E25 years. The universe is not even small fraction of 3E25 years old yet and certianly the Sun and Earth will be gone before the test completes.

So yes you could do some automated tests using large numbers of Pentium chips you will not be able to do an exaustive test you will have to settle for some very sparce spot checking. You can't even check one billionth of the possable numbers. But you CAN analyse how the chip works and make arguments like "the multiplier has many identical units and we've fully tesed one of them. We assume they all work alike because they are identical." Actually it was this assumption that got them. they failed to fully analyse the interaction between the indentical units.

[daneoni]

My calculators came up with the correct answer.:confused:

Same here, sleep also works fine. Go figure

[ChrisA]

You'll get 653,667.00899999996 instead of the correct 653,667.009


I get the correct answer using "Gcalctool 5.7.32". Thaat is the Gnome calulator used on many linux and unix systems (and mac too it you want)

Calulator should NOT use floating point math in its back end. The calculations should be done in decimal. decimal is not hard. For example on the Mac bring up a terminal window and run the "bc" command. Type in "scale=100" and then try entring "22/7" and you will get the correct results to 100 decimal places. Set scale to 100,000 and you wil get 100,000 deicmal places. (It's fun. I just set scale to a million and it works)

So your Mac has an arbitrary precision calculator already built in.
Proof that it CAN be done correctly Whoever wrote calculator should have made it a front end for BC and let BC do the real work. This just shows why it's dumb to re-invent the wheel. But programmers (like me) are dumb enough to think they are smarter then the accumulated brain power of 5,000 years worth of wheel making experts and we build or own from scratch and they break.

[cc bcc]

My calculators came up with the correct answer.:confused:

That's weird.. Maybe because mine is set to Scientific. Which makes no sense. ;)

edit: I don't know what happened. I knew this was a problem in earlier OS X versions. I tried a couple of calculations that I though may go wrong and I found this one (10.4.6).
Now that I try again, Calculator gives the correct answer. It's probably some kind of bug..

[aixia]

Mine came up correctly too. Good thing since I actually use calculator a lot. :)

[Doctor Q]

Most of the discussion of a new Mac OS X release is about the calculator! But I'm not complaining. One of my favorite topics. :)

Providing unlimited precision decimal arithmetic is certainly one of Apple's choices, and I'd bet that a majority of people's uses of Calculator are for decimal calculations.

If you haven't used the choices in the View menu (or pressed command-1, command-2, or command-3), you may not be aware that calculator already offers multiple forms of calculation. Perhaps "Basic" mode should use decimal calculations instead of binary calculations, while the other modes remain as they are.

[MatthewCobb]

I'm surprised no one has yet commented on how 10.5 is close because they'll be at 10.4.7 soon and will run out of numbers :rolleyes:


Not on my calculator! :-)


Edit: Changed smiley

[Electro Funk]

im looking forward to a new update.. the updates last week have made my adobe acrobat pro completely useless.... every time i try to open it freezes my mac and i have to force shutdown... never happened until the last security updates...:(

[bigandy]

I'm sick of how buggy Mac OS X is, but nobody seems to notice because they're too busy claiming how "superior" everything is.

I complained about the calculator back in November: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=160617

They're just now getting to it?

There are also tons of other bugs that aren't getting fixed, but nobody seems to notice or care.


yeah, but MacOS X is still superior. try just launching calculator in Windows, it'll probably crash. :rolleyes:

I'm surprised no one has yet commented on how 10.5 is close because they'll be at 10.4.7 soon and will run out of numbers :rolleyes:

probably because i'll bite their heads off if someone mentions again that obviously they can't use 10.4.9, 10.4.10, 10.4.11, and so on, (or even something mad like 10.4.9.1!) but they'll hit a brick wall and not be able to do anything but release 10.5.

:p

[Lixivial]

Thank goodness they're addressing the signature flaw in Mail. I've had a couple of emails erase due to this bug (I'm assuming it's this bug).

Replies/forwards with automatic signature insertion seem to be the worst.

[Bradley W]

_

[Doctor Q]

Thank goodness they're addressing the signature flaw in Mail. I've had a couple of emails erase due to this bug (I'm assuming it's this bug).

Replies/forwards with automatic signature insertion seem to be the worst.In a previously fixed bug, adding a BCC field after you had already started a message would crash Mail and lose the message. Thank goodness that one was fixed. I still feel that moment of hesitation before adding or removing the BCC field, but it's now been working reliably for a couple of Mail versions.

[FF_productions]

I usually don't rely on my Mac for the calculator feature such as adding 695.22222324982989262476240672046029 + 228940208.000248240842=blah blah...
I'll just use an actual calculator like a TI-84 Calculator if anything...

[Lixivial]

In a previously fixed bug, adding a BCC field after you had already started a message would crash Mail and lose the message. Thank goodness that one was fixed. I still feel that moment of hesitation before adding or removing the BCC field, but it's now been working reliably for a couple of Mail versions.

Interesting. I believe I recall hearing something about this bug, but I've only recently migrated fully to Mail so I never encountered it. I migrated around 10.4.3 or so, when I did a final push to Tiger and opted to converge my gmail, hotmail and personal accounts together into one program.

Anyway, the bug I'm referring to is a bug that I've had since I began with Mail, and it's still happening in 10.4.6 (Mail v. 2.0.7). The bug is pretty easy to replicate, it simply requires a user to have a signature auto-attaching to new emails/replies/forwards.

Here's how to recreate it:

1. Create a new message, place your cursor to the left of the first character in your signature and press [return] a few times.

2. Begin typing anywhere between where you signature originally was and where it is now. This [where it originally was] should likely be, if it's a blank message, the second line. This is because Mail automatically adds a line just above the signature where a user writes their message.

3. Finally, in the signatures drop-down select: "None" and your message should disappear, along with the signature. My guess is that Mail assigns some sort of hidden character to the line where the signature begins and where it ends, so that when a user prompts to change their signature it knows what lines to remove/alter.

I have an issue because I like to create extra padding between my message and whatever pre-existing text there is as I'm creating the message. I usually forget to change the signature, too, and it's the worst in replies where I'm editing the replied message to coincide with my response and I create space to paste the stuff into. User error? Yeah. Program error? That too.

[ejl10]

An update for syncing? Like maybe iSync? Like maybe it will support my hot new Samsung T509? Or is that just a pipe dream?

Its frustrating that some of the nicest, most Apple-esque phones aren't supported by iSync or Salling Clicker. Especially when I see that cute commercial with the hip Mac guy saying everything just works with a Mac.

[Catfish_Man]

But programmers (like me) are dumb enough to think they are smarter then the accumulated brain power of 5,000 years worth of wheel making experts and we build or own from scratch and they break.


QFGT. I now force myself to look for libraries implementing stuff (or papers discussing implementation issues) before writing it. Even some relatively sophisticated stuff has issues with this; iirc Java doesn't support -0, for example, and that messes up certain very specific types of apps.

[thefunkymunky]

Can anyone who can get access to 10.4.7 and have an early 15-inch MBP tell me wether it adds the two-finger right-click functionality to the trackpad?

Later build 15-inch MBP (Week 16/17 onwards) already have this.

[netdog]

Can anyone who can get access to 10.4.7 and have an early 15-inch MBP tell me wether it adds the two-finger right-click functionality to the trackpad?

Later build 15-inch MBP (Week 16/17 onwards) already have this.

I keep reading that you have it now.

Edit...sorry, didnt see last bit.

[Malcster]

3. Finally, in the signatures drop-down select: "None" and your message should disappear, along with the signature. My guess is that Mail assigns some sort of hidden character to the line where the signature begins and where it ends, so that when a user prompts to change their signature it knows what lines to remove/alter.

I have experienced this one too, i reported it to Apple through the OSX Feedback page a long time ago. (10.3. something..) It is still there.

Maybe we should both re-submit it!

[savar]

You'd think calculator would be a pretty easy app to get right...

A computer does floating point arithmetic in base 2, but the calculator does floating point arithmetic in base 10. This leads to some subtle issues, and if the calculator was written by some intern or otherwise less experienced developer, its possible that there could be minute approximation errors. I doubt this is anything serioius.

Edit: OK I read that linked thread, if that's all true then there are some serious problems. Looks like the developer really wasn't thinking when he wrote this app.

[savar]

I think there are only two options
(1) Write the software in such a way that you can _prove_ it's correctness. This is very hard and requires PhD level computer scientests on staff

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Proving an algorithm is no different than proving a mathematical theorem, and millions of students across the world are doing that every day.

[billyboy]

Try this in Calculator:

654,654.321 - 987.312

You'll get 653,667.00899999996 instead of the correct 653,667.009

(weird, copy pasting the result out of Calculator gave me the correct number)

It's a side effect of the binaire nature of computers.

I got the correct answer. Do I have a gifted calculator?

Also if I paste your numbers, because I have a Spanish keyboard, your number reads as 653.654321

[ChrisA]

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Proving an algorithm is no different than proving a mathematical theorem, and millions of students across the world are doing that every day.

Yes, I can prove things like the "prime number therom" the one that says all integers can be factored to a unique set of primes. But have you seen the proof of the five color map problem. I think it went on to 270 pages. That was just for a simple thing like coloring a map such that no two areas that share a border have the same color. Now try to prove something harder: that a C compiler will accept all valid C programs or even something so simple as that the Ptreads library will never deadlock. OK you want an easy one: Prove that a calculatoer will give correct answers for all possable inputs.

I claim that the calculaor proof is well past the ability of almost all working profesional software engineers. You can prove me wrong only be example: Ask a large group of experianced professionsals who have only a four year degree in CS, or math if they can do the calculator proof. If more then a handfull come up with a valid proof that stands up to peer review then you've proved me wrong.

I am familar with a project that tried to build a provably correct non-triveal system. It was to be a kind of "micro kerrnal" that would control a message exchange They had about 200 software engineers working for two to three years. Nothing but technical problems basically no one knows how to do this except for toy problems. Amoung the problems are how to verify the correctness of a proof that runs on to thousands of pages. Who can read it? but the hardest part is writing a formal specification. You need to invent a mathmatical language that can specify what a non-trieal progoram, lkie a micro kernel is to do (and not do) and then your proof is that your code will meet the spec for all possable input files. Today there are very few (maybe zero) people who can do this for even the calclator. Again prove me wrong by listing more than a few names.

[electronboy]

I really hope they fix the annoying errors we get when saving Word and InDesign files to AFP volumes! 10.4.5 and 10.4.6 were a complete disaster. Don't upgrade!

[Rocketman]

Try this in Calculator:

654,654.321 - 987.312

You'll get 653,667.00899999996 instead of the correct 653,667.009

(weird, copy pasting the result out of Calculator gave me the correct number)

It's a side effect of the binaire nature of computers.


Of course since it is a "rounding error", the solution is to round the answer itself by a digit or two.

You simply cannot display as many digits as are actually calculated.

Rocketman

P.S. A Mars probe hit "really hard" because of an error of units, pounds to Newtons.

[artifex]

Y'know, my iMac G5 has been having some sleep issues lately as well. Never associated it with that update, but it probably was around that same time...

It's just worried that it's going to be replaced, soon :)

[dextertangocci]

I hope they update ical! Every time I try to switch to week view, it just unexpectedly quits!:mad: Month and day view work fine, and I've tried everything from repairing permissions to reinstalling the app. Nothing works! Anyone knows whats wrong?:confused:

[howesey]

I think you misunderstood him: computers are calculators so a calculator function is the easiest app to build, compared to say, image editing. Image editing uses mathematical calculations to create and manipulate images, much more complex.

any programmer (I am not one) knows that a good place to start programming is to create a simple calculator. the difference here is that apple are looking at inaccuracies in incredibly complex calculations which take the computers to their limits.
Computers can only add though. They cannot divide, multiply, subtract or any other function. All the results have to be calculated by adding. It's more complicated than asking a computer to do 00100 - 00001, as they cannot do this.

However, it's odd it gets the wrong results, I wrote a calculator at school when I was 12 in IT classes using BASIC, FORTRAN and machine code, and they got the correct results.

[Arbiter]

I also suspect that the calculator is internally convertint the number to an IEEE standard SP or DP number wich can cause some problems unfortunately. I have had similiar problems with matlab and it was ver weird.. I read numbers from a file and did some calculations on them. However when I inserted them by hand I would get some other result.. the difference was very very small but there was a difference between them.

[Plymouthbreezer]

I usually don't rely on my Mac for the calculator feature such as adding 695.22222324982989262476240672046029 + 228940208.000248240842=blah blah...
I'll just use an actual calculator like a TI-84 Calculator if anything...
Hah. You beat me to suggesting that if you're requiring this kind of stuff, why not just use a high-end calculator?

[steve_hill4]

They could very well go to 10.4.10, 10.4.11, ..., 10.4.100 etc. Do not confuse decimal numbers with version numbering.
Whilst I agree, I also think that we are getting closer to Leopard. We may end Tiger with 10.4.12 for arguments sake, but I think Leopard will be possibly announced and start shipping around the time of 10.4.9.

It strikes me that Apple are releasing a lot of updates at the moment. This is both good and bad, but while it appears that way, I don't think they are coming any faster than they did with Panther or Jaguar. Can anyone confirm dates for those minor update cycles, (e.g 10.2.3, 10.2.4 etc)?

[Peace]

Leopard will go out to developers at WWDC2006 in August.Not before.
Builds of Tiger will probably go up to 10.4.9.

[JFreak]

When will we be able to download 10.4.7?

whenever it's ready. what's wrong in waiting?

[dextertangocci]

whenever it's ready. what's wrong in waiting?

A few of my apps, like ical, are a bit corrupted, and I'm hoping that they get fixed with 10.4.7.

[bigandy]

A few of my apps, like ical, are a bit corrupted, and I'm hoping that they get fixed with 10.4.7.

umm, why not just reinstall them?

[CTYankee]

Nope, I get 653667.009

>Hmmm, I get 4 8 15 16 23 42...

[dextertangocci]

umm, why not just reinstall them?

Yes, that's what I thought I could do. So reinstalled them, and the problems still remain. Like with ical, it just randomly quits, and I can't go to week view without it quiting unexpectedly. Tried repairing permissions etc, so I have no idea whats wrond.:confused: