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Text File | 1996-11-09 | 18.7 KB | 525 lines

Converter © Copyright 1993 Ian Palmer ========= Converter is an application that allows easy conversion between different systems of measurement. It can handle complex conversions which include combinations of units, for example you can convert meters per second to miles per hour, or even Newtons per meter to poundals per furlong. A full list of known units is given at the end of this file, but the general areas covered are length, area, volume, mass, time, force, energy, pressure, surface tension, viscosity, frequency and temperature. Introduction ------------ Converter, when run, installs itself on the iconbar. Pressing SELECT on the icon brings up the main (weights and measures) converter window, whilst pressing ADJUST brings up the temperature converter. MENU brings up the main menu which contains the usual 'Info' and 'Quit' options. The Temperature Converter ------------------------- This converter is designed to allow simply conversion between four different temperature scales, degrees centigrade (or Celsius as it is sometimes, but incorrectly, known), Kelvin, degrees Fahrenheit, and finally degrees Reaumur. When you bring up the temperature conversion window it looks a bit like : ----------------------------------------- | _______ ________ | | From : |_______| To : |________| | | | | <> °C <> °C | | | | <> °F <> °F | | | | <> K <> K | | ---- | | <> °R | OK | <> °R | | ---- | |_________________________________________| To perform a conversion first select the relevant temperature units for the conversion, and then enter the start value into the writable icon next to the word 'From :'. Then by pressing RETURN or pressing the 'OK' icon the result of the conversion will appear in the icon next to the word 'To :'. So, for example, say you wanted to convert 10°C to °F. You'd first select the '°C' radio icon on the left hand side of the window, and the '°F' icon on the right hand side of the window. Then entering '10' into the writable icon and pressing RETURN will make the value '50' appear in the result icon. The Weights and Measures Converter ---------------------------------- This converter is much more powerful than the temperature converter described above. When you bring up the window it looks something like : ------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | From | | ___________________ __________________ | | | | Value : | | | | |___________________| |__________________| | | | | ======================= | | | | ___________________ | | | | | | |___________________| Dimensions : M L T K | | | | | | To | | ___________________ __________________ | | | | Value : | | | | |___________________| |__________________| | | | | ======================= | | | | ___________________ | | | | | | |___________________| Dimensions : M L T K | | | | __ _ _ _____ ____ | | <> Normal /Kg\ |=| /|\ || |Clear| | OK | | | ---- |-| \_/ () ----- ---- | | <> Engineering | |__________________________________________________________________| Now this takes a little explaining. Think of the window as being separated into three parts, the top part describes the 'from' part of the conversion, ie. what you wish to convert from. The middle part describes the 'to' part of the conversion and is similar in layout to the 'from' part. The bottom section of the window is general control over the conversion and also displays some information about the conversion (more on that later). Now both the 'from' and 'to' sections are further divided into three sections, on the left are two writable icons separated by a black line. These icons are for entering the units for the conversion. The next subsection is the 'Value' section, on the 'from' section this is a writable icon for you to enter the value to be used in the conversion, in the 'to' section this icon is filled in by the program. The final subsection details the 'dimensions' of the expression you have entered into the icons in the first subsection (more on this later). Let's have a simple example. Say you wanted to convert 10 miles into kilometers. What you would need to do is enter 'mile' into the top left icon in the 'from' section (leave the lower left icon in this section blank), then enter 'km' into the top left icon in the 'to' section (again leave the lower left icon blank), and finally enter the value '10' into the Value icon in the 'from' section. Pressing RETURN at this stage (or selecting the 'OK' icon in the bottom right of the window) will make the program perform the conversion, the value '16.09344' will appear in the value icon in the 'to' section. NOTE: When entering the units 'mile' and 'km' make sure these are entered in lower case. So what are the icons that we left blank in the above example for? Well they are for more complex conversions to be performed. Think of the two icons on the left of the 'from' section as a fraction, the top icon is the numerator, the lower icon the denominator. The use of this is shown in the following example : Say we wanted to convert 50 miles per hour to kilometers per hour. Leave the 'mile' and 'km' entered in the first example as they are, but enter 'hour' in bottom left icons in both the 'from' and 'to' sections. Now replace the '10' in the value icon in the 'from' section with '50' and press RETURN or select the OK icon. The value '80.46720001' will appear as the result. In fact the denominator icons aren't strictly necessary. You could place all the units on the numerator line. For example the last example could be performed by entering 'mile hour-1' into the numerator icon for the 'from' section (denominator icon blank), and 'km hour-1' into the numerator icon in the 'to' section (again denominator blank). This is because any value placed directly after a unit (no space in between) is taken as the power of that unit, thus cm2 is equivalent to 'centimetres squared', etc. Please note that in the above there is a space between the word 'mile' and 'hour-1'. This space is necessary and must be present between all units entered into these icons. So for example you could enter 'meters per second' as 'm s-1' but NOT 'ms-1' (as this would be taken as milliseconds to the power of -1). Now, what are these 'dimensions' bits all about. You may have noticed that when you perform a conversion, numbers appear in the 'Dimensions' subsection of both the 'from' and 'to' sections. It is not strictly necessary to understand these to be able to use the program, they only give you information. The dimensions comprise of MASS (shown as M) LENGTH (shown as L), TIME (shown as T) and TEMPERATURE (shown as K). Each of these is given a value relating to the total power in the expression. Thus let's take the case of 'miles per hour'. This, as has been stated, can be written as 'mile hour-1'. 'Miles' is a unit of length, and is at a power of 1, where as 'hour' is a unit of time and is at a power or -1. Thus adding this together gives up a total mass 'power' (or dimension) of 0, a total length 'power' of 1, a total time 'power' of -1 and a total temperature 'power' of 0. Thus the 'Dimensions' subsection would appear as : 0 1 -1 0 M L T K You may ask "Is this useful?". Well the simple answer is "Yes!". This is because for any conversion to be valid the dimensions of the 'from' expression must be the same as the dimensions of the 'to' expression. It is worth noting that Converter will perform conversions in the case where the two sets of dimensions are different, producing a result. This result, however, will be meaningless. Converter also displays the results of the comparison of the dimensions in the bottom section of the window. In this section are 4 pictures, a kilogram weight (representing the 'mass' dimension), a ruler (representing the 'length' dimension), a clock (representing the 'time' dimension) and a thermometer (representing the 'temperature' dimension). After a conversion if any of these have a big red cross through them then there is an in-balance in that dimension, and the conversion is thus invalid. If none of the symbols have crosses through them then the conversion was valid. To demonstrate this, let's perform an invalid conversion. Let's try to convert 10 kilograms into inches. Enter 'kg' into the top left icon in the 'from' section, and 'inch' into the top left icon in the 'to' section. Then enter the value '10' into the value icon in the 'from' section and press RETURN (or select the OK icon). The conversion will appear to have worked, you get the value '393700.7875' in the result icon, but you will notice that both the weight and ruler icons have crosses through them, indicating that the conversion was in fact invalid. Finally, there is one area not touched upon. In the bottom section there are two options labelled 'Normal' and 'Engineering'. These dictate how the result should be displayed after a conversion. It should currently be on 'Normal' as this is the default. Selecting the 'Engineering' option and pressing OK (assuming you still have everything set up as in the last example) will make the result change from '393700.7875' to '393.70007874E3'. This option has made the result be displayed in engineering notation (as with the 'ENG' button on most modern calculators). Basically this forces the value to be displayed as a number between 1 and 1000 times 10 to the power of a multiple of 3. Entering units by mouse ----------------------- To make life even easier you can enter the units for conversion using only the mouse. Pressing MENU when the mouse pointer is over the weights and measures converter beings up a menu. This menu contains, through a series of submenus, a list of the units known to Converter as well as the common prefixes for metric units (centi, milli, etc.) and the most commonly used powers (2,3,-1,-2 and -3). The Menu looks something like this : ______________ | Units | |==============| | Prefix >| |--------------| | Length >| | Area >| | Volume >| | Mass >| | Time >| | Force >| | Pressure >| | Energy >| | Power >| | Viscosity >| | Temperature >| |--------------| | Power >| |______________| Each entry leads to submenu containing the selectable items. Note that the last entry in the menu 'Power' is different to the 'Power' entry three above it. The last entry refers to raising units to powers (eg. 2, 3, etc.) where as the other entry refers to units of power. Selecting any of the items in the submenus will insert that item at the end of the icon (in the converter window) containing the caret. Entering a prefix item will enter that item followed by a '-' (indicating that something else needs to be selected) which will be removed when you select the next thing to be inserted (eg. meter, gram, etc.). The order that you enter parts of a unit is the order given in the menu structure, ie. you insert a prefix (if appropriate), then the unit, then any power that you wish to raise the unit to. Units Known by the Weights and Measures Converter ------------------------------------------------- Below is a list of all units known by the weights and measures converter. They basically cover the S.I. (metric) units, the cgs units, and the old British Imperial units. With the S.I. units for length, mass, etc. the following can be prefixed : Prefix Meaning ------ ------- E exe 1E18 P peta 1E15 T tera 1E12 G giga 1E9 M mega 1E6 hk hectokilo 1E5 ma myria 1E4 k kilo 1E3 h or H hecto 1E2 da or D deka 1E1 d deci 1E-1 c centi 1E-2 m milli 1E-3 dm decimilli 1E-4 cm centimilli 1E-5 u micro 1E-6 n nano 1E-9 p pico 1E-12 f femto 1E-15 a atto 1E-18 The following are known units, some have alternative versions where either can be used, anything in brackets is simply a fuller version of a unit where you should use the abbreviation not the term within the brackets. The units are divided up into related sections. Those marked with a * are the units which can have the above prefixes added to them. Length ------ * m (meter) micron (1E-6 m, or 1 um) angstrom (1E-10 m) fermi (1E-15 m, or 1 fm) inch in foot feet ft yard yd fathom link chain furlong mile mi nmile nmi (nautical mile (British 6080ft)) anmile anmi (nautical mile (Admiralty & International 1852m)) rod cable hand span knot pace point Area Note: Area mostly represented by a length unit squared ---- are hectare barn acre Volume Note: Volume often represented by a length unit cubed ------ * l (litre) fl.oz (fluid ounce) pint pt quart gallon bushel peck teaspoon tsp tablespoon tbsp cup cord gill Mass ---- * g (gram) tonne (1E6 g) ounce oz pound lb stone quarter hundredweight cwt ton quintal dram grain Time ---- * s sec (second) min minute hour hr H h day * Hz (Hertz, or s-1) Force ----- * N (Newton) dyne dyn poundal lbf (weight of 1 lb mass) Pressure -------- * Pa (Pascal) Energy ------ * J (Joule) * cal (Calorie) erg Btu (British thermal unit) therm Power ----- * W (Watt) hp (horse power) Viscosity --------- poise Temperature ----------- C (centigrade) F (Fahrenheit) K (Kelvin) R (Reaumur) NOTE: ----- You should note that the use of temperatures in the weights and measures converter is different to that in the temperature converter. The weights and measures converter does NOT convert values of one temperature scale into a value on another temperature scale, it only converts a change in one scale to a change in another scale. Thus you can NOT convert 10 °C into °F using the weights and measures converter, but you CAN convert 10 C° to F° using the weights and measures converter. Copyright Notice ---------------- This copyright notice applies to Converter version 1.00. Converter version 1.01 © Copyright 1993 - 1996, Dr. Ian Palmer. This copyright covers the code and any associated data of the above program with the given version number. In this document the term `program' covers both the program code and any associated data. The author reserves the right to take action against anyone, or company, who acts in such a way as to break the conditions specified in the document. Distribution ------------ Permission is hereby given to allow anyone to distribute the afore mentioned program, as long as the following conditions are adhered to : • The program is distributed intact, including this copyright notice and all other copyright notices. • The program may only be distributed in such a way that no commercial gain, or advantage, is made through it's distribution. Distribution 'costs' may be charged, insofar that these costs are limited to independent courier costs, distribution media and packaging. • All the terms set out in this document are adhered to. • The author reserves the right to refuse any individual, or company, permission to distribute this program. Alterations ----------- You may not alter this program in any way (apart from the !Run file) without express permission of the author. Warranty -------- This program is supplied "as is", without express or implied warranty. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. Contacting the author --------------------- Snail-mail : Dr. Ian Palmer 40, Birch Crescent Aylesford Kent. ME20 7QE. England. E-mail : ian_palmer@ilink.demon.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- This document may not be altered --------- -------------------------------------------------------------------