August 1998
By Dom Giangrasso

SOFTWARE: BizCalc for Win CE

On-Schedule 97 positions itself primarily asOdyssey's BizCalc, available for Windows 95 and NT, now runs on palmsize PCs! As an original HP calculator owner, I have always preferred Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) over algebraic input. I like the smooth elegance. My wife thinks it's the engineer in me. In any case, Odyssey Computing's BizCalc may have just become the reason for retiring my trusty calculator.

Business and financial RPN calculators have always had massive keyboards with two and sometimes three level function keys. BizCalc meets the challenge of adapting that sort of functionality to the PPC with flair, but it is not for the faint of heart. Installation is painless and takes up about 320K. The default display is a masterpiece with almost every possible function known to mankind. The display is somewhat crowded due to the narrow width of the PPC screen. On a wider HPC it's cleaner.

A concession Odyssey made on the PPC is the placement of the number and arithmetic keys. Some of the second function keys that would have been on the right side on a calculator are along the bottom of the PPC display and add to the clutter.

BizCalc offers percentage and calendar functions, basic financial and amortization, actuarials, bonds, discounted cash low analysis, depreciation, interest rate conversions, leasing, lending, markup, and an array of math, scientific, and statistical functions. The engineer in me loves the programming function. While programs are limited to 99 steps on a regular HP-12C, BizCalc allows for 999. Conditional branching and looping controls allow sophisticated programming. Check out BizCalc by downloading a trial copy from their web site.