calculator circuitry

[curli_top]

<P align=justify><FONT color=#ff0000>does anyone know how a calculator works electronically? i mean like, circuits and loads and all of that. i need it for a science project but i cant find it anywhere! please help ASAP!</FONT>

[Tim B]

Start with a 'PN' junction, progress through diodes to transistors and transistor configuration to bistable multivibrators and a 'JK' flip-flop.  Micro-miniaturise these and put thousands of them together and you have counting machine.  That's where it starts.....

Good luck.

[curli_top]

in lamens terms please!

[Loosehead]

is a lamen similar to a layman?

[Jay70]

Basically (Very Bascially in fact) Numbers you enter into the calculator in Denary and converted into binary.  Each denary digit represented by 4 binary bits.  Binary is used as it can be represented digitally.  The numbers entered via the keypad and I/O IC are transfered via a data bus and are temperarily held within registers (which have and address) which are accessed by the Central Processing Unit.  The (ALU) Arithmatic Logic Unit of the CPU carries out a desired function on the numbers entered such as addition, subraction etc.  The result is then sent via the I/O IC to the display.  The firmware that interprets the commands you enter will be held on a non volatile memory device such as a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory) or it will probably be Flash based these days.  Hope this helps a bit.  Jason. 

[Tim B]

Curli-top, you won't get an answer in layman's terms because you asked for electronic and circuits type explanation.  There is a huge resource available on the net where you can chose what level of info you need.

Good luck.

[curli_top]

and what resource would that be??