What's Out There for Handheld Math?

PowerVegetable asks: "What's the story with handheld computation? Not address books and schedule reminders; I'm talking about the type of stuff computers were invented for. Anyone who's used Mathematica or Maple knows what desktop computers are capable of these days math-wise, but handheld computation seems to have fallen behind on the innovation front. Cell phones and handheld game systems have certainly enjoyed rapid advancement, so where are the handheld mathematical portable oracles? What's available that doesn't have obscure menu systems, bad displays, underpowered processors and unwieldy programming languages? Pickings are slim in the hard-coded calculator industry, but what about Pocket PC's or other programmable portables? Is there any portable solution out there that's more capable than my old HP49g?"

Re:Ummm....

[Bruce Hollebone]

You are.

Calculators are all very well, but I want something that can do symbolic manipulation, stats, graphing, data logging & manipulation (ie {(x1,y1)...(xn,yn) -> (a1,b1)...(am,bm)}, where n=/=m. See, I can't even write something that simple properly). I want my input device to be a pen, not a billion buttons whose functions I cannot decode without a manual four times the size of the device itself.

It doesn't need to be super-fancy. B&W is fine, but some graphics would be nice.

At the moment, the best solution fo me is a small paper notebook. Is there an electronic device which can replace my notebook?

Re:Ummm....

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Tablet PC.
(Not a troll - the Tablet PC was designed for people like you)

Re:Discrete Maths and more - Pari/GP

[RevAaron]

When you say that it is a bit like Mathematica, what exactly do you mean? When you say it is a bit like Mathematica, do you just mean that it's a math app, and Mathematica is your only frame of reference? Or do they have similar strengths or syntax?

From my understanding, Pari/GP's concentration is number theory where Mathematica's is symbolic computation.

I have used Matlab/Octave, Mathematica, and Maxima but never Pari/GP and I'm curious what Pari/GP can do. I've the most experience with Matlab/Octave, and at least right now, there isn't a good Octave environment for either Linux or WinCE PDAs, so I am thinking of learning Maxima, as there is a good environment for it on WinCE at least (but not Linux PDAs ... yet!). But if Pari/GP would be able to do the stuff I need- matrices, eigens, some symbolic manipulation, etc- and be better than Maxmia in other ways I may consider using it instead.