Software Transforms Java-Based Mobile Phones into Graphic Calculators

The "TVH-72g Graphing Calculator" software transforms entry-level mobile phones into a low-cost graphing calculator for financially-strapped students who have difficulty, are unable or may not wish to acquire a costly stand-alone graphing calculator.

Tea Vui Huang's TVH-72g Graphing Calculator is an attempt to provide low-cost graphing calculators that are increasingly becoming a requisite in school syllabus worldwide.

The author says the development tried to achieve affordability, by not making a requirement to use premium features such as Symbian S60/UIQ Windows Mobile, that are available only on high-end phones.

According to the software page, entry-level mobiles these days do have the processing power and display screen appropriate for emulating a graphing calculator. As an example the HP 49g+ graphing calculator with a resolution of 131 x 80 pixels compares to an entry-level Sony Ericsson J300i with a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels. Some mid-range cell phones offer even higher resolutions of 176 x 220 pixels.

The TVH-72g Graphing Calculator is a 14 Kbytes Mobile Java (J2ME) program that can be installed over-the-air (OTA) or locally via infrared or data cable from a PC or notebook.

The keys on mobile phones are generally not arranged in QWERTY format, which fits one of the requirements for using graphing calculators in exams. The TVH-72g has no memory functions and does not use the Computer Algebra System (CAS). The TVH-72g graphing calculator plots graphs of quadratic equations and trigonometric functions.