On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 13:50:12 +0100, "Electric Fan Club"
wrote:

>Has anyone tried to use the currency converter built into the calculator
>applet on an iPAQ?

It doesn't work - it never has and MS isn't going to fix it. I
identified that bug more than 2 years ago.

Get yourself a copy of Worldmate; it has an excellent currency
converter, as well as many other great features for travelers.

http://www.mobimate.com/ppc/worldmate/se/index.shtml

A_C

"Agent_C" wrote in message
news:cub2h09rbhu79njehebfdjqutp5tigo69k@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 13:50:12 +0100, "Electric Fan Club"
> wrote:
>
> >Has anyone tried to use the currency converter built into the calculator
> >applet on an iPAQ?
>
> It doesn't work - it never has and MS isn't going to fix it. I
> identified that bug more than 2 years ago.
>
> Get yourself a copy of Worldmate; it has an excellent currency
> converter, as well as many other great features for travelers.
>
> http://www.mobimate.com/ppc/worldmate/se/index.shtml
>

Thanks for that. In fact I found out last night what the problem was - and
the work around.

The problem is that when you close down calculator, it saves the currency
conversion rates to a file, but the rates are stored as integer, not real
numbers. Hence the fractional part is truncated so, for example, 1.47 Euro
to the pound becomes 1 Euro to the pound, 1.8 US dollars becomes 1 US dollar
to the pound.

The workaround is to create a new currency, call is something like 'Currency
Base' and give it the ISO designation 'ZZZ'* (puts it at the bottom of the
currency list). Make ZZZ the base currency and declare there to be 100 ZZZs
in a GBP. Now you declare there to be 147 EUR to a ZZZ (or whatever the
rate) and so on for all the currencies you wish to use. Voila - it works.

* Or you could use one of the obscure currencies for a place that you are
unlikely to visit, such as MNT, the Mongolian tugrik.

Ian.